The Christian Vanguard

Much has already been said about whether or not Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Why another drop in the ocean? Because I haven't seen anyone make this point, or at least explicitly make this point, and so that justifies me adding to the noise. That point is that the distinction between de re and de dicto is relevant here.  Take the following syllogism: 1. Mary Jane believes Spider-Man is a hero 2. Spider-Man is Peter Parker  The temptation is to conclude that  3. Mary Jane believes that Peter Parker is a hero But this would not be true if Mary Jane does not know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker. So how do we account for this? We do so by making the semantic distinction between de re and de dicto. De re means "of the thing" and de dicto  means "of what is said." (3) follows from (1) and (2) on the de re  interpretation, but not on the de dicto .  For example, take the proposition, "Adrian believes that someone is a fr

Extra credit was offered to students in my Physical Anthropology class for attending a Spirituality Panel. This was the same panel that I was on just a few years ago , so it was a joy to be there again, even if it wasn't me up there speaking. So here is the write up I had to turn in for my class, and here is video of me posing questions to the Hindu and Atheist panelists. The event ended up in the school newspaper.