Idolatry, Indifference, and the Scientific Study of Religion: Two New Humean Arguments

We utilize contemporary cognitive and social science of religion to defend a controversial thesis: the human cognitive apparatus gratuitously inclines humans to religious activity oriented around entities other than the God of classical theism. Using this thesis, we update and defend two arguments drawn from David Hume: (i) the argument from idolatry, which argues that the God of classical theism does not exist, and (ii) the argument from indifference, which argues that if the God of classical theism exists, God is indifferent to our religious activity

Early-Modern Irreligion and Theological Analogy: A Response to Gavin Hyman’s A Short History of Atheism

Historically, many Christians have understood God’s transcendence to imply God’s properties categorically differ from any created properties. For multiple historical figures, a problem arose for religious language: how can one talk of God at all if none of our predicates apply to God? What are we to make of creeds and Biblical passages that seem to predicate creaturely properties, such as goodness and wisdom, of God? Thomas Aquinas offered a solution: God is to be spoken of only through analogy (the doctrine of analogy). Gavin Hyman argues Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy was neglected prior to the early-modern period and the neglect of analogy produced the conception of a god vulnerable to atheistic arguments. Contra Hyman, in this paper, I show early-modern atheism arose in a theological context in which there was an active debate concerning analogy. Peter Browne (1665–1735) and William King (1650–1729) offered two competing conceptions of analogical predication that were debated through the 19th century, with interlocutors such as the freethinker Anthony Collins (1676–1729), theologian/philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), and skeptic David Hume (1711–1776). Lastly, I discuss the 18th century debate over theological analogy as part of the background relevant to understanding Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Parallelized Rigid Body Dynamics

Physics engines are collections of API-like software designed for video games, movies and scientific simulations. While physics engines often come in many shapes and designs, all engines can benefit from an increase in speed via parallelization. However, despite this need for increased speed, it is uncommon to encounter a parallelized physics engine today. Many engines are long-standing projects and changing them to support parallelization is too costly to consider as a practical matter. Parallelization needs to be considered from the design stages through completion to ensure adequate implementation. In this project we develop a realistic approach to simulate physics in a parallel environment. Utilizing many techniques we establish a practical approach to significantly reduce the run-time on a standard physics engine

Mentorship from the student perspective

Midwifery Basics: Mentorship 3 When undertaking a programme of pre-registration midwifery education, student midwives are working towards responsible and accountable practice at the point of registration. In order to facilitate this, mentors are required to support learning in a range of clinical settings and contribute to the development of the students ability to practice as a safe and competent midwife (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 2011). Experiences of mentorship can influence how a student midwife's confidence and competence develops and may shape how they will subsequently practice once qualified (Hughes and Fraser, 2011; Licqurish and Seibold, 2008). Consequently, supportive and positive mentorship is essential to enhance student learning experiences in practice and to promote their personal and professional developmen

“Meanwhile use”: pop-ups, temporary spaces and the politics of scarcity in ‘do-it-yourself’ theatre-making

This paper considers a ‘do-it-yourself’ politics and practice within contemporary theatre-making, one which “implies (and exploits) more rudimentary, accessible, tools and media, and promotes being more self-reliant” (Daniels, 2014, 11), in order to interrogate how the interplay between temporary performative spaces, artists, collectives and making a “virtue of having less resources” (Barker, 2014) constitutes the “political act of democratising art-making” (Daniels, 2014, 8). It considers how DIY artists, “working with anything they have in frugal ways as a political and philosophical modus operandi” (Daniels, 2014, 8), have co-developed and enabled pop-up theatres, theatre festivals and other temporary performative spaces, such as Forest Fringe, by applying aesthetic, structural and economic scarcity as a model for producing artwork. It evaluates how temporary artistic communities catalyse the development of work “born of a place and community, and which offers a distinct alternative to the monoculture that thrives on top-down structures” (Nicklin, 2012), and how scarcity becomes a mode of political expression, a “political act [...] that circumvents the normal restrictions and structures of theatre” (Gardner, 2014). It finally mediates on how such spaces “embrace the temporary, the irrationally unsustainable” (Field, in Gaughan, 2015) in pursuing “radically independent and politically driven” (Daniels, 2014, 7) alternative modes of artistic expression, and how “in times of financial hardship or when buildings and programmers act more like gatekeepers than midwives” (Gardner, 2014), DIY politics and practice can challenge the establishments and which prevent cultural diversity and accessibility by embracing risk, temporariness and unsustainability

Shall I Fill \u27er Up, Sir?: A Study of the Retail Gasoline Service Station Operator and Methods of Increasing his Profits

This 33 page thesis examines a proposal to increase sales at a gasoline service station