I have been sidetracked a few times but I did finally finish the first of the two required texts, Philosophers Without Gods. Overall, it is an excellent anthology. There were a few pieces I found to be a bit weak. I did not understand why they were included given that they lacked any perceivable scholarly merit. A few were comprised almost entirely of emotional appeals. One, which I will not name, was especially irritating. The entire work relied not only on the author's preferred definition of a commonly used term but the whole piece was built around his own modifications to that term. Simply reverting to the standard definition completely negated all his "reasons" and "arguments." If every aspect of your writing can be reduced to special pleading and logical fallacies there is definitely something wrong with your thought process.
I also answered the first set of questions and developed the required student created questions. I have not finished answering the second set but will shortly. I may consider converting all the questions and answers over to a Google Doc for the sake of posting. I am planning to start the next part of the course work within the next few weeks. This part should not take me nearly as long since it is a matter of re-reading and I am going to refrain from submitting anymore inter-library loans till after completing Boghossian's syllabus. Some of what sidetracked me was reading through various books I had previously requested.
Note: This post refers to a previous one, "A Course on Atheism?" (November 24, 2012).
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