Andrew Sullivan reports: Blair Scott, a spokesman for the American Atheists, Inc., was subjected to over 8,000 death threats and other violent rhetoric after appearing on Fox News. Some examples: Your Thoughts?
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Category Archives: Secularism
Call Me A Freethinker
August 8, 2011 – 12:03 pmAll week, Eric and I have been volleying back and forth about the proper places of skepticism, on the one hand, and metaphysics, on the other, in an atheist worldview and self-presentation. I have argued that placing an emphasis on an evolutionary metaphysics as the primary identifier of an atheist worldview would be perceived as [...]
Disambiguating Faith: How Faith Poisons Religion
August 4, 2011 – 1:04 pmThere are many wonderful parts of life that billions of people experience through a religious framework, at least partially to their benefit. Spiritual experiences mean a lot to many people and many people interpret their spiritual experience within the symbols, concepts, rituals, metaphysics, and community of their religious group. Rituals enrich people’s lives by giving [...]
What’s REALLY Wrong With Religion?
August 3, 2011 – 7:38 pmAs a college student, in my Christian days, I remember reading C.S. Lewis explain what made Christianity plausible to him. He was persuaded that all the pagan myths that preceded the advent of Christianity were precursors of Christ. The similarities between the Christ story and numerous myths that had gone before him were not the [...]
Disambiguating Faith: How Just Opposing Faith, In Principle, Means You Actually Don’t Have Faith, In Practice
August 2, 2011 – 11:29 amEric writes: Popular atheism in America celebrates versions of naturalism, materialism, empiricism, and so on, that are often based on weak arguments or even on no arguments at all. Popular atheism in America is already faith – and I’m sympathetic to the Christians who refer to it as such. Unfortunately, popular atheism is often just as [...]
Contra-Steinhart: Why We Should Not Identify As “Evolutionists”
July 31, 2011 – 10:33 amWhile I agree with Eric Steinhart’s claims that atheists need to take metaphysics seriously and while I would be open to considering evolutionary models for answering metaphysical, ethical, and cosmological questions if they are promising, below I am going to briefly surmise several serious reservations I have to Eric’s suggestions that we ditch the term [...]
Asking Richard Wade About Whether Believers Are Literally Deluded
July 8, 2011 – 11:57 pmIn seven previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the ethics of advising people to lie about [...]
Asking Richard Wade About Whether Believers and Non-Believers Should Avoid Marrying Each Other
July 7, 2011 – 11:15 amIn six previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the ethics of advising people to lie about [...]
Asking Richard Wade About How Atheists Should Confront And Replace Religions
July 6, 2011 – 5:00 pmIn five previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the ethics of advising [...]
Asking Richard Wade About The Ethics of Lying To Stay In A Protective Closet
July 5, 2011 – 12:22 pmIn four previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), and how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the installment of [...]
Asking Richard Wade About How Atheists Should Respond to Alcoholics Anonymous, and How Personal Values Influence Professional Therapy
July 4, 2011 – 10:29 amIn three previous posts, the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade and I have discussed the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, and whether atheists should replace religious identities with self-consciously atheistic ones. Along the way, Richard compared religion to heroin. In what follows I take that as an opening [...]
Asking Richard Wade About Atheism and Religions As Bases For Identities
July 3, 2011 – 12:11 pmIn two previous posts, I have discussed with Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column and the nature of family conflicts over atheism. In what follows we discuss the intersection of belief and identity. Daniel Fincke: Part of the problem when families fight due to someone in the family [...]
Asking Richard Wade About Anger In Families Divided Over Religion
July 2, 2011 – 10:55 amBelow is part 2 of my 8 part discussion with Richard Wade of the Friendly Atheist’s “Ask Richard” column. In part 1, Richard discussed how he became involved in atheist issues and discussed how the idea for his “Ask Richard” column came about. Below we talk about the prevalent theme of anger in the letters [...]
Asking Richard: A Conversation With The Friendly Atheist’s Richard Wade
July 1, 2011 – 12:00 pmRecently I had the honor of interviewing my favorite atheist blogger, retired Marriage and Family Counselor and addiction medicine specialist Richard Wade who writes the “Ask Richard” column at Friendly Atheist. In his column, which was inaugurated two years ago this upcoming Sunday, Richard wisely advises atheists and religious people who seek his help in [...]
It’s Atheism, Not Adeism
June 26, 2011 – 12:32 pmAs I have expressed a number of times in the past, I am a gnostic atheist. I am an atheist in the sense that I neither believe in nor worship, appease, pray to, or in any other way imagine myself to interact with personal gods. Simply lacking such belief and refraining from related practices is [...]
On the Rapture
May 20, 2011 – 6:26 pmThe rapture isn’t going to happen on 21 May 2011. And that implies an ordered series of disconfirmations: (1) Harold Camping is wrong about the Bible; (2) his way of reading the Bible (that is, Biblical numerology) does not reveal anything trans-scientific about the future; (3) evangelical ways of reading the Bible reveal nothing trans-scientific [...]
Norwegian Imam Argues For Beheading Students Who Don’t Fast For Ramadan
May 17, 2011 – 8:00 amYour Thoughts?
Debate On The Existence Of An Afterlife
May 4, 2011 – 12:17 pmThe other day, I posted a fantastic, must-see (and must-spread) rebuke from Christopher Hitchens to those who harass and bully dying atheists in hospitals in hopes of converting them. I have had a couple requests for the full video from which the clip comes, so by popular demand, I offer it here (sight unseen) for [...]
Bill Maher’s Challenge To Those Expecting Jesus To Return May 21
May 4, 2011 – 12:02 pmYour Thoughts?
Johnson & Johnson Comes Out As Pro-Superstition?
May 4, 2011 – 11:33 amIn a bafflingly stupid and irritating new ad, Johnson & Johnson make the case that part of the special “human” touch that nurses add to the care of patients is their willingness to employ superstitious techniques to help them: Yes, superstitiousness is very human, but that’s to our embarrassment, it’s not a sign of our [...]
Hitchens On The Inappropriateness Of Asking Dying Atheists If They’ve Changed Their Mind
May 2, 2011 – 1:54 amGlorious righteous indignation from a master of righteous indignation: Your Thoughts?
Derren Brown’s “Miracles For Sale”
May 1, 2011 – 10:21 amBrown’s site’s description: With the cameras in hot pursuit, Derren faces his toughest project yet, going in search of an unsuspecting member of the British public prepared to adopt the guise of a pastor and miracle worker. His chosen one then has six months to learn the trade and flourish across the pond as a [...]
On Atheists And “Interfaith” Participation
April 30, 2011 – 8:18 pmThere is a lot of commotion in the atheist blogosphere about how and/or whether atheists should participate in so-called “interfaith” organizations in which (if I understand correctly) members of different religions cooperate on shared service projects, aim at shared goals together, and (possibly?) dialogue about where they might find philosophical, ethical, and political common ground [...]
Turkish-German Actress Poses In Playboy As “Act of Liberation”
April 25, 2011 – 10:53 amSila Sahin’s appearance in the German version of Playboy has symbolic connotations: the 25-year-old Sahin, who plays Ayala in the RTL German soap opera Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten (Good Times, Bad Times), managed to link her public exposure to the debate over a central sociopolitical issue: that young Muslim — in this case, Turkish — women [...]
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