Earlier today, I argued that atheists can vigorously and outspokenly oppose bad faith-based ideas, values, and behaviors, but still love other aspects of the religiosity of their religious friends (and of religious people in general). I argued that religion can be as central to personal identity formation as sexuality is and that to indiscriminately hate [...]
Atheists do not exactly claim to “love sinners but hate sins” (if for no other reason than that most, if not all, of us reject the category of “sin” as a meaningful or valuable way to talk about ethical failure). Also, atheists may be more realistic than to think that we really do, or feasibly [...]
Many a homophobic religious person has infamously claimed that when it comes to gays he “loves the sinner but hates the sin” and many a defender of the full dignity and ethical lives of gay people has judged such a compromised offer of love inadequate (if not insincere). This cannot be because it is impossible [...]
Drew Dyck has written a book called Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith. . .and How to Bring Them Back. I want to focus on just a few passages from his interesting five page article from last fall in last November’s Christianity Today. Unlike many Christians who, despite living in a culture [...]
Reggie objects to National Coming Out Day: As a black American I’m old enough to remember what real discrimination was like(I once got bit by a police dog on a peaceful march), as we tried to be judged by our actions. How is the brutality that gays suffered at the hands of policemen in the [...]
Here’s a reflexively smarmy, condescending pat on the head to the members of a maligned minority group: I once stayed in a black person’s house when I went to another place for a few days. It was interesting experience to go to an African American’s house because the black person housed us, fed us, treated [...]
Andrew writes: So atheists don’t have emotions which inform them of the truth of something? And their rhetoric is completely dispassionate to the point where logic and reason are not fully objective? I have addressed the proper ways to consult the emotions in looking for truth in the post, Disambiguating Faith: Heart Over Reason, so for [...]
I am a bit late on this story but wanted to offer a contrary viewpoint to the dominant one of the outraged blogosphere. Though I have never seen the show, I was interested in the controversy over the show Modern Family which apparently features a gay couple among its lead characters. The controversy centers not [...]
Earlier today, I drew attention to Greta Christina’s article formulating some ideas she picked up from Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. If you have already read either or both of those posts, you can just skip the next two paragraphs meant to catch up new readers. The Goldstein/Greta Christina argument built off of Jonathan Haidt’s theory of [...]
From Box Turtle Bulletin we get this chilling and revealing video of Scott Lively’s presentation to a Ugandan audience that Lively afterward bragged was a “nuclear bomb.” Here’s just a brief quote from the video which illustrates the depths of his sick, hateful vilification of gays: These are men who don’t have anything…they are so [...]
In this post I want to address Chris’s problems with the tactics and arguments of internet atheists. In two previous posts I have rejected his assumption that not liking the tactics or particular arguments that particular atheists use is somehow a reason to reject the essential atheist position that there are no gods, and I have challenged [...]
Hemant Mehta has an incredibly petty post in which he picks on Serena Williams for losing her temper and cursing at a line judge. He needlessly exploits her human failing to try to score political points against her religion: I don’t think swearing is some horrible sin. But the outburst just shows how a religious [...]
Thought-provoking findings: the way we initially think about the emotions of others biases our subsequent perception (and memory) of their facial expressions. So once we interpret an ambiguous or neutral look as angry or happy, we later remember and actually see it as such. The researchers showed experimental participants still photographs of faces computer-morphed [...]
Evangelos asks another excellent question in reply to my latest installment of the ongoing “Disambiguating Faith” series: I hope you can do an entry on the practicality of rationality. As you know, human beings are by default not rational beings; as a psychology professor once told me, “our brains have evolved for survival, not calculus”. [...]
A former Christian explores psychologically and logically what the Christian is actually describing when referring to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in reading the Bible: In retrospect I find that this “Holy Spirit” that was silently giving me “Knowledge of God” and “evidence” was merely my own understanding and desire for the Gospel to be the [...]
Iambilly tries to do it to an elderly stranger after helping her out of a jam she didn’t even realize she was about to be in had he not intervened. Her reply led to his attempt to prove the existence of atheists: She beamed at me and said, “Oh, you are so wonderful. You are [...]
Over at Unreasonable Faith, guest contributor Custador thinks he is a bigoted atheist: The knowledge that my cousin is a creationist has actually made me dislike him. I wonder now if I’m any better than any other prejudiced person — a racist or a sexist or a homophobe — because I pre-judge a group of [...]
Below I quote Shane’s reply to part 4 of my series, “Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals” (for further background to this debate, check out parts 1, 2 & 3) and reply to him. The topic has evolved into questions of teleology and the “point” of life, so little background in previous installments should be [...]