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Category Archives: Atheism
Coinage of the Day: “The Jukebox Christian”
March 25, 2011 – 6:09 pmOn Facebook, Bruce S. Springsteen (third cousin of the Boss) coined the term “Jukebox Christian” to describe a certain kind of Christians, who he characterized as follows: They don’t consider questions and think about the answers. They just play back whatever automated tune goes with the button you pushed. Finally one phrase that expresses this [...]
Lionel Tiger on the Neurochemical Incentives of Religion
March 23, 2011 – 9:55 amIlluminating: Your Thoughts?
On The Conflict Over The Meaning And Cultural Influence of Political Secularism
March 22, 2011 – 11:00 amIn this post I just want to jot down some thoughts about a knotty issue. I probably will not make much progress in untangling all its strands but hopefully will stimulate a discussion that straightens things out at least a bit. Is political secularism inherently neutral or antagonistic to religiosity? There are a couple of [...]
Happy “A” Week Everybody!
March 20, 2011 – 12:00 amIt’s “A” Week on Facebook, the week of the year where atheists all over Facebook change their avatar to an atheist symbol as a way of showing just how many of us are out there and in solidarity with each other. This year we are encouraged to make our avatars the beautiful blue “A” logo: [...]
Tyson On How We Can Tell Nature Was Not Designed For Us
March 19, 2011 – 2:17 pmA really nice rundown from Neil deGrasse Tyson: Your Thoughts?
On God And The Japanese Earthquake
March 16, 2011 – 11:45 pmEdward Tarte says everything that shouldn’t need to be said on the topic, but sadly does: The word poison is a bit unnecessarily strong, but the rest is spot on. Your Thoughts?
What’s Worse For Atheism: Being Confused For Being Too Much Like Bad Religion, Or Too Little Like Good Religion?
March 3, 2011 – 9:00 pmAs part of an ongoing dialogue with Greg about the legitimacy of the term “evangelical atheism”, I wrote two posts in which I argued that despite some serious principled differences in methods that we should always stress distinguish us from faith-based proselytizers, some activist atheists should not bother defensively, or with offense, trying to deny [...]
I Have Received An Open Letter
March 3, 2011 – 1:56 amIn reply to my post Why Atheists Should Not Give Up Challenging Theism And Theists (and to the subsequent overly-dramatic fallout in that post’s comments section), comes this “open letter” to me from GreenGeekGirl. I do not think I have ever received an open letter before (unless we count the one from that rabbi to the [...]
Can Atheists do Math?
March 2, 2011 – 10:05 amLeibniz’s version of the cosmological argument (his Sufficient Reason Argument) runs from the continency of our universe to the existence of some necessary being. This necessary being is the ground of our universe. The ground isn’t part of our universe – it stands in no spatial, temporal, or causal relation to any thing in our [...]
The Flexibility of the Word “Evangelical”
March 1, 2011 – 7:11 pmIn a previous post, I conceded that it was acceptable to call at least some activist atheists like me “evangelical atheists” on some possible senses of the word “evangelical”. Greg wanted to say that this could not be so because all that atheists do (or should) advocate is tentative, skeptical empiricism, and that we do not (or should [...]
Atheism and Leibniz
February 28, 2011 – 7:18 pmThe cosmological argument is really a family of arguments. Some of the cosmological arguments are very concrete. Aquinas’s Second Way and the Kalam Argument (popularized by William Lane Craig) reason back to some first cause of the universe at the beginning of time. Atheists (like Quentin Smith) have given various replies to these first cause [...]
Martin Pribble’s Interview With Dan Barker
February 28, 2011 – 6:13 pmMartin Pribble scores an interview with Dan Barker, the former music minister turned atheist activist, co-host of Freethought Radio, and author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists and the newly released The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God: Dan Barker Interview – February 2011 by martinpribble Your [...]
Is it Too Risky to Debate Morality’s Foundations in the Public Square?
February 28, 2011 – 10:50 amJean Kazez argues that the public square is not the place for atheists to be arguing that science and religion are incompatible. I strongly reject her position on this point because not only do I believe that ordinary people are quite capable of handling a vigorous, no-holds-barred debate about religion but because I believe the [...]
The Issue Is Unjustified Religious Authority And Influence
February 27, 2011 – 7:54 pmJason Streitfeld gets to the heart of the matter of why some of us are so adamant about publicly advancing atheism: For atheists like me, there is one issue that matters most in all of this: the role of religious authority in society. I’m not saying atheists are concerned with this issue above all else. [...]
The Secret Agreement between Atheists and Theists
February 27, 2011 – 4:10 pmAtheists and theists have a strange secret agreement. You can see it if you look at the way they treat the arguments for God, like the cosmological argument. The theists say: (1) If the reasoning in the cosmological argument is correct, then God exists. (2) The reasoning in the cosmological argument is correct. (3) Therefore, [...]
The Agnostic’s Options, Illustrated
February 26, 2011 – 6:15 pmDon’t understand the cartoon? Understand it but don’t agree? Here are a few posts that will clear up what it means and why it is correct (to my mind at least): Distinguishing The Atheist Agnostic, The Theist Gnostic, The Atheist Gnostic, and The Theist Agnostic Disambiguating Faith: How A Lack Of Belief In God May [...]
Beau Obremski’s “Think”
February 26, 2011 – 6:00 pmThe short film below was runner up in Project Reason’s 2011 Video Contest. You can see the winning video and backlash to it (in the comments section) here. The third place winner was “The Tutor”, which we have already featured. What do you think?
Why Atheists Should Not Give Up Challenging Theism And Theists
February 25, 2011 – 11:08 pmGreenGeekGirl advises the atheist community (and she has a nice defense of the existence of an atheist community against those who do not believe one exists) that we should no longer bother arguing with theists, since this is supposedly futile, but should rather accept we have it pretty good in America and focus on protecting [...]
14 Year Old Girl Evaluates Whether Bible Is Good For Children
February 25, 2011 – 9:29 pmThis is both hilarious and inspiring: via Blag Hag. Your Thoughts?
Dawkins Against Religion’s Claim To Superiority Because It Offers Absolute Morality
February 24, 2011 – 10:55 amThis is one of the most concise, eloquent, and accurate statements on the problem with religious absolutism in morality and the superiority of secular, non-absolutist approaches to morality I have ever heard. And it is certainly Dawkins’s best 2 and a half minutes on the topic of morality I have ever heard: Thanks to Lucy. [...]
Do Atheists Have An “Us vs. Them” Mentality?
February 24, 2011 – 7:55 amAtheist Revolution argues we do but that it’s not our fault because religion started it and there is no avoiding it as long as religion perpetuates it, so we cannot be blamed for just acknowledging it’s there: I think that an “us vs. them” mentality was established long ago by religious believers and has been [...]
TOP Q: “How Is It Fair To Question Other People’s Identity-Forming Beliefs While Demanding Respect For One’s Own Belief-Formed Identities?”
February 23, 2011 – 8:00 pmI always tell my students as they start studying philosophy that it is crucial that they not associate their ideas too closely with themselves. They need to get used to not taking criticism of their ideas personally. I warn them that if they cannot disassociate from their ideas when they fail, they will never be [...]
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