Please don’t dismiss this post as too long to take a shot on reading through. The debate it features promises to be candid and thorough and, I hope, thought-provoking for believers and unbelievers alike. I hope you find it as worth your time to read as I found it worth mine to write. It set [...]
On Unreasonable Faith, there is thread chatting about doubt in the context of discussing a quote from Descartes about the necessity to thoroughly doubt at least once in one’s lifetime. In the ensuing discussion, Clergy Guy writes: Just wanted to chime in to say that I think one can have faith and doubts at the [...]
This post is inspired by some excellent remarks from Daniel Dennett in reply to William Lane Craig’s vigorous cosmological arguments for the existence of God (which you can see him make in a separate debate here). Here is the Dennett video, below it you’ll find a rough transcript I have produced of it, and then [...]
In a previous post, I wrote the following of Rod Dreher’s decision to inculcate in his children a faithfulness that would safeguard their faith against intellectual faltering: I can say that it is utterly depressing you could be so self aware about inculcating your children to believe regardless of truth or falsity, to put faithfulness [...]
Earlier today, I challenged Rod Dreher’s recent post wherein he lamented the difficulties we have in overcoming our minds’ propensities for rationalizations. In that same post he had argued from the experience of his own loss of Catholic faith that the intellect was an insufficient ground for religious beliefs and that the will needed to [...]
I’m not exaggerating in saying that I have never before seen with my own two eyes a contemporary preacher who lived down to the worst caricatures of hatred and poison-spreading religiosity as what I saw in this disgusting video. Even in my Evangelical “homosexuality is a sin” days, this would have turned my stomach something [...]
In reply to this post from late last night in which I took a first pass at trying to sketch out my views on fate, George writes: Dan, Again I find myself thanking you for this blog. Good blogging is all for naught without good readers (and especially without good readers who contribute excellently and [...]
In reply to some remarks I made about the recognition of genuine meaning without reference to religion, George replied with this challenge: Dan, Now you have got me thinking…. I’m not entirely clear about your point of meaning in everyday events. My logic tells me that a completely statistically probable event happens and I impart [...]
In reply to this post from the other day and subsequent discussion in the comments section about the ways that religious belie can interfere with both reason and love, George writes, For the past year I have been trolling blogs and websites trying to wrap my brain around religion in general and evolution denial in [...]
Daniel M of Good Reason relays this poignant anecdote: I was on a long car trip with my very Mormon mother. Out of the blue, she said, “So you think it’s okay for gay people to get married, do you?” “Yeah,” I said. “I think it’ll be fine.” Mom said “What if your sons turned [...]
VorJack summarizes Robert Jensen’s thesis that God is mystery itself, rather than a principle that hopes to explain them: Jensen is not saying that God is a mystery. Instead, he is saying that God is mystery itself. God is what we call all those things about the universe that we don’t or can’t understand. Let [...]
(I’m moving this post from last summer to the front page today since its topic is relevant to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.) Unreasonable Faith just profiled this interesting looking documentary on a tour of debates between Christopher Hitchens and Doug Wilson. In the comments section to that post, Custador wrote the following about Christopher Hitchens: [...]
In a previous post I discussed part of my thought process in leaving Christianity and then contrasted my experience in Christianity, spent desperately trying to rationalize what were apparent falsehoods, with my experience of thinking free of faith ever since: it took me (and is taking me) years to painstakingly develop my own constructive conception [...]
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 [...]
Anderson Brown has an interesting post arguing that agnosticism is not a theological position because it is the claim that one cannot make a metaphysical assertion about the existence or non-existence of God and, therein rejects both the possible alternative theological positions (that there is a God and that there is not one): A “theological [...]
In his recent critique of Francis Collins, the Christian Evangelical and geneticist recently appointed by Obama to head the National Institutes of Health, Sam Harris referenced the slides from one of Collins’s speeches. I want to take two posts (but possibly more if there are comments or if I otherwise have extra relevant ideas on [...]
Yesterday morning, The Friendly Atheist’s Hemant Mehta analyzed stories of mothers who murdered their babies under religiously interpreted delusions with a critical eye towards the religions which put certain fantasies in their heads. In reply to criticisms of his making this connection that came from skeptigirl (in this terrific post on psychosis you should read), [...]
An hour or so ago, I explained my reasons for agreeing with Daniel Dennett’s recent attack on the “belief in belief.” But Patrick Appel was less thrilled with Dennett’s piece. Appel wrote: I consider myself an agnostic or pantheist depending upon how you define such labels but still have an acute nostalgia for my Catholic [...]
A few weeks ago now, I wrote a post, Commitment To Value Without God, in which I discussed how even when I was a Christian, I realized that I did not need to make reference to God in order to either psychologically recognize the value of sumptuous food or good friendship or any of various [...]
Father Stephen has graciously offered another reply to my challenges to him that he should apply to the Bible itself his excellent critique of contemporary figures who presumptuously interpret their experiences as though they are biblical characters. Father Stephen’s reply: I completely agree that Christ takes Scripture “out of context”. Excellent, as this can help [...]
A reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog brilliantly connects the dots: Part of Sarah Palin’s irresistible appeal to her fundamentalist base is her ability to look at the camera with utter conviction and declare black to be white. The ability to lie well is a valuable part of the fundamentalist psychology. My son isn’t gay, he [...]