Jean 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 [...]
There are many similarly amusing comics at Virus Comix. And to compare with real life, here’s their full 2 hour video together from a couple years back: Your Thoughts?
Last spring a friend asked me to come over to her Facebook wall where she had posted a Sam Harris video (on his views on science’s ability to answer moral questions, which I will get around to analyzing here some day). Though not an outspoken atheist herself, she had received a lot of anti-atheist fervor from [...]
Chomsky is asked whether New Atheists like Sam Harris are correct that religious fundamentalism is the actual primary motive for Middle Eastern fundamentalist violence. The argument he winds up making is that, contra-Harris, the issue is that the US and Israel have made concerted efforts to destroy all secular nationalist endeavors by promoting religious fundamentalists [...]
Smoke had a great line last night on what it’s like being in a world where not only is religion dominant but where even most of the secularists (in Smoke’s specific case, this means his secular wife) cling to vague “spiritual” notions: I feel like Jimmy Stewart’s character in Harvey, in reverse; everyone but me sees the [...]
A couple years ago the Christian apologists at American Vision put up this ugly bit of fear mongering: To which Laci Green more recently retorted with this satire: Your Thoughts?
WIC writes this reply to recent remarks I made to him. I am only quoting here the portion I specifically address, to read his counter to me in its entirety, click here. The question then becomes whether or not Collins is truly ‘sloppy’ outside the lab in regards to religion. You, Harris, Myers, and other [...]
In reply to this post addressing previous objections that Wandering Internet Commentator made to me, WIC returns volley (sentences in italics are quotes he has taken from my previous post to him): I anticipated creationists figuring in your reply. The problem is, though, I’m not really sure they’re the best example of religion ‘polluting’ the [...]
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 [...]
Rust Belt Philosophy criticizes Lisa Miller’s account of the criticisms of Collins as being an example of spineless mainstream media not willing to countenance the real crux of the challenge to his nomination: she manages to keep up the dry indifference and artificial neutrality of opinion that afflicts our media, all while studiously avoiding anything [...]
That’s Ken Miller’s charge in reply to Sam Harris’s Op-Ed from the weekend. PZ Myers argues it’s not that he’s simply a Christian but he seems willing to inappropriately his professional judgments with religious considerations: The head of the NIH can be a Christian, a Jew, a Moslem, even an atheist, and it won’t disturb [...]
President Obama’s recent choice to head the National Institutes of Health was Francis Collins who was both head of the human genome project and is an outspoken proponent of the complementarity of religion and science. Here are some of Sam Harris’s objections to his nomination: Why should Dr. Collins’s beliefs be of concern? There is [...]
In reply to Daniel Dennett’s attack on “belief in belief”, Patrick Appel wrote the following: I consider myself an agnostic or pantheist depending upon how you define such labels but still have an acute nostalgia for my Catholic upbringing. I find the certainty of some atheists and most fundamentalists deeply grating. In reply, one of [...]
Your Thoughts?
