I admittedly don’t know an awful lot about the incident at Chapel Hill whereby an atheist gunned down three Muslims. As a skeptic, questions automatically come to mind, such as, given the notion that a lack of belief in a deity isn’t really enough content as a proposition to cause any action other than disbelief, then what really were the extra causal factors and motives behind the killings? There are many similar questions and discussions to be had.
Category Atheism
I have told you before that Reasonable Doubts is my favourite podcast. Well, here is a great RD Extra podcast with Luke Galen, psychologist, looks skeptically at claims of religious people being kinder, more charitable, prosocial. So very worth a listen:
As mentioned in my previous posts, someone in Malawi is about to have a debate on national TV with a Christian about the Resurrection accounts and I have been asked to help provide some ideas for the debate, so here goes.
There are three aspects to the debunking of the Resurrection:
1) The Gospels are not reliable sources of information; they are poor quality evidence
2) The claims of the Resurrection are incredible claims which require very good quality evidence
3) If the Christian claims of the Resurrection are not true, then what, if anything, actually took place, and what hypothesis can better explain the data?
Stephen Fry so articulately nails his answer here. You can feel the emotion.
And now for something completely different. This has come through my friend Julian Haydon, and it a great piece of creative atheology, dripping with deterministic wordsmithying I love it. Let me know what you think.
Robert Green Ingersoll was a truly great thinker. You can find a great deal of awesome content from him on the superlative theingersolltimes.com website. Please check it out, and send its curator your appreciation for putting it together. Something for your Monday:
A interesting quote came in from Marcus Ashes the other day upon which I would like to expand. He said:
I haven’t read the book yet but does anyone know if it talks about the age problem with regards to Christianity?
For example Christopher Hitchens died at the age of 62 and according to christianity is burning in hell now.
This is exactly what the desired outcome was. Brilliant. My last blog entry was a reblogging of my podcast host’s…
Yes, you heard it here. My colleague on the Skepticule podcast, Anonymous Steve, has been instructed thusly. It is just an incredible story. For those of you in Britain, such stupidity must change. Here is how Paul Orton (thanks to him for this piece), one of the hosts of the show where we do our segments, puts it, from his blog Missing God Gene. If you can help, or know someone who can, then let us know. Please spread the word, spread the link and let’s get this sorted:
What’s the problem?
Steve, a British citizen of my acquaintance, has been instructed by a British judge to attend Roman Catholic mass with his children when he has custody of them, as part of a divorce settlement.
This awesome video comes from a couple of years ago in Melbourne. Genius:
This is from The Independent, though what is equally as depressing in this day and age, is that the Bill to allow prayers at the beginning of Council meetings seems to have got through the House of Commons unopposed:
Tory James Arbuthnot comes out as an atheist, claiming MPs must pretend to be religious
A Conservative MP has said Tory MPs are under pressure to pretend they are religious and he could only confess that he was an atheist because he was standing down at the next election.
Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of new laws which define atheists as terrorists, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
In a string of royal decrees and an overarching new piece of legislation to deal with terrorism generally, the Saudi King Abdullah has clamped down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could “harm public order”.
I am engaged in many conversations and debates across multiple platforms on the internet. At the moment, and in general recently, I have been wrapped up in many debates with my fellow liberals. The subject has been Islam and as to whether it is in some culpable proportion responsible for the violent extremism which is taking place across the globe. From the Middle East and ISIS (incorporating a number of different countries) to France and the Charlie Hedbo events; from Nigeria and Boko Haram to Kenya and Somalia with al Shabaab, things are not looking good.
This is well worth a watch with some great panellists on both sides of the debate line. I will be…
Let’s make this clear. I didn’t initiate this war, I didn’t set the terms, yet even though I feel like I’m boxing the air, I’ve decided to go to battle.
Having looked at points 1) and 2) it is time to see if there is a more plausible explanation for the data from a naturalistic perspective than the Christian claims. Before setting out the positive case, I want to spend a little time going over some of the data from the Gospels and how they are problematic. Really, this belongs in the first post under point 1), but it sort of required its own post for reasons of length.
As mentioned in my previous post, someone in Malawi is about to have a debate on national TV with a Christian about the Resurrection accounts and I have been asked to help provide some ideas for the debate, so here goes.
The Odds Must Be Crazy is a new addition to the Skeptic Ink Network. It’s opening piece is actually a post of mine which fits nicely into their niche: a post on prayer and the coincidences involved in daily life which can be confused with successful, answered prayer. In mathematical terms, this can be explained by Littlewood’s Law.
Christmas is over, time to get on to Easter. Someone in Malawi is about to have a debate on national TV with a Christian about the Resurrection accounts and I have been asked to help provide some ideas for the debate, so here goes.
I have an analogy which I hope will illustrate why at least a lot of examples of alleged successful prayer or interventions of God take place.