I have recently had a conversation on facebook that left me truly flabbergasted. I think it qualifies as the most jaw-dropping conversation I have had. It was with someone whom I did teacher-training with (though who chose not to finish the course). Now I wouldn’t normally go into detail about personal matters when evaluating somebody’s claims and positions, but I think it explains so much in terms of cognitive dissonance, and is so relevant to the topic, that it does need mentioning. The person in question has certain tendencies which are deemed sinful to the Catholic Church. He lives in Brighton, ironically a city in Britain known for its diversity and sense of equality.
Category Atheism
Brilliant:
The new book that I have co-edited with Tristan Vick called Beyond an Absence of Faith: Stories About the Loss of Faith and the Discovery of Self has been really favourably reviewed by those who have read it, and hopefully some of those reviews will filter trough the internet.
“Christianity teaches the sublime message that man can know his Creator. It does not teach that man can fathom his…
Finally, it is here. Well, I am awaiting a proof copy. But the zeroes and ones are winging themselves about over at Kobo, Nook, Kindle and iTunes such that the anthology of deconversion accounts named Beyond An Absence of Faith: Stories About the Loss of Faith And the Discovery of Self will be available to purchase at those outlets soon.
The Holy Trinity has had a problematic history, partly evidenced by point of fact that theologians still don’t agree on how it works, and partly seen from its ex post facto evolution, shoehorned into the scant evidence of the biblical texts. From Ignatius of Antioch onwards we see development of the idea in early church thinking, until it is codified at the Council of Nicaea in the 4th century CE. There will be more talk later on what was creedally set out.
This article in Mother Jones builds on work which I, myself, talked about in my book Free Will? It is certainly the case that we can predict political leanings using disgust sensitivity. As I state in my book (p. 153-4):
My book, The Little Book of Unholy Questions, is a cumulative case against God (the Judeo-Christian version predominantly, but not exclusively) and it includes a number of chapters on different topics. I will include the last questions in the book before I sum up there. These questions are by an large irreverent. But actually, many do pack a punch, if you tease out what they can lead to.
I am sure I have posted this before, but this is well worth a watch. Actually, the screenplay was written…
One of my arguments in my God on Trial talk is the argument concerning photosynthesis which I think is a powerful Problem of Evil argument. Basically, when we look at all the suffering in the world, we often forget about the millions and millions of years’ worth of suffering which has taken place on account of carnivorousness.
I was invited to speak on the last night of Reason Week at Southampton University, organised by the Atheist Society. I have spoken there a number of ties and know the people who run it and really enjoy speaking there. There are some philosophy students who are involved which means that the chat in the pub afterwards is always engaging and often properly geeky. Nice.
Here is another review to my Little Book of Unholy Questions – a 4/5 to add to six 5/5s. Er, buy it! (please… – click on the cover image to access it on amazon)
Jayman, occasional Christian commenter here has replied to my post, The Problem with Yahweh #2. That itself was a second part…
My last post in this series looked at the idea that Yahweh, as the parochial Jewish God of a particular section of the Middle East in time, bears no resemblance to the God that Christians believe in, and is supposedly that exact same God. The Janus-styled god who appears to flip personality, characteristics and general existence at the turn of the New Testament, is fundamentally different from the present-day Christian God. We are all atheists on this god, except Christians don’t seem to realise it.
This has come up recently in conversation so I thought I would post this video I did some time back.
I am co-editing a book of deconversion accounts, recounting personal experiences of leaving religion. We have a good number of…
Many people believe ridiculous things. Most of the time, we eventually shuffle off such beliefs. But some remain. In the case of Christianity, this is the belief in Yahweh. I don’t mean to be overly rhetorical, but the belief in Yahweh is patently ridiculous, much more so than the belief in God.
For Hitchens and co, religion does little good and secularism hardly any evil. Never mind that tyrants devoid of religion such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot perpetrated the worst atrocities in history. As H. Allen Orr, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, observed, the 20th century was an experiment in secularism that produced secular evil, responsible for the unprecedented murder of more than 100 million. (Abramovich, 2009)
Divine Command Theory (DCT) is the idea that morality is grounded in God or God’s nature such that what God commands is necessarily morally good. Historically speaking, the Euthyphro Dilemma has been used to combat such a position. DCT comes in several forms and is adhered to by a good many theologians and apologists.
Many people, particularly fundamentalists, still believe in a real and actual Satan. Of course, to everyone else, this is completely incomprehensible. And here’s one reason for why, as John Loftus sets out in his book The End of Christianity (p. 100):