Sticky Posts: Old Ones Resurrected

“True Islam” and violent extremism – redux

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 14 comments

I am reposting this in response to the terror attacks in France last night, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred people. As ever, the internet is awash with right-wing shouts to “kill all Muslims” and refugees, to the left-wing shouts that it is the Imperial West to blame and not Islam or Muslims. Neither of these positions are correct. It is obviously thoroughly complex, indeed involving international politics. However, to deny the Qu’ran, Muhammad and the Hadith causal responsibility in these atrocities is to deny the self-determination of those very terrorists who claim that they are doing these actions in the name of Islam and their god.

UKIP voters must surely support Scottish independence, no?

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 2 comments

UKIP have done spectacularly well in the recent local and European elections in the UK> They were a fringe group of right-wing Euro/climate/immigrant-skeptics. They are now not so fringe, having, post-recession, harnessed the fear vote. Whilst I don’t deny the need for immigration reforms, supporting UKIP in any way to do this is clearly the wrong option.

Guest Post: Losing the Belief in Free Will is for the Best – ‘Trick Slattery

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 5 comments

I cam across ‘Trick Slattery some years ago on facebook and whatnot due to his similarity of philosophy concerning free will and determinism. Indeed, he was kind enough to buy my book when it first came out. Back then, he was writing his own book, or ruminating on it. Well, he has written it and has released it on Kindle. I will read it over the next week or so and review if for ‘Trick. He has guest posted here to coincide with the book’s release.

William Lane Craig’s Reply: A series from notes about infinity, IV

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 1 comment

Here is Part IV of James A. Lindsay’s series on infinity. The first three can be found here, here and here. I edited his fantastic book, Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly, which is available form the sidebar over there.

As previously noted, I’m writing a series of blog posts that are adapted from notes I made as preparation to talk with philosopher and author Peter Boghossian’s Atheism class at Portland State on November 19, 2013. This is the fourth and final post in this series. I visited his class to address infinity and God, following from the theme presented in my new book, Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly.

Pakistani woman stoned to death because she married the man she loved

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 6 comments

This story is doing the news rounds. Another shocking example of how religion fucks everything up. Modern atheism prefer to argue vociferously about what happened in lift at skeptical conferences:

A 25-year-old woman was stoned to death and killed by her family outside a high court in the Pakistani city of Lahore, for marrying the man she fell in love with, according to police and a lawyer. Police said about 20 members of the family started attacking Farzana Parveen, and her husband Mohammad Iqbal, with sticks and bricks as they waited for the high court to open on Tuesday afternoon.

The extreme right: UKIP and the evolution of ideas

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • 25 comments

“I’m not a racist, I’ve got coloured neighbors and they’re fantastic neighbors” – An interviewed UKIP voter on the BBC.

Local elections have just taken place in the UK for a proportion of local councils where the electorate can decide which councillors will represent their interests in local wards by winning seats on their local council. UKIP (the UK Independence Party), essentially a break-away faction of the Conservative Party, the right wing mainstream party of the UK, originally set up to take the UK out of membership of the EU, made massive gains.

On the Margin of Error’s excellent review

By Jonathan MS Pearce • • No comments

Kaveh over at On the Margin of Error on Freethought Blogs has read Beyond an Absence of Faith and has given a great review. Here is an excerpt. Check it the full review over at FTB:
Beyond an Absence of Faith is an anthology of 16 accounts of atheists talking about their deconversion and struggle with religion. It’s been co-edited by Jonathan MS Pearce (who writes the blog The Tippling Philosopher) and Tristan Vick (who writes Advocatus Atheist) and our own Jeremy Beahan (of Reasonable Doubts) wrote a foreword to it. It also happens to be my number one favorite atheist book that I have ever read. In this review I want to explain why.