Fans de Waal is a crucial figure in the research into morality, fairness, reciprocal altruism and suchlike within the realm…
Great news: The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has just published a review of Dot, Dot, Dot.
Can you find God in numbers? Christian apologists like William Lane Craig say yes. Since God is infinite, we can study him through the mathematics of infinity
OK, it might take you a while to stop laughing. Now, these days, I don’t really get involved in evolution arguments with people who flatly deny evolution on such blatantly anti-intellectual terms. I see it as self-delusion, and having written before that such people are impervious to reason and evidence, and that showing such actually entrenches their views, I try not to be bothered by such positions. But often fail.
OK, so this sort of thing is what you would usually expect from rabid Republican senators. Anyway, looks like that sort of behaviour has traversed the Atlantic. Let me just get this out of the way first – AAAAARRRGGGGHHHH! Fuckwit!
Anyway, the BBC:
OK, so it’s not here on my site, but on James A. Lindsay’s (whose book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly I have just edited) site, God Doesn’t; We Do, in a debate with apologist Tom Gilson.
Christian:
Why is it more probable that your god exists than man made him up?
We have an exceptionally high prior probability that your god is false given that we both believe that every other god claimed to be true (before and after) is false. Thus, on prior probability, the JC God is HIGHLY unlikely to exist. How does the Christian overcome this? They have to provide high CONSEQUENT probability. ie Evidence. But this is poor. Let’s take the four Gospels, written by unknown people at unknown dates in unknown places with ex post facto agendas to evangelise, at least 40 years after the person they are writing about and whom they have never met, has died.
The discovery of well-preserved pelves and a partial pelvic fin from Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million-year-old transitional species between fish and the first legged animals, reveals that the evolution of hind legs actually began as enhanced hind fins. This challenges existing theory that large, mobile hind appendages were developed only after vertebrates transitioned to land. The fossils are described by scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online on Jan. 13.
Good ole Andy. Always says sensible stuff. Well, this one pops up fairly often in conversations with IDers. Andy uses…
Here is another account in my series of real-life deconversion stories. They are often painful, psychological affairs, as you can see from the various accounts. Phil Stilwell, someone whom I came across on facebook (The Unbelievable page). It is a few years old now, but well worth the read. Happy reading. The previous accounts can be found here:
Below is the latest chapter outline for John Loftus’ new book Christianity is Not Great for which I am contributing…
This is a fascinating account of someone I met on facebook who has interesting things to say with regard to religion and society in a part of the world which is easy to misunderstand for someone like me. I found mention of sleep paralysis interesting as I have suffered a few times with this and my sister had it badly for years. It is prevalent in African folklore and I can see how it must contribute to ideas of the supernatural.
Anyway, here is an insight into being nonreligious in a very religious and superstitious context:
The results of the 2013 New Zealand Census has Christianity down to 47 per cent. Retired scientist, Ken Perrott’s, accompanying graph charts Christianity’s decline in every recent census and projects its decline to just above 20 per cent by 2030 and further, beyond that date. It is, of course, very unlikely to disappear altogether, but, equally, the chances of a major Christian revival in New Zealand are very remote.
As I am sure you are by now aware, I edited and published James A. Lindsay’s Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly on my Onus Books skeptical imprint. It has received some great reviews and received a foreword by Victor Stenger.
New Books in Secularism is part of the New Books Network which interviews authors about their books. Their piece on this:
http://youtu.be/la9RGZnGADQ Using Peter Boghossian’s analysis of “faith” from his book A Manual for Creating Atheists, this is part of a…
I am hoping to have Ed Babinski writing the foreword to Beyond an Absence of Faith, an anthology of deconversion accounts. In a private email, Ed wrote this gem:
…it’s sad that many people either avoid reading books based on views they oppose, or they read them and STILL manage to slough off all the questions raised. The mind is a marvelously creative artist when it comes to finding ways to maintain whatever worldview it acquires rather than juggling and shifting between different worldviews all day long, which takes too much mental energy.
A fellow Tippling Philosopher with whom I am having a long and protracted debate on free will sent me a poem he wrote on where we were at a bout a month ago on free will. He styles himself as a linguist and humanities man, quite explicitly, and this was true to form. I thought it would be amusing to put my riposte in poetic form!
Bill Nye the Science Guy plans to visit Kentucky next month for a creation-vs.-evolution debate with Creation Museum founder Ken Ham.
Ham wrote on his blog that the museum will host Nye, the star of a long-running science show for kids, on Feb. 4.
From the BHA: Research published today by the Sutton Trust has reported that 6% of parents across England and 11% in London…
As Americans gather to celebrate Christmas, fewer and fewer actually believe they are celebrating the birth of a divine being who subsequently died and then rose from the dead. But if you look around during the holiday season, that doesn’t seem to matter much.
I have a reading list as long as my arm. But I also have a small amount of amazon gift…
I’ve never written a book review before. Occasionally I’ve considered reviewing books and essays I found to be not only interesting, but enjoyable and enlightening.
So I’ve decided that once in a while, when I’ve read something I consider really well done, I would write about it here that I might convince a few of you to spend your money and time trusting that you would have a similar experience as I have.