-
+13 +1
What Is Religion?
This is Mr. Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899.
-
+20 +1
An Encouraging Word to Atheists in Conservative Areas
I spend a lot of time traveling around the U.S., giving talks to atheist groups. I’ve spent a lot of time talking with the people in these groups — especially with the organizers. And I’ve noticed some patterns. With the caveat that these are just my own personal observations and not any kind of careful scientific study, and with the caveat that there are many exceptions to these patterns, I’ve noticed the following.
-
+20 +1
Is God Impossible or Kind of Impossible?
A priori justification ain't what it used to be. There was a time when philosophers and mathematicians perhaps thought that when we engaged in deductive, a priori constructions of proofs for claims from propositions that we know to be true a priori, then those conclusions are as justified as anything can be. That is, when we reason deductively and without error from truths that we know without any appeal to the empirical world, then we acquire new knowledge of a broader world.
-
+14 +1
Our jokes are better than your theology.
Many (if not most) Christians find it insulting and inflammatory when a skeptic uses the term “magic” in reference to the supernatural claims in their theology. I find this to be incredibly irresponsible bellyaching on their part.
-
+20 +1
A new criticism of science as an exclusive "way of knowing"
By now I’m well familiar with arguments that science, like religion, is based on faith. That argument is often made by religionists to try to drag down science’s epistemology to the level of religion’s, and it’s bogus. It’s bogus because, as I’ve argued before, “faith” in science really means “confidence based on experience”—which is not at all the same thing as religion’s “faith” as “belief without evidence.”
-
+17 +1
A Great Myth about Atheism: Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot = Atheism = Atrocity - REDUX
Yes, here it is again, the ubiquitous claim that atheism = Stalin/Pol Pot = moral atrocities. This is a complex one, so hang around. It is commonly claimed by Christians, and I had a debate about this on the Unbelievable forum on facebook recently with many who did, that secular atheism was responsible for the atrocities of the twentieth century perpetrated by the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot (Mao Zedong is often thrown in for good measure).
-
+16 +1
Another Atheist: The problem with witches
There are many reasons I don't believe in the god of Abraham, and one of these reasons is the killing of "witches". This fact, this product of religion, is completely at odds with the alleged traits of this god. In short, if there is an omniscient being (who knows all) and who truly cares for humanity, then the hideous deaths of those accused of witchcraft refutes that entity. Let me elaborate.
-
+18 +1
Leaving My Religion Was Nothing Like Entering It
Call it a sociological or psychological look at the difference between Christianity and atheism. Whatever you call it, the point is that becoming an atheist was for me a process fundamentally different from becoming a Christian.
-
+26 +1
Always Check Their Credentials
Russell's Teapot is a quirky comic strip by Chaz Braman based on a quote by Bertrand Russell about believing in God being just as ridiculous as believing that a teapot is revolving around the sun. Unfortunately, Chaz let his website lapse and many of his comics were lost. An incomplete archive is available below.
-
+23 +1
Joint open letter to Prime Minister and President of Bangladesh
International secular community condemns Bangladeshi leaders for reaction to murdered atheist bloggers.
-
+23 +1
Mr. Deity and the Sting
Mr. Deity commissions a former pastor to infiltrate big Atheism.
-
+29 +1
Should We Pity the Victims of the Prosperity Gospel?
Like other preachers of the prosperity gospel, these shiny-suited hypocrites proclaim that God wants to make you rich, and that by “planting a seed”, or in other words giving money to the televangelist, you’ll reap a manyfold return. Obviously, the only people who get rich from this theology are the ones who preach it, and Oliver doesn’t stint when it comes to describing the multimillion-dollar mansions, private jets, and other ludicrous wealth they accumulate from the gullible.
-
+15 +1
Getting Atheists to Talk About Death
My talks about death are also among my least requested. In the five years that I’ve been a public speaker, I’ve been asked to speak about sex, about anger, about coming out as an atheist, more times than I can count. I’ve been asked to speak about death maybe half a dozen times. It seems that once the conversation gets started, atheists love to talk about death — but it’s really hard to get that conversation started.
-
+18 +1
Templeton hosts a biology-and-faith conference where the outcome is—surprise!—predetermined
The telling but unsurprising thing about this conference is that it’s posed as addressing a contentious and unresolved question—whether there’s conflict between religion and biology—but then choosing (as far as I can tell) only speakers who said “No–NO CONFLICT!” In other words, the conference was an expensive exercise in confirmation bias.
-
+6 +1
Emperor Has No Clothes Award: Jerry Coyne – 2011
There is another palpable difference between science and religion. What do you do when you make an assertion about the world that you know turns out to be false? In science it goes into the dustbin of discarded results like cold fusion or any number of falsified theories. When a religious claim is falsified like creation or Adam and Eve, it simply turns into a metaphor. “We didn’t really mean it, folks. It wasn’t meant that way. It means something else completely.”
-
+18 +1
Why Atheists Are as Moral as Any Religious Group
Fazzino is an instructor and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Nevada, and a former Evangelical Christian. Her research explores social movements and identity, religious conversion and deconversion, and in particular how people leaving their religion arrive at a new worldview and community. In this interview she discusses challenges faced by secular groups and individuals in a city that is enamored with both sin and salvation.
-
+18 +1
Yaseen Ali Ege murder: Mother killed son over Koran studies
A mother who beat her seven-year-old son "like a dog" when he failed to memorise passages of the Koran has been found guilty of his murder.
-
+19 +1
Inter-Testamental Moral Relativism
Theists hate moral relativism. They often accuse atheists and secularists of having it. For them, only the pseudo-moral absolutism of Divine Command Theory, where God’s commands decree morality, seems to work in defining some sort of objective morality. The problem is, though, that they aren’t very consistent. Because, it turns out, they actually adhere to something which I like to call (via Justin Schieber) Inter-Testamental Moral Relativism.
-
+23 +1
Hatred is weaponizing Jesus: How violent evangelicals, faith-based con artists & serial abusers are using religion for the purpose of evil
I’ve decided that, at least in the United States, the religiously devout really do have the interests of rationalist nonbelievers at heart, at least as far as providing us with (a sick, unseemly sort of) entertainment goes. They strive ceaselessly and tirelessly, without remiss, on holidays, weekends, and during the work week, to provide us with new episodes of the tragicomic—though mostly tragic—reality-show farce that is religion, and at their own expense.
-
+15 +1
Why I Think Jesus Didn't Exist: A Historian Explains the Evidence That Changed His Mind
Dr. Richard Carrier flew in from California to lecture the UNCG Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics on the historicity of Christ. The historicity of Christ has appeared in the public consciousness over the last few years because of such individuals such as Robert Price and Dr. Carrier. This topic deals with the analysis of historical data to determine if Jesus existed as an actual person.
Submit a link
Start a discussion