Every few years and now, every few months I see an article being passed around with the breaking news that Chick-Fil-A donated money to an anti-gay group. Then I see the stream of comments from people who are shocked by this. Really? Are these the same people that were shocked by Elton John came out […]
Filed under: culture war, Evils of Christianity, Gay Issues, ignorance | 1 Comment »
I have to admit that I am still fascinated by the recent conversion of former atheist blogger, Leah Libresco. Unlike the re-conversion of Patrick Greene, Libresco was a blogger and so I assume that she knew the standard arguments and was presumably knowledgeable about the plot holes, ridiculousness, and just factually incorrect aspects of Christianity. […]
Filed under: Catholics, conversation, ignorance, morality, People of Reason, Religious Manipulation | 8 Comments »
The Christian blog, “The BitterSweet End” has posted an atheist challenge of ten questions. Okay, I’ll bite. Thanks to VJack over at Atheist Revolution for making me aware of this. 1. If there is NO God, then their is no Measurement or Standard for morality? Then what will define morality? Well, I think you are […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, argument, Criticism, ignorance, morality, Nothing, Projection, Purpose, Religious Manipulation | 10 Comments »
So the big news of the week is that some atheist few have ever heard of has converted to Christianity. While researching my Examiner article on the topic, I decided to go right to the source. I e-mailed Patrick Greene and asked him, what’s up? I read quite a few articles about Greene’s conversion and […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Belief, conversation, ignorance, logic, Religious Manipulation | 9 Comments »
Over the weekend, I got into another conversation with Aaron Tabor. You don’t know who he is? He has more friends on facebook than anyone! He runs the “Jesus Daily” page with 12 million fans. Every once in a while, I’ll post an article on the page and to my surprise Aaron always responds. But […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Argument by Design, Creationism, evolution, ignorance, science | 2 Comments »
I was watching American Atheists president, Dave Silverman on Fox News yesterday and toward the end of the segment, his opponent made the remark that atheists believe in nothing. In fact, yesterday after I posted a comment on an article at Huffington Post, a Christian made the same remark. But yesterday wasn’t the first time […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, ignorance, Nothing, Religion | 1 Comment »
A popular argument from religious believers is the argument by design or some variation of that argument. Instead of taking Han Solo’s advice, they talk about the odds. Well, they are usually correct in that the odds are pretty bad for whatever. In fact, if we are going to talk about bad odds, it is […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, ignorance, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Many times when I get into a conversation with a fundamentalist believer, they do more than strawman atheism; they tell me what I MUST believe because of my lack of belief in their deity. Well, that is very kind of them to tell me what I MUST think, but they are almost always wrong. Not […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Belief, conversation, humanism, ignorance, logic, prophecies, ten commandments | 8 Comments »
Many Christians are surprisingly ignorant about some of the basic facts concerning the Bible. When I talk about these facts, I mean that these are things that really aren’t in dispute even among Christian Biblical “Scholars.” This isn’t coming from some atheist like me who is critical of the Bible, it comes from religious believers […]
Filed under: Biblical Scholarship, ignorance, Religion, the bible | 2 Comments »
There seems to be this disconnect for many Christians. I have come across it multiple times. When asked why God doesn’t present evidence for his existence, I often hear Christians tell me that God gave us Free Will. I don’t really see how that addresses the problem but it seems that many Christians equate evidence […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, conversation, faith, free will, ignorance, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Often times Christians will ask people if they have heard the “Good News.” They will ask if you have ever heard of Jesus Christ. Once when I was in college, I thought I would try a little experiment and answer the question in a way most Christians wouldn’t expect. I said, “No, never heard of […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, conversation, discussion, ignorance, Personal, Religion | 3 Comments »
Often times when I demand that religious believers present evidence for their claims they try to find some way to avoid doing so. One of their most common tactics is to claim or insinuate that I am not worthy of the evidence. If only I already believed then they could present me with the evidence […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, discussion, ignorance, Religious Manipulation | No Comments »
Over the weekend, I was in my car and turned on the radio. I started listening to a re-broadcast of the Tom Hartmann program from earlier in the week. Apparently atheists have been calling in and rightfully giving him a hard time over his interview with Rick Wingrove. Hartmann continued to assert that atheism is […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, ignorance, Religion | 5 Comments »
Yeah, you heard me; I can prove that the Easter Bunny is real! You see that tree outside? There you go. People live in houses, right? So if you see a house, that is proof that people exist. The Easter Bunny lives in a tree, so if you see a tree that is proof that […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Argument by Design, culture war, ignorance, Religion | 10 Comments »
Once again a particular Christian has tried to equate organized atheism with religion in an attempt to dirty atheism by lowering it to the level of religion. We must be doing something right when religion practically admits to being dirty. In this case it is liberal radio host, Thom Hartmann. I don’t think Rick Wingrove […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, ignorance, Progressive Christians, Religion | 2 Comments »
Many religious leaders have educated themselves a good deal in the history of their religion. I find that the more people learn about religion the less literal they take their holy books. However, there is a divide between the intellectual religious leaders and the common practitioners. What I mean here is that many religious leaders […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Authority, conversation, ignorance, Preaching, Religious Manipulation, responsibility | 3 Comments »
A lot of fundamentalist religious believers are fond of telling me that life has no means to me when they don’t even know anything about me except for my lack of belief in their deity of choice. Aside from the arrogance of such a claim, it is also completely false. Theists should be careful with […]
Filed under: conversation, death, ignorance, Projection, Religion | 1 Comment »
Yesterday, a Christian on Twitter called me “ignorant” because he didn’t like the title of my article which he did not bother to read. I tried to explain to him that ignorance is of a particular nature that it can be cured through education. In his case, he could read the article he commented on […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, education, ignorance, language, Projection | 3 Comments »
What do Christians hope to accomplish when they start an argument with an atheist? Do they think they are going to convince us with no evidence that some ridiculous ancient story is obviously true? They know that we know a lot about religion and we have probably heard all their arguments before they even come […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, debate, discussion, ignorance, Religion | 9 Comments »
I am tired of being intellectually honest when religious apologists don’t even bother. Recently, I read an article by a theist which was quite frankly, extremely intellectually dishonest. Should we play that game too? The article started out being friendly and the author made a point to say that he had many atheist friends and […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, culture war, discussion, god of the gaps, ignorance, Projection, Religious Manipulation | 7 Comments »
I got into a conversation with a Christian yesterday and the guy said to me, “There are countless things that we could not scientifically prove, that does not mean that they don’t exist.” It is this type of argument that really pisses me off. This guy isn’t even a fundamentalist. He is a mainstream Christian […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, faith, ignorance, Religion, science | 8 Comments »
One of the things that really annoys me about fundamentalist Christians is that they often have an ignorance of an entire field of study; sometimes multiple fields of study. But Ethics in particular seems to be a field that many Christians aren’t even aware exists. It is not unusual for me to be in a […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, education, ignorance, morality, Religion | 3 Comments »
The state of the union is shitty… but not for any of the reasons you will hear about on the news. Yes, unemployment is high, the quality of healthcare is low, we are still in two wars, etc. But those are mere symptoms of the real problem. The real problem is that people are stupid. […]
Filed under: healthcare, ignorance, Politics | 1 Comment »
Over the weekend, I posted a hilarious clip from Fox News in which the host brought on the show an Astronomer and an Astrology to debate the shift in the constellations. Why this is hitting the media now, I have no idea. I learned about this shift 18 years ago in Astronomy class, but that […]
Filed under: ignorance, Religion | 1 Comment »
Recently, news organizations like CNN, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post (among others) have been reporting on a study that appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study was called, “Anger Toward God: Social-Cognitive Predictors, Prevalence, and Links With Adjustment to Bereavement and Cancer” and it includes atheists anger toward God. CNN’s […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, ignorance, journalism, Media, Personal | 5 Comments »
Within the last year, many American Muslims have been using the term “Islamaphobia” to describe the fear people have of the Muslim religion. Being labeled an Islamaphobic is generally considered akin to racism. Last year Bill Donahue of the Catholic League coined the term “Catholic-phobia” and in a recent conversation I had with a Christian […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, delusion, faith, ignorance | 2 Comments »
Last week, I was having a conversation with another atheist who isn’t as vocal as I am. She asked how Christians can believe this stuff and commented that they must be stupid. I found myself in the odd position of defending Christians. It is not that Christians are stupid, but rather that the system that […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, de-conversion, discussion, ignorance, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 14 Comments »
As a critical thinker, I criticize a lot of ridiculous ideas. 9/11 Truthers, grand conspiracy theorists, ghosts, aliens, psychic powers, etc. are all things which I am critical of even though I actually believe in some of them to some degree. But when it comes to religion everyone gets offended. Let’s start with Christianity. I […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, culture war, ignorance, islam, jews, Mainstream Christians, Religion, Religious Manipulation, Skepticism | 8 Comments »
Yesterday I talked about the perception that criticism and mockery is often considered going negative. Today I want to talk about the value of criticism and mockery. Quite simply, it is how we learn. When presented with an idea (good or bad) we have to think about the idea. Sometimes we don’t do that or […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, Criticism, ignorance, Religion, Skepticism | 3 Comments »
A lot of people criticize me and other atheists because we criticize religion. They seem to think that criticism is “being negative.” Oddly enough, these people don’t think they are being negative when they criticize us for being negative. People keep asking me to stop being critical of religion and to stop mocking religion. But […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, Criticism, culture war, ignorance, Offensiveness, Religion | 5 Comments »
