Posted on June 29th, 2012 by Staks
A few people on FreethoughtBlogs (AronRa & PZ) are talking about Presupposition Apologetics. As it so happens, this subject interests me greatly because I think it is the best argument religious believers have. What I mean by that is that it is by far the most convincing and the hardest for most atheists to refute. […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Belief, faith, logic, Projection, Religious Manipulation, science | 12 Comments »
Posted on April 6th, 2012 by Staks
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 »
Posted on February 15th, 2012 by Staks
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 »
Posted on December 13th, 2011 by Staks
People often have conversations in which we label others into groups. Those group identities can be created by others or the group themselves. Either case, when we talk about the group ambiguity creeps in. The perceiver may make the assumption that the conversation must apply to the entire group rather than the group in general. […]
Filed under: context, conversation, logic | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 16th, 2011 by Staks
Christian apologists really have no understanding of statistics. They are always making claims like, “The chance of the Earth being in just the right spot for life as we know it to exist are…” Unless that number is 100% they are wrong. John Allen Paulos has a great book on this called, Irreligion: A Mathematician […]
Filed under: logic, Religious Manipulation | No Comments »
Posted on April 26th, 2011 by Staks
If it were just one Christian, I would say that he or she was just ignorant of the use of the philosophical term, but it seems that many Christians who I get in online discussions/debates with seem to misuse to term “ad hominem.” So I thought I would take the time to explain it in […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, discussion, logic, Offensiveness | No Comments »
Posted on April 15th, 2011 by Staks
Many times when I am discussing religion with the religious, I talk about how the Bible does not support critical thinking and instead praises faith over reason. This to me is one of the biggest problems with religion. Every once in a while however a Christian will tell me that the Bible supports reason and […]
Filed under: atheism, Authority, conversation, discussion, logic, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 8th, 2011 by Staks
It seems that theists aren’t always the ones who lack reason. Many times even normally reasonable atheists fall into the trap of using anecdotal evidence to justify an irrational belief. The old, “it works for me” claim is not actually evidence! I usually hear religious people and new age people make the claim that something […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, logic | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 1st, 2011 by Staks
The other day I was having a discussion with a Christian and I cited a scientific study. In return, the Christian cited an opinion poll. Then she said that since we both have resources that support our point of view, it must be a wash. It seems to me that many Christians don’t understand the […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, logic, science | 3 Comments »
Posted on October 19th, 2010 by Staks
Mathematics is one of those things that is not open to interpretation. It doesn’t matter who counting the numbers, they should always add up the same. But there are a few instances within Christianity in which the divinely perfect numbers just don’t add up. The first an obvious mathematical equation that doesn’t add up is […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, ignorance, logic, Religion, science, Trinity | 4 Comments »
Posted on August 19th, 2010 by Staks
In my forth blog post addressing Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s Washington Times article, “God is Great” I will focus on Kuhner’s ignorance about history and logic. I will also discuss his unquestioning political dogmatism. In the article, Kuhner makes a point to his fellow conservatives that Christopher Hitchens is NOT a “fellow traveler,” but rather Hitchens […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Catholics, communism, conversation, logic | No Comments »
Posted on July 23rd, 2010 by Staks
I love it when Christians try to use logic to show why God can’t do something or why God must do something a certain way. Don’t these Christians realize that they have created a character that is too perfect for their own good? I keep hearing the voice of Doc Brown from Back to the […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, god, image of god, logic, miracles, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 19th, 2010 by Staks
Over the weekend, I read an interesting article on Huffington Post by Roy Fitzgerald. The article was titled, “Should Richard Dawkins be Arrested for Covering up Atheist Crimes?” While there are many problems with this article, there is one issue in particular I want to talk about. Fitzgerald’s main focus is on Dawkins’s “selective campaigning” […]
Filed under: Catholics, culture war, journalism, logic, morality, Religion | 4 Comments »
Posted on March 18th, 2010 by Staks
A lot of discussions that I have with religious believers (usually Christians) all come back to the same really obvious and central problem that I have with religious belief. I really just don’t get it. Let’s face facts here, religion tells some pretty fanciful stories. If any rational person (even religious person) heard these stories […]
Filed under: delusion, logic, Religion | 9 Comments »
Posted on March 15th, 2010 by Staks
On a level playing field, good ideas are accepted and bad ideas are rejected. However, the world is still filled with bad ideas. If the premise is true and the conclusion is true, then we must assume that there isn’t always a level playing field in the free market of ideas. We know that the […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, culture war, Decline of Religion, logic, Religion | 4 Comments »
Posted on March 9th, 2010 by Staks
What does it mean to claim that we “know” something? Religious people often throw this term around in relation to their deity of choice. They know that their god is real. But what does that really mean? For starters, we have to understand what it means to know. I could say that I know that […]
Filed under: atheism, faith, logic, Religion, science, truth | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 22nd, 2010 by Staks
Christians often ask me for evidence for god’s nonexistence. Right from the start, that is a ridiculous demand. But as it turns out there is actually really strong philosophical evidence for god’s nonexistence. Christians created a God that is too perfect to exist. The Christian theologian Anselm once defined God as a being in which […]
Filed under: blood sacrifice, delusion, Disproving God, free will, god, logic, Ontological Argument, Religion, sin, Vague Higher Power | 20 Comments »
Posted on October 28th, 2009 by Staks
Yesterday I talked about a double standard between religious and non-religious. Today, I have another double standard that goes beyond claims of belief or lack of belief in deities and is more about general disagreements. Nevertheless, since people tend to disagree about religion a lot, this double standard comes up a lot in religious conversations. […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Hasty Generalization, logic, Religion | No Comments »
