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 October 3rd, 2011 by Staks
Awhile back, I met a Democratic Party candidate running for a local county office. I have met this candidate several times since I am active within the county party. But not long ago, my friend learned that this candidate rejects the science of evolution in favor of Creationism. It is one thing for the wacky […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, church/state, Creationism, culture war, education, facebook, faith, free speech, Personal, Politics | 4 Comments »
Posted on September 2nd, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on June 3rd, 2011 by Staks
I get into a lot of conversations with Christians and often times when the Christian gets backed into an intellectual corner and their ideas have been shown to be unreasonable, illogical, and flat out ridiculous, they throw up a brick wall. One of the most common brick wall tactics is to insist that I open […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Belief, conversation, delusion, discussion, faith, Glory to God, god, Personal, prayer, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 19th, 2011 by Staks
On Primary Day, there was another conversation I had with a Catholic Republican that I forgot to talk about yesterday that I think is worth discussing. It’s in odd because I couldn’t figure out at first if his attitude could be attributed to his religious faith and to his political affiliation. After some thought I […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Catholics, culture war, discussion, faith, Politics | No Comments »
Posted on May 13th, 2011 by Staks
While this isn’t a new argument against the idea of Hell, it is still a pretty good one. How could any genuinely good person be happy for all eternity knowing that so many people will be tortured for all eternity in Hell? I know we deserve it since we just can’t seem to believe in […]
Filed under: faith, hell, morality, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 11th, 2011 by Staks
Religious believers always talk about how God grounds morality. The view is that religious people can be immoral and that non-religious people can be moral, but it is all based on God’s standard. That being the case, when a religious person does something immoral, they know it and they have to repent. But the problem […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, delusion, faith, morality, Religion | No Comments »
Posted on March 4th, 2011 by Staks
Right wing Christians love to talk about people should take personal responsibility for themselves. This usually is in reference to when minority is being persecuted. Whenever I heard this type of thing from them, I can’t help but laugh. Of all the people in the entire world the one group that is God bent on […]
Filed under: culture war, faith, humanism, Projection, responsibility | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 7th, 2011 by Staks
I have often said that if there is anything in me that could be considered faith, it would be faith in people. But the fact is that that is really a misuse of the term. Generally speaking, we have trust in people based on past experience which serves as evidence for trusting them further. Faith […]
Filed under: faith, Hope, morality, People of Reason, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on February 1st, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on January 3rd, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on December 13th, 2010 by Staks
If there is one thing that Christians really hate, it is when atheists compare God to Santa Claus. I do not want to do that here, however I do want to make a point about God using Santa Claus. There are obvious differences between God and Santa Claus. While Santa Claus knows when you are […]
Filed under: Christmas, faith, god, Projection, Religion | 4 Comments »
Posted on October 27th, 2010 by Staks
I once joked that if there is anything in me that could be considered faith it would be my faith in people. This however is a slightly different use of the term “faith” and so it would be more accurate to say that I don’t really have anything in me which could reasonably be considered […]
Filed under: faith, Hope, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on September 30th, 2010 by Staks
Religious believers often claim that God doesn’t care about material possessions. Many fundamentalists claim that God doesn’t care about works. So what does an all powerful God what’s he care about? Of course most Christians will give you the standard line. We are all evil sinner and don’t deserve to be rewarded in Heaven. God […]
Filed under: Authority, faith, god, God reach man, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 7th, 2010 by Staks
I was talking to a Christian over the weekend and he asserted that there are three kinds of knowledge, empirical, rational, and faithful. I think this is a brilliant move to assert that faith is a kind of knowledge. What is the argument for that? Where is the evidence? Oh wait, if there is an […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, faith | 4 Comments »
Posted on August 13th, 2010 by Staks
I know the Anne Rice thing is getting old. The story has been around for a few weeks now and I just can’t let it go. Like I did with Stephen Baldwin, I have written an open letter to Anne Rice. I am confident she will read it since she has been so accessible in […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, faith, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 21st, 2010 by Staks
Let me tell you a true story. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, there were star wars. First there was a massive clone war and then there was a rebellion against a galactic empire. Just because I have no evidence for this, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. I derived this […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, faith, god of the gaps, Religion, science, truth | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 11th, 2010 by Staks
Tomorrow (Saturday), I will be attending the Wizard World comic and sci-fi convention in Philadelphia. I attend this convention every year because I love sci-fi. This year I have learned the Stephen Baldwin will be at the convention. Stephen is the fundamentalist Christian Baldwin. So I thought I would write him a letter and hand […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, faith, Preaching, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 6th, 2010 by Staks
Today is the day that the followers of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy decided to designate as the National Day of Prayer. Recently of course this federal endorsement of religion has been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. But no one appears to have told the federal government or the religious right about this. […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, faith, Law, Obama, People of Reason, Political Activism, prayer, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 29th, 2010 by Staks
I don’t understand why Christians believe in Earthly justice. Why send a murderer to prison for 60 or 70 years when they will be sentenced to Hell for all eternity? Isn’t Hell enough? It seems to me that from the Christian perspective, human justice is somewhat meaningless. How can evil sinful humans compete with God’s […]
Filed under: faith, Judge God, Law, Religion, sin | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 14th, 2010 by Staks
The Pope is the leader of the largest single religious organization in the world. The Catholic Church prides itself of their strong faith in God, their Lord and Savior. Now that the Pope and the Church are in the middle of a worldwide scandal and literally a billion people are praying for them, I have […]
Filed under: Catholics, Current Events, faith, god, Law, Religion | 16 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 February 12th, 2010 by Staks
When it comes to science, so many Christians are quick to point out how scientists don’t know everything or how science gets it all wrong. They push to put their Creationist beliefs into science classes, argue against scientific research on stem-cells, and on global climate change. They just seem to hate science. Of course, not […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, culture war, faith, global climate change, miracles, Religion, science | 10 Comments »
Posted on September 2nd, 2009 by Staks
This seems to come up a lot and in many different forms. Often times, Christians or some other believer in the Abrahamic God will accuse atheists of being the very thing that they themselves are. For example, it is not uncommon for a Christian to claim that the atheist position (that no credible evidence has […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, faith, Projection, Religion | 16 Comments »
Posted on July 15th, 2009 by Staks
So yesterday, I was talking about the importance of actor Daniel Radcliffe coming out as an atheist on my Examiner blog. I mentioned that Radcliffe’s admission may have been a career risk in come out as an atheist. One comment that a Christian made on the story was that it was more of a career […]
Filed under: atheism, faith, Real Christians, Religion | 9 Comments »
Posted on July 10th, 2009 by Staks
The other day, I got an e-mail from a Christian claiming that I should believe in God even though I can’t see him. After all, I can’t see the wind either and yet I surely believe in the wind, right? As absurd as this argument is, it is not the first time I have heard […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, faith, god of the gaps, Religion, science | 19 Comments »
Posted on May 12th, 2009 by Staks
The popular Christian argument is that in order for atheists to reject the claim that a god exists, we must first know everything. What they are claiming is that atheists must know the entire set of facts about the universe before we can look and that set and see that their God is not included […]
Filed under: faith, Religion | 14 Comments »
Posted on February 4th, 2009 by Staks
A lot of times in my discussions with Christians of various degrees on the wacko scale, I am told that I just need to have faith. Faith is seen by the vast majority of Christians (from liberal to fundamental) as a virtue. Let me re-state that because it bears re-stating. Belief without evidence (the definition […]
Filed under: faith, Religion | 12 Comments »