Christians hate to admit this, but Jesus was the Harold Camping of his day. According to the Bible, he thought that the world was coming to an end soon. He constantly warned everyone to give away all their money and possessions because he didn’t think they would need them since the end was nigh. Jesus […]
Filed under: End of the World, prophecies, Religious Manipulation, The Rapture | 2 Comments »
Over the weekend, one of my college friends died. He was a young guy and would occasionally comment on my facebook wall when I was discussing politics. While he might have denied it, I claim him as the first person I deconverted away from Christianity. What I realized however is that much of the words […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, death, People of Reason, Personal, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
Rick Perry’s pastor friend recently called Mormonism a cult because Rick Perry’s opponent Mitt Romney is a Mormon. But I have found that a surprisingly number of Christians make this claim also. The fact is that Mormonism is a cult… and so are Christianity and every other religion. A while ago, I did a two-hour […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Argument by Popularity, Religion, Religious Manipulation, scientology | 3 Comments »
Sometimes I get into conversations with New Age religious believers. Interestingly enough, they often start the conversation with three interesting words. Christians sometimes use these same three words in conversations too, but they usually don’t start the conversation with them. Those three words are, “In my reality…” The problem is that I think these people […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Belief, Coexist, New Age, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
The public relations arm of the Christianity long ago realized that they can get more converts with honey. So they came up with this idea of going to under developed nations and helping them out. While they are at it, they can push their religion on those who are physically and emotionally not in a […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, Decline of Religion, humanism, missionaries, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
One of the big selling points for God is that he is alleged to be unchanging. One Christian I recently talked to put it this way, “God is the same today as he was yesterday.” The implication is that God’s views are consistent and unchanging. In one sense, this makes sense. If God knows everything, […]
Filed under: god, image of god, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
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 »
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 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 »
It seems that many religious believers can’t understand a life without authority figures. When arguing with a Christian recently, he told me that Richard Dawkins believes in Intelligent Design therefore I ought to accept it too. What he did was he took a clip from the ridiculously edited film Expelled in which Dawkins says that […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Authority, People of Reason, Religious Manipulation, science | No Comments »
Religious believers love to try to lower science to the level of faith. They love to talk about how science requires faith and some will even say that it requires more faith than… actual faith. Faith is dogmatic by nature and so religious believers like to claim that science is equally as dogmatic. It isn’t! […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, Religious Manipulation, science | 2 Comments »
Yesterday I posted an article on Examiner about an upcoming debate between Dave Silverman of American Atheists and Ann Coulter’s ex-fiancée, Dinesh D’souza. While some atheists feel comfortable writing off D’Souza as a hack, the fact is that he is a very intelligent and skilled hack. So I thought I would help Dave prepare. D’souza […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, debate, Dinesh D'Souza, Evils of Christianity, free will, morality, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
The other day I was discussing religion with a Christian and he commented that in order for me to be an atheist, I have to prove that life can come from chemicals. This is an attempt to switch the burden of proof while invoking the God of the Gaps argument. For starters, atheists don’t have […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, god of the gaps, Religious Manipulation | 7 Comments »
Yesterday, I was reading the Huffington Post Religion Section (always a good time) and I saw an article from my favorite Rabbi, Adam Jacobs. For those unfamiliar with him (which should be almost everyone), he is a fundamentalist Christian… I mean Jew. I have actually written a few Examiner articles responding to his craziness (Links […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Creationism, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
I would say that the single most common message I get from Christians is usually in two parts. The first part is an expression of love and the second part is a threat of eternal torture. This is of course not the first time I have written about this however, the title of my Atheism […]
Filed under: Authority, conversation, culture war, delusion, Disproving God, forgiveness, Love, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 3 Comments »
Over the weekend, I was having a conversation with a Christian over twitter. Nothing beats twitter for intellectual conversations in which you have to simplify your points down to 140 characters. The Christian in question told me that he considers himself to be a reasonably intelligent person. Toward the end of the conversation he asked […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, Religious Manipulation, Self-Help | 7 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 »
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 »
A lot of people are laughing at Harold Camping and his followers lately. In less than 48 hours Camping’s prediction will be proven wrong, but what I find interesting is Camping’s most fervent detractors are not atheists, but Christians. As an atheist, I have no problem laughing at Camping and his ridiculous beliefs, but Christians […]
Filed under: context, delusion, End of Days, End of the World, prophecies, Religious Manipulation, The Rapture | 4 Comments »
I was thinking about this the other day. I recently started a new website called “RaptureSurvivor.com” to sell some t-shirts and stuff and while promoting the site, someone jokingly mentioned that the joke would be on me if Camping and friends really got Raptured away. This prompted me to question, “what if Camping did disappear?” […]
Filed under: Current Events, delusion, End of Days, Personal, prophecies, Religious Manipulation, The Rapture | 2 Comments »
The other day, I received a “Prayer Carpet” in the mail. This church out in Oklahoma sent out a letter with writing all over the envelope addressed to “Current Resident.” The envelope was pretty think too. Inside, it contained a piece of paper folded several times. It had the printed image of a carpet on […]
Filed under: delusion, image of god, Personal, prayer, Religious Manipulation | 3 Comments »
“Atheists have no moral grounding. There morals are grounded in egoism.” While logically these two statements are contradictory, that never seems to bother the ignorant religious believers that make statements to this affect. Why is it that religious believers seem to think that without a moral grounding egoism must be the moral philosophy? Let’s say […]
Filed under: humanism, morality, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Most Christians will attempt to argue their position using some semblance of reason, logic, and evidence. There are however a small but special few who will not even bother. These few, proud, believers will admit that all the evidence, logic, and reason in the world will not convince them of anything… god related of course. […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, conversation, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 5 Comments »
This really gets old, but once again religious groups are putting lots of money toward using the earthquakes in Japan as a public relations stunt. Sure, there are helping the people there too, but they are doing it mainly out of a need to promote their ridiculous beliefs. I remember seeing the commercials on television […]
Filed under: Current Events, Evils of Christianity, missionaries, Preaching, Religious Manipulation | 7 Comments »
One of the things I notice a lot when discussing religion with theists is that they tend to be quick to start with the name calling. When this happens, I like to call attention to it and then move on with the discussion. I don’t think it is productive to name call back but they […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, language, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
Religious believers often tell me that science can prove God exists. It is at this point that I start laughing in their face. But still they insist on continuing this line of evangelism. Next the theist will use the argument by design, the first cause argument, the fine tuning argument, and a handful of other […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, discussion, god of the gaps, Religion, Religious Manipulation, science | 12 Comments »
Sometimes Christians really do amaze me with their ridiculous claims. But it is when they may ridiculous claims about other Christians that I have to laugh the most. There is an old expression, “Is the Pope Catholic?” The expression is meant to show that the answer to a question is obviously yes. But if you […]
Filed under: Catholics, Coexist, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
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 »
Well, I followed the Friendly Atheist on fundamentalist radio’s Bob Enyart Live. The first half hour was live and then we recorded probably a weeks worth of material. I will post digital recordings of the shows when Bob’s producer e-mails them to me. All in all, I thought that the live segment was the worst. […]
Filed under: Creationism, debate, Religious Manipulation | 11 Comments »
In the wake of the Arizona shootings, a facebook page was created called, “Thoughts and Prayers for Rep. Giffords & Other Victims.” I actually don’t have a problem with this particular page even though it calls for prayers it also calls for thoughts. This to me is an acknowledgment that not everyone prays. However, Christians […]
Filed under: culture war, Preaching, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
