Posted on February 21st, 2011 by Staks
Over the weekend, I had a little problem with a particular Christian. A few weeks ago, a Christian e-mailed me asking for a collaborative project where we each ask each other 5 questions on our Examiner pages and then we each answer them. The way it was pitched to me, we would refrain from personal […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Coexist, conversation, debate, Personal, Religion | 4 Comments »
Posted on February 18th, 2011 by Staks
The other day I had a profound thought. I was coming out of the shower and thought to myself, “maybe Christianity is true.” Then I started laughing out loud. My profound thought was that I am moving beyond atheism. It isn’t just that I lack the belief in a god, now I lack the ability […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Belief, delusion, god, Religion | 19 Comments »
Posted on February 17th, 2011 by Staks
I want to make it clear that God is a character in a series of books known as the Bible. He is a fictional character. With that in mind, Christians often fall back to the view that we can’t know the mind of God and that God works in mysterious ways. But this really isn’t […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, god, image of god, Religion, Vague Higher Power, wwjd | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 16th, 2011 by Staks
A Christian asked me if I believe in aliens. I told him that I think alien life is probable, but that I am not invested in my belief. In other words, I believe there is probably some form of life somewhere in the vastness of the universe. My evidence is only based on statistics, so […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Belief, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on February 11th, 2011 by Staks
I often hear the argument from Christians that because I spend so much time thinking about and arguing against their imaginary deity, I must secretly believe. One Christian even told me yesterday, that I haven’t sufficiently convinced him that I was an atheist (as if I had to convince him I don’t believe). So it […]
Filed under: conversation, Religion, truth | 11 Comments »
Posted on February 10th, 2011 by Staks
Part two of the interview I did with Bob Enyart is now online. I want to discuss a few of the techniques that I noticed Bob used in this episode. You can listen to the hour plus interview at the end of this post. Note that Bob cut off the books I was recommending at […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Authority, evolution, Religion, science | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 9th, 2011 by Staks
Recent, a Christian informed me that he has evidence that God exists. Part of me expected him to take the Bill O’Reilly route of “the tides go in and the tides go out.” But he didn’t take that route. He didn’t even go with the Argument by Design or the First Cause argument. Instead, he […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Argument by Popularity, Authority, Projection, Religion | 5 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 4th, 2011 by Staks
I was debating with a Potter-Head yesterday and he kept insisting that the reason I don’t believe that Harry Potter is real is because I am a muggle. He told me that he is hoping that someone in the Ministry of Magic reveals the Truth to me about the wizarding world someday. I pointed out […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Biblical Scholarship, Harry Potter, Religion, truth | 13 Comments »
Posted on February 3rd, 2011 by Staks
I recently read an article by a fellow Atheist Examiner, Hugh Kramer. In the article, Hugh makes a great point about the ridiculous word games fundamentalist Christians play when they say that the phrase, “Separation of Church & State” is not in the Constitution. Of course these religious right politicians and believers are correct. The […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Gay Issues, Politics, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 2nd, 2011 by Staks
I was watching a clip from a local news in Alabama which was covering the American Atheists convention. One of the Christians interviewed made the argument that all an atheist has to do is look around and see God’s miracles in the trees or something. I hear this a lot and even big bad Bill […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Argument by Design, culture war, god of the gaps, Religion, science | 8 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 31st, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on January 28th, 2011 by Staks
Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in debating with religious people that I actually start to take them seriously. I have to remind myself that despite their insistence that they have a legitimate point of view, their religion is ridiculous and has more plot holes than a Michael Bay movie. Seriously? Fundamentalist Christians want to […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Babel, blood sacrifice, culture war, delusion, god of the gaps, Mainstream Christians, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 27th, 2011 by Staks
There is this philosophy within a small segment of fundamentalist Christianity called the “Quiverfull Movement.” The idea is that people are weapons for God and as such, each Christian within the movement needs to focus on creating more “arrows” for God’s quiver by breeding mass amounts of Christians. By contrast, most atheists I know either […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, family values, Parenting, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on January 21st, 2011 by Staks
My fellow atheists have often stated that you can’t prove a negative. While atheists shouldn’t have to prove a negative, I do think we can actually prove a negative. Today I am going to do exactly that. Just as Anselm tried to use an Ontological argument to prove there is a god, I will use […]
Filed under: atheism, Disproving God, god, Ontological Argument, Religion | 10 Comments »
Posted on January 20th, 2011 by Staks
Something that really annoys me about many religious people is that they are so eager to give credit to their God when humans do all the work. While this is obviously noticeable during football games and other sporting events, it happens in relation to science even more often. For example, science has proven that God […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, People of Reason, Religion, science | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 19th, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on January 12th, 2011 by Staks
Surprisingly, there are many religious believers (some even ardent fundamentalists) who have never actually thought about what they believe and why. Last night, I read an article from one such believer… I think. In any case, I think it is important to reach out to these religious believers and to get them to actually think […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, culture war, discussion, Personal, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 11th, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on January 7th, 2011 by Staks
It seems that many religious people are offended every time an atheist makes his or her lack of belief known. This is why organized atheism offends them so much lately. Why are they so offended by our mere existence? In George Orwell’s book 1984, there is a very interesting and often overlooked conversation. In this […]
Filed under: 1984, Alternative Worldview, Authority, Blasphemy, culture war, deathbed conversion, Offensiveness, Religion, Religious Manipulation, science | 4 Comments »
Posted on January 4th, 2011 by Staks
I sometimes get accused of focusing too much on the religious right and not giving the religious left a fair hearing. While I don’t actually think this is the case, a few years ago I decided to put an end to such accusations. I went to the library and borrowed the book, “God’s Politics” by […]
Filed under: Media, Personal, Progressive Christians, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on December 23rd, 2010 by Staks
Now that 2010 is almost over and Jupiter has still not turned into a second Sun, I want to take a moment to let everyone know about a few of the things Dangerous Talk has planned for 2011. On January 12th, I will be a guest of the fundamentalist Christian radio show “Bob Enyart Live.” […]
Filed under: atheism, billboards, conversation, culture war, Disproving God, End of Days, Media, Religion, The Rapture, Vague Higher Power | 3 Comments »
Posted on December 22nd, 2010 by Staks
One of the problems with Christianity is that it values an imaginary essence of a person over the life of the actual person. The health of the soul trumps the health of the living breathing human being according. In Matthew 5:29 we learn that it is actually better to pluck out ones eye and cut […]
Filed under: healthcare, Religion, Soul | 2 Comments »
Posted on December 16th, 2010 by Staks
My friend and aspiritual leader, Jake recently wrote a post on his blog, AfterFaith.com, that reminded me about an issue I’ve been wanting to write about for some time. Lately, I have been getting a lot of e-mails from recent de-converts from religion and I wanted to talk about the betrayal many of them feel. […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Decline of Religion, Religion, Religious Manipulation, Self-Help | 3 Comments »
Posted on December 15th, 2010 by Staks
Fundamentalist Christians often talk about Bible predictions and how Jesus fulfilled all of them. Aside from the fact that there really aren’t any messianic predictions, the Bible does make at least one prediction and surprise, surprise, it didn’t come to pass. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus talks about the end of the world. Interestingly […]
Filed under: End of Days, End of the World, prophecies, Religion, The Rapture | 11 Comments »
Posted on December 14th, 2010 by Staks
I have often written about the psychological reasoning for the born again experience and the path in which many religious people take towards losing their religion. But today I want to talk more about the trends involved in the exodus from religion. There are two pretty interesting trends that I have noticed in regard to […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, People of Reason, Personal, Religion | 3 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 December 9th, 2010 by Staks
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 »
Posted on December 7th, 2010 by Staks
The central message of the Christian religion is that all humans are evil sinners and deserve to be tortured for all eternity. While Christianity does offer the only solution to the problem that it creates in the form of vicarious redemption in Jesus Christ, there is no escaping the first part of this proposition. I […]
Filed under: hell, Religion, sin | 10 Comments »
