Posted on August 25th, 2010 by Staks
Yesterday, I shared a video from my new favorite Christian, Michael Voris. When I first saw his videos, I wasn’t sure he was for real. Many other people had similar doubts. On the other hand, many atheists who initially watched Edward Current videos on YouTube thought he was for real despite being so over the […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Catholics, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 24th, 2010 by Staks
Despite the fact that I strongly disagree with Christians on the nature of reality and I think that Christianity is the most dangerous force humanity has ever known I have nothing against Christians as people. It isn’t their fault they have been so fooled by the Christian system. Because no two Christians are the same, […]
Filed under: Catholics, delusion, Preaching, Religion | 4 Comments »
Posted on August 20th, 2010 by Staks
In this final installment of my response to Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s article “Why God is Great,” I want to talk about a few paragraphs within his article dealing with sexuality. In fact, I would like to even focus on Mr. Kuhner’s particular view of masturbation. First, I would like to give credit where credit is […]
Filed under: Blasphemy, Catholics, conversation, Religion, sex | 3 Comments »
Posted on August 18th, 2010 by Staks
Today’s installment of the series dealing with Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s article entitled, “Why God is Great” deals with one of my favorite subjects, morality. But Kuhner isn’t making the old moral grounding argument this time. Instead, he is making the moral norms argument. Interestingly enough, I first heard this argument while watching Christopher Hitchen’s film […]
Filed under: conversation, morality, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 18th, 2010 by Staks
Filed under: conversation, morality, Religion | Comments Off on Why Hitchens is Great (Part 3): Christian Morals
Posted on August 17th, 2010 by Staks
In Jeffrey T. Kuhner’s article, Why God is Great, he makes the ridiculous claim that, “Mr. Hitchens is unable to restrain his anti-Catholic bigotry.” This is not a new claim that Catholic apologists make and I have probably even written about it before. But it is worth addressing again. You can’t be a bigot against […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Catholics, conversation, Religion | 5 Comments »
Posted on August 16th, 2010 by Staks
On Friday, a Dangerous Talker sent me an interesting article from the Washington Times. The article was written by conservative columnist and talk show commentator, Jeffrey T. Kuhner and was entitled, “Why God is great.” It was basically an attack piece on Christopher Hitchens. After reading the article, I thought that I would spend a […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, Religion | 8 Comments »
Posted on August 5th, 2010 by Staks
I am really getting tired of always being on the defensive. Why is it that the Religious Right are always trying to make these ridiculous laws and we are always trying to stop them? I think it is time we go on the offensive for a change. Dangerous Talk has obtained this video (from YouTube) […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, family values, Gay Issues, Law, Political Activism, Religion | 6 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 July 22nd, 2010 by Staks
Last week, while on my vacation I heard about something which must make the Religious Right go even more insane then they are already. I heard about the latest technique in women’s breast augmentation… using Stem Cells! During the Bush administration the Religious Right pushed to limit Stem Cell Research. Their view on this was […]
Filed under: culture war, Religion, science | No Comments »
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 July 20th, 2010 by Staks
It used to be that only fundamentalists would tell me that science was a religion, but these days even some moderate religious people are using this type of poor reasoning. Their view is that science claims to have the only method for understanding the world. In other words, science claims to have a monopoly on […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, Religion, science, truth | 3 Comments »
Posted on July 8th, 2010 by Staks
Yesterday I had a twitter conversation with a Christian over something I talked about in one of my Examiner articles. The interesting thing is that it wasn’t even the main point of the article and there is already another article in the “Atheism 101” series which addresses the issue in more detail. In any case, […]
Filed under: Biblical Scholarship, conversation, Religion, the bible | No Comments »
Posted on July 2nd, 2010 by Staks
In case you were not aware, July is Global Atheist Blasphemy Month. While the details are explained in the Examiner article, the gist of the occasion is for atheists to claim blasphemy. Instead of being offended by all the usual suspects that religious people are offended by, this month is our turn to be offended […]
Filed under: atheism, Blasphemy, culture war, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on June 25th, 2010 by Staks
I have often talked about how we choose what offends us and how we could just as easily choose not to be offended. However, some things have a reasonable expectation of being offensive. The Crucifix should have a reasonable expectation of being offensive and it offends me. When I say that something has a reasonable […]
Filed under: culture war, morality, Offensiveness, People of Reason, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Staks
Last week, I got into an interesting conversation with a fellow atheist about de-converting Christians. My new atheist friend expressed the opinion that he thought moderate Christians were easier to de-convert and I expressed the opinion that I thought fundamentalists were easier to de-convert. I am not actually sure that either of us could prove […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 22nd, 2010 by Staks
Since well known atheists like Richard Dawkins and others have been vocal in their criticism of religion there has been a backlash by a few other atheists like Greg Epstein. Some atheists have been inspired by the “four horsemen” while other have decided to take a different approach. That’s fine, not all atheists have to […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, culture war, Religion | 4 Comments »
Posted on June 21st, 2010 by Staks
It is a pet peeve of mine when fellow people of reason call themselves, “Evolutionists.” I get it when fundy Christians call people that, but when people of reason use that label on themselves, I get annoyed. They should fucking know better! Creationists use that label on others because they are trying to lower the […]
Filed under: culture war, education, evolution, Religion, science | No Comments »
Posted on June 17th, 2010 by Staks
Today, I am continuing this series with an e-mail using the carpet bombing strategy on the Christians for a change. My bet is that most Christians won’t even attempt to address these issues and will simply reply with a “Jesus loves you” or a “I’m praying for you” type of response. Dear Christian, I am […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, ignorance, Preaching, Religion | No Comments »
Posted on June 16th, 2010 by Staks
Yesterday, I talked about how Christians sometimes carpet bomb with arguments praying that at least one of them sticks. Today, I want to make a preemptive strike that can be used when a Christian starts their carpet bombing of piss poor arguments. Of course there are many more arguments than I can put into one […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, Car Bomb Argument, conversation, culture war, discussion, First Cause Argument, Preaching, Religion | 1,200 Comments »
Posted on June 15th, 2010 by Staks
A popular Christian strategy for winning converts is basically to see how any arguments they can bombard you with in as little time as possible. The idea is to carpet bomb their mark with lots of arguments with the hope that at least one of them will resonate with their mark. On the off chance […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, atheism, conversation, culture war, discussion, First Cause Argument, god of the gaps, ignorance, Ontological Argument, prophecies, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 14th, 2010 by Staks
Over the weekend, I went to the geek convention known as Wizard World. When we were leaving the convention there were a lot of people handing out fliers for their comics, art, bands, websites, etc. There was also a woman handing out religious pamphlets. I of course took one, but didn’t have the time to […]
Filed under: Biblical Scholarship, culture war, End of the World, Preaching, prophecies, Religion, the bible | 6 Comments »
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 June 10th, 2010 by Staks
Science and religion have pretty much always been in conflict. Both claim to be a means of determining knowledge and yet it is only through science that such a claim can be verified. It really is amazingly ignorant of fundamentalist religious people to tell us through a computer that science is based on faith or […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, Decline of Religion, god of the gaps, Religion, science, truth | 11 Comments »
Posted on June 9th, 2010 by Staks
Yesterday, I spent my blogging time writing up my Examiner article (because they pay the bills… well, not really… so contribute bitches). In any case, the article was about Helen Thomas’s remarks and the misunderstanding that followed. I am not going to defend Helen Thomas here; I leave that to the Examiner article. But I […]
Filed under: culture war, ignorance, jews, journalism, language, Orthodox Judaism, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
Posted on June 7th, 2010 by Staks
Recently, I have been telling a lot of Christians and atheists alike that I have heard so many arguments both for and against religion, that it seems like I have heard them all. I have even told some people how excited I would get if I actually heard a new argument. Today I heard a […]
Filed under: Capitalism, church/state, culture war, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 4th, 2010 by Staks
The Bible (or any Holy Book, really) seems to be open to lots of various interpretations. Frequently when I point out a particular issue I have with the Bible to a Christian they will inform me that I am interpreting it incorrectly. If I take a liberal view of the Bible, the fundamentalists say I […]
Filed under: context, language, Real Christians, Religion, the bible | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 3rd, 2010 by Staks
It is my view that the Christian belief system is a corrupting force to society to individual humanity. This is not a criticism of people who are Christian necessarily, but it is a criticism of the system of belief that such people subscribe to. This system of belief has taken on a life of its […]
Filed under: Car Bomb Argument, culture war, Evils of Christianity, god of the gaps, good cop-bad cop, Most Dangerous Religion, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 2nd, 2010 by Staks
I am a pretty outspoken atheist and I criticize religion often and in some cases extremely harshly. I generally argue against particular religious ideas and lines of “reasoning” rather than arguing behavior (although I do argue against some behavior of particular religious people or groups of people from time to time). Often when I present […]
Filed under: church/state, conversation, culture war, People of Reason, Personal, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
Posted on June 1st, 2010 by Staks
It occurred to me recently that perhaps the Christian “get out of stoning free” card might actually have a theological weakness. When asked why Christians no longer stone people for working on a Saturday, the response is usually that Jesus forgave sin an abolished the old law with his “new covenant.” Theologically speaking that is […]
Filed under: Law, Religion, sin | No Comments »