I have been writing the Dangerous Talk daily blog almost every weekday for two years. Before that, I wrote the daily blog on MySpace for about another two years. That’s a lot of blogs. Within the past few days, I have been reminded about some of my older blog entries that I really love. So […]
Filed under: Personal | 1 Comment »
For the last few weeks, there have been some pretty big protests going on in the Middle East. Governments have fallen as a result. Twitter and Facebook were key weapons for the rebel groups. I think it is type that some kind of protest starts here in America. I think it is time we demand […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Election, facebook, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics, Progressive Christians, Religion | 9 Comments »
I was recently reading a section of Sam Harris’s book, The Moral Landscape. In one part of the book, Harris talks about how our brain is wired. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it seems that religious believers tend to be more fearful, paranoid, and value authority more than secular people. I also remember […]
Filed under: Current Events, Decline of Religion, evolution | 5 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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Sometime last year I promised a friend that this Valentines Day I would tell the tale of the Braveheart Question. This could be a tale of romance or it could be the tale of a demented psycho stalker. That, my friends, is the question. The film Braveheart is now considered pretty old by some standards, […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Love, Personal, Valentines Day | 17 Comments »
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 »
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 »
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 »
While a lot of atheists run from anything that is even remotely reminiscent of religion, many others still go to church. Usually, if an atheist goes to church it is a Quaker or Unitarian Church. There is nothing wrong with avoiding religious trappings. Many atheists have had extremely bad experiences with churches and other religious […]
Filed under: atheism, Church, culture war, family values, humanism, Neighbor, Parenting, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
