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 June 28th, 2012 by Staks
The Church of Scientology of New York is offering free food to the hungry for every Facebook “like” they get on their Facebook page. Aren’t they charitable? Go “like” their page, because it shouldn’t matter where we’re feeding the hungry, just that we ARE feeding them, right? Except that it does matter. Who has read […]
Filed under: Evils of Christianity, facebook, missionaries, Preaching, Religious Manipulation, scientology | No Comments »
Posted on June 27th, 2012 by Staks
In his book, “Lying,” Sam Harris has argued that lying is always wrong in every situation. While I think honesty is a good general rule, I don’t think it ought to be an absolute commandment. For starters, it is not altogether clear what being honest fully entails. I knew a girl is college who didn’t […]
Filed under: morality | No Comments »
Posted on June 26th, 2012 by Staks
One of the minor claims that ex-atheist Leah Libresco made was that Catholicism was a consistent system. This is a claim most religious believers hold but rarely mention. I am glad Leah mentioned it, because it gives me the opportunity to criticize that claim. “I’m a big Harry Potter nerd and I can see how […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Biblical Scholarship, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 22nd, 2012 by Staks
I was at a presentation earlier this week and the speaker mentioned that he doesn’t like to argue with religious believers. Interestingly enough, during the question and answer part of his presentation two religious believers attempted to argue with him and one atheist questioned why we should even bother arguing with religious believers at all. […]
Filed under: argument, atheism, de-conversion | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 21st, 2012 by Staks
Yesterday, Jessica over at the FriendlyAtheist wrote about how there is a crazy website promoting a write-in campaign for Jesus. I thought it would be fun to talk about all the reasons why Jesus can’t be President. For starters, it is unlikely that Jesus was even a real person. Despite even Bart Ehrman’s claim that […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Jesus, Politics, wwjd | No Comments »
Posted on June 20th, 2012 by Staks
I have to admit that I am still fascinated by the recent conversion of former atheist blogger, Leah Libresco. Unlike the re-conversion of Patrick Greene, Libresco was a blogger and so I assume that she knew the standard arguments and was presumably knowledgeable about the plot holes, ridiculousness, and just factually incorrect aspects of Christianity. […]
Filed under: Catholics, conversation, ignorance, morality, People of Reason, Religious Manipulation | 8 Comments »
Posted on June 19th, 2012 by Staks
Everyone is talking about Leah Libresco’s recent conversion from atheist blogger to Catholic blogger. To be honest, I really don’t know anything about her. I stumbled on her blog briefly at the beginning of the year when she misrepresented something I said. I called her out on it and she apologized. I don’t really know […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Catholics, morality, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 18th, 2012 by Staks
The community of reason has lost a great activist and leader over the weekend. Joe Fox worked and led various Humanist groups in the Philadelphia/Lehigh Valley area. He was a hands-on kind of guy and was one of the hardest workers I knew. The reports I have heard are that he probably died sometime on […]
Filed under: death, humanism, People of Reason, Personal | No Comments »
Posted on June 15th, 2012 by Staks
I recently watched an interesting debate on the question, “Is the world better off without religion.” The debate featured two sides with two people representing each side. The atheist side was represented by A.C. Grayling and Matthew Chapman. Both of these men are very intelligent, but don’t have a whole lot of debating experience. The […]
Filed under: argument, culture war, debate, Dinesh D'Souza, Evils of Christianity, humanism, Religion | No Comments »
Posted on June 14th, 2012 by Staks
There have been a bunch of zombie stories in the news lately as a result of bath salts. I really haven’t been following it much so I don’t know all the details. But what I do know is that it gave me an idea. A few weeks ago, I wrote an examiner article about a […]
Filed under: culture war, End of Days, End of the World, Religion, satan, The Rapture | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 13th, 2012 by Staks
It’s true, as an atheist I happen to think reason is better than faith, knowledge is better than ignorance, and evidence is better than assertions. I, like most atheists, am in intellectual snob… and proud of it. And why shouldn’t I be? Why would anyone take pride in not being intellectual? I look down on […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, education, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Posted on June 12th, 2012 by Staks
When talking to fundamentalist believers, the two traits I run into the most are pride and ignorance. Interestingly enough, I find that these believers take pride in not being prideful and that they are generally ignorant of their ignorance. Still, I think that if we can get these believers to stop being prideful and ignorant, […]
Filed under: atheism, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 11th, 2012 by Staks
Atheists have a problem that we need to address. We need to communicate our ideas better. Religious believers don’t tend to have that problem. You ask them a question and the answer is either a Bible verse or God did it. If you ask why God did something that answer is that God works in […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, culture war | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 8th, 2012 by Staks
Christians often ask atheists about the purpose of life. But I think a better question is what is the purpose of our morality? On this question, the divide between Christians and atheists couldn’t be wider. For Christians, morality amounts to God’s whim, while for atheists morality is about the well-being of sentient creatures. Christians tend […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Car Bomb Argument, missionaries | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 7th, 2012 by Staks
The Christian blog, “The BitterSweet End” has posted an atheist challenge of ten questions. Okay, I’ll bite. Thanks to VJack over at Atheist Revolution for making me aware of this. 1. If there is NO God, then their is no Measurement or Standard for morality? Then what will define morality? Well, I think you are […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, argument, Criticism, ignorance, morality, Nothing, Projection, Purpose, Religious Manipulation | 10 Comments »
Posted on June 6th, 2012 by Staks
Yesterday there were two primary day battles that I was watching very closely. This first is obviously the one that everyone was watching, Scott Walker’s recall election in Wisconsin. The second was in New Jersey where I am from originally and where my family still resides. Let’s talk about the recall election first. Scott Walker […]
Filed under: Current Events, Obama, Politics | No Comments »
Posted on June 5th, 2012 by Staks
This week, the Secular Coalition for America is starting their 50 state push to create local branches. Today, Pennsylvania is up and I will try to get in on that call. This is a pretty ambitious plan on the part of the SCA and there are a lot of atheists who don’t think it will […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Current Events | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 4th, 2012 by Staks
Friday was “Hug An Atheist Day.” It was the 4th year for this event. But this year there is a problem. Apparently the reaction to the event this year has been more mixed and instead of atheists having fun and reaching out to religious believers who far too often demonize us, there are atheists who […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Feminism | 4 Comments »
Posted on June 1st, 2012 by Staks
My conversation from over the last two days at “Think Christian” has been cut short due to censorship. You see, I talked about how Progressive Christians had to acknowledge that the Bible is wrong on homosexuality in order to be absolved of being labeled hateful toward gays. A Christian responded by claiming that the free […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Authority, censorship, conversation, free speech, Offensiveness, Progressive Christians, Religion | 1 Comment »
