DangerousTalk

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 and Trust are not as interchangeable as they are often used.

Faith is generally defined as belief without evidence. The Bible puts it by saying that it is what is hoped for when the evidence of things not seen. By not seen, we are not just talking about our sense of sight, but all our senses. In other words, it is what is hoped for then there is no evidence.

Trust in people however is based on what is seen in that it is based on our past experiences with that person. If a friend has shown that he or she cares about you and has your best interest in mind that is evidence that they are trustworthy. So it is rational to trust them. If someone has repeatedly shown that they are not trust worthy, you aren’t going to suddenly trust them unless something in them has changed and caused you to think that they now might be trustworthy. This is based on evidence. It is based on things seen.

The point is that there is a difference between faith and trust. The former is based on no evidence but the later is based on past experience. Aristotle once said that for every virtue there are two vices. For the virtue of trust, one vice would be distrust, but the other vice would be faith. The virtue always lies between the two extremes.

Related articles

• Faith in People (dangeroustalk.net)

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 that the author of the popular book series said herself that the books are fiction. He just laughed and said that she didn’t really right the books. He claimed that someone inside the Ministry of Magic wrote them, but that a Death Eater released it to the muggle world. He went on to say that Harry Potter himself cast a spell on J.K. Rawling so that she would believe she wrote it as fiction.

He had a rationalization for everything. If he didn’t have an answer, he would fall back to claiming that it was magic or that a muggle couldn’t understand what goes on in the wizarding world.

It was ridiculous. Of course, it was no more ridiculous than conversations I have with Christians. In fact, the only real differences between the two are that at least the Harry Potter series was well written and entertaining. Oh, and the moral value to the stories are much better too.

Why should anyone take claims by Christians any more seriously than we take claims that Harry Potter is real?

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• Why Don’t Christians Believe In Harry Potter? (dangeroustalk.net)
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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 phrase, “Separation of Church & State” or “Wall of Separation” are not in the Constitution. But the concept behind those words very much is in the Constitution; mainly in the First Amendment. This is obvious to any one who reads the Constitution but the religious right wants to play word games.

Okay, let’s play word games. The Bible never says, “Jesus is God.” That isn’t in the Bible. Don’t take my word for it; I dare anyone to find that phrase in the Bible. It isn’t there. The Bible never says “Homosexuality is a sin.” In fact, the term “homosexual” or even “gay” doesn’t even appear in the Bible at all. The Bible also never says, “Rape is immoral.” That might be why Republicans in Congress are currently trying to change the definition of rape… I’m just say’n.

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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 O’Reilly used a version of this one.

This is probably one of the most used Christian arguments. It is more simplistic version of the Argument by Design. Forget the watch and the watchmaker, I can’t make trees therefore God did it.

I don’t want to say that those who use his argument are stupid, because many of them probably are pretty smart, but this really is a stupid, child-like argument despite that there are many children that are much smarter than this argument.

The tides go in and the tides go out with no miscommunication. How does that happen? It is called the moon’s gravitational pull on the water. How did trees form, there is a naturalistic explanation for that too. I’m not a botanist, so I can’t give you the details, but science does have some idea. And even if it didn’t know how these things came about, that doesn’t mean that God did it. We would need some evidence for that.

The phrase, “I don’t know” is always applicable. Just because science doesn’t know an answer right now doesn’t mean that religion has the validity to make up an answer. This is the old God of the Gaps argument.

My question for believers is, “Hey Christians, look right in front of you. See that computer screen? Science made that using our knowledge of the natural world which directly contradicts what God wrote in the Bible. How can you explain that?”

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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 and yet he still doesn’t understand that if there is no evidence to suggest that something exists, then there is no reason to believe that that something does exist.

Sure, monkeys could fly out of my ass and there is no scientific evidence that could show that this could never ever happen. But there is no reason to believe that monkeys will fly out of my ass either.

Science isn’t about proof necessarily; it is about evidence and reason. If there is no evidence to suggest that something exists, then there is no reason to believe it exists. The burden of proof is on the Christian to not only show valid evidence for the existence of deities, but to show valid evidence to suggest their particular deity exists. In the last 2000 plus years they have yet to show any valid evidence at all. Instead they rely on really poor reasoning and bad arguments.

Still, even though the burden is on them, I have taken up the burden of disproving their deity in my Ontological Argument for Disproving God, which I have entered into the Project Reason video contest. A brief reminder, voting begins on February 15th.

Related articles

• The Ontological Argument for Disproving God (dangeroustalk.net)
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• Absence of Evidence – A Response to Chad Williams (zomgorlackthereof.blogspot.com)

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, faith, ignorance, Religion, science | 8 Comments »

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 conversation with a fundamentalist and they ask, “What is the basis for morality?” Despite the fact that I have written an article destroying the idea that God some how “grounds” morality, they insist that without their God in particular, there can be no moral grounding and hence no morality.

It seems that these particular Christians know absolutely nothing about ethics and don’t seem to want to know anything about ethics. They just want to play, “gotcha” and the problem is that they are too ignorant to know that they have lost the game.

Fortunately for them, ignorance is of a particular nature that it can be dispelled through knowledge. All they have to do is go to a library or a book store and read a basic introductory guide to ethics. I would recommend something with “for dummies” in the title.

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• Morality: God’s ultimate proof? (secularnewsdaily.com)
• Moral vs. Non-Moral Values (camelswithhammers.com)

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, education, ignorance, morality, Religion | 3 Comments »

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 argue in favor of talking snakes? The Noah’s Ark story is not only ridiculous, but riddled with plot holes; as is so many of the literal interpretation of Biblical stories.

But it isn’t just the fundamentalist view that is ridiculous and full of plot holes that make Michael Bay look like an Academy Award winning director. The basic story of Christianity in its most mainstream form is ridiculous.

God had to send his son to be murdered so that other people completely unrelated to the story can go to his magic happy land. Come on, really? This is the core of Christianity? And I am supposed to take this story seriously?

Why does God have a son? Why does God need to do anything? Why does God require a blood sacrifice? Why does God require a vicarious blood sacrifice? How can Jesus be crucified if he was immortal? How was it a sacrifice if he knew he would sit on the right hand of God in Heaven for eternity? I can go on all day here. These are ridiculous plot holes.

These are questions that hit right at the core of Christianity and are not aimed at fundamentalists. Mainstream Christians consider the crucifixion of Jesus as the central point of their belief. Like I said, when we talk about fundamentalists, the story gets even more ridiculous, but just taking the essence of Christianity in mind, the last Transformers movie had far less plot holes. Plus, it had Megan Fox.

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Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Babel, blood sacrifice, culture war, delusion, god of the gaps, Mainstream Christians, Religion | 2 Comments »

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 don’t have kids at all or have only one or two. I do know a few atheists who have three kids, but I know far more with none. The paradoxical part is that atheists love sex and that is a key component in breeding and fundamentalist Christians often consider sex evil and yet they seem to be having a lot of it.

Aside from mass breeding, the Quiverfull movement relies on indoctrination. What good is it to have mass amounts of children if they de-convert from Christianity? This is where atheist has the advantage. We breed atheists not by mass amounts of children, but by educating children and teaching them how to think critically about the world around them.

For atheists, people aren’t weapons in some mythological war, they are actual people! We generally view people as ends in themselves and not as weapons for some deity’s end. Reason is our weapon for the end of all deities. Our quiver is be filled with ideas rather than people.

Related articles

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• Should Atheists Start Breeding Like Crazy? (friendlyatheist.com)
• Substance over sweetness – another New Atheist critique gone askew (scienceblogs.com)
• Can’t Hide from Religion (dangeroustalk.net)

Filed under: atheism, culture war, family values, Parenting, Religion | 3 Comments »

The state of the union is shitty… but not for any of the reasons you will hear about on the news. Yes, unemployment is high, the quality of healthcare is low, we are still in two wars, etc. But those are mere symptoms of the real problem.

The real problem is that people are stupid. They don’t think critically about the world around them. When Fox News and the Republicans make ridiculous lies, people are not smart enough to look for the actual facts and use critical thinking skills to analyze those facts.

The Democrats are not blameless either. President Obama campaigned on fundamental change. His campaign was focused on a promise not to play the game of politics better, but to change the game. Instead, he has played politics every step of the way. His healthcare plan was hollow, his financial reform plan weak, and on foreign policy he has not only continued with the two Republican wars, but also continues Bush’s warrentless wiretapping and “enhanced interrogation” programs.

In order to really “win the future” Americans need to learn how to think critically about politics and the world around them. It is easy to blame Fox News and the Tea Party for misleading so many Americans, but the fact is that as Americans, we allow ourselves to be misled.

Religious thinking helps to dull our critical thinking skills. We are taught that we ought to have faith in an authoritative deity, in a religious leader, and in political leaders. But what we really need to do is to question authoritative deities, religious leaders, and political leaders.

Last night, the President said a lot of great things about supporting science education and education in general, but we as Americans have to hold him too it. The President is great at saying the things I like to hear, but when it comes time to deliver he spends too much time trying to compromise that very little is actually accomplished.

In order to win the future, the President has to lead in the present. Instead of compromising on every issue just to get one or two Republican votes, the President has to use political pressure to command the future into being.

The biggest issue in politics today isn’t an issue at all; it is an attitude. It is the attitude of our leaders and an attitude of our citizens. Republicans must compromise more, Democrats must stand their ground more, and the American people must think critically about what our leaders and media personalities are telling us.

George Carlin once said that the reason we have stupid leaders is because we have stupid people; garbage in, garbage out. To some extent he was correct. In order to fix the state of our nation, we have to fix the state of its people. Think!

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Filed under: healthcare, ignorance, Politics | 1 Comment »

Yesterday, I heard an excerpt from the new Piers Morgan show on CNN in which Christian motivational speaker Joel Osteen commented that he isn’t judging gay people, but God says it’s a sin. He claims that is in the “scriptures.”

Joel Osteen doesn’t hate gays, God does. Joel is a really nice guy. He loves everyone, but that God character, he’s an asshole. At least that is what it sounds like the way Joel Osteen tells it.

Sure, the Bible says a lot of really crappy things and everyone ignores most of it. People are selective with what they choose to “find” in the “scriptures.” No one is picketing Red Lobster or stoning people who work on Saturdays. But that is not the point today. Today, I want to talk about the use of the Bible to hide hate.

Joel Osteen hates gay people. But, he wants to seem like a nice guy so instead he tells us that he doesn’t have a problem with gay people, but God hates gay people and he is just pointing that out. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really have a problem with Joel Osteen, but the Flying Spaghetti Monster hates his guts.

Related articles

• Joel Osteen Knows You’re Living In Sin, But He Won’t Rub It In Your Face (queerty.com)
• Joel Osteen Continues To Judge Homosexuality As A Sin Despite Saying He Cannot Judge Others (lezgetreal.com)
• Joel Osteen: ‘Homosexuality Is A Sin’ (huffingtonpost.com)

Filed under: conversation, culture war, family values, god, Judge God, wwjd | 11 Comments »

Christians sometimes argue that everyone “knows” there is a God. I always find this line of argument comical for so many reasons.

First, it is sort of childish. I could just as easily declare that the Christian knows there isn’t a God. It is an assertion which needs no justification. The argument can’t go anyway. It just dead ends. I think it really is a poor form of argument to assert to know what someone else believes especially when they are claiming that it is not what they believe.

This leads to my variation on the old, Lord, Liar, Lunatic Argument. I call it the Liar, Lunatic, Atheist Argument. When a Christian claims that I really know that God exists, there are only three possibilities (not really, but go with me on this).

The first possibility is that the professed atheist (me) is lying. I don’t think I am lying. I am pretty sure that I am doing my best to be honest when I say that I lack the belief in deities and outright don’t believe in the Abrahamic deity.

The second possibility is that I am a lunatic. Perhaps I am crazy and don’t know when I am telling the truth or lying. This would mean that reality and fantasy are jumbled together in my mind and I am just nuts. This is certainly possible, but I am fairly confident that I am relatively sane.

And that brings us to the final possibility, that I must be an atheist just as I profess to be. I really must not believe in a deity.

Of course there are more possibilities, but we won’t talk about them because that is not how the Lord, Liar, Lunatic Argument works. 😉 So next time a Christian tells you that you secretly believe, try the Liar, Lunatic, Atheist Argument on them and let them argue against their own Lord, Liar, Lunatic Argument for you. It’s fun.

Related articles

• The Ontological Argument for Disproving God (dangeroustalk.net)
• You Can’t Prove Santa Doesn’t Exist! (dangeroustalk.net)
• Why isn’t anyone talking about the weakness and stupidity of the New Theism? (scienceblogs.com)
• A Christian Apologist Asks, “Atheism Doesn’t Lead to Immoral Behavior – Or Does It?” No, it Doesn’t (arizonaatheist.blogspot.com)

Filed under: atheism, conversation, Lord-Liar-Lunatic, Projection | 3 Comments »

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 an Ontological argument to prove there is no god. The following video will be my entry into the Project-Reason video contest. If my video is among the 10 finalists, I hope you will all vote for it on February 15th.

Related articles

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Filed under: atheism, Disproving God, god, Ontological Argument, Religion | 10 Comments »

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 doesn’t know squat about the shape of the Earth, the lack of luminescence of the moon, the source of light, pi, etc. Through science, people like Galileo and so many others have helped us to understand the world we live in far better than the Bible every did or could. But what do religious people do? Instead of admitting that God got these basic facts about the universe wrong, they give credit for these discoveries to God.

God magically implanted those ideas into these people’s minds while at the same time; his perfect book inspired his followers to kill and/or discredit these people. Even today, the Pope credits God with evolution and the big bang while millions of Christian followers hold to the Biblical view of Creation and the Genesis of the universe.

If God was the author of science as some Christians assert, then you think he would be able to remember the order in which he created stuff. The fact is that the Bible was not written by God (or even metaphysically inspired by God). It was written by men with a bronze-aged knowledge of the world.

When science discovers something about the world it is not God working through people. It is people working with the scientific method… a method that people created to help us better understand the world around us… a method that helps to eliminate bias and to obliterate ridiculous bronze-aged beliefs about the world.  God isn’t responsible for modern medicine and modern technology, people are. More specifically, people who understand and use the scientific method.

Stephen Hawking put it best when he said, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”

O-Minus 2 Days… okay, I lies, O-Minus 1 Day.

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Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, People of Reason, Religion, science | 1 Comment »

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 beside the point.

The point here is that this clip is hilarious. On one side, the actual scientist is talking about actual facts and on the other side we have the astrologer attempting to defend horoscopes in light of the actual indisputable scientific facts. Let’s go to the video:

What occurred to me was that mainstream news organizations do the exact same thing except with religion instead of astrology. Sure we can all laugh at Fox News for trying to treat both the Astronomer and the Astrologer with equal reverence, but when CNN pits a scientist against a Creationist on some new discover pertaining to evolution, people take that seriously.

I love this Fox News clip because it shows just how ridiculous such a comparison is. When major mainstream news groups have rational people debate religious people on matters of reality, it is no different than this clip. The rational person talks about facts, evidence, and the Scientific Method and the religious person talks about a made up belief.

O-Minus 3 Days

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Filed under: ignorance, Religion | 1 Comment »

Lately the American Atheist billboard campaign has gotten a lot of criticism… from atheists. Rebecca Watson from SkepChick and PZ Myers from Pharyngula have both criticized the ad campaign (among others). So it occurred to me that maybe American Atheists might need some help in coming up with their next billboard.

What atheist billboard would you design? This is a serious question. Sure we would all fantasize about a billboard which blasts the religious for believing in the ridiculous, but those types of billboards wouldn’t be defensible to mainstream America. I think if atheists are going to have billboard campaigns, we need to make them defensible to the general public (even though religious billboards generally aren’t).

Some ideas that I think would work for an atheist billboard would be a criticism of Hell or perhaps something dealing with the fact that churches don’t pay taxes and that costs the tax payers even more money because they aren’t paying their fair share. But I want to see what you guys can come up with either using those themes or something different.

Here is a rough draft of a billboard idea I had awhile back:

O-Minus 4 Days

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Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war | 2 Comments »

Today is the day we celebrate the birth and life of Martin Luther King Jr. To start off, I am a fan, I think Dr. King’s “I had a dream” speech was a great. Aside from the spattering of references to God, which one would expect to find in any political speech, this speech expresses secular and Humanist virtues.

Often times, I hear religious people attempt to take credit for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There is no problem with that. Dr. King was religious. He was even a minister. But religious people go further sometimes and assign the Bible as the reason for Dr. King’s speech. This goes too far. The fact is that Dr. King spoke out for the rights of black people not because of the Bible, but because he was black. That seems pretty obvious to me. He felt the oppression and spoke out against it.

The fact is that the while the Bible was used by both sides of the slavery issue, those who were supported slavery had the Biblical high ground. Slavery and the practice of treating others unequally has strong Biblical support. Jewish slaves were to be treated better than non-Jewish slaves. Women were to be treated less then men, etc.

And not to take anything away from Dr. King, but the civil rights movement didn’t actually start and end with him. Sure his speech was a significant contribution and that is why we honor him today, but the movement itself had many other significant contributors. In the 1920’s for example, there was a big civil rights push lead by atheists like W.E.B. DuBois, Hubert H. Harrison, Joel A. Rogers, and many others.

Happy Birthday Dr. King!

O-Minus 5 Days

Filed under: church/state, Coexist, culture war, humanism, Martin Luther King Jr., People of Reason | 3 Comments »

Continuing from yesterday’s analysis of my debate on the Bob Enyart radio show (first half-hour now on yesterday’s blog), I wanted to point out a particular trick that Bob used in our debate. Perhaps it is because he believes in authoritative doctrine, that he assumes that science is authoritative too. So his style of attack was to attack the author rather than the substance. I called him out on that a few times, but he kept doing it.

This is common with Creationists. Ray Comfort does this all the time as well. Claims about Charles Darwin being a racist or a sexist are the Creationist way of de-legitimizing the science of evolution by natural selection. But even if those attacks on the character of Darwin were true (and I don’t think that they are) that would have nothing to do with his observations which anyone could observe. While “The Origin of Species” is a book about observation, it is not a book that required Darwin’s particular observations. Anyone can go to the Galapagos Islands and observe the finches. Similar observations can be made in relation to other animals too.

The Gospel accounts are different in that they are authoritative observations. The Gospels are dependent upon the authority of the book’s author. If Matthew didn’t write the Gospel of Matthew (and he didn’t) then the book has no authority because the author if the book is claiming to have been a witness to certain events in time and place. If Matthew was an untrustworthy individual, prone to fanciful tales, then the book’s authority is also damaged because the account is dependent on the author’s testimony. If Darwin was prone to fanciful tales or it could be shown that he didn’t actually write the books attributed to him, it makes no difference. The books aren’t dependent on his authority. They stand or fall on their own authority.

Enyart doesn’t understand this and that is why he kept trying to link Darwin to Hitler. He was trying to undermine the authority of Darwin in an attempt to undermine the current theory of evolution by natural selection. So he would say things like, “The Darwinist Nazi Regime” whenever we were talking about the Nazis.

He was trying to show that if Hitler used Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection as the basis for his eugenics, then that proves that evolution is evil and therefore not true. What I tried to get across to his audience was that Social-Darwinism is not the same as evolution by natural selection. Evolution by natural selection is an observation of what has happened and what is happening while Social-Darwinism is not an observation at all.

The authority issue came up a few other times in the debate as well. Enyart kept trying to use the authority of Einstein to prove his point. Aside from the fact that Einstein wasn’t a believer in Enyart’s god (which he actually admitted to briefly in the debate) he still kept trying to use Einstein’s name to go against the claims and theories of modern scientists.

Enyart also made statements about how Dawkins was proven wrong on some point and then implied that atheism was somehow undermined. While I can’t speak for whether Dawkins was actually proven wrong about some statement he made by some other scientists, it certainly wouldn’t undermine atheism because Dawkins isn’t the authoritative Pope of atheism. Dawkins being a person of science, I think if he were proven wrong about something, he would be delighted and move on.

One of the things I kept trying to empress upon Enyart was that the Scientific Method is the only authority that matters in science. In the recent Wakefield study relating to autism that was discredited, it wasn’t that Wakefield was a fraud that was the problem; it was that his study was a fraud. Wakefield could be a fraud in some other area of his life and his study could still have been valid. But as it is, he was fraudulent in his study.

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• The Language of God: On Darwin (daylightatheism.org)
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Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, Authority, Creationism, culture war, debate, evolution, science | 3 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. It took me awhile to learn how to cut him off from tangents and redirect the conversation back on track. Bob’s style is to introduce an overload of information (much of it distorted and colored) to those who are unfamiliar with those particular cases. One of the things that I tried to do was to focus my part of the conversation toward the audience rather than debate Bob head on. This is hard to do because of his style of conversation. He tries to engage you in rapid fire debate, cutting to tangents and changing the subject before you can finish your point. In some cases it worked and in some cases I wouldn’t let him get away with it. He tries to use linguistically tricks and to use something you said out of context against you. He did that with Hemant too.

The important thing I had to keep reminding myself of is that there is an audience listening. So whenever he would talk about some Creationist argument that I was not familiar with, I would make a point to give out some scientific websites that deal directly with creationist arguments. I also made it a point to promote a few atheist books which I thought would help an inquisitive audience.

When I started talking about the Tower of Babel, I wanted to focus on how it was built to reach God. But I never got a chance to make that point.

One avenue I wish I could have gone into more would have been the beginnings of religion. I tried to do that toward the end in the last in interview, but we ran out of time. I was able to recommend Karen Armstrong’s book, “The History of God.” Evid3nc3 on YouTube does a great job summarizing this book in his latest video.

Over all, I am disappointed in my performance. I think I could have done better. But I am that type of person who is never happy with my performance even when people tell me I did a good job. In this case, I doubt I will hear that though. So I will consider this a learning experience and evolve accordingly.

My main problem in my opinion was that I allowed Bob to suck me into the mythology when I should have focused on the general ridiculousness of the mythology itself. Please share your thoughts and suggestions for the future. There are a lot of other topics that came up in the debate that I want to go into, but I’ll save that for another day.

FIRST HALF-HOUR NOW AVAILABLE

Filed under: Creationism, debate, Religious Manipulation | 11 Comments »

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 about what they believe and why.

This particular believer is Jewish and has been indoctrinated in that religion. From reading her article, I get the sense that she sees her religion as more of personal identity rather than a belief that she holds.

I have found that many religious people see religion in much the same way. Religion is sort of like race to these people. As a result, when an atheist comes along and challenges religion, they see it as racist. They don’t seem to realize that you can change your religion, but you can’t change your race (unless you are Michael Jackson of course).

There is a time to aggressively challenge and argue religion with the religious and there is a time to reach out to believers in a more diplomatic fashion while still challenging them to think about their beliefs and why they hold them.

Later today, I will be going on Bob Enyart’s radio show. He is a fundamentalist Christian on a fundamentalist Christian radio station in Colorado. My intention on the show is to promote atheism and Dangerous Talk. It is also to reach out to those Christians who may be listening who have been born and raised believers. While I fully expect to argue with Bob about various issues, I am hopeful that I can encourage some of his listeners to start the journey of freethought.

If you are in the Colorado area, you can listen live at 3pm on KLTT 670 AM. If you want to listen live outside CO, you can live stream on the internet at 5pm EST @ http://kgov.com/. If anyone can digitally record this for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Bob Enyart will probably provide a copy to me, but I don’t want to rely on that.

Related articles

• 2011 Excitement (dangeroustalk.net)
• Leaving Religion (dangeroustalk.net)
• How Can They Believe This Stuff? (dangeroustalk.net)
• The Semantics Of Spirituality (camelswithhammers.com)
• Living a lie (new.exchristian.net)

Filed under: atheism, conversation, culture war, discussion, Personal, Religion | 2 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 waste little time in using this tragedy and this page to proselytize.

I posted a rather lengthy “thought” on the page and mentioned that I don’t pray because I don’t believe there is anyone to pray to, but I had some thoughts. This was enough to cause some Christian to respond and offer his prayers to me that I find God.

I informed this Christian that his comment was rude and that this was not the place to proselytize and that the page was designed to offer thoughts and prayers for Giffords and the other victims. He then accused me of proselytizing first since I mentioned my lack of belief and then proceeded to make multiple comments about praying for me and blessing me.

At that point he was being rude and dishonest. I informed him merely stating that I don’t pray is not proselytizing any more than the creators of the page asking for prayers would be. Telling non-believers that they ought to pray or find God would be proselytizing and I have a problem with that. I continued to try to focus the conversation back to the tragedy, but he simply blew me off at that point.

I find it sad that Christians feel the need to use tragedy as a tool for proselytizing. This is not the first time I have experienced or written about this. It happens at almost every funeral and we need to start calling it out for what it is. Last year, actor Tony Danza did exactly that and I don’t even think he is an atheist. But Danza was upset that the priest presiding over the service for a friend used the opportunity to proselytize rather than to discuss the person who died.

Related articles

• Brit Hume Needs To Stop Proselytizing [Proselytizing] (gawker.com)
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Filed under: culture war, Preaching, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »

Over the weekend, everyone was asking for prayers for those injured and killed in the Arizona shootings. As a person of reason, I cannot give any prayers because I don’t believe there is anyone to answer them. But I do wish to share my thoughts and hopes.

As a progressive Democrat, I don’t always agree with Congresswoman Gifford on some issues (like immigration), but her strong support for America’s Space Program is something that has earned her my deepest respect. For a Humanist like me, the Space Program is a symbol of human potential. Congresswoman Gifford as been a tireless advocate for that program and her husband has been an active participant in that program, going where few people have gone before. I hope for Congresswoman Gifford’s quick recovery so that she can go back to the House and continue the fight for America’s future in space.

But even if she were someone who I disagreed with on every issue (like Sarah Palin), I would not wish for her to be harmed. We live but one life and taking life makes us less of who we are. Violence is an attack on the intellect. It is an acknowledgement that we can’t change minds with logical and reason. Violence therefore is the last resort to only be used in self defense. Our political system is based on dialog not violence.

This is why I object so strongly to the term “militant atheist.” Aside from Stalin, atheists really aren’t militant. You will no doubt hear in the coming weeks that the shooter, Jared Loughner was an “ardent atheist.” This is both a good and bad thing. First, the term “militant” generally is identified with the fringe of a movement. The Religious Right doesn’t want Loughner to be a fringe atheist. They want him to represent the main stream so that they can use him to attack us all.

Second, as a point of fact, he wasn’t a militant atheist. His atheism had absolutely nothing to do with his attack. Aside from probable mental issues, Loughner was an anti-government/conspiracy theory kind of guy. When the right wing rail against the government they are speaking to him.

Loughner planned his attack in part because he was mentally unstable and from some reports probably a sociopath. That added to his paranoia of a “New World Order” and the view that all government is evil (as propagated by the Right) pushed him over the edge.

More thoughts to follow in the coming days.

Related articles

• Shooting Suspect Was “Twisted” Loner (news.sky.com)
• Gabrielle Giffords Remains Sedated Following Arizona Shooting (huffingtonpost.com)
• Congresswoman still sedated after gunman’s attack (salon.com)
• Sheriff Clarence Dupnik: Arizona ‘Mecca For Prejudice & Bigotry’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Jared Lee Loughner Guns Down Nineteen, Kills Six, at Tuscon AZ Political Event (alligatorfarm.wordpress.com)

Filed under: Atheism NOT Religion, Current Events, healthcare, humanism, New World Order, palin, Politics, responsibility | No Comments »

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 conversation, O’Brian informs Winston that he (O’Brian) can float on a bubble. O’Brian then contends that if Winston and he both believe this to be true and no one is around to disagree then it is in fact true and O’Brian really can float on a bubble. But if just one person doubts this reality, then that reality is shattered for everyone. Truth, O’Brian claims is what everyone (without exception) believes Truth to be. With that in mind, O’Brian later tells Winston that he can’t just simply kill Winston for opposing Big Brother, but rather he has to first get Winston to believe in Big Brother and then he can kill him. Everyone must know that Winston believes.

For religion, they have a reality which is not based on scientific investigation. Their reality is based merely on assertion. They assert that God exists and if everyone in society agrees with them, then they have “Truth.” The religious worldview is based on authority and as such, everyone must believe otherwise their reality is shattered for everyone. Atheism is a threat to their entire reality.

Every time an atheist lets his or her lack of belief known they are reminding the religious that their reality is an illusion. An atheist need not even be critical of religion; our mere presence is an attack on their entire reality. Could you imagine if O’Brian said he could float on a bubble and a room full of people agreed, but then one person stood up and said, “No, you’re not.” That reality would be ruined for everyone.

Atheists need to come out of the closet more and let people know that we are out there and that we don’t believe in their reality. We have to continue to make our presence known. Being critical of religious ideas is also important, but the most important thing is to exist and to let them know we exist.

Stephen Hawking said it best when he stated that, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”

Related articles

• You Can’t Prove Santa Doesn’t Exist! (dangeroustalk.net)
• Reaching Out to Atheists is Mean to Christians (atheistrev.com)
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Filed under: 1984, Alternative Worldview, Authority, Blasphemy, culture war, deathbed conversion, Offensiveness, Religion, Religious Manipulation, science | 4 Comments »

Recently, news organizations like CNN, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post (among others) have been reporting on a study that appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study was called, “Anger Toward God: Social-Cognitive Predictors, Prevalence, and Links With Adjustment to Bereavement and Cancer” and it includes atheists anger toward God.

CNN’s headline for their story was, “Anger at God common, even among atheists.” The reporter didn’t seem to bother to actually read the fine print in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article. As a result, the CNN headline is misleading.

But reporters aren’t the only lazy ones. Most people just read the headlines and as a result conclude that the study shows that atheists are angry with God. Even when I wrote an article on this topic for the Atheism 101 Section, I found that a lot of people couldn’t get past the headline.

Even though my article was titled in the form of a question, many people just assumed an answer and attacked the article before even reading it. My article was titled, “Are atheists angry with God?” The reasoning for my title is that it is part of the Atheism 101 series for religious people to learn answer to questions they have and for some atheists to learn how to deal with questions that are asked of them by religious people.

But it really is frustrating when people write comments about the article what simply don’t make sense if they actually took a moment to skim through the article (they don’t even have to really read it). It is just pure laziness. ARRRR!!!!

Related articles

• Anger at God Common, Even Among Atheists (releasingreligion.blogspot.com)
• Are We Angry at God? (friendlyatheist.com)
• Rabbi Hirschfield peddles the myth that atheists are angry at god (jewmanist.com)

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, ignorance, journalism, Media, Personal | 5 Comments »

Let me start off by saying that I am extremely critical of the performances of atheists when they go up against pundits. While Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris usually get B’s, I have only graded one atheist an A+. Most atheists get failing grades. Last night Dave Silverman of American Atheists joined that crowd.

There are three main goals that an atheist should be trying to achieve when they face off against a pundit:
1. Promote their group or project. This is by far the most important reason for going up against a pundit.
2. Don’t look stupid. That sounds easy, but there are many stereotypes about atheists that religious people have and it is important to not play into those stereotypes.
3. Encourage critical thinking and plant the seeds of doubt in the minds of religious believers. While this is an important goal, it is not a necessary goal. The first two are absolutely necessary.
Most atheists who go up against pundits concentrate on a forth goal, winning the debate. This is really unimportant and often comes at the cost of the three real goals.

So let’s look at Silverman’s performance on O’Reilly. Did he accomplish the main goal? Yes, he did mention that you can go to atheists.org but he didn’t give anyone a reason to go there. He also gave his plug once and only at the end of the discussion.

Did he look stupid? Yes, when asked why atheists go to Church he didn’t have an answer. If you don’t know why atheists go to Church, how can you lure them out of the Church? O’Reilly even soft balled him by asking about insulting Christian billboards and Silverman couldn’t give him any specifics aside from mentioning that there was one on the Jersey turnpike near exit 8a (which for the record, I don’t think there is). Don’t get me wrong, I love that Silverman brought up that there are insulting Christian billboards. That is the reason why I have the Billboard Wars page, but he was unprepared to actually give specifics. He should have been able to rattle off a few specific examples on the spot complete with the names of the organizations who bought them. He couldn’t do that. He didn’t have the information. To Christians wathcing, he looked stupid.

Did he encourage critical thinking and plant the seeds of doubt? No, not really. He didn’t leave the audience with anything new to think about. Instead, he just kept stating that calling religion a scam was not insulting.

Now, I agree with the message on the billboard, but don’t think it was the right tactic for a billboard campaign. It is not an easily defensible message. But if I was Dave Silverman and I was going to go on O’Reilly and had to defend that billboard campaign, I would own it.

Is it insulting? Sure, but so what it is also true. Sometimes the truth hurts and people get offended. American Atheists which you can check out at Atheists.org is trying to let people know that religion is a scam and that they should think more critically about giving money blindly into the collection plate. What is that money being used for? Is it being used to defend pedophile priests? Is it being used to fight against equal rights for gay people? At atheists.org, you can learn more about why religion is a scam. No Bill, people aren’t gullible, but we all have our weak moments and religion exploits those moments very well. Even the best of us can be taken in by a really good scam sometimes and religion is the best scam around with thousands of years of experience. Bill, you have never been scammed before? Never ever? You must be the smartest man in the world Bill. Remember, atheists.org.

For a comparison, here is the one atheist who got an A+ (incidentally it was also against Bill O’Reilly):

Related articles

• Dave Silverman Talking About the Religious ‘Scam’ with Bill O’Reilly (friendlyatheist.com)
• A New American Atheists Billboard: You Know They’re All Scams (friendlyatheist.com)
• Blair Scott on Huntsville Atheist Billboard (msatheists.org)
• Reaching Out to Atheists is Mean to Christians (atheistrev.com)

Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war, Mainstream Christians, Media | 4 Comments »

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 the Reverend Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourner’s Magazine. Wallis is known for being the liberal counterpart to James Dobson.

After reading his book, I had a lot of criticisms of it. In fact, I have sort of developed a bit of strong dislike for the man and admit that I love to pick on him whenever the opportunity arises. Last week, the opportunity has arisen.

I went to a dollar store (The Dollar Tree) and found that they were selling the hard cover version of Wallis’s book… for a dollar. As far as books go, hard cover books in the dollar store means only one thing. The book is done. No one is buying it… not even for a dollar. I hope all his books end up at The Dollar Tree.

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• What Progressive Christianity is really about – in their own words! (livingjourney.wordpress.com)
• Jim Wallis: It Takes a Movement: Why a ‘Movement’ Is Necessary — Part 3 (huffingtonpost.com)
• A Christian Who (Almost) Gets It (friendlyatheist.com)

Filed under: Media, Personal, Progressive Christians, Religion | 1 Comment »

Within the last year, many American Muslims have been using the term “Islamaphobia” to describe the fear people have of the Muslim religion. Being labeled an Islamaphobic is generally considered akin to racism. Last year Bill Donahue of the Catholic League coined the term “Catholic-phobia” and in a recent conversation I had with a Christian fundamentalist I was labeled a Christian-phobic.

These are terms used by religious people to avoid honest criticism of their beliefs. Criticizing religious beliefs and the consequences of those beliefs does not make someone a bigot or the religious equivalent of a racist. Many people who do not accept the ridiculous mythologies of these religions are genuinely terrified of religious people’s inability to think critically about their beliefs and the propensity of many religious people toward violence inspired by their irrational and dogmatic beliefs.

These fears are not misplaced. They are actually extremely valid fears in most cases. It is not hard to point out extremely dangerous actions taken by many religious believers both in the past and in the present. While not all religious believers are violent, a large number are either violent or dangerous in other ways. By this I mean that they may push for unjust and immoral laws by vote or by financial advocacy in a non-violent manner. Still, moderate religious believers are in part responsible for creating an atmosphere which discourages critical thinking and reason with concern to religious beliefs and promoting the faith over reason. This creates an atmosphere of irrationality and is an attack on the intellect. It is the chief contributor of the dumbing down of our society.

When we really think about it, we might want to take a cue from the religious and coin terms like, Reason-phobic or Reality-phobic to describe religious people. Beliefs in life-after-death and prayer are unreasonable and are attempts to avoid reality. It sometimes amazes me how even moderate religious believers will jump to the defense of these irrational beliefs. Sometimes they will even attack the scientific method and reason itself in order to defend faith (as seen in the comment section of this article).

Now that 2011 is here, we need to continue the fight against the reality-phobia of the religious. The natural world is nothing to be afraid of. The scientific method helps us to understand the unknown and that makes reality much less scary.

Related articles

• Leaving Religion (dangeroustalk.net)
• Why Religious Believers Are So Desperate for the Atheist Seal of Approval (alternet.org)
• Extinguishing the Fear of Hell (irreligion.org)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, delusion, faith, ignorance | 2 Comments »

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.” About a week ago, Hemant Mehta (The Friendly Atheist) was a guest for two segments of “Bob Enyart Live.” In the first segment he did okay, but the second half-hour he really was getting frustrated and in my opinion got slaughtered. He attributed it to the old bait and switch but the fact is that he did no opposition research. Whenever you go on Christian radio you really have to expect them to be hostile and be pleasantly surprised if they are not. In any case, I was critical of his performance on his blog and so Bob Enyart’s producer checked out Dangerous Talk and asked me if I was interested.

So while I am excited about the exposure, I have little confidence that they will put the show up in full if Bob comes off poorly. So I need someone in Colorado to tape the show for me digitally. If you live in Colorado and can do this, please e-mail me. I have checked out Bob’s website and done some other research into some of his positions. I am not sure exactly what angle I am going to use yet, but I do have some ideas.

The second exciting thing going on in 2011 will be in mid February when Project Reason’s second video contest begins. I am really excited about this because I have come up with a new argument to disprove god… all gods included the vague higher power god. I am really hoping to win this contest with my argument which is less then a minute long.

Entries can be submitted in January, so I will probably submit it toward the end of January and won’t be using it on Bob Enyart’s show. I think I will set the release date at January 28th. Voting begins on February 15th.

I can’t even express how excited I am about this new argument. I have only run it past a few people so far and I think it really is an awesome new argument that actually disproves the God concept.

Sometime in 2011, I am hoping to create a new Billboard campaign here in the Philadelphia area through the Philadelphia Coalition of Reason. The billboard I have planned is similar to the UnitedCoR’s “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone” campaign, but I have spiced it up slightly. I am still in the beginning stages of putting this together, but I am very optimistic and excited about this project.

The last thing that I will talk about today is my excitement over the eminent Rapture. Harold Camping is back again with yet another prediction about the end of the world. This time it is May 21st 2011. He really wants to beat the Mayan’s on this one. I am excited to do something in honor of all these Christians being Raptured from the Earth.

2011 is going to be an exciting year and I want to thank all of the Dangerous Talk supporters and readers for your continued support and readership. The contributions are very important in helping to spread our message and spreading various blog posts and Examiner articles through social networking sites is also very important in literally spreading our message. Thanks,
-Staks

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Filed under: atheism, billboards, conversation, culture war, Disproving God, End of Days, Media, Religion, The Rapture, Vague Higher Power | 3 Comments »

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 off one’s hand if it benefits the soul. The idea is that this life isn’t important and so hurting one self or others is okay as long as it could benefit the soul. Unfortunately, According to Christianity the soul is a pretty frail and is vulnerable to so many really ridiculous things. For instance, working on Saturday is a sin that damages the soul.

Now of course there is no actual soul so none of this really matters, but the problem is that instead of dealing with human health, many Christians seem more concerned with the health of the soul. This is a particular problem when dealing with modern medicine.

As more research is being done on stem cells, we can expect more and more Christians to refuse advanced medical treatments out of a greater concern for their immortal souls.

Related articles

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Filed under: healthcare, Religion, Soul | 2 Comments »

Every year, fundamentalist Christians get upset that Santa is all over the place and Jesus is not represented as much as they think he ought to be. They put up signs that say, “Jesus is the reason for the season” and “Keep the Christ in Christmas.” It is a genuine feud between two imaginary people, sort of like who would win Batman vs. Superman?

Of course, this feud was also the start for South Park which has now been on the air for a billion years. But it started with a short cartoon called, “The spirit of Christmas” in which Jesus and Santa went after each other.

Personally, I love watching Christians fight over their imaginary friends. Personally, I am putting my money on Santa. He has the weight advantage and Jesus already got crucified. Santa is more fun for the kids too. I mean have you ever seen images of Jesus? He is usually mostly naked and being violently tortured. Santa is jolly.

Jesus makes you feel guilty for being human and sends you to Hell to be tortured for all eternity if you don’t worship him. Santa gets you toys. Jesus hangs out with 12 losers while Santa hangs out with fun loving elves, lying reindeer, and Mrs. Claus.

No wonder Christians are upset about Santa Claus, he is so much better than their stupid old Jesus. In a straight up battle between the two Santa Claus wins every time. Ho ho ho, Jesus.

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Filed under: Christmas | 4 Comments »

I love the greater atheist community, but sometimes there are people in our community that are stupid and/or annoying. While these people do make up a very small percentage of our community, they are there and some how I get cornered into talking to them or sitting next to them.

The thing about these annoying atheists is that they ramble on about minor issues that they generally don’t understand. Often times these issues aren’t even on the table at the time. For example, a number of months ago I was at a meeting. The topic being discussed was about the legal issues involved in the separation of church and state and somehow this fellow atheist cornered me to argue about determinism. I wanted to talk to the speaker about church and state issues, but this annoying guy won’t shut up.

Then there is the incident that occurred at the Human Light Luncheon that I mentioned in my Examiner article. Paul Kurtz was speaking about humanism and a positive face for non-theists when this idiot started asking him about cosmology and implied that Stephen Hawking was a Creationist.

While there are idiots in every group and the atheist community certainly has far less than religious groups tend to have, what I find particularly annoying about annoying atheists is that they really think they are super smart. They also tend to miss social cues like when people like me tune them out and try to blow them off.

It seems so hard to believe that at this current point in history that there could be stupid and annoying atheists because it is so hard to escape the indoctrination of religion that one would expect anyone to have achieved this to at least be of above average intellect. But sure enough we get some dumb asses too.

In a way this is humbling. It shows that atheists are just like every other community of people with smart people and stupid people in our ranks.

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Filed under: atheism, Criticism, Personal | 4 Comments »