Dangerous Talk is moving to SkepticInk.com! Don’t worry I am not retiring this site entirely. I will keep DangerousTalk.net up running because I have years of blog posts here that I love. But for the foreseeable future, I will not be posting new content here. The Daily blog will now be part of the Skeptic Ink […]
Filed under: atheism, Personal | 1 Comment »
I am someone who has hope for the future of humanity. I believe that human knowledge and technology are progressing at an ever increasing rate. Just a little over a hundred years ago, the Wright Brothers flew for the first time. Now we can fly around the globe with relative ease. It was only 43 […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Decline of Religion, The Future | 1 Comment »
I discuss religion with a lot of different believers and believe it or not, some of them should actually know better. In fact, I suspect that they kind’a do know better, but are afraid to express their doubts. While some are afraid that their doubt could lead to the eternal torture of their soul, others […]
Filed under: doubt | No Comments »
Many religious believers believe that we not only have an immortal soul, but that this soul is our true self. When we die, we live on as our soul. They often ask in a serious manner, “Where will we be in 1000 years?” Of course the reality is that in 1000 years we will be […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, End of Days, Hope, humanism, Sci-fi, The Future | 3 Comments »
I was watching a short-lived British sci-fi show yesterday and there was a conversation between a religious leader and an atheist. The religious leader asked what the atheist is hopeful toward. What does he have to look forward to? The atheist jokingly said, “Dinner.” Obviously, he was joking because if he were really serious, he […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, death, hell, Purpose, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
I don’t go to atheist conventions or conferences and I have three reasons for that. Two are practical and one is much less so. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad these conferences exist and I don’t want to discourage anyone from going to them. But I won’t be attending. One reason why I don’t […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Coexist, Offensiveness, People of Reason | 17 Comments »
One of the ways religious believers try to sidestep criticism of their ridiculous beliefs is to claim that anyone who has any criticism must “hate God.” The conversation usually goes down like this, “You must hate God and therefore your argument is invalid.” There is actually a logical fallacy for that. When religious believers claim […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, argument, Religion | 1 Comment »
I was having a conversation with my wife the other day about how atheists tend to be less outspoken about our views than religious believers… even very outspoken atheists like me. We both agreed that atheists usually have an internal governor which helps us to determine when it is appropriate to talk about our lack […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, culture war, morality, Preaching | No Comments »
For me, have to admit that it is a guilty pleasure to argue with fundamentalist religious believers in situations when I probably shouldn’t. I try to be good and not to start the discussion, but I admit that sometimes I will passive/aggressively get them to start the discussion. Sometimes however, I try to be good […]
Filed under: argument, atheism, conversation, Personal | 2 Comments »
Religious believers often try to defend the ridiculousness of God’s commands in the Bible by asking me, “Who are you to question God?” Who am I indeed? I think the question I would like them to answer is, “If we don’t question God, who will?” Now of course God is fictional and so it really […]
Filed under: Authority, culture war, god, Judge God, Religion, responsibility, wwjd | 3 Comments »
There are two ways I can go with this blog. First, religious believers often tell me that they know that nothing they say will convert me to their religion of choice and that they know that I have already made up my mind. Second, it bothers me when people take something I said years ago […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Certainty, conversation, culture war, forgiveness, People of Reason | 2 Comments »
Let me get this straight, today is the National Day of Prayer and all Americans are encouraged to ask some magical sky daddy to save the country because our politicians are not up to the task? Okay, where are the adults. I have a better idea; let’s fire those politicians and start coming up with […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, god, miracles, prayer | 1 Comment »
Democrats used to talk about the two Americas, one for the rich and one for the poor. This is certainty true, but there is another set of two Americas developing. With relation to the rule of law, there is one set of laws for the religious and another set for everyone else. Religious groups have […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Evils of Christianity, Law | No Comments »
Over the weekend, I finally got to watch the film “The Hunger Games.” Don’t worry I don’t think I will say anything that would be considered a spoiler. There was one part early in the movie that I thought Christians might claim as proof that the film has Christian themes in it. After watching the […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, blood sacrifice, culture war, The Hunger Games | 2 Comments »
Yesterday, I posted a status update on facebook and one of the comments that was left was from a friend of a friend. It was overly religious and basically said that someday I will be tortured for all eternity, but that as a Christian they wouldn’t say, ‘I told you so’ but instead say, ‘ha […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Evils of Christianity, facebook, Personal Experience, torture | 5 Comments »
One of the things I struggle with in the Philly area is whether or not to wear atheist themed shirts in public. I usually don’t unless I am going to an atheist meeting or event. I do have a few shirts that are atheism-lite in that they advocate for secular values but are not obviously […]
Filed under: Reason Rally | 5 Comments »
I don’t believe in original sin. As a result, I don’t treat people as if they are evil sinners right from the start. Instead, I am a Humanist and so I treat people as if they are trying to be the hero in their own story. I generally give people the benefit of the doubt […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, anti-intellectualism, atheism, humanism, morality | 2 Comments »
If you ever go into a Christian bookstore or read a Christian newspaper (yes, they do exist), it is generally filled with testimonial stories about how great their God is. But don’t Christians already know how great their God is? If they didn’t, they probably wouldn’t be Christians, right? So what’s the point of these […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
The audience of Dangerous Talk is almost always my fellow atheists with the occasional Christian or other fundamentalist believer. My Examiner articles get a more diverse mix of people. Religious believers often read and comment on my articles there. But I want to reach out to more religious believers than I get through Examiner. For […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, Coexist, conversation, culture war, humanism, journalism, People of Reason, Personal, Progressive Christians | No Comments »
When we talk about atheism, we are talking about a lack of belief in a god or gods. But not all atheists are the same. Duh, right. Not all Christians are the same, so why would anyone expect all atheists to be the same. All the term “atheism” tells you about someone is that they […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Certainty, culture war | No Comments »
I’m guilty of this too, but atheists show too much restraint and respect for other people’s beliefs even the ridiculous literal beliefs of fundamentalist believers. Over the weekend, I was at a party that a fellow atheist was hosting. Knowing that my friend has some very religious family members, I pulled him over and asked […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, conversation, delusion, discrimination, humanism, People of Reason, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
Over the last few years, atheists have been putting up billboards, bus ads, and even aerial banners. Most of these have been pretty tame by any standard and if you compare them to the billboards of the religious, they are extremely tame. Yet, despite this obvious fact, we get criticism for “pushing our beliefs…” or […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, billboards, Coexist, culture war, free speech, Media, Preaching, Religion | 6 Comments »
You know religious believers are living in a delusional world when they actively try to convince atheists that atheism is a religion, but that Christianity isn’t. As ridiculous as such a belief sounds, we hear such nonsense from religious believers all the time, but rarely at the same time. First, there is the claim that […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Belief, delusion, god the father, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 6 Comments »
Whenever an atheist is interviewed on the news or on some talk show, the host always makes a point to say that the atheist is “self-professed.” They never do this for Christians, Jews, Muslims, or any religious figure. They don’t say, “Here is self-professed Catholic priest…” Why not? I think when they add, “self-professed” in […]
Filed under: atheism, Media | 8 Comments »
