May 19
If you ask an educated person to name prominent French figures of the Enlightenment, there is a pretty good chance he or she will name Voltaire and/or Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Atheists will likely view these Enlightenment figures positively, especially Voltaire, for laying the foundations for modern secular thought. In this essay, I want to discuss just …
Mar 25
I was interviewed on the most recent episode of the An American Atheist podcast. I discussed my recent article about speaking in tongues as a young kid at a charismatic church camp. You can choose to listen via either of these options: Streaming or iTunes. I come in around the 38:20 mark. Bookmark on Delicious …
Jan 05
The young girl awoke with a start to the sound of desperate bleating. She quickly dressed and ran outside, fearing the worst. The pen which held her sheep—her precious sheep that she cared for daily—was open. Carcasses and blood were everywhere. She had to find her father; he was the only one who could help. …
Nov 03
Skepticon IV will take place November 19 – 20 in Springfield, MO: http://skepticon.org/schedule.php. There are some fairly big names as speakers, including Richard Carrier, PZ Myers, Dan Barker, Hemant Mehta, Eliezer Yudkowsky (nice!), Spencer Greenberg, David Silverman, and many others. The event is billed as the largest conference of its kind in the Midwest. It’s …
Oct 08
A boy of nearly six lay weeping on the side of the road. His father, face down in the mud beside him, had just been slain. He was unable to pay the taxes required by the local governor. He pleaded with the collectors to spare his life, as he had no money with which to …
Sep 23
Christian apologist Stephen Bedard recently made the following claim as part of a broader discussion of evil and the existence of God: If God took away free will for doing evil, he would have to take away the free will to do good. If we are not free to hate, we are not free to …
Sep 19
In Part 1, you hopefully saw that atheism does not need to entail objective morality in order to coherently present the problem of evil. But we were still left with the major question of whether secular morality even makes sense. This is not simply a theistic claim; you will find plenty of atheists that agree. …
Sep 12
Over the past weekend, an alliance of apologetics bloggers decided to tackle the problem of evil and suffering. These were specifically timed to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11; you can find a list of these articles here. I had hoped this group would provide something other than the normal amateurish turnabout, which says, “You …
Sep 07
There is a very interesting post by Kenny Pearce on The Prosblogion called Lawless Events and the Existence of God. He gives two versions of an argument—one inductive and one deductive—for thinking that a God with the traditional attributes would create a world with few lawless events (or none). I’ll only quote Pearce’s inductive version …
Sep 02
The Huffington Post currently has an article describing some controversy over the exclusion of religious clergy/material from the 9/11 memorial service. Bloomberg has pledged to maintain his position despite conservative religious group protests. A spokesperson for the Mayor said, “The ceremony was designed in coordination with 9/11 families with a mixture of readings that are …
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