Arizona Atheist: The Truth Behind the New Atheism: A Refutation

Since David Marshall comments here perhaps he'd like to discuss a review of his book here too.

Link.

Johann Hari: "Christianity Has Lost the Argument...It Will Go Into the Dustbin of History"

These are clips from the BBC documentary "Does Christianity Have a Future?" The full 60 minute documentary can be found here.

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science, by Chris Mooney

We're not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.

In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we're being scientists, but we're actually being lawyers (PDF). Our "reasoning" is a means to a predetermined end—winning our "case"—and is shot through with biases. They include "confirmation bias," in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and "disconfirmation bias," in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial. Link.

Review of The Belief Instinct, by Jesse Bering

Lady Atheist reviews this book by Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct. Looks really good.

On God Answering Prayers Retroactively

Christians like C.S. Lewis and recently William A. Dembski in his book The End of Christianity, claim God can answer prayers retroactively. Kevin Timpe explains by saying "past directed prayers, as I understand them, are requests for God to have done something at a time prior to the time of the prayer." And he argues like Lewis and Dembski that God does in fact answer these prayers on most accounts of God's foreknowledge. ["Prayers for the Past" Religious Studies (2005) 41, 305–322]. This raises some interesting problems and allows me to propose a scientific test for prayer.

The Rest of the Story

Here is an excerpt from my book, Why I Became An Atheist: Personal Reflections and Additional Arguments:

I'll Be in Denver On April 29th

Link. I hope some of you can come out. Dr. Douglas Groothuis and I will dialog about my talk afterward. My friend Doug is a Christian apologist who has written or edited the following books: Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, Unmasking the New Age, and In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment.

Nine Best Atheism Books of the 21st Century

Far be it for me to toot my own horn, but...this list on Amazon is exciting to me, especially when compared to the other books on the list. ;-)

Bill Craig Answers My Question

Remember what I asked? Here is his answer just after answering a previous one:

Why I Think The Rapture Madness is Indeed Madness

[Written by John Loftus] Below is a video where sincere believers describe what they think will happen in the future:

End of the World Predictions are a Dime a Dozen

You can see how many end time predictions there have been year by year. Just pick a year to learn who thought the world would end. Hat Tip Unreasonable Faith.

The "Need to Belong" Drives Belief in God

Yep, that's right.

Nothing More To Talk About, by TheThinkingAtheist

Mano Singham on the Ought-Is Fallacy

Most people understand that we cannot usually infer ought from is. But what religious people like Craig seem to be doing is committing the even worse offense of what one might call the 'ought-is fallacy', where because they think that we need an objective morality in order to keep our barbaric impulses under control, therefore it must exist. And since they also think that only a god can supply such a morality, therefore a god must exist also.

No.

Believers in god have to first establish using empirical evidence that god exists before they can use god in arguments about morality or anything else. You cannot argue for the existence of god on the basis of some property that you arbitrarily assert must exist (for whatever reason) and that could have only come from god. Link.

Quote of the Day, by GearHedEd

Science doesn't kill people; people kill people. Religion doesn't kill people either, but it does tell you WHY you should...

A Question in the Aftermath of the Craig/Harris Debate

Bill takes Q & A's on his website so I just submitted this one:

Bill, in your debate with Sam Harris you claimed God was the grounding of objective morality. That word "God" is problematic though. Until that word is defined, or until you tell us how we know what this "God" wants us to do, or what it is, what you end up saying is that there is an objective grounding to morality, and that's it. But then Sam Harris agreed with you on that score.

What do you say to someone who claims this debate was just about semantics, that is, you both agreed there was an objective grounding to morality, but that the real debate concerned how you each defined the word "God"? Sam does not like that word, nor does he use it, and he would vehemently deny that the word applies to his grounding for morality. But what would you say to the objection that the debate was about what that word means, and you never told us anything about this "God" or how we know what "God" wants us to do, or what it is, so all you argued is that there is an objective grounding to morality, and that's it, in agreement with Harris. And since Harris attacked your notion of God repeatedly he won that debate.

Think he will answer it?

Goodness Without God is Good Enough: William Lane Craig vs Paul Kurtz

This debate took place in 2001. Bill Craig has been debating this topic for a long time. Link. A book came out in 2009 with a transcript of this debate along with other essays: Is Goodness without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics.Check it out. I am.

Jerry Coyne on Scientism: Are Scientists Arrogant?

See what you think. Hint: Not at all!

Chris Hallquist's Review of the Harris/Craig Debate

Link. In it are links to still other reviews.

Advocatus Atheist: on the Harris/Craig Debate and On Debates in General

Link.

Patricia Churchland's Gifford Lecture - Morality and the Mammalian Brain

Watch the YouTube video below;

William Lane Craig and the Ontological Foundation of Morality

Since Craig made a big deal of this in his debate with Sam Harris, here is Wes Morriston's critique of it. Link. Here's a quote:

Either God has good reasons for his commands or he does not. If he does, then those reasons (and not God's commands) are the ultimate ground of moral obligation. If he does not have good reasons, then his commands are completely arbitrary and may be disregarded. Either way, the divine command theory is false.

History Channel's Mini Series "The Bible" Produced by Mark Burnett Roma Downey is Propaganda and Flat Out Wrong

Biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou argues that God had a wife - and that her existence was covered up. Make time for this. It is excellent. Must see TV.



You can watch parts 2-4 below.

William Lane Craig's Post-Harris Debate Impressions on Facebook

Here are his comments from Facebook:

It was wonderful being back on the Notre Dame campus again. Even though I am not a Catholic, I felt very much on the home court here and sensed the support of the Christian community. Many have remarked on the terribly low quality of the questions following the debate. What you need to understand is that the audience was loaded with people from the community who are part of the local sceptics group. Last year they also dominated the mikes, with the same intellectually dampening effect. Here's an amusing anecdote we received prior to the debate:

Quote of the Day, By articulett

I think about my believing years, and it would have done me some good to hear people like Harris--or any smart person treating religious beliefs like the crazy delusions they are. When you treat these things with respect, then trusting people assume that there's something worthy of respect there-- that faith is something to be respected. I bet I would have found former preachers and priests turned atheists fascinating-- and there's growing numbers of them.

I'm glad we don't have to tiptoe around peoples' magical beliefs any more. I think there is a lot to be said for declaring the emperor naked. Of course believers will rush and swear that the emperor is wearing magical robes and that they saw them and that the silly person calling the emperor naked doesn't know anything deep about magical fabrics-- but the seeds of doubt will be planted in young minds and they will have a choice that many of us didn't have until later in life.

I do think that religion will mostly be associated with the less educated classes and the poorer in the future. One day people will wonder how it is that people could have ever really believed such crazy things.