David Marshall continually says I must read up on world religions and the history of religions. But why? It's because he thinks it will help me to believe. So David, I'll grant that you have read more world literature than I have and that you have the benefit of world travel. But I think the brain is such that if I had your experiences and read only the works you have, I would agree with you and think like you. Our brains are like that. So in order to think like you I must be more like you (which also includes IQ, gender, race, sexuality, place and time of birth, and so forth--do you know that sociologists can identify different ideas held by people born in America during the 20's vs the 30's vs the 40's vs the 50's and so on?). BUT I AM NOT YOU! Nor can I ever be. The same thing goes in reverse for you. If you had my experiences and read only the works I have, you would agree with me and think like me. That is probably the major reason why I am a skeptic, because of this propensity of ours to believe and defend a host of ideas just because we were exposed to them, which is as obvious of an empirical fact as we can get. It's overwhelming that our respective cultures influence us, since that's what we're talking about. Just take four babies and raise one in China the other in Saudi Arabia the third in Kentucky and the fourth in Russia and you will see clearly how cultures influence us all. And it’s never more pronounced than when it comes to religion. Knowing this I must reject faith based reasoning of any kind. Knowing this I am skeptical of ideas that do not have sufficient evidence for them. Knowing this I try as best as I possibly can to only accept science based reasoning. Science is the only hope out of this epistemological morass. How can you possibly counter this? How can any believer counter this? Believers can only do so out of ignorance, pure ignorance, willful ignorance, a head-in-the-sand type of fear based ignorance.
The topic was
How Should Atheists Talk about Religion? Beginning around -42:11 PZ Myers has a string of invectives against faith. I'd like it if someone would type them out for us, as well as any other pithy comments of his (or Epstein's) in this lively debate. Myers is spot on about faith.
Why can't Christians agree? The following is from an older email exchange Dan and I had.
I recently saw a church sign that said, "Feed your faith and it will starve your doubts."
Take a look. Care to add your own?
Rauser is among the best Christian theologian/philosophers. He has a Ph.D. whereas I don't. He's written a few scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals. He's also written books for Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press, and Paternoster Press. But when it comes to faith and probability he stumbles badly. Perhaps he can edumacate us, but something is clearly amiss when he argues for faith against the probabilities and I think I can show this in a short reply.
Why should anyone who rejects Christianity adopt the Christian definition of faith? We think it's not what Christian believers do in practice, and it does nothing to actually define the word faith because other religious faiths should be included when defining faith, otherwise Christians have a private language game unrelated to how anyone else uses the word. Words are about concepts. If the Christian wants to maintain such a concept and call it faith that is their privilege. But it's delusional.
Christian theists make two claims about faith: 1) That atheists define the concept of faith wrong, and 2) That atheists have faith just like Christian theists do. So here's my challenge: Define faith in such a way that it fulfills both requirements!
Yep, that's right. What's all the hullabaloo about? Christians themselves agree with skeptics:
No. All Christians have is ancient testimony which is the same evidence as those who claim Mohammed flew through the night, or that Balaam's ass talked, or that Jonah was swallowed by a great mythical fish, or that an axehead floated, or that a pillar of fire directed the Israelites by night, or that the Red Sea parted, or that the pool of Siloam healed people, and so on. But ancient testimony ain't worth *shit* when it comes to any of these things. It doesn't matter how believers dress them up either. ;-)
After polling my readers it looks like I'm over-shooting my target audience, or something. My target audience is the college student, the educated person in the pew, the Pastor, and even the Bible College instructor. I try to bring the arguments of the scholars down to their level.
But it looks like I have the attention of the scholars too. ;-)
Hey, listen in at about 2:45. ;-)
Let’s say a recognized expert on cats claims one of them talked. People do not have to be experts in cats to say they need to see the evidence. Nor do any of us need a theory of knowledge to doubt it. But if you believed the cat talked you would. You'd have to come up with a whole lot of intellectual gymnastics in order to make such a claim seem respectable to others. Lesson: It does not require understanding a whole lot of epistemology or sophisticated theology to doubt the existence of God either. In fact, even a child can do it.
The bible is history? So a snake really talked? And god turned a woman into a pillar of salt? And appeared as a burning bush? And carved commandments on breakable stones? And sent "she-bears" to maul 42 kids for calling a guy bald? (defying the laws of the physical universe) And this god magically impregnated a virgin to become his own son? And temporarily died? And then became a sort of zombie? And then whisked off to heaven? And now sits in judgement of everyone in trinity fashion (whatever that means)? Really? Who knew? Or is just some of that historical? How do you know which magic is the "true woo"? If you don't believe that the bible is history does the god of the bible punish you for all eternity?
EricRC is Ph.D. student majoring in philosophy, and I take it a Roman Catholic (hence RC). He's one of the most intelligent and respectful commenters to hang out in these halls, that is, unless he perceives utter ignorance or is personally attacked, which sounds just like me. As a Christian intellectual he recommends my work on this blog:
Christians think they are being rational and logical. But when they try to rationalize their faith based on evidence, they tend to resort to what is "possible", and then claim that they have won the argument because something is merely "posslble". Short of providing real evidence for the existence of the Christian God, they dive into philosophy, in order to somehow logically prove the necessity of the existence of god. To me, however this is no different than mental gymnastics, resulting in endless rabbit trails around epistemology, metaphysics and ontology. It is, simply, making stuff up.
Skeptics define "faith" differently than believers. It's hard to find a middle ground between us because we see faith differently. Here are a few skeptical definitions of faith:
You can quote me on this. Probability is all that matters. Faith is irrational. I want to drive this point into the ground once and for all.
The problem is that practically nothing is certain. So the word "faith" is used to describe any conclusion of ours that leaves room for doubt. Is it possible I'm dreaming right now? I suppose that's an extremely remote possibility. Is it possible a material world does not exist? I suppose that's an extremely remote possibility too. Is it possible a good omnipotent God exists given the world-wide massive and ubiquitous suffering in it? Again, I suppose that's an extremely remote possibility.
So what? Probability is all that matters. Accepting some conclusion because it's merely possible is irrational. We should never ever do that.
I'm just relaxing a bit, taking a small break. I'm wondering if I have anything more to say that I haven't said before. I can revisit my arguments, review another book, link to a new site, do another podcast interview or other such things. But what additional things can I say if what I've already said doesn't change the minds of many believers? Most of them won't be able to even consider their faith is a delusion until they face a personal crisis. That's the power of the delusion. A crisis can and will force them to do what they should've been doing all along, critically examining their faith as outsiders. All I have to do is wait. ;-)
Religious diversity is one of the main reasons why there is moral diversity (next to gender, race, age, economic, and national differences). Religious diversity ultimately stands in the way of a healthy world society by pitting various religious groups against each other, each one claiming the exclusive privilege of possessing the divine moral truth.
I have run across not a few evangelical Christian apologists who have argued that their religion is "superior" because Jesus preached the Golden Rule, "All things therefore that you want people to DO to you, DO thus to them" (Matthew 7:12), while other ancient teachers merely taught the negative version of that rule: "Do NOT do unto others what you would NOT like done to yourself."
Psychoanalysis is a common method for delegitimizing atheists. For example, Paul Vitz's Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism (2000) tries to show that atheism correlates with absent fathers. Jim Spiegel, a professor at Taylor University, gives us his psychoanalytic theory of atheism in the title of his book, The Making of An Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief (2010).
Aside from offering poor and arbitrary evidence, this type of psychoanalysis also deflects attention from the merits of any case that atheists themselves express for their views. So, instead of actually listening to reasons atheists give, it is enough for such theists to couch their explanations for atheism in psychoanalytic jargon that features anger, bitterness, and immorality.
Christianity has always changed like a chameleon to its culture and times. It's emphatically NOT the case that the Christianity of the 1st or 2nd centuries has survived. The heresy of a previous generation just becomes the orthodoxy of the next one. Subsequent generations develop an amnesia about what Christianity used to be. That's it. The conservatives in one generation become the moderates in the next one who become the liberals in the following one. In each of these subsequent generations conservatives who object to this trend start their own churches, publishing houses and seminaries. Then these new churches, publishing houses and seminaries follow the same trend. And as they do, conservatives break off again and the trend starts all over. Do you want to know the Christianity of the future in America? I suspect it might look more like the inclusivist/universalism of Rob Bell along with the pop-psychology gospel of Joel Olsteen.
On the back cover I have a blurb that reads: 
eds., Carson Weitnauer and Tom Gilson. The reason I was interested in looking at it was because David Marshall has a chapter in it on my 
This reminds me of Helen Fisher's TED talk on 