Disambiguating Faith: Why Faith Is Unethical (Or “In Defense Of The Ethical Obligation To Always Proportion Belief To Evidence”)

A couple of weeks ago, I argued that there was a real distinction between “lacking a belief in any God or gods” on the one hand and “believing there is no God (or gods)” on the other hand.  Primarily I saw the heart of the distinction as resting with the difference between on the one [...]

Penn Jillette On Tolerant Christians, Faith, And Media Bias

From Vanity Fair: I think that said more about the Islamic group that made death threats against Trey and Matt than it does about Comedy Central. I believe very much that the most damning thing you can say about Muslims is that you’re afraid to say anything because they’ll hurt you. As opposed to other [...]

Disambiguating Faith: How A Lack Of Belief In God May Differ From Various Kinds Of Beliefs That Gods Do Not Exist

Yesterday on Friendly Atheist there was a vigorous debate in the comments section about whether there is a real and important difference between claiming one lacks belief in God (or gods) and outright claiming that there is no God (or gods).  Here is a nice formulation of the argument that the distinction is an irrelevant [...]

Of Two Minds About The Existence Of God

Below is a discussion of the phenomenon of split-brain patients who have one half a brain that believes in God and another half that does not, by famed neurologist VS Ramachandran (author of Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers, [...]

Researchers May Have Explanation For Near Death Experiences

That the phenomenon of seeing a bright light before one dies has a brain-based cause is hardly a surprise, but rather the clearly most likely inference.  But it is still wonderful to live in a time at which it may be possible neuroscientifically to ascertain that precise cause and hopefully undermine those who would reinforce [...]

Are Noble Lies “Blasphemous”?

Renegade Roman Catholic Andrew Sullivan is harsh with his condemnation of those who think we should “insincerely support religious faith because it is good for others or for society is”, calling this a “profound blasphemy” and cynical, and saying he respects us atheists and agnostics who outright reject faith more than both those noble lie [...]

More On Pascal’s Wager From Qualia Soup and Theramin Trees

Recently I posted a terrific video challenging the value of Pascal’s Wager  from numerous perspectives.  Qualia Soup and Theramin Trees, the creators of that video, have a new video replying to criticisms they received after posting the first video.  Below is first the original video again for those who missed it (or who saw it [...]

Faith Killings In Oregon

Anderson Cooper reports: Your Thoughts?

If You Know The Bible, You Know It Is Riddled With Clear Contradictions

NonStampCollector provides a hilariously fun, rapid-paced, guide to biblical contradictions through a cartoon quiz show.  This video is, in short, a great resource which every Christian should take to heart and every atheist should memorize and have available for making the case against biblical credibility as in any way divinely guaranteed: Here’s a handy list [...]

The Difference Between Science And Faith In A Convenient Flow Chart

Pedantic Kuhnian quibbles aside, this is the essential difference. Your Thoughts?

Maximal Self-Realization In Self-Obliteration: The Existential Paradox of Heroic Self-Sacrifice

Last summer I wrote a number of posts through which I sought to disambiguate the various senses of the word faith and in the process distinguish the various virtuous ethical and epistemic practices for which faith is typically confused by means of ambiguous equivocations.  I attempted to distinguish the virtues of hope, loyalty, trust, intuitional [...]

Andy Thomson on Why We Believe in Gods

Your Thoughts?

Palin’s Youth

Andrew Sullivan publishes an eerie e-mail from a high school teacher in the midwest about the response of young conservative students to Sarah Palin. My conservative students can’t discuss or write about Palin to my satisfaction. These conservative kids can be intelligently critical of Obama and his policies; of the wars; of Bush and torture [...]

Answering Accusations Against Atheists: The Charge That Atheists Have Faith Too

Chris tosses out his frustrations with activist atheists in reply to my post on Jon Stewart’s views on religion. In a post last night, I rejected his assumption that not liking the tactics or particular arguments that particular atheists use is somehow a reason to reject the essential atheist position that there are no gods. [...]

Sundaily Hilarity: Asking Jesus If He Exists

Your Thoughts?

Ross Douthat Claims Arguments Against Gay Marriage Lose Because They’re Just “Too Abstract”

Ross Douthat half admits to the intellectual bankruptcy of his opposition of to same-sex marriage and then tacitly demonstrates it with his pathetic reply when pushed to address the topic last month at the New School: “I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public.” Mr. Douthat indicated [...]

Religious Logic

via

Is Reason My God 4: On Reason As An Authority

Even though this post is “part 4″ of a reply to the same commentator, it can be understood without reading prior installments.  If you would like to catch up with prior installments nonetheless, here are parts 1, 2, and 3. In reply to this post, Grant writes: Appealing to the authority of reason is the [...]

Is Reason My “God” 2: On Authority, Uncertainty, and Inexplicability

I’ve been remiss lately in replying to interesting reader challenges.  A backlog is growing of remarks I intend to address.  So I decided, in order to get back in the swing of things to quickly reply to this new one I just got.  Grant writes, Seems there are people looking for an authority to believe [...]

Smug Atheists?

Andrew Sullivan, whose blogging I usually admire and emulate a great deal as he’s really my blogging hero, had an astoundingly nasty post about the fact that atheists dared to meet up together to listen to Daniel Dennett mock the emptiness of apophatic theological gobbledygook last weekend. They’re really charming, aren’t they? It is as [...]

Distinguishing The Atheist Agnostic, The Theist Gnostic, The Atheist Gnostic, and The Theist Agnostic

Peter Brietbart defines and schematizes distinctions between different kinds of atheists, theists, agnostics, and gnostics which have been growing in popularity in recent years.  Rather than misleadingly defining atheists as exclusively those who claim to know there are no gods, theists as those who claim to know there is a god (or gods) and agnostics [...]

Personal Tales Of Iraqi Persecution Of Gays

As we’ve highlighted before, in Iraq gays are suffering intense persecution.  New York Magazine has an important 7 page piece.  Here are just some of the key portions: The eruption of violence in February appears to have been an unintended consequence of the country’s broader peace. In the wake of the surge in American troops [...]

Hate?

Your Thoughts?

Iraq Has Become The “Worst Place On Earth For Homosexuals”

Disgusting, deperssing, demoralizing, horrifying, enraging: Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims. “It is the easiest way to find those people who [...]

Camels With Hammers Philosophy

After this introductory paragraph, every sentence in this post will summarize and link a different post expressing my views, primarily on topics related to atheism, philosophy, and ethics—which are the primary preoccupations of this blog. I am organizing all of these links into this one summary statement of “Camels With Hammers’ Philosophy.”  This post will [...]