Will Burqa Bans Around Europe Lead To Stricter Restrictions On Muslim’s Expression?

An Australian report talking to mostly Muslim women in the first part: In the second video, we have a Muslim cleric claiming that bestiality is legal in America in 28 states, saying that Muslims are “superior beings” to non-Muslims, and that it is just for adulterers to be stoned: Your Thoughts?

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Jared Diamond On The Evolution Of Religions

Jared Diamond, the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates Of Human Societies on the evolution of religion: Your Thoughts?

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If These Are God’s Miracles, Where Are His Priorities?

Brand new from ZJ:  The French have a spring that is alleged to perform miracles.  ZJ reasons that even if it did perform miracles it wouldn’t speak much of the deity behind them: Mr. Deity on the other hand seems to understand these criticisms and that’s why he never intervenes: Your Thoughts?

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Christians and Muslims Assess their Holy Books Differently: a Polemic

Hi! I’m Sendai Anonymous. Recently, Daniel and I have been having a bit of a back and forth about Christianity and Islam, and the way the believers choose to interpret their holy books here, and I thought it’d be best if I briefly summarised my views, too. In his post, Daniel writes that Islam is, […]

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A Creation Petting Zoo?

Keeping up with the amusement church theme found on the rest of the grounds, Profit Prophet Ham has a lovely little petting zoo, perhaps one of the two interactive exhibits available to catch the attention of children.

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Are Atheists An Oppressed Minority?

Having gone to high school as a devout Evangelical Christian in a public high school on Long Island, this video is somewhat surreal to me.  A world where everybody prays and atheists are shunned and harrassed?  I would never have believed it in high school.  But the truth is that both committed religious people and […]

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Richard Feynman

Interesting discussion on what sorts of “big questions” physics wants to answer, from Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman, found on Pharyngula:

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“God Hates The World” By The Westboro Baptist Church ft. Johnny B.

This is wildly creepy and disturbing.  Watch to the end.

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Moral Integration, or the Pros and Cons of Moral Absolutism and Ethical Pluralism

Aaron writes this wonderfully thought provoking reply to my post about moral motivation apart from reference to God: I had an argument a few years back with someone over this. She thought I’d go to hell for not believing in Jesus, even thought she thought I was a great person. I found that troubling. It […]

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A Muslim Woman Against the Burqa

From Feministing, worth reading in full: But then the argument goes: surely for the women who choose to wear the burqa, the garment is a choice not a tool for suppression. This argument obscures the fact that there is a pervasive, sexist propaganda in many Muslim communities in favor of the burqa. Many women are […]

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The Burqa Debate In Britain

In the initial post in this series, I raised for discussion the news story about Sarkozy advocating that France ban burqas in public and sketched out some very powerful and influential views from Jonathan Haidt on moral psychology, and gave a brief analysis of Haidt’s views in terms of my developing take on metaethics (which […]

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Commitment To Value Without God

After I made this post replying to Jon Stewart’s and Daniel Florien’s remarks about the value of faith, I copied my remarks and posted them to the website Unreasonable Faith where Florien’s remarks had been found.  In reply to my comment another poster asked us non-believers there what motivates our morality since, having grown up […]

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Palin As Paradigmatic Fundamentalist and Why I Turned Against Faith

A reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog brilliantly connects the dots: Part of Sarah Palin’s irresistible appeal to her fundamentalist base is her ability to look at the camera with utter conviction and declare black to be white. The ability to lie well is a valuable part of the fundamentalist psychology. My son isn’t gay, he […]

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Joe The Plumber Won’t Run For Office

Thank God: Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, “I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, ‘No.’” “I believe he’s gotten me on this grassroots movement. If I can encourage leaders to step up, that’s what I would like to do. That’s […]

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Jon Stewart Against Dogma and Extremism But Not “Religion”

Jon Stewart: Religion makes sense to me. I have trouble with dogma more than I have trouble with religion. I think the best thing religion does is give people a sense of place, purpose, and compassion. My quibble with it is when it’s described as the only way to have those things instilled. You can […]

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Not Everything Is Scientifically Explicable, But

in the interview I rather specifically said there were phenomena for which science is not the best tool for examination (although I would also say that there are no phenomena which require something beyond natural mechanisms). Well put, Professor Myers. Click here for the atheist biologist and blogger extraordinaire’s visit to debate religious scientist Dennis […]

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If Faith Isn’t Publicly Justifiable, How Can It Provide Justification At All?

Chris’s reply to part 2 of my series of objections to religious moderates and intellectuals: For the purposes of this post, I will identify two claims which many Christians accept (and which I understand you do not): (1) that the central claims of Christianity are true, and (2) that faith, properly understood, is a justified […]

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The Case Against Being “Spiritual But Not Religious”

Greta Christina on the claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” I’m not sure I agree in all the particulars about which is worse, but she makes a developed argument, worth reading in full.  Here are just two key sections. When I’m in a less generous mood, though, I see this trope as totally smug […]

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Daily Hilarity: “The Reason For Everything and the Purpose of Life”

Bill Maher reads from Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life for an encore… “Rick Warren, he knows God–Knows him? He talks about him like they were in the Rat Pack together”

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Free Speech is Sacred

Old news from when I was not blogging that I want to make sure I have a post which is a resource on this topic. Lou Dobbs and Christopher Hitchens with invaluable report on UN Resolution And for more about the issue of the Orwellian UN resolution against “defamation of religion,” these two articles by […]

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“You’re An Atheist Because You Want To Sin”

Austin Cline has a really nice reply that points out the unintelligibility of this old ad hominem: It is simply nonsensical to insist that people don’t believe in some particular god simply because they don’t want to be held accountable to that god. Do Christians disbelieve in Zeus because they don’t want to be held […]

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Sincerity, Hypocrisy, and Mark Sanford

I loathe witch hunts over people’s personal lives.  What interests me are some observations on sincerity and hypocrisy which seem apparent to me watching the bizarrely unself-aware and narcissistic way that Sanford has acted as though he is a character in the Bible or some other morality tale in which he is the star. I […]

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Palin As Your Heavenly Father

I don’t think anything could say God-complex any clearer than this: When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

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Against Faith and In Defense of Naturalism and Induction

It should not be necessary for understanding this post, but in case you’d like to catch up on the full debate with Camels With Hammer Reader/Debate Spar Extraordinaire Shane leading up to this post, here are the previous installments: Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellecuals 1 Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals 2 Objections to […]

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Daily Hilarity: “Possession”

Legal blogger Eugene Volokh writes the following about the attempt to rid a teenage boy of a “homosexual demon” “Come on You Homosexual Demon”: That’s a line from an apparent “gay exorcism,” according to ABC News. The article saus that “Robin McHaelen, executive director of the Manchester-Conn., True Colors,” “a nonprofit group for gay and […]

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