On Rejecting Faith in Morality

September 16, 2011 By 1 Comment

Update: Joel Marks has replied to this post and to my first follow up post.  I have reedited this post to incorporate his remarks at the end. Joel Marks is at the Center for Bioethics at Yale University and is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven. Though writing on ethics throughout [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Personal, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Skepticism, Skepticism 1 Comment

Believing Too Little Is As Bad As Believing Too Much

September 6, 2011 By 5 Comments

When formulating principles and practices for forming good beliefs and avoiding bad beliefs, the first thing we must keep in mind is that consciously affirming a belief, consciously affirming a disbelief, deliberately avoiding believing or disbelieving are all actions. When we choose our standards for what propositions count as worthy of our belief, our disbelief, or [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Philosophy, Probability, Skepticism, Skepticism, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , 5 Comments

"Typing in Tongues"

September 1, 2011 By 20 Comments

Televangelist Juanita Bynum is on the cutting edge of religulousness:

Filed Under: Christianity, Christianity, Religulous, Religulous, Skepticism, Skepticism Tagged With: , , 20 Comments

Addressing Skepticism About Atheism's Value To Skepticism

August 31, 2011 By 2 Comments

In reply to my post last week about why atheism is important to advancing proper skepticism, Armchair Skeptic writes: You touch on some good points here. It would help, I think, if you start by defining what you consider to be “proper” skepticism; I didn’t really get a clear understanding of that from this post. [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Faith, Faith, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Rationalism, Religion, Skepticism, Skepticism 2 Comments

"And There Are No Christians In Med School"

August 30, 2011 By 5 Comments

I have an idea. In the future whenever you hear someone falsely say that there are no atheists in foxholes, don’t disagree with them. Don’t point out to them that this insults the bravery of countless non-theist soldiers by implying that without belief in God and an afterlife no one would ever courageously put his [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Divine Intervention, Divine Intervention, Examining Conceptions of God's Attributes, Goodness, Knowability, and Existence, Faith, Faith, God, God, Jesus, Jesus, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Prayer, Prayer, Problem of Evil, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Skepticism, Skepticism 5 Comments

Call Me A Freethinker

August 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

All week, Eric and I have been volleying back and forth about the proper places of skepticism, on the one hand, and metaphysics, on the other, in an atheist worldview and self-presentation. I have argued that placing an emphasis on an evolutionary metaphysics as the primary identifier of an atheist worldview would be perceived as [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Faith, Featured, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Secularism, Skepticism, Skepticism Leave a Comment

Disambiguating Faith: How Faith Poisons Religion

August 4, 2011 By 8 Comments

There are many wonderful parts of life that billions of people experience through a religious framework, at least partially to their benefit. Spiritual experiences mean a lot to many people and many people interpret their spiritual experience within the symbols, concepts, rituals, metaphysics, and community of their religious group. Rituals enrich people’s lives by giving [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Faith, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Skepticism, Skepticism 8 Comments

On the Rapture

May 20, 2011 By 3 Comments

The rapture isn’t going to happen on 21 May 2011. And that implies an ordered series of disconfirmations: (1) Harold Camping is wrong about the Bible; (2) his way of reading the Bible (that is, Biblical numerology) does not reveal anything trans-scientific about the future; (3) evangelical ways of reading the Bible reveal nothing trans-scientific [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Culture, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Philosophy of Science, Probability, Pseudoscience, Rationalism, Religion and Science, Skepticism 3 Comments

Bill Maher’s Challenge To Those Expecting Jesus To Return May 21

May 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Bill Maher, Bill Maher, Christianity, Christianity, Religulous, Religulous, Skepticism, Skepticism Leave a Comment

Johnson & Johnson Comes Out As Pro-Superstition?

May 4, 2011 By 12 Comments

In a bafflingly stupid and irritating new ad, Johnson & Johnson make the case that part of the special “human” touch that nurses add to the care of patients is their willingness to employ superstitious techniques to help them: Yes, superstitiousness is very human, but that’s to our embarrassment, it’s not a sign of our [...]

Filed Under: Skepticism, Skepticism 12 Comments