If you are an atheist in Texas, you can never be bored. There is always something interesting going on. Our Governor, Rick Perry, has declared that August 6 will be a day of "prayer and fasting" with a big prayer meeting at the Houston Reliant Center. Now, from what I see on TV, several days of fasting might be good for some of the governor's "bigger" supporters. The prayer stuff though is a bit more dubious. The prayer meeting will be paid for by something called the American Family … [Read more...]

An interview with me is appearing today on the "Think Atheist" radio show. They tell me that "The show will air at 5PM Pacific/8PM Eastern but then be available to stream from our archive immediately after it concludes." … [Read more...]

I'm not always comfortable being publicly identified as an atheist.The label is accurate enough; I don't think that any God or other supernatural entities exist. But the word "atheist" has other connotations as well, and I don't always want to take them on board or fight against them.For example, in a piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education that quotes me, there is this paragraph:Now, the deeper question may be whether science can ever flourish in Muslim countries without complete … [Read more...]

John Loftus' latest anthology, The End of Christianity has been printed by Prometheus and is now being distributed. I have an essay in the book titled "Hell: Christianity's Most Damnable Doctrine." (BTW, John and Victor Reppert are having a knock-down-drag-out squabble on their respective blogs--Debunking Christianity and Dangerous Idea--about what John calls 'the outsider test of faith.' The imbroglio now seems to be generating rather more heat than light.) I really enjoyed doing the piece on … [Read more...]

We usually debate weighty issues on SO, but I thought I would offer something a bit lighter. For fun I am writing a memoir (I was inspired by Bill Bryson's Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid) of growing up in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia in the '50's and early 60's. These are my religious reminiscences. Names have been changed. Mom and Dad were both practicing Christians. Grace was said before every meal. Mom read us Bible stories at bedtime. We were church members and regular attendees. … [Read more...]

I'm going to make two objections to standard justifications of the correct answer to the Monty Hall problem. The conclusion to an unsound argument can still be true, so if I'm successful at showing that there is a problem with the reasoning supporting the accepted answer to the problem, this will not show that the accepted answer is false, just that the justification of the answer is faulty.At a high level, the two objections are that the standard justification (1) begs the question, and (2) … [Read more...]

These probability tree diagrams represent a standard line of reasoning in support of the 'correct' answer to the Monty Hall problem. … [Read more...]

A student I ran into recently told me that I, along with his roommate, was the reason he became an atheist. Apparently when in a questioning period, he went to a panel discussion on campus where I represented a godless infidel perspective, and this helped tip the balance.Now, I don't want to exaggerate my influence, though everyone who teaches is gratified when occasionally a student gets something deeper from what we do than just a passing grade. I'm sure his roommate and other peers have had a … [Read more...]