I recently wrote a post (“The Perils of Decentralized Philosophy“) as a response to Friendly Atheist Hermant Mehta’s attempt to limit the definition of humanism to exclude the gunman who attacked a school board. I argued that atheists and humanists were hurt by a lack of community or sense of responsibility for other people who shared their beliefs. Commenter March Hare took issue with my argument, saying: There is no need for atheists to band together in that way. It’s... Read more
This post is one in a series responding to Michael Egnor’s challenge to New Atheists to explain what they believe. And yes, I’m slipping the last answer in right before the year ends. Edited to add: WHOOPS! I have two questions left. One on Aristotle’s four causes and one on subjective vs. objective experience. Ah well. there goes my feeling of accomplishment.) For his question on moral law, Egnor set up his prompt as a dichotomy: Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is... Read more
Happy New Year’s Eve! I’ll still have a couple of posts going up this weekend, and, on Monday, I’ll be debuting the guest bloggers who will be fleshing out their disagreement on the prospect of discerning purpose in nature. I started this blog over the summer as a way to try to clarify my thoughts on religion and morality, especially after I started reading Christian apologetics and attending Mass with my Catholic boyfriend. One hundred and fifty posts later, we’re still surprised... Read more
But it’s a good primer in some of the most common mistakes from people who are semi-literate in the relevant sciences, so I’m going to go through the problems from a recent post (“Less Mature by Age“) by Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias. The Background Data: Hanson found an article from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that suggested that, although there is an overall positive correlation between age and psychosocial maturity, this trend reverses during the teenage years.... Read more
Two exciting new developments for this interholiday week: Early on in the Eight Questions series, three commenters got into a long, detailed arguments about why there is regularity or law in nature and how well equipped humans are to detect order in the first place. They’re at 91 comments and counting, but I imagine the discussion slipped off the radar of most readers. Therefore, after January first, I’ll be kicking off the new year with guest posts from Eli, Lukas, and possibly... Read more
I was going to post Tim Minchin’s “White Wine in the Sun” for Christmas but I was a little abashed after reading No Forbidden Questions prediction that the song would show up on every atheist blog today. It is a lovely song about a secular holiday, so feel free to click the link above or watch the video on any other atheist blog. But, as a bonus, I’ll link you to a video at the New York Times that tells a... Read more
My family’s other Christmas Eve tradition is a reading of David Sedaris’s The Santaland Diaries. Sedaris is now a well-known comic essayist, but before he was published, he supported himself through a variety of odd jobs, including working as an elf in Macy’s Santaland. The story is a series of funny vignettes from his term of employment. Some of them made their debut in 1992 on NPR. You can still listen to the original broadcast. When we go through... Read more
My family may be entirely composed of atheists, but we do have some important Christmas traditions (even beyond Chinese food on Christmas day). On Christmas Eve, we watch The Muppet Christmas Carol. It is the best Christmas Carol on film (it has Michael Caine as Scrooge) and I will fight anyone who says different. The movie is narrated by Gonzo, playing Charles Dickens. I’ve scheduled this to post in the morning, before I get up, so you’ll have time to... Read more
Some time ago, prominent atheist (and ex-Christian minister) John Loftus and I had a bit of a disagreement about the best way to debate Christians. Loftus said then that critics should wait to draw conclusions until he had the full list of questions posted. They’re up. I’ve posted the list below with some comments interpolated in bold. If you want me to expand on one, say so in the comments, but I can only comment to a point, since I... Read more
Last week, a gunman opened fire during a school board meeting in Florida. Luckily no one was hurt, but, naturally, the story got a lot of press coverage. Although the crime had no religious component or motive, as far as anyone could tell, some news outlets reported on his religious views according to facebook: humanism. Hermant Mehta, of Friendly Atheist, took umbrage: Clay Duke was obviously not a Humanist — Humanists are not violent people. The Humanist Manifesto III states:... Read more
Unequally Yoked
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