One of the most commonly held debates between non-believers is that of whether someone is agnostic or atheist. The problem is that both terms have, in addition to their various, actual definitions, a number of associations that go along with them, and this generally injects confusion into the discussions. What I wanted to do then was build a…

Moderate Christians love to talk about how Jesus fixed the Old Testament, or, in other words, obsoleted the horribly offensive parts about slavery, keeping women in their place, killing gays, etc. In fact, he did no such thing. I’ll be doing two things here: Show you that Jesus fully supported everything in the Old Testament Show you exactly…

First, watch the talk. Believe me–it’s worth it. Now, I think the talk is brilliant, and I think he makes a strong point that would stand strongly in almost any other time and place. But we are here instead. I feel that the biggest problem logic has is not having enough moderates on its side to fight against…

I just had a possibly interesting idea: what is it that makes it possible for religious people to look at a image on TV of starving people dying in Africa and say, Well, that’s what happens when you reject Christ… ? I believe one answer might be the belief in supernatural free will, i.e. the free will given…

What follows is an excellent piece from Reddit on why leaving a religion can be so incredibly difficult. Here is the original thread, which is followed by some excellent discussion. Here is the post in its entirety, written by Ancient09 of Reddit, for those who don’t like to follow links. — It is generally common for atheists to…

I have debated here at great length the degree of benefit or harm offered to society by religion. My position is that religion–even in its so-called moderate forms–causes more harm to modern society than it offers in return. My argument, in summary, is that religion is the direct cause of significant anti-intellectual sentiment in this country, and that…

I’ve been debating here for quite some time the question of how direct, or even confrontational, to be with those who make strong and specific claims about the nature of reality and morality based on religion. I am for directly refuting these claims due to the fact that there is no evidence to support the existence of the…

Few Christians have ever heard in church, or read themselves, the story of the Cannanite woman with a sick daughter. She came to Jesus because she’d heard of his healing powers, and because her daughter was ill. And upon finally getting an audience with Jesus, she asked him to heal her. This is how Jesus responds: It is…

I’m often asked by my smart friends: Ok, we get it…religion can be bad. But why bring it up and talk about it all the time? Why not just let it go? Why not just let them do their thing and go about your business? The answer is simple: religion’s business is to get into my business. When…

[ 2009-04-12 : I’ve decided to back off this specific argument of “atheist” applying to those that lack belief. The reason for this is that although the definitions I point to in this piece agree with my more broad description of atheism, the Oxford English Dictionary describes atheism now as “A belief in the non-existence of Gods”. That…

September 4, 2009 — After much spirited debate I have come to the conclusion that the argument presented below is much weaker than it should be. I am redoing this argument in a new, far superior essay, but I will leave this one up for the sake of documenting the journey it represents. During some recent discussions about…

A friend of mine (CarlM) and I have a long-running debate regarding how logical or illogical the average religious person is in the United States. I believe that the level of religious belief held by most Americans is harmful to human civilization–even in the so-called “moderate” form practiced in the United States. I believe that once a society…

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. — Luke 19:27 1 Christians love to rail against hateful language in the Koran, saying that the extremist teachings there can be used to justify violence. Well, it’s in the Bible too—all over the place 2. What’s to…

This doesn’t bode well. Here’s an interesting list of predictions from the study: The main drivers of religious affiliation to 2043 are immigration and secularization. However, fertility matters more in the long term. Muslims will outnumber Jews by approximately 2020 Jews, white Catholics and liberal Protestants will decline Protestants will decline from a majority in 2003 to 40…

This is an interesting piece over at the Audacious Epigone. It shows that the deeply religious worry the least, which makes perfect sense to me. I’ve always seen that the religious were disconnected from the stress of the world–not only because they tend to be (both on purpose and by way of their culture) isolated from many external…

A great collection of quotes from Atheist Blogger. Here’s one of my favorites that I’d not seen before: If I look over my life, every single step of maturing for me, every single one, has had the exact same common denominator, and that was accepting what was true over what I wished were true. — Julia Sweeney Links…

Atheists are always being accused of being arrogant by the religious. This is my common counter, which is usually effective: Let me get this straight. You think the Creator of the Universe cares personally about your life, and that you know, with absolute certainty, what he wants for all of humankind. I, on the other hand, think we’re…

I need to address something that’s come up in the last couple of months regarding my treatment of religion here on the site. A couple people have written me, either directly or via the comment functionality, to say that my treatment of religion seems too extreme. Their main point seems to be that some good people exist that…

One of the most common arguments I hear from the religious is that their beliefs and mine are the same. They believe they know what the creator of the universe thinks and desires, and I think they are wrong. They view these positions as having equal weight. Let me try to illustrate how strange this is. — Imagine…

Sam Harris has come out with an interesting essay on religion. This time, rather than simply going after religion in his characteristic way he has a message for non-believers. He says we should stop calling ourselves atheists altogether. My concern with the use of the term “atheism” is both philosophical and strategic. I’m speaking from a somewhat unusual…

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has come out and challenged the intellectual merits of atheism. In a recent blog post he argues that the only intellectually honest option for a non-believer is agnosticism. Here’s his argument: It is common for humans to be 100% certain of a particular fact, and later find out it is wrong. Therefore, it…

This is an absolutely amazing post on perhaps the most important issue facing atheists today: how to deal with religious moderates (especially friends). You care for your friends, and you don’t want to push your views on them, but at the same time you don’t want them to believe in unfounded concepts such as life after death, castles…