- On the Morality of: Gay Marriage
The Library • August 31, 2007
The second installment in my "On the Morality Of" series will focus on another issue that has sharply divided society in recent years, the issue of whether gay couples should be legally permitted to obtain marriage. Although American polls consistently find that majorities are opposed to this idea, substantial minorities support it, and the opposition [...]
- Book Update
The Foyer • August 30, 2007
It's been a while, but I haven't forgotten. The fifth chapter of my book, which covers the argument from religious confusion and is based on the Ebon Musings essay "The Cosmic Shell Game", is finally complete.
I realize this chapter has taken a while - as for that, I can only plead work and other [...]
- The Treadmill
The Loft • August 29, 2007
Earlier this month, the New York Times ran an article series about millionaires who don't feel rich, mostly engineers and executives living in America's Silicon Valley. Though most of the people profiled in the article have luxurious, paid-off homes, multiple cars and several million dollars already in the bank, they continue to work grueling, stressful [...]
- The Thomas Weeks Affair
The Rotunda • August 28, 2007
Since this seems to be a week for tearing down Christian icons, I have another fall from grace to report: Bishop Thomas Weeks, founder of the international Christian ministry Global Destiny, was released on bond last week after turning himself in to face charges of brutally beating his estranged wife Juanita Bynum - herself a [...]
- Mother Teresa's Loss of Faith
The Rotunda • August 27, 2007
Time magazine this month has a rather amazing story about a decades-long crisis of faith in the life of Agnes Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa. A newly released biography, Come Be My Light, consists of numerous letters Teresa exchanged with her church superiors. These letters reveal that for the last fifty years of her [...]
- Free Speech Under Siege
The Rotunda • August 25, 2007
Since the Enlightenment, fundamentalist religious leaders the world over have railed against the idea of free speech, for understandable reasons. By permitting other people to point out the fallacies in their arguments and dispute their claim to be the infallible voice of God, the right of free speech is the single most effective countermeasure to [...]
- The Asch Conformity Experiment
The Observatory • August 23, 2007
Solomon Asch. "Opinions and social pressure." Scientific American, vol.193, no.5 (1955), p.31-35.
Back in April, I wrote about the classic Milgram experiment and what it shows about how disturbingly willing people are to submit to authority, even in the presence of strong countervailing reasons. What about when the pressure to obey comes not from an authority [...]
- Atheists Meek and Mild
The Garden • August 21, 2007
Do you, readers, remember the golden age of American secularism, where freethinkers stood on every corner preaching that they believed one thing and Christians believed another, and that we should all ignore these differences and do our best to get along without attacking each other's beliefs?
I don't either. But convicted Watergate felon and current prison [...]
- A Legal Development
The Foyer • August 20, 2007
I've said on previous occasions that Daylight Atheism is a weblog devoted to commentary and analysis, not breaking news. However, I've heard of a case sufficiently noteworthy that I think it merits an exception.
Last month, the indomitable P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula posted a review of Stuart Pivar's book Lifecode, which purports to explain the embryonic [...]
- On Literal Interpretation
The Library • August 19, 2007
"I've written before about one variety of mirror-opposites of these illiteralist believers... those who I call 'sectarian atheists.' These are usually folks who start out like Marshall Hall, fully indoctrinated in the all-or-nothing illiteralism of American fundamentalism. They start out believing, like Hall, that the Earth must be fixed or else the Bible is false [...]
- Some Remarks on Biblical Prophecy
The Foyer • August 17, 2007
Recently, Greta Christina of Greta Christina's Blog invited me to comment on a post of hers in which a theist mentioned my article "The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists". This person claimed that the fulfillment of prophecies in the Bible should be sufficient reason for atheists to believe in Christianity. That comment can be viewed [...]
- AU Under Attack!
The Rotunda • August 16, 2007
Despite the serious-sounding title, I'm laughing as I write this post. Yes, Americans United for Separation of Church and State is under attack. Yes, the perpetrators are a group of radical Christian dominionists who want to turn this country into their own vision of theocracy. Yes, their aim is to cause great harm and possibly [...]
- Morality Without Humanity
The Rotunda • August 15, 2007
A shocking story has recently come out of Texas. It seems that High Point, an Arlington megachurch, abruptly canceled a planned funeral after finding out the deceased was gay, and that his family planned to mention that fact:
The pastor said that he could imagine a similar situation involving a different sin. Perhaps a mother who [...]
- Claiming the Mantle of Victimhood
The Loft • August 13, 2007
The Roman Catholic church is the oldest, largest, and very likely the richest denomination of any organized religion on the planet Earth. It has over 1 billion believers worldwide; controls its own sovereign country ruled by the Pope; is the only religious denomination with permanent observer status at the United Nations; has its own radio [...]
- Nurturing Virtue
The Garden • August 11, 2007
Earlier this year, I wrote a post series titled "The Virtues", which proposed a secular reinvention of the seven cardinal virtues of theology. But I now realize that with this series, I was making an additional, implicit point: that it is possible for human beings to be consistently virtuous.
This was made clear to me in [...]
- Coming Soon to an Apocalypse Near You
The Rotunda • August 9, 2007
Any informed observer of religious folly knows that setting dates for the apocalypse ranks among the major pastimes of fundamentalists and fanatics the world over. (The next most-popular pastime is explaining why those dates failed to pan out.) In fact, throughout human history, the years in which the end of the world has not been [...]
- Why Does God Let Satan Roam Free?
The Library • August 7, 2007
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
—1 Peter 5:8
"Only-begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our Adversary? whom no bounds
Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heaped on him there, nor yet the main Abyss
Wide interrupt, can hold..."
—John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book [...]
- Nothing Behind the Altar
The Garden • August 5, 2007
Last month, the Los Angeles Times published a story titled "Religion beat became a test of faith". The author, William Lobdell, described himself as a "serious Christian" - raised Episcopal, later a born-again evangelical, still later a convert to Roman Catholicism at his wife's urging - who believed it was God's plan to use him [...]
- The One-Reason Worldview
The Loft • August 3, 2007
"Most well-meaning creationists would agree in principle that things that are not carefully documented and researched should not be used. But in practice, many of them are very quick to accept the sorts of evidences mentioned here, without asking too many questions. Why this seeming urge to find a startling, exciting 'magic bullet'?"
—Ken Ham for [...]
- Some Thoughts on Fermi's Paradox
The Observatory • August 1, 2007
The Drake equation, developed in the 1960s by the astronomer Frank Drake, laid the foundation for the scientific search for extraterrestrial life. This equation provides a way to estimate the number of intelligent, communicating civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy by combining all the prerequisites for the existence of such civilizations.
The remarkable thing about [...]
