- A Reflection on Hope
The Garden • April 30, 2008
Last year, around the time I inaugurated my Poetry Sunday series, I contacted Prof. Philip Appleman to ask for permission to reprint some of his work which I'd seen in Freethought Today. He graciously assented to my request, and even said a few kind words about "The Gods", my own brief foray into free verse, [...]
- On the Morality of: Abortion
The Library • April 28, 2008
Although abortion is stereotyped as the most controversial and divisive social issue there is, I think the moral issues at stake are actually fairly unambiguous. This installment of "On the Morality Of" will explain why.
Pared down to its essence, the moral question posed by abortion is a simple one: is an unborn fetus a human [...]
- Poetry Sunday: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Foyer • April 27, 2008
Today's Poetry Sunday features a few selections from the American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Wilcox was born in 1850 in Wisconsin and soon acquired renown as a poet, becoming well-known for her writing by the time she graduated high school. Her poems were resolutely plain and optimistic, and though her simple, sometimes singsong verse was [...]
- The View From the Ground
The Observatory • April 26, 2008
Over the past two months, I've written about the differing epistemologies of religion - where the individual's personal conviction is taken as a reliable guide to truth ("The Aura of Infallibility") - and science - where the assumption is that individuals are fallible and should work as a group to correct each other in a [...]
- And We're Back
The Foyer • April 25, 2008
If you're seeing this post, then you've made it back! This is Daylight Atheism at its new, and hopefully much faster, host. Thanks for your patience. Regular updates will resume shortly.
I do have a request to make of my readers. Until the move, I hadn't upgraded WordPress since I first set up Daylight Atheism in [...]
- Important Note: Site Transfer
The Foyer • April 22, 2008
Given the patently unsatisfactory response of my hosting company to the recent slowness issue, I've begun preparations for moving Daylight Atheism to a new host. The DNS transfer will begin soon, and while it's in progress, my domain name may not function for a day or two. If this happens, don't fret. The site will [...]
- Open Thread: Site Slowness Redux
The Foyer • April 22, 2008
Survey time: Has the slowness problem of the past two weeks gone away or are you still experiencing it?
After some back-and-forth, my hosting company claims to have fixed the problem, and it does seem substantially better on my end. Have you all noticed the same?
- On Presuppositionalism
The Library • April 21, 2008
In "Unmoved Mover", I wrote about the presuppositional argument used by some modern Christian apologists. In this post, I want to say some more about presuppositionalism.
The presuppositionalists have a point in this sense and in this sense only: a worldview is worth being held only if it is possible to reason consistently from that [...]
- Regulate Psychics? Hell, Yes!
The Observatory • April 19, 2008
Via Reuters, a story out of the U.K. that made me very happy indeed: British "psychics" are protesting a new consumer-protection law which they fear will require them to offer actual proof of their alleged powers.
The law currently in force in this area is the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951, which does in fact [...]
- The Arrogance of the Miraculous
The Loft • April 18, 2008
This past Tuesday, a DC-9 jetliner crashed on takeoff in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After failing to lift off, the plane crashed and burst into flame on the ground. Among the passengers were the Mosiers, a family of Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries. With the help of other passengers, they forced open a [...]
- An Atheist in Church
The Garden • April 17, 2008
This past Sunday, I went to church and had a wonderful time.
No, I haven't converted, nor am I thinking of doing so. I was there to accompany my girlfriend, who's a lapsed Catholic and is seeking a new church to attend. We went to a Unitarian Universalist church on Long Island. That Sunday there was [...]
- The Gospel of Elvis
The Loft • April 16, 2008
In the book God?: A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist, William Lane Craig (debating Walter Sinnott-Armstrong) makes the following argument for why God chooses to remain hidden:
"Could God reveal himself more clearly?" Of course, He could: He could have inscribed the label "Made by God" on every atom or planted a neon cross [...]
- Open Thread: Site Slowness
The Foyer • April 14, 2008
Has anyone else noticed that this site seems to have gotten dramatically slower in the past week or two?
Lately, it's been taking me minutes to load even the simplest administration pages. When I load the front page or other public parts of the site, it seems somewhat better, but still slower than it used to [...]
- "Were You There?"
The Observatory • April 14, 2008
"We need to ask ourselves this question: 'Where do we put our faith and trust? In the words of scientists who don't know everything, who were not there? Or in the Word of God — the God who does know everything — and who was there?'"
—Ken Ham, "Were You There?"
I've been reading this stomach-turning story [...]
- On One-World Government
The Loft • April 13, 2008
One of the recurring fantasies of Christian end-times believers is that, after the Rapture, the world will be united into a single government which will be presided over by the Antichrist. As such, these believers view any sign of increased global peace or cooperation as an ominous sign of growing Satanic influence. (Oddly, increased war [...]
- Michael Medved: Clueless Dominionist
The Rotunda • April 11, 2008
I don't make it my mission to slap down every loudmouth religious-right crackpot on the internet. Really, I don't. If I wanted to make it my mission, I could do nothing else, but it wouldn't accomplish anything and it wouldn't make for a very interesting site.
However, the other day, this giant, flaming meteor of [...]
- Firebrands
The Garden • April 10, 2008
I've been watching the "Four Horsemen" video, a two-hour conversation among four of today's leading atheists: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. Right at the beginning, Dan Dennett brings up a point that's also been on my mind. Speaking about his pre-publication editing of Breaking the Spell, in an effort not to [...]
- Theocracy Watch XIII: "You Have No Right to Be Here"
The Rotunda • April 8, 2008
Recently, the state government of Illinois proposed a $1 million grant to rebuild the historic Pilgrim Baptist Church, which was destroyed by a fire earlier this year. Atheist Rob Sherman testified before the House State Government Administration Committee to oppose this blatant violation of the separation of church and state.
What happened next was difficult [...]
- Popular Delusions IX: Numerology
The Observatory • April 7, 2008
As you can see from this picture, the building where I live has no thirteenth floor:
But of course, what this picture depicts is a mathematical impossibility. My building does have a thirteenth floor; it's just that it's mislabeled as the fourteenth floor, with all the floors above it similarly mislabeled by one.
This may be a [...]
- Legal Thuggery Against Neurodiversity.com
The Rotunda • April 6, 2008
Kathleen Seidel, author of the Neurodiversity weblog, writes extensively about issues related to autism. Among other things, she gives the scientific perspective on claims that autism is caused by vaccination. One of her recent posts, The Commerce in Causation, concerns the career of one Clifford Shoemaker - a lawyer who's represented hundreds of clients making [...]
- Strange and Curious Sects: Jesus Malverde
The Library • April 4, 2008
Malverde's shrine stands near the railroad tracks on the west side of Culiacan, well-known to just about everybody in town. Nearby are Malverde Clutch & Breaks, Malverde Lumber and two Denny's-like cafeterias: Coco's Malverde and Chic's Malverde. Outside the shrine people sell trinkets, candles, and pictures. Inside the shrine are two concrete busts of the [...]
- Update on the UC-Calvary Lawsuit
The Rotunda • April 3, 2008
One of the first posts on Daylight Atheism, over two years ago, was "The Fallacy of Free Speech", about a private Christian high school which sued the University of California because the UC had refused to give college credit in biology for courses which taught young-earth creationism. Well, the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow, [...]
- No Religious Exemptions from Child Abuse Laws
The Rotunda • April 2, 2008
Several people have mentioned this tragic story from Wisconsin, in which an 11-year-old girl died of juvenile diabetes after her parents decided to pray for her recovery rather than seek medical help. Shockingly, the town police chief said that "there is no reason to remove" her remaining three siblings from the home. Haven't her parents [...]
- Webcast: God, Design and Darwin
The Foyer • April 1, 2008
I was asked to pass along the following announcement:
On April 4, 2008 at 7:00 pm CT (GMT - April 5, 2008 at 12:00 am), Dr. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University will give a talk entitled God, Darwin, and Design: Lessons from the Dover Monkey Trial. Miller was a lead witness [...]
