- On the Morality of: Forgiveness
The Library • June 30, 2008
Today's post on morality takes up the topic of forgiveness for wrongdoing. In superstitious times, forgiveness was obtained through magical rituals. Most of these assumed that guilt could in some fashion be transferred to an animal or other being, which was then killed or driven off to provide a symbolic expiation. Leviticus 4 explains:
Say to [...]
- Invincible Ignorance
The Loft • June 28, 2008
The number of different religions on this planet is vast, and all their associated arguments and apologetics form a library that's vaster still. No matter how well-read or well-traveled any atheist is, they're bound to run into claims every so often that they've never heard before. It happens to me at least once a month, [...]
- A Cold and Sterile Heaven
The Garden • June 27, 2008
The other day while browsing in the library, I found out that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, authors of the Left Behind series, have also written a trilogy of prequels. (As long as Christians continue to purchase these awful books, it seems, they intend to keep churning them out.) The final installment of this trilogy [...]
- Some Items of Note
The Foyer • June 26, 2008
I have two short announcements to bring to your attention:
• Daylight Atheism commenter Eshu has started his own blog, Bridging Schisms. If the first few posts are any indication, it ought to be a fine addition to the ranks of the atheist blogosphere. Go check it out and tell him I sent you!
• John Loftus [...]
- Do You Really Believe That: Abrogation
The Library • June 25, 2008
Today's installment of "Do You Really Believe That?" will leave behind Judaic and Christian mythologies to examine a doctrine specific to Islam, the doctrine of abrogation. This belief holds that Allah originally revealed certain practices and rules to Mohammed, only to later issue new revelations which canceled the earlier ones and instituted different practices in [...]
- Book Review: Infidel
The Library • June 23, 2008
Summary: Brilliant, brave, inspiring. Read this book.
In 2004, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in the street by a Muslim fanatic, Mohammed Bouyeri, who was enraged by van Gogh's production of a film titled Submission which criticizes the mistreatment of women in Islamic societies. Van Gogh's murderer shot him eight times, cut his [...]
- Poetry Sunday: Fern Hill
The Foyer • June 22, 2008
For my northern hemisphere readers, the full flush of summer has arrived. In honor of the season, I've picked an appropriate poem for this installment of Poetry Sunday: the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' idyllic, evocative hymn to nature and childhood, "Fern Hill", from his 1946 collection Deaths and Entrances.
Born in 1914, Dylan Thomas was named [...]
- Open Thread: Site Slowness, Continued
The Foyer • June 20, 2008
I'm aware that this site has been having problems loading these past few days. I assure you all, I'm just as frustrated by it as you are. In a way, it's good news - these are a sort of growing pains; the slowness is at least in part because of the steady increases in traffic [...]
- Quintessence of Dust
The Garden • June 20, 2008
One of the most persistent misconceptions about atheism is that, if there is no supernatural soul and human beings are made merely of atoms and molecules, then our lives would be deprived of meaning. Asserts Christian apologist Phil Fernandes:
If atheism is true, then man is mere molecules in motion. He has no greater value than [...]
- The Harm Psychics Do
The Observatory • June 19, 2008
Out of Toronto, this jsw-dropping story: Colleen Leduc, a local mother, was accused by school officials of letting her autistic daughter Victoria be sexually abused - based on the word of a psychic! (HT: Boing Boing).
Leduc's weird tale began on May 30, when she dropped young Victoria off for class at Terry Fox Elementary and [...]
- Two Poles
The Rotunda • June 18, 2008
While reading Richard Sloan's book Blind Faith, I came across a passage that jumped out at me:
[Gallup Polling] also indicates that from 1939 to 2005, 37 to 49 percent of those surveyed reported that they attended church or synagogue in the week before they were surveyed. From the period to 1992 to 2005, those who [...]
- Site Issues
The Foyer • June 16, 2008
I'm aware that commenting and permalinks were broken earlier today. I think all that should now be fixed. If you notice any further bugs or problems, please let me know.
- The Bible's Broken Promises
The Library • June 16, 2008
In their endless quest to evangelize the world, Christian apologists like this one are prone to making grandiose claims about the supposed perfect accuracy of biblical prophecy:
Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events - in detail - many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2500 prophecies appear in the [...]
- New Post on Dangerous Intersection
The Foyer • June 14, 2008
I've posted a new essay on Dangerous Intersection, "The Supreme Court restores habeas corpus". This is a followup to my post from October 2006, "This Is Not America".
This is an open thread.
- The Hopelessness of Life Without Cupid
The Library • June 13, 2008
Inspired by an analogy invented by Daniel Dennett, I have some thoughts for the benefit of those who believe that an atheist's life must necessarily be meaningless and nihilistic.
Imagine that there's a society which, instead of God, believes in Cupid. This is the Cupid of Greek mythology, as co-opted by greeting card companies: the rosy-cheeked [...]
- Thank God for Pre-trib Rapture
The Loft • June 10, 2008
Among Christian groups who hold to belief in a literal apocalypse, the most common view today is "pretribulationist" - the belief that God will remove his faithful from the world in the Rapture, following which there will be seven years of suffering and bloodshed as unsaved humanity is tortured by God and ruled by the [...]
- Book Update
The Foyer • June 8, 2008
It's been a long time in the making, but I've finished the tenth and final chapter of my book. Its title is "Into the Clear Air", and it discusses the process of becoming an atheist, on an individual level, and the effort to organize atheists on a political level. As before, I'm open to editorial [...]
- Respectable Infidels
The Rotunda • June 8, 2008
The Volokh Conspiracy has a fascinating excerpt from the writings of Anthony Comstock (HT, Dispatches from the Culture Wars):
The respectable infidel is not even referred to, but simply those who stand in the forefront, zealous to be known as opposed to God and religion, and who by their blasphemous speeches and publications are putting to [...]
- On Transhumanism
The Loft • June 6, 2008
One of the most optimistic - perhaps excessively optimistic - philosophies that take shelter under the umbrella terms of atheism and humanism is transhumanism. Transhumanism is a set of loosely associated philosophies which all share a belief in the desirability of transcending the biology of the human condition through technology.
At the marginally more plausible [...]
- Evolution Is Design
The Observatory • June 4, 2008
It's not often I disagree with Richard Dawkins, but I have to do so today. In the opening pages of Climbing Mount Improbable, he discusses what he calls "designoid" objects:
Designoid objects are living bodies and their products. Designoid objects look designed, so much so that some people - probably, alas, most people - think that [...]
- A Memo to Fence-Sitting Agnostics
The Garden • June 2, 2008
In the Guardian last week, Tracy Quan had a column titled Agnostic about atheism. It strikes a note we've heard before: Quan, though a nonbeliever herself (she describes herself as a "'cafeteria' atheist and secular Catholic"), is embarrassed and uncomfortable to hear atheists speaking out forthrightly and wishes we would stop.
Some of my fellow [...]
- Poetry Sunday: Design
The Foyer • June 1, 2008
This month's Poetry Sunday features another classic by a famous poet who's already made an appearance: Robert Frost, the skeptical New Englander whose work has become iconic of the American experience.
Frost's views on God are complex. In some of his letters, he calls himself "an old dissenter", "secular till the last go down", and said [...]
