- The Case for a Creator: Intellectual Incuriosity
The Observatory • August 31, 2009
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 5
Chapter 5 is about the Big Bang and the cosmological argument, and we'll get to those. But I wanted to begin by highlighting an incredible, and telling, statement by Strobel in the opening paragraphs of the chapter.
It seemed to me that the beginning of everything was a good place [...]
- A Dialogue with Quixote, Part VII
The Library • August 30, 2009
Hello Quixote,
Considering your last letter to me was some time ago, I apologize for the lateness of my reply. To tell the truth, this was the hardest one for me to write. It's not that I couldn't think of anything to say. Much the opposite: If I had said everything I wanted to say, this [...]
- Little-Known Bible Verses: Predestination
The Library • August 28, 2009
One of the most common Christian beliefs, and the one most often appealed to in order to explain why evil exists, is that human beings have free will to make choices that are not in God's control. God doesn't want robots, the argument goes, nor mindless puppets programmed to sing his praises. He desires genuine [...]
- Freedom to Dress
The Rotunda • August 26, 2009
It's a sad day when you read stories like this from the city where the renowned Library of Alexandria once stood:
Along the miles of crowded beachfront in Egypt's second city, women in bathing suits are nowhere in sight.
On Alexandria's breeze-blown shores, they all wear long-sleeve shirts and ankle-length black caftans topped by head scarves. Awkwardly [...]
- The Case for a Creator: Dysteleology
The Observatory • August 24, 2009
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 4
In the last section of his interview with Stephen Meyer, Lee Strobel brings up the dysteleological argument, asking how intelligent design can account for the faults and imperfections in the natural world that would seem to cast doubt on the wisdom or benevolence of the designer. He begins with [...]
- Christians Persecute Atheist Teacher
The Rotunda • August 22, 2009
The next time you hear Christians complaining about being persecuted in America, remember this story.
You probably know Hemant Mehta, author of the blog Friendly Atheist. What you may not know, and what I didn't know, is that by day he's a math teacher at a public high school in Illinois. And it seems that a [...]
- The Opportunity Cost of Pseudoscience
The Observatory • August 21, 2009
Last month, the U.S. government-funded National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine released a study which found that Americans spent $34 billion annually on alternative medicine. Although this is just 1.5% of total health care spending in the country, it represents over 11% of all out-of-pocket expenditures. The report estimates that about 38 million adults [...]
- The Secular Tithe
The Garden • August 19, 2009
How much money do you give away each year?
For the sake of full disclosure, I'll start by answering my own question: I try to give at least $200 a month to nonprofit educational and charitable causes. I think it's a reasonable amount, although I know I could (and should) be doing more.
Speaking out as nonbelievers [...]
- The Case for a Creator: Astroturfing Science
The Observatory • August 17, 2009
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 4
Lee Strobel's usual interview technique is to ask softball questions that are carefully phrased to make it as easy as possible for his interviewees to "refute" them. But credit where credit's due - in the next section of chapter 4, he actually asks a good one. In talking to [...]
- Daylight Atheism Los Angeles Meetup
The Foyer • August 16, 2009
For all DA readers in the Los Angeles area (if any):
Three weeks from now, on the weekend of September 5, I'm going to be in California to attend a friend's wedding. The weekend is booked solid, but my flight back to New York leaves from Los Angeles on Tuesday the 8th, and I'll have that [...]
- Poetry Sunday: An Arundel Tomb
The Foyer • August 16, 2009
Today's edition of Poetry Sunday features a return of the English poet and novelist Philip Larkin. Born in Coventry in 1922, Larkin received a degree in literature from Oxford in 1943. Though he worked for most of his life as a librarian at the University of Hull, he was well-known and widely acclaimed for his [...]
- Why the Religious Right Fears Empathy
The Garden • August 14, 2009
In the days before Justice Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation, we witnessed a strange spectacle: religious-right Christian after religious-right Christian spoke out against her nomination on the grounds that she valued empathy, and that this was an undesirable quality for a judge to have.
Coming from a religion whose founder supposedly said, "Inasmuch as ye have done [...]
- The Republicans' Descent into Delusion
The Rotunda • August 13, 2009
I don't usually post on purely political issues, but this one has become impossible to ignore. In the last few weeks, the American right has worked itself into a fever pitch of insanity over the prospect of healthcare reform.
If you've been watching the news, you've seen the shouting, raging protestors disrupting town-hall meetings, screaming at [...]
- Too High a Price to Pay for Comfort
The Rotunda • August 12, 2009
Religion inspires billions of people around the world today to live honest, decent, law-abiding lives. Faith-based charities of every religious tradition have brought comfort, hope, and healing to millions of people who would otherwise starve, lay homeless, and be left to fend for themselves. Religion gives comfort and consolation to so many who have faced [...]
- Exposing Scientology
The Rotunda • August 10, 2009
I've written about the ludicrous "space opera" beliefs of Scientology (the Plan 9 from Outer Space of modern religions). In the future, I want to tell the story of my personal encounter with Scientology proselytizers, but today I have another subject: some recent news exposés that reveal the secrets and the machinations of the cult.
First [...]
- The Case for a Creator: Why Cosmologists Are Atheists
The Observatory • August 7, 2009
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 4
Strobel's next interview is with Stephen Meyer, a philosopher who's also one of the cofounders of the Discovery Institute. Strobel and Meyer touch on several topics (fine-tuning, irreducible complexity) that will be discussed in more detail in later chapters, so I'll defer responding to those arguments for now. Amusingly, [...]
- Getting a Philosophy Under Your Feet
The Garden • August 5, 2009
I recently read a Christian book that's more interesting than the usual anti-atheist apologetics: Not the Religious Type, by Dave Schmelzer. Its author is a theologian and self-proclaimed former atheist who now pastors an evangelical church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, in the Boston area.
This book is in large part about the New Atheist movement, and [...]
- The Three Kinds of Theism
The Library • August 3, 2009
If you're an atheist who's setting out to debate religious believers, there are three main categories of theism you can expect to meet. Although religious belief is one of the most diverse of human phenomena, with a limitless variety of gradations and exceptions, I think these three suffice to classify nearly all of the theists [...]
- Christian Apologist Concern Trolling
The Garden • August 1, 2009
I've had a Google news alert for "atheism" for several years now, to keep abreast of stories I might want to write about. In 2006, when I started Daylight Atheism, it was a fairly low-traffic feed with maybe one or a few stories trickling in each day. But the volume has steadily increased in the [...]
