- Three Cheers for Blasphemy Laws!
The Rotunda • September 30, 2009
Today is International Blasphemy Day, inaugurated as a protest against the new Irish blasphemy law, the Muslim furor over cartoons of Muhammad, and every other law or social norm intended to protect religious ideas from criticism. From the Blasphemy Day website:
The last day in September is the anniversary of the original publication of Danish cartoons [...]
- The Weakening Pull of Orthodoxy
The Garden • September 28, 2009
The researchers behind the ARIS, which is the gold standard for American religious demographics, have released a new study that builds on their 2008 results with an in-depth look at one group that's near and dear to our hearts: "American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population". (HT: Friendly Atheist)
As always, there's plenty of [...]
- Open Thread: Submit Your Deconversion Story
The Foyer • September 26, 2009
I've posted a link to a new deconversion story on Ebon Musings: "Deconversion as Withdrawal: Just what is this God-smack stuff, anyway?", written by the vivacious and loquacious blogger D of She Who Chatters (whom you may recognize from her comments here on Daylight Atheism).
Having posted this, it occurs to me that I haven't been [...]
- The Case for a Creator: In the Beginning
The Observatory • September 25, 2009
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 5
The second premise of the kalam cosmological argument is that the universe began to exist. In discussing this premise, William Lane Craig asks the question of whether the universe necessarily had a beginning or whether it could have existed for an infinite amount of time before now. He argues [...]
- The Religious Right Vision of Marriage
The Rotunda • September 24, 2009
Christian conservatives always talk about "defending traditional marriage" - which has that warm, homey, fresh-baked-apple-pie feeling to it - but never make it clear precisely what they're defending.
This is deliberate, of course, and a clever political strategy: they choose phrases with positive mental associations but otherwise leave their position vague. That way, ordinary people [...]
- Take Action: Defend Marriage Equality in Maine
The Rotunda • September 23, 2009
The last few months have been a rollercoaster ride for advocates of marriage equality in the United States. There was the bitter disappointment of Prop 8 passing in California in the 2008 elections, but soon after, it was assuaged in part by victories for marriage equality in Iowa and Vermont. Soon thereafter, Maine and New [...]
- Unitarian Universalism: A Matter of Definition
The Garden • September 21, 2009
Both Greta and Hemant have commented on the full-page ad run by the Freedom from Religion Foundation in the latest issue of UU World, the magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Since I have a copy of that issue, I thought I'd say some things about it as well.
The FFRF ad that ran in the [...]
- Poetry Sunday: Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation
The Foyer • September 20, 2009
This week's Poetry Sunday features a new author, the American poet Stanley Kunitz. In his long lifetime, he was one of America's most renowned poets, winning, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Medal of Arts, the Robert Frost Medal, and Harvard's Centennial Medal. He served a term as Poet Laureate of [...]
- Atheism, Race and Gender
The Garden • September 18, 2009
Inspired by the always-inspiring Greta Christina and her two recent posts on the subject, I want to offer some thoughts on a topic I've rarely discussed on this blog: the intersection of atheism with issues of race and gender.
I haven't discussed this subject much because I don't feel I have any real qualifications to do [...]
- Weekly Link Roundup
The Rotunda • September 17, 2009
There are couple of news items this week that I thought merited a brief mention.
First, in the New Yorker, James Wood provides another piece of evidence for my theory that the only kind of atheists considered "respectable" are the ones who wish they were religious:
What is needed is neither the overweening rationalism of a Dawkins [...]
- There Is No God-Shaped Hole
The Garden • September 16, 2009
In A Shattered Visage, a book-length emotional rant against atheism, Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias puts forth the following assertion:
The words of Augustine are most appropriate: "You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." Or, as Pascal put it, "There is a godshaped vacuum in the [...]
- The Case for a Creator: It's All Because of Quantum
The Observatory • September 14, 2009
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 5
In discussing the kalam argument, William Lane Craig makes some points that touch on modern research in cosmology and physics, so I'll address those. He begins with the premise that "whatever begins to exist has a cause":
"It seems metaphysically necessary that anything which begins to exist has to have [...]
- Religion Promotes Morality: The Evidence
The Rotunda • September 12, 2009
One could argue that atheism leads to immorality. With no God-given commandments, the atheist pretty much has to make up moral standards as he or she goes along... The philosopher John Locke – one of the intellectual forebears of American democracy – once said that atheists can't ultimately be trusted in their promises and commitments, [...]
- Defending Genocide
The Library • September 10, 2009
Image via.
Of all the evil verses in the Bible, some of the worst must be the ones in which God orders his chosen people to slaughter and utterly exterminate the Canaanites who were living in the promised land, commanding them to kill men, women and children and to show no mercy to anyone under any [...]
- Thanks to Los Angeles Readers
The Foyer • September 8, 2009
I wanted to write a quick post to thank all the Daylight Atheism readers who were able to attend yesterday's meetup in Pasadena. We got a great crowd together, and it was a thrilling experience to meet you all and to finally be able to match names with faces, and I'm greatly appreciative for the [...]
- The Case for a Creator: You're Interviewing Who?!
The Observatory • September 8, 2009
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 5
Back in chapter 2, Strobel claimed that he would be interviewing "authorities in various scientific disciplines about the most current findings in their fields" [p.28]. How has this promise played out so far?
Up till now, he's interviewed Jonathan Wells - who has a legitimate degree in biology, albeit one [...]
- Christian Troll Masquerades as Racist Atheist
The Foyer • September 6, 2009
Over the past two weeks, an individual calling himself Steve Leone has attempted to leave about half a dozen variations of the following comment on my thread about the "miracle" of Fatima:
"Oh yeah? Well, how did three illiterate Portuguese peasant children know that some strange atmospheric phenomenon was going to appear in the sky over [...]
- In Defense of Optimism
The Garden • September 5, 2009
Among the writers who oppose the New Atheists, one common theme in their criticism is that we're too optimistic about the possibility of human progress. For example, take this essay by Terry Eagleton attacking Richard Dawkins, in which the sneering condescension drips from every word:
It thus comes as no surprise that Dawkins turns out to [...]
- Original Virtue
The Loft • September 3, 2009
Central to nearly every branch of Christianity is the notion of original sin - the belief that humans in some sense start out corrupted, that sinfulness is our default state. The apostle Paul expresses this idea in verses like these from Romans:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; [...]
