- The Language of God: Truth Seekers
The Library • April 30, 2011
The Language of God, Chapter 11
By B.J. Marshall
Aside from summarizing the points he's made in previous chapters, Collins uses this final chapter as his last chance to be a Christian apologist, but he surprisingly leaves the door open for other options.
First, I feel compelled to highlight Collins' honesty. He states that, after twenty eight [...]
- Video! See My Speech at Columbia
The Library • April 29, 2011
Last night, I made my debut as a speaker for the Secular Student Alliance, appearing before the atheist student group at Columbia University to discuss the history of church-state separation. It was a short talk, about 20 minutes with Q&A, which suited me just fine for my first foray into public speaking. But I'm very [...]
- The Looters Win Again
The Loft • April 28, 2011
As we all know, Ayn Rand is the greatest genius in the history of the human race, and her book Atlas Shrugged is her highest achievement and therefore the highest achievement of our entire species. Thanks to her, we've learned that sheer determination can surmount any obstacle, up to and including the laws of thermodynamics, [...]
- Join the FFRF's Virtual Billboard Campaign
The Garden • April 27, 2011
A few months ago, I mentioned the FFRF's "Out of the Closet" billboard campaign, an effort to put a human face on atheists with ads showing that we're normal, friendly people like everyone else. Today, I'm pleased to announce that the FFRF has expanded this project with a virtual billboard campaign on their website, allowing [...]
- Reminder: Speaking at Columbia University
The Foyer • April 26, 2011
Don't forget that this Thursday evening, I'll be speaking in New York City at Columbia University. If you live in the area, come out and see me make my debut as a speaker for the Secular Student Alliance!
LOCATION: New York City, NY, Columbia University, Alfred J. Lerner Hall (street entrance near Broadway & 115th Street), [...]
- Pro-Family Christians Support Child Kidnapping
The Rotunda • April 26, 2011
Yesterday, I came across a story that was so appalling I had to write about it. It shows the true depths of the Christian right's hatred for gay and lesbian people, and the lengths they're willing to go to - up to and including defying U.S. law - in the name of that hatred. (HT: [...]
- Charity Yes, Interfaith No?
The Garden • April 25, 2011
We atheists are nothing if not argumentative, and the latest argument is over whether an atheist can or should participate in "interfaith" charitable work. Chris Stedman, a member of the humanist chaplaincy at Harvard, asserts that "we must actualize our commitments to justice and compassion" by participating in interfaith projects as often as possible. Ophelia [...]
- A Humanist Easter Homily
The Garden • April 24, 2011
Today is Easter Sunday, the day when Christians celebrate Jesus' supposed resurrection from the tomb. But though they believe this holiday commemorates a unique and singular event, their timing is suspicious. As you may have noticed, Easter is very close (making some allowances for calendrical drift) to the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. [...]
- Poll and Open Thread: Social Media
The Foyer • April 23, 2011
A while back, I put a social media widget from AddThis on the site (the "Bookmark/Share This" link at the bottom of each post). I've been checking its analytics and found that it hardly gets any use at all, so I think it's about time to terminate that experiment.
However, I haven't decided what to replace [...]
- A Confluence of Holidays
The Observatory • April 22, 2011
This year, there's an interesting calendrical coincidence: Today is both Earth Day and Good Friday. That being so, I thought it would prove enlightening to compare these two holidays and the messages they respectively send to their practitioners.
One of the holidays on this date is to commemorate the gory death of a Jewish mystic some [...]
- Dispatches from Future America: Court Upholds National Day of Christianity
The Loft • April 20, 2011
[Editor's Note: The day after after publishing my article on the abuse of standing, I found a message with a strange attachment in my inbox, sent through an anonymous remailer. This attachment presented itself as a story clipped from a newspaper published in a future version of America. The author of the message wouldn't explain [...]
- The Abuse of the Doctrine of Standing
The Rotunda • April 19, 2011
In what's becoming a depressingly predictable trend, there's bad news on the church-state front: the Freedom from Religion Foundation's legal victory over the National Day of Prayer has been tossed out by a federal appeals court. A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the FFRF lacks standing and ordering that [...]
- The Language of God: Biologos: Epic Fail
The Observatory • April 18, 2011
The Language of God, Chapter 10
By B.J. Marshall
In this chapter, Collins tackles the claim that BioLogos damages both science and religion. Collins disagrees in a way that fails so epically that it almost makes the previous sections of this book seem prescient.
For the atheist scientist, BioLogos seems to be another "God of the gaps" theory [...]
- Speaking at Columbia University
The Foyer • April 17, 2011
Last month, I announced that I've officially joined the speakers' bureau of the Secular Student Alliance. This month, I'm very proud to announce that I've wrangled my first speaking invitation - and in my home city and at my alma mater, no less. If you live in New York City, come out and see me [...]
- Saturday Open Thread: Random and Interesting
The Foyer • April 16, 2011
After all the heavy stuff we debated on the site this week, I figure it's time for a change of pace. And since it's the weekend, let's celebrate with something to lighten the heart and lift the spirit.
This is an open thread for you to tell us about something cool and interesting you've come across [...]
- Another World Creeps In
The Garden • April 15, 2011
I'm an atheist, in part, because I'm a moral person.
When I first read the books that are called holy, what I found were countless passages that are abhorrent to the conscience: God drowning the planet in a global flood, massacring the innocent firstborn of Egypt, ordering Abraham to murder his son as a test of [...]
- Marching for Oppression
The Rotunda • April 13, 2011
Over the past few months, we've seen amazing and inspiring demonstrations of people power erupting across the Middle East, toppling dictatorships that have been in place for decades. It's far too soon to say what form of government will emerge from these movements - whether they'll give rise to true democracies, or whether new dictatorships [...]
- Defending Genocide, Redux
The Library • April 11, 2011
A while back, I wrote a post about professional Christian apologists who defend genocide as a moral and holy act. As revolting as this is, it's unsurprising on one level: these people have devoted their careers to defending Christianity, and as such, their living depends on not admitting any flaws whatsoever in Christian doctrine. If [...]
- The Language of God: Biologos: It's All Greek to Me
The Library • April 10, 2011
The Language of God, Chapter 10
By B.J. Marshall
After formally laying out his premisses and his conclusions, Collins muses why Theistic Evolution (TE) hasn't caught on. He surmises that it simply isn't widely known that one can mix science and religion harmoniously, that the position is in effect invisible in the harmony it creates by blending [...]
- From the Mailbag: Deconversion Saturday
The Foyer • April 9, 2011
It's not every day that I get awesome letters like the one I posted last Saturday, but this makes two weeks in a row now. If this keeps up, I may have to make it a regular feature!
This letter is from a commenter who's posted here in the past as 5acos(phi/2). Although it's from a [...]
- New on Ebon Musings: The Apologist's Handbook
The Foyer • April 8, 2011
Earlier this year, I called on readers to help me compile the "apologist's handbook", a list of responses given by lay and professional Christians to common atheist objections, in order to point out how some of those answers directly contradict each other. There were dozens of suggestions, some of them very good indeed.
Well, I've now [...]
- Open Thread: Secret Religious Teachings
The Foyer • April 7, 2011
This great comment by Rollingforest in another thread got me thinking:
When they go door to door, Mormons like to present themselves as Christians with minor but important improvements on Christian doctrine. These missionaries make sure to forget to mention or to gloss over the huge changes in dogma that becoming a Mormon requires (multiple Gods, [...]
- On Qur'an Burning, Redux
The Rotunda • April 6, 2011
A few months ago, I wrote briefly about an obscure Florida pastor who had the idea of burning a Qur'an. At the time he backed off under intense pressure, but later changed his mind and went through with it. This would have gone nowhere, except that some Islamic mullahs in Afghanistan (aided by Hamid Karzai, [...]
- Weekly Link Roundup
The Foyer • April 5, 2011
If I had the time, I'd write a whole post about each of these. As it is, you can probably guess what I would say:
• There are atheists in the military!
• And in high schools!
• And for why this matters, see this post on Friendly Atheist, about a study finding that anti-atheist prejudice goes down [...]
- The Catholic Code of Omerta
The Rotunda • April 4, 2011
As Russell Blackford informs us, the Vatican is again indulging its persecution complex, sending out an archbishop to whine about how unfair it is that gay and lesbian people are increasingly gaining equal rights and how the church is victimized by this:
"People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between [...]
- The Language of God: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Faith
The Observatory • April 3, 2011
The Language of God, Chapter 10
By B.J. Marshall
Chapter 10 introduces Collins' concept of BioLogos, but first he gives an overview of Theistic Evolution (TE) and why it works to bridge science and faith. Although we've talked about TE previously, this chapter shows Collins laying out six premisses that support TE. He then has a short [...]
- From the Mailbag: Deconversion Saturday
The Foyer • April 2, 2011
Out of all the correspondence I get, occasionally there's a letter which repays, many times over, all the effort I've put into writing for my websites. This is one of them, which I'm sharing with the author's permission:
Hello Adam,
I wanted to drop you a note to let you know how much your writing has [...]
- Theodicy Is Useful in Everyday Life
The Loft • April 1, 2011
So, I've been debating Catholic commenters on Unequally Yoked again, and I came across a comment that was so astute, so unusually perceptive, that I just had to share it.
The war with the Canaanites is really just a specialization of the problem of suffering, right? Why does a good God allow suffering, which is presumably [...]
