Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, and Matt Ridley recently debated William Lane Craig, Douglas Geivett, and Rabbi David Wolpe on the topic: Does the Universe Have a Purpose? in Mexico.
How to Fight Cyber-Bullies and Win
I you have my book, The Christian Delusion, in chapter one Dr. David Eller shows why language and culture matter to Christianity. In a Christian culture with Christian language people will be inclined to accept Christianity as true. But as our culture changes so will our language, and that is a good thing even if like a chameleon Christianity will learn to adapt. In fact I'm in favor of being proactive about this. There are just too many secularists, too many Jews, too many spiritualists, too many people of different faiths in our country that the language of this holiday needs to be changed. And one place we can insist that it be changed is how retailers market their products. Call it "The Holidays," or just "December 25th," but let's have done with the word "Christmas," especially when we describe it.
Believers wonder who an atheist has to thank at this time. I thank my lucky stars that I was born and enjoy the good life that I do. So many others don't, based on factors like when and where they were born.
We should be skeptics of extraordinary claims of miracles in the ancient past. Tell me why we shouldn't? There are too many of them in every culture, too many mythical stories.
Spirited debates in scholarly fields usually involve a mixture of substantive argumentation and rhetorical weaponry. Rhetorical weaponry is intended to detract from the real substance of arguments, as well as to appeal to the emotional side of the audience. Rhetorical weaponry and substantive arguments are not always easily distinguished, and participants may sometimes be unaware of the difference.
Here, I concentrate on the rhetorical weapons that are being deployed by religionist biblical scholars against efforts to reform the field of biblical studies so that it might function like all other fields in modern academia---a completely secular enterprise with methodological naturalism at its core.
These rhetorical weapons may be seen as literary tropes or themes, insofar as they depict fictional, rather than actual, villainy on the part of secularists. The purpose of these tropes and themes is to marginalize secularists rather than to address real arguments. They represent creative versions of the ad hominem fallacy.
I get new readers everyday so let me welcome them and briefly tell them what to expect here at DC. I am not a news source. There are lots of religion related news stories but I mostly comment on the high profile or interesting ones. Nor do I post many stories about the crimes or infidelities of pastors. They happen everyday and even though some of their abuses make our heads spin I mostly comment on high profile or interesting cases. Nor do I share many testimonies of deconversion, although I do so from time to time. And I don't post a great deal of obtuse philosophical arguments, or a great many things about science or cosmology. They are all useful, no doubt, and I do so from time to time.
Someone recently wrote this about us here at DC: “I find it amazing how much anger there is on this board.”
I find this to be an interesting charge. People have said this before. Is it true? If it is, does it imply anything important?
I don’t think it’s true, at least not with me. I am not an angry atheist toward anyone. If I have ever shown anger it’s because I was responding to what I considered to be willful ignorance, idiocy and/or attempts to belittle me.
But what if I am angry, and what if others here are angry? What then?
Is this better? It's more like Blogger.
It's about prayer, and this video is awesome!:
I get contacted from Christian friends I've had over the years who want to discuss why I rejected Christianity. Here is a brief email exchange I had with a dear friend from the past:
Jeff Foxworthy's line is "You might be a redneck if.." Below are ten suggested answers to this other line that were emailed to me. Got some of your own?
Christians have faulted the so-called New Atheists with ignorance. They do the same thing with me. If only I knew this or that I would see the error of my way and believe again. But think about this. How much philosophy should Richard Dawkins know to rationally reject religion? How much science should Christopher Hitchens know? How much Bible should Daniel Dennett know? How much theology should Sam Harris know? How much should we know to rationally reject religion? How much? What if we know very little? What if all we know is that God did not save our child and she died from Leukemia? What if a scientist rejects religion because s/he cannot adequately test supernatural hypotheses? What if a historian rejects the claims of a religion because as a historian s/he must assume a natural explanation for the events in the past? What then? Are they culpable for doing so when this is all they know to do? When can it be said that a person can rationally reject a religion? Surely the theist cannot possibly demand that nonbelievers must know all that can be known before their rejection of religion is warranted.
To put it in terms of the Outsider Test for Faith, how much should someone know in order to reject Mormonism, or Catholicism, or Islam, or Orthodox Judaism, to name a few. How much do YOU know of them?
If you're interested in obtaining me for a speaking engagement, please send me an email at johnwloftus dot frontier dot com for arrangements and details.
is massive and sure to be a good one. Be sure to get it. I plan on doing so.
. His talk can be found there as well. He talked for a bit about sex and the triggers that cause people to believe. In my talk I mentioned Robert Price's essay on sex. 
. Let's have done then with the notion that I don't understand liberal versions of Christianity. I do. I just reject them.
is one I heartily recommend (see my review at Amazon). Time magazine 
DC receives pennies on the dollar no matter what you buy at no extra cost and helps keep me Blogging. There are 
