John on September 2, 2010
What does an anti-human-life atheist do with his spare time? Argue with Christians and pro-lifers of course. This video combines two seperate interviews James Jay Lee did, one in 2008 and the other in 2009: Why is this significant? Because people on the left and right seem eager to dismiss Lee as a “nutjob” whose list of demands proves he was crazy. And indeed from reading his manifesto, one might [...]
John on July 13, 2010
Ron Rosenbaum wrote a piece on atheism and agnosticism for Slate a couple weeks ago titled An Agnostic Manifesto. His basic argument is that neither religious believers nor “new atheists” make a very convincing case for their beliefs, so it makes more sense to be agnostic. Of course the word agnostic has a particular history. It was coined by T. H. Huxley, a friend of Darwin and one of the [...]
John on May 13, 2010
Today I stumbled across a discussion of New Atheism that has been going on for a few weeks. Actually it’s a discussion of this piece by David Hart in First Things. Here is Hart’s central contention: What I find chiefly offensive about them is not that they are skeptics or atheists; rather, it is that they are not skeptics at all and have purchased their atheism cheaply, with the sort [...]
John on March 1, 2010
The NY Times has a new story by James McKinley following up on the two men who burned down 11 churches near Tyler, Texas. Here is how it begins: Jason R. Bourque grew up in a house full of crosses. At his grandparent’s spacious home here, where he was raised, a small forest of crosses stands on a table by the front door, and one wall of the living room [...]
John on February 27, 2010
From Dawkin’s site: Imagine that you, as a greatly liked and respected person, found yourself overnight subjected to personal vilification on an unprecedented scale, from anonymous commenters on a website. Suppose you found yourself described as an “utter twat” a “suppurating rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum inside a dead skunk that’s been shoved up a week-old dead rhino’s twat.” Or suppose that somebody on the same [...]
John on February 1, 2010
From the Daily Mail: Gervais, 48, said there were ‘too many unwanted children, too many people who are poor and struggling’. He added: ‘If they all had a good quality of life, no one would complain. What there is, is too many useless people. Too many people who shouldn’t have children.’ Asked whether there should be a limitation then, he told the Sunday Times: ‘Yes, based on… stupid, fat faces. [...]
John on January 3, 2010
He has a piece about Iran. Here’s the heart of it: A country that attempts to govern itself from a holy book will immediately find itself in decline: the talents of its females repressed and squandered, its children stultified by rote learning in madrassas, and its qualified and educated people in exile or in prison. There are no exceptions to this rule: Afghanistan under the Taliban was the worst single [...]
John on September 29, 2009
He’s got a new book coming out. Newsweek has a brief but interesting interview with him. I found this somewhat surprising: Are those incompatible positions: to believe in God and to believe in evolution? [Dawkins:] No, I don’t think they’re incompatible if only because there are many intelligent evolutionary scientists who also believe in God—to name only Francis Collins [the geneticist and Christian believer recently chosen to head the National [...]
John on September 9, 2009
You’ve just left earth in the rapture. No need to worry about getting to work on time or whether or not you left the coffee maker on. That’s all behind you now. But, wait, what about your beloved pets? Who will care for fluffy and spot when the anti-Christ takes over the Earth? Ruh-Roh! Fortunately, there is a concerned group of atheist animal lovers ready to care for your pets, [...]
John on April 30, 2009
Within about 40 years, Islam overtakes Europe. This video presents the numbers: Notice that the basic premise at work in all of this is the well-attested inverse correlation between religiosity and birth rates. The secular nations of Europe have fallen far below replacement of their populations. The US, with a 1.6 birth rate is an outlier, but this correlates perfectly with it’s status as the most religious Western country. As [...]
John on March 4, 2009
I’m not sure how this one got past the fine folks at Get Religion, but it did. The NY Times Peter Steinfels wrote a piece last week built around Dr. Phil Zuckerman’s new book, Society Without God. The gist of the piece is that Zuckerman spent 14 months living in Scandinavia talking to people about God and discovered that most Scandinavians don’t care much about the subject: “I spent a [...]
John on January 17, 2009
From Bill Baily (or Bailley) who, um, really loves the blog: I came accross this site and just wanted you to know Your an idiot. If you were a teacher I bet you were good at showing How not to think. Just wanted you to know The people who do think just are saddened by such fools as you. You make the world a less pleasant and less informed place. [...]
John on September 23, 2008
Hat tip to the Corner for this story, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week: On the “Saturday Night Live” season debut last week, homeschooling families were portrayed as fundamentalists with bad haircuts who fear biology. Actor Matt Damon recently disparaged Sarah Palin by referring to a transparently fake email that claimed she believed that dinosaurs were Satan’s lizards. And according to prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins, traditional [...]
John on September 19, 2008
Mary Warnock is a well known “moral philosopher”, considered Britains best by some. In December of 2000, the Guardian published a list of Mary Warnock’s favorite books. Her list includes works by Hume, Aristotle and Mill. She also includes a book by her husband in the list: 9. The Object of Morality by GJ Warnock I make no apology for choosing a book by GJ Warnock, though he was my [...]
John on September 1, 2008
From Live Science, the thinly veiled attacks on Palin’s faith have begun: [E]xactly what are Republicans committed to when it comes to science and education? To raise a nation of ignorant bigots whose understanding of the world is no better than that of a tribe of ancient middle eastern people wandering around the desert thousands of years ago? To allow individual states to decide just how misinformed about science their [...]
John on July 29, 2008
Watching Richard Dawkins’ BBC special The Root of All Evil?, it becomes clear that the man is intentionally — and dishonestly — using people’s fear of Islamic extremism as a cudgel against Christianity. Dawkins, at least, is clever enough to make it sound good, if only for a moment. Others following in his footsteps may not be so lucky. Case in point, Minette Marrin has a piece in today’s London [...]
John on December 16, 2007
I wasn’t planning on writing more about this film, but this obnoxious comment convinced me that one more tap dance on Pullman’s cinematic grave was warranted. (By the way, don’t you just love the line of reasoning: We demand you bring your kids to this atheist indoctrination because we’re concerned about religious indoctrination of kids!) As I noted here, Compass cost $180 million to produce plus an additional $30-35 million [...]
John on December 10, 2007
Update 12/12: This will probably be my last update on this one. There’s a bit more news. First, it appears the message board I linked to below is not the same one that was discovered by 9News. However, I have reason to believe it is the same person. The site Matt Murray posted on was run by the Association of Former Pentecostals. He posted under the name nghtmrchld26. Notice how [...]
Scott on December 4, 2007
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the classroom, or to say the Pledge of Allegiance, or to read the fine print on your money, Michael Newdow is back in court once again, bound and determined to save us from ourselves (and our ridiculous faith in God). I’ll give this guy extra credit points for effort, but why is he so obsessed with getting his hands [...]
John on November 29, 2007
From the Christian Post: A national weekly news magazine recently featured a debate between atheist/author Sam Harris and author/pastor Rick Warren (“The Purpose Driven Life”). As part of his debate, Mr. Harris threw down a challenge to prove God’s existence by finding a deserving amputee and having 1 billion people pray for God to grow the leg back. In trying to disprove the existence of God, it’s unclear why Mr. [...]
