Frank Walton of Atheism Sucks! briefly stopped by to link to his views on The Rational Response Squad’s Gift of Life Day. After reading a few posts at Walton’s blog, I saw his reaction to the ‘debate’ between Richard Dawkins and Bill ‘falafel’ O’Reilly (you can read my more visceral reaction here). In this post I wish to firmly argue in favor of Dawkins’ position – even though I think he communicated his message very poorly to a demagogue. Much has been made (and Walton’s post and subsequent comments are a prime example) of Dawkins’ words ‘We’re working on it.’ What I think Dawkins failed to communicate was that science is always working on it; there is no finality to discovering the Truth.

Continue reading Dawkins & O’Reilly

We want to make a public statement about how nonreligious people can observe the so-called National Day of Prayer, which we have renamed Gift of Life Day… So on that day, we atheists will be engaging in action that we can prove scientifically has real-life impact on our fellow citizens. (Brian Sapient of The Rational Response Squad)

I’d love to see both atheists and Christians (Matthew 26:28“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”) get behind this: Donate blood on May 3rd!

There are four options you can take on this day: (1) Participate in The National Day of Prayer, which is scientifically provenThe Templeton Foundation spent ten years and $2.4 million, only to grasp the obvious: “prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery.” (The New York Times 3/31/2006) to be ineffective“Even in the best studies, the evidence of an association between religion, spirituality, and health is weak and inconsistent. … [I]t is premature to promote faith and religion as adjunctive medical treatments.” (Lancet, 2/20/1999), something I personally think is a waste of time; (2) Give blood, which saves lives; (3) Spend the morning in prayer or quiet meditation, then go out and give some blood; (4) Do nothing, go to work, come home, watch TV, then go to sleep, all this time living in apathy.

I suggest taking option #2.

This post has nothing to do with atheism, theism, belief, dialogue, &c; it’s about programming code. If you’re interested, then read on. Otherwise, it’s for those that are willing and able to solve a goofy problem I’ve been having.

For everyone else, if you think the site could use an overhaul, then now’s the time for some suggestions. Just comment about the color scheme; font size/style; format… now’s your time to gripe!

Continue reading Anyone Know CSS?

Lately I’ve been encountering something that is disturbing to me. There is a popular version of postmodernism — an on-the-street version — far from the literary deconstruction where it was born. It seems to over-simplify a great deal of information, leaving behind a great deal of the nuance and intelligent dialogue for a sort of shallow relativism. Taking up the slogan of our age, it pronounces “whatever” on every aspect of life and every human endeavor. For one thing, such thinking uses the label “pluralism” to equalize and homogenize all faiths. Deep down, it believes religion is like blue jeans — all that’s different is the label.

Continue reading On Pluralism

How, by being an atheist in support of the ACLU and Americans United, I am religion’s greatest friend. (This post is a few days old; I had a few things I had to catch up on, so I delayed publishing this piece. It was meant to be a part of the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm.)

Continue reading The First Amendment

Chris Swift of Parabiodox, a Christian who believes in the inspired word of the Bible, has recently linked to us.* I think it would be worthwhile to comment on a recent short post of his.

I think Christians when faced with the constant barrage from Atheists can at least console themselves that they are doing a good job, providing these people with a sense of purpose in life, providing them with something concrete to concentrate on, even if it’s only a brick wall they wish to smash down.

Imagine the barreness [sic] of life for Atheists without religion, and in particular without Christianity to attack. They would be faced with having to examine their own philosophy for meaning, and what would they find ? A big black hole. (Parabiodox)

I wish to make this clear before I continue: my atheism is a direct result of my reliance on philosophical naturalism; this from methodological naturalism; and this from a desire to seek the truth. My atheism, as opposed to an atheist that accepts atheism out of an irrational fear, or illogic, or a popular counterculture stance, comes out of a grand history of philosophers of science. These men may be wrong — many have been in the past — but I find it insulting for Swift to imply that if there were more reason in the world, there’d be nothing but ‘a big black hole’ of philosophy.

Does Swift support such a claim, that (1) atheists attack Christians to get some deeper purpose to life, that (2) without Christianity atheism is bare, that (3) atheism is itself empty?

No, no, and no.

In fact, as I will argue, Swift has it all sideways, looking at a distorted image in the pool.

Continue reading Tsuyoku Naritai

We’ve been tagged — not once, but twice — for a Thinking Blogger Award. I know… I like to think. I try to do so at least three times a day; sometimes more, if I’m in the mood and work isn’t in the way. Since we’ve been tagged by both Richard Leyton (’[Philaletheia is] an interesting, constructive and interesting dialogue between an atheist and a christian that is always considered, responsive, and challenging to all parties.’) and Five Public Opinions (’[Philaletheia is] the benchmark for atheist-Christian dialogue on the internet.’), I think it’s fair that soulster and I each have a crack at nominating five of our favorite blogs, thus making a total of ten. After all, the rules say,

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote…

I think it’s reasonable for us to squeeze on by with this.

And so I nominate:

(1) Meme Processing

(2) Confusion of Ideas

(3) Stardust Musings and Thoughts for the Freethinker

(4) Kill the Afterlife

(5) Atheist Ethicist