Reading Time: 4 minutes This is part 3 of my “Think! Of God and Government” debate series with Christian author Andrew Murtagh. Read my latest post and Andrew’s reply. Andrew, Thanks again for inviting me to take part in our radio debate last month. It was fun, even if I sometimes felt like I was arguing with the host […]
Debating
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Interview on the Nick Givas Radio Show
Reading Time: < 1 minute Tomorrow night, January 23rd, I’ll be appearing on the Nick Givas Radio Show out of Fairfield University, together with my friend/debate partner Andrew Murtagh, to debate God’s existence, politics and all that other fun stuff. This is a followup to our debate at the Midtown Scholar last month, so if you wanted to come to […]
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A Christian vs. an Atheist: On God and Government, Part 2
Reading Time: 4 minutes This is part 2 of my “Think! Of God and Government” debate series with Christian author Andrew Murtagh. Read my first post and Andrew’s reply. Andrew, Thanks again for your fairness and hospitality at the Midtown Scholar debate last month. It was a pleasure for me as well! You’ll have to come out to NYC […]
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My Debate at the Midtown Scholar
Reading Time: 3 minutes This past weekend, I was at the Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for my first ever in-person debate, part of the “Think! Of God and Government” debate series I’m having with Christian author Andrew Murtagh. The Midtown Scholar is a huge, gorgeous independent bookstore – I’m told it used to be a movie theater – […]
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A Christian vs. an Atheist: On God and Government, Part 1
Reading Time: 3 minutes Author’s Note: This post kicks off the “Of God and Government” debate series, featuring me and a Christian author, Andrew Murtagh, which I intend to become a semi-regular feature on Daylight Atheism. You can read Andrew’s opening statement on Patheos’ Versus blog, and this is my initial reply. I’ll also be appearing at the Midtown […]
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My Thoughts on the Civility Pledge
Reading Time: 3 minutes My Patheos colleague Dan Fincke has proposed a civility pledge for people engaged in public discussion. I think his motivations are good, and most of the pledge is fine. I completely agree with his points about using specific charges rather than abusive epithets, about recognizing that members of marginalized groups may have experiences which I […]
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The Twitter Report: Could It Be… Satan?
Reading Time: 5 minutes In my early days of blogging, I would have exhaustive debates, sometimes lasting for weeks, with believers who came across one of my websites and posed a challenge to me. But although it was fun in its time, I’ve wearied of it, and with occasional rare exceptions, I don’t argue with theists over e-mail anymore. […]
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Intelligence Squared: Would the World Be Better Without Religion?
Reading Time: 3 minutes On Tuesday night, I attended a debate at NYU’s Skirball Center that was part of the Intelligence Squared debate series, “Resolved: The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion“. Supporting the atheist side were Matthew Chapman and A.C. Grayling, while Dinesh D’Souza and David Wolpe were arguing on behalf of religion. You can read the […]
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Creationist Target Practice
Reading Time: < 1 minute Yesterday, someone calling himself Rev. Skeens posted the following comment. I rejected it since it had no perceptible connection to the post it was submitted under, but then I had second thoughts. Granted that this is beginner-level stuff and hardly challenging, but it’s been a while since we honed our debating skills on an actual […]
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My Notes on the Ideological Turing Test
Reading Time: 7 minutes Following up my post analyzing the results of Unequally Yoked’s ideological Turing test, this one lists how I voted on each of the atheist candidates. I took notes as I was going through them, trying to flag what stood out to me as evidence of genuineness or fakery. As you can see, some of my […]