Reading Time: 9 minutes I am going to explain to you why species do not exist and in some sense there is no such thing as speciation in evolutionary biology. This will involve philosophy, sand dunes, voting, colours and fossils. Amongst other things. The Sorites Paradox My favourite philosophical thought experiment, if you can call it that, and as […]
richard dawkins
Posted inReligion
Being Wrong, Gloriously.
Reading Time: 9 minutes We might laugh about or mock Christians who have entirely too high an estimation of themselves or too dramatic or fictionalized an interpretation of their experiences, but the problem of inaccurate self-perception is real–and it doesn’t go away upon deconversion from religion.
Posted inReligion
Evangelical Churn: The Fury of the Tribe
Reading Time: 9 minutes You can probably imagine that Christians aren’t terribly happy about Shannon Low’s deconversion. Today we’ll look at what his onetime tribe is making of his defection, because most ex-Christians have encountered much the same treatment–and if you’re a newly-deconverted person and haven’t yet, hang in there because you probably will at some point.
Posted inReligion
Evangelical Churn: A Defection, Observed
Reading Time: 10 minutes Thousands of people every day join the ranks of the ones who know. That number comes from Christian leaders themselves, who might have reason to misrepresent and inflate it–but I see no reason to think it’s not accurate.
Well, our ranks just expanded recently with the deconversion of the leader of a Christian rock band. I want to show you how his story fits in with the experiences of other people who’ve left Christianity (including me!), because next time we’ll be talking about why the tribe reacts to poorly to deconversions.
Posted inComedy, Evolution, The Secular
Classic Mr Deity: Mr Deity And The Atheist
Reading Time: < 1 minute This is from February 2015, and if that’s too early to be a classic, well, you can sentence me to atheist hell. Stay in touch! Like Laughing in Disbelief on Facebook: Laughing in Disbelief
Posted inCulture, General, Religion, The Secular
Preacher Says Atheists Prey on Fear, Prejudice, and Ignorance
Reading Time: 11 minutes I used to think the Christian faith equipped individuals with superior tools for self-analysis and critical introspection. Boy, was I wrong on that one. I started out my journey away from faith fully expecting to find that non-Christians are far less self-aware than Christians, allowing vices within themselves which the high standards of the Christian […]
Posted inThe Secular
Dawkins, Islam and feminism
Reading Time: 4 minutes Dawkins has just been trashed by a feminist guest contributor to The Friendly Atheist. TFA is usually well on the money, but this recent article had me annoyed. A lot.
It all started with this seemingly innocuous tweet:
Posted inPolitics
Middle East Needs All Kinds of Feminism
Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s usually a rather unconvincing argument leveled against certain feminist arguments and it involves comparing the experience of Western women to that of Middle Eastern women. One of the most famous examples is Richard Dawkins. The basic argument is that western feminists are prioritizing in a wrong way, since there are larger problems in the world. But Dawkins is wrong because Middle Eastern women also face the same kinds of problems. So when feminists, whether American or Middle Eastern, try to raise awareness of these issues, try to make sure everyone understands consent and private space and personal boundaries, they are not distracting from the fight against Islamists, a very necessary fight, and it doesn’t mean it’s solely a “first world problem”, it is our problem too – we just lack the awareness, and we need much more activism to get where west is now today, even considering those “lesser” problems. Middle East needs feminism, all kinds of it.
Posted inPhilosophy
Moving Naturalism Forward
Reading Time: < 1 minute Sean Carroll, who will soon be debating with William Lane Craig, I believe, some time ago organised a conference of sorts with some big name hitters in the naturalism world. I strongly advise watching these, though you might need to concentrate in parts. The most fascinating ones, in my opinion, are the ones on free […]
Posted inUncategorized
Maher on liberals and Islam
Reading Time: < 1 minute H/T to the thinker: And Morgan and Maher on guns, gay rights and marijuans: http://youtu.be/izSx3sOHO-M and an interesting piece on FOX news: http://youtu.be/j0aEjKhqu00