It’s not hard to find articles that decry the efforts of the “New Atheists” for their bullying of innocent and defenseless religion, in terms that range from disapproval to outright vehemence, nor is it hard to find comments where the commenter prides themselves on their “live and let live” attitude, maintaining that the only proper behavior is to not judge
Category: Reference
I know you are but what am I?
Some time back I created the ‘Ask an Atheist’ page linked above, prompted by a similar effort elsewhere, to provide anyone the ability to fire away with any questions they might have regarding atheism, secularism, or perhaps just my own personal outlook on some issue. Some time after that, I amended the initial paragraphs to reflect the bare fact that very few people ever bother to try
But how? Part 19: The defense against evil
I was working on another post that dealt with clarifying some details about atheism, and the initial premise of this was one of those points. As I started to address it, I realized that it wasn’t going to be covered in a paragraph or two, and so it has become the latest installment in the But How? lineup, to wit: But how does atheism or secularity defend against evil?
What I was originally
What are they hiding?!
This one is born out of a post on Mental Floss – or at least, that’s the most recent thing to provoke the thoughts the attitude is remarkably common and can be found connected to countless topics. In short: if a government agency or some otherwise
On capital punishment
Capital punishment yet remains a contentious topic, even while we’ve found comfortable positions on many of the moral issues we struggled with for centuries – slavery and racism, women’s rights, legal adulthood, and so on. Perhaps the biggest reason behind this is, there are too many factors that motivate a response, most of them emotional, and most of those have been
You animal!
You know, there are a lot of misconceptions about animal psychology and behavior out there, and they’re all over the map. I’m going to address a few of the more prevalent ones here, with the hopes of at least promoting a little more perspective and forethought among the topics.
Let’s get one thing out of the way right from the start: “animal” is a simple
But how? Part 18: A vague creative force
I would be remiss if I did not talk about this particular aspect of religion, the belief in a vague, indeterminate source of creation – and, honestly, I have, numerous times in the past, but always while dealing with something more specific. It deserves its own dedicated post, which will be many times more specific and detailed than the topic itself has ever been, so let’s delve into
Dogpile
A few days back, in the comments to an article regarding the really piss-poor showing of Americans in their acceptance of evolution, someone argued about the poll question which delivered these results by pointing out that the concepts of god and evolution “are not mutually exclusive.” For instance, god
But how? Part 17: god’s plan
[EDIT 4:30 PM: This post went through numerous drafts over a period of days, which means it was in process long before this little squirt of utter bullshit came out, and I managed
On the horizon
From time to time, and surprisingly in some rather serious media sources, we hear about the technological singularity, the fast-approaching (so we’re told) point where artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence, and quite often right alongside we have speculations about the “machines taking over.” As over-dramatic as that sounds, some