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Atheists should be tolerant of religion
Recently, there was an NPR story by Marcelo Gleiser on how scientists should respond to people’s anxiety about science and God. Jerry Coyne responded in a post asking if faith should ever not be...
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Mystics and/or Atheists
James McGrath, a theologically progressive Christian, has a post up discussing the many varied conceptions of God: Mystics and/or Atheists. As I indicated on another post, the word ‘God’ can be used to...
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Hard Evidence: Is Christianity Dying in Britain? | The Conversation UK
Hard Evidence: Is Christianity Dying in Britain? | The Conversation UK. An interesting piece at HuffPost UK, exploring what appears to be the collapse of religion in Britain. Although there continues...
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Science, philosophy, and caution about what we think we know
Image credit: Efbrazil via Wikipedia What is the difference between science and philosophy? While there are enterprises that are clearly in one or the other, the dividing line isn’t always a sharp...
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Soothing the fear of death
Image credit: CC-BY-SA-3.0/Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia The fear of death is a normal, natural, instinct that we all have. Without it, we’d end up doing all kinds of reckless things that most of us...
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God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can’t Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff...
God Created Gravity: Why the U.S. Can’t Keep Pace With Slovenia | Jeff Schweitzer. Jeff Schweitzer’s post bemoaning the problems in society caused by religion is getting a lot of attention around the...
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Pope Francis
Pope Francis named Time Person of the Year 2013 – CNN.com. By now, I think everyone has heard about Pope Francis being Time’s Person of the Year. I was raised Catholic and I have to say I like this...
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Awe Increases Religious Belief | Matthew Hutson
In February 1971, Lunar Module pilot Edgar Mitchell was on his way back from the Moon when he had an epiphany. Staring out the window at the stars, he realized that everything is connected. The...
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The mind is the brain, and why that’s good
Source: Wikicommons Mind body dualism is the theory that mind and matter are separate substances. It’s an ancient theory discussed in various forms by philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, and...
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Big Gods: An interesting read
Borrowed from http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10063.html A while back, I read Ara Norenzayan’s book, ‘Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict‘. I’m posting this review somewhat...
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Free will? Free of what?
Credit: Jens Langner (http://www.jens-langner.de/) The concept of free will is intimately tangled up with the idea of responsibility. Are you responsible for your actions? To what degree are your...
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Determinism isn’t as certain as many assume
Conversation on yesterday’s post on free will has me thinking about determinism. First, what is determinism? According to Merriam-Webster, my favorite dictionary because they seem to be extremely...
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Why evangelicals and Catholic leaders are against contraception | Machines...
Annual population percent change in the world. Source: CIA World Factbook (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Why do the leaders of some religious groups like the Catholics and now even evangelicals oppose...
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Should Scientists Debate Creationists?
The perpetually-bowtied science educator Bill Nye “The Science Guy” is slated to debate creationist Ken Ham, the founder of Kentucky’s Creation Museum, on Feb. 4. Many scientists are uneasy about the...
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Interview of Ara Norenzayan on Inquiring Minds podcast
Brihadeshwara Temple (Photo credit: vishwaant) As I mentioned before, I have a big backlog of podcasts that I’m working through on my lunch walks. Many of you have probably already heard this, but...
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Thoughts on the Nye-Ham creationism debate
Young-Earth Creationism: The Flintstones for Grownups (Photo credit: PatinaLatina) The Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate happened, and by all accounts Nye wiped the floor with Ham. (I watched a few minutes...
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Why I think Sam Harris is wrong about morality | The Righteous Mind
Several commenters have said I should not just critique the excessive certainty of the New Atheists. I should respond directly to Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape Challenge. I should say why I think the...
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It’s Darwin Day, a celebration of science and reason | Machines Like Us
Darwin Day, according to the International Darwin Day Foundation, is “a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles...
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SMBC: A fable
As is often the case, Zach Weiner hits it out of the park with this observation. I’ve read a lot of history, and I’m struck by how often this type of pattern emerges. Click through to see the full...
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Free will and the value of compatibilism
With the essays traded between Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, free will is back in the web conversation. I wasn’t planning on making another free will post myself, having been mostly satisfied with...
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