Tag Archives: agnostic

What Does It Mean To Be An Agnostic?

Posted on November 17, 2014 by

I’m an agnostic, which for me means the following: I take it that there is only one way the cosmos actually is, and I don’t know what that one way is. There are a gazillion logically possible ways it could … Continue reading →

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Atheists Out of the Closet: Speaking Truth to Hypocritical Religion at the Democratic Convention

Posted on September 6, 2012 by

I find this life affirming. At the Democratic Convention yesterday, secular people acted up and got off script, shouting no to making inane references to “God” (whatever that ultimately means) in politics. Naturally, the Republicans pounced and demagogued the moment. But what … Continue reading →

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People Are A Bit Stupid, Aren’t They?

Posted on May 1, 2012 by

I’m trying to get my head around two facts. The first one is the phenomenal horsepower underlying the human brain: The human brain contains roughly 100 billion neurons. Each of these neurons seems capable of making around 1,000 connections, representing about 1,000 … Continue reading →

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Contemporary Iconoclasm: Jesus Statue Beheaded in Boston

Posted on January 25, 2012 by

Jesus beheaded! What would Freud say? Here’s the Boston Globe this morning: [P]olice are looking for the vandals who knocked the head off a statue of Jesus outside a Roman Catholic church named for Mother Teresa. The Rev. Jack Ahern of Blessed Mother Teresa … Continue reading →

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Should Atheists Insert Themselves into Religious Discussions and Theological Disputes?

Posted on January 15, 2012 by

The reason atheists can (and should) enter into religious discussions and theological disputes, judging religions, is because Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Krishna, and Buddha do not belong to the faiths to which they are associated. In the 21st century, these figures … Continue reading →

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Why It’s Better to Say “Happy Holidays” Than “Merry Christmas” to Strangers

Posted on December 25, 2011 by

Because saying “Happy Holidays” to a stranger is not “taking Christ out of Christmas”; instead, it’s acknowledging the plurality of ways that late December is treated in a world in which not everyone is Christian. “Happy Holidays” is a catch-all that … Continue reading →

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Albert Mohler: Christopher Hitchens in Hell for Unbelief

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

Albert Mohler is President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and Darrel Falk, past President of BioLogos, calls Albert Mohler “among the most important evangelicals in the world” and a “giant” in evangelical and fundamentalist circles. In April of … Continue reading →

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My Ongoing Agnostic Jacob-Wrestle with the God Question

Posted on November 5, 2011 by

Let’s posit that God exists and is, ultimately, the First Cause behind all appearances, but is hidden. What would we find when looking about the universe?  We would find material secondary causes everywhere, but God’s direct action nowhere. And that’s exactly … Continue reading →

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“The Age of Doubt”: Christopher Lane’s New Book on Victorian Agnosticism Looks Interesting

Posted on May 5, 2011 by

At New Humanist is an essay by Christopher Lane (adapted from his recently released book on doubt and agnosticism among the Victorians). Here is Lane writing about the (failed) defensive maneuvers taken by the Christian faithful against the rising cultural tide of religious doubt: … Continue reading →

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Ultimate Meaning: Pope Benedict and William Wordsworth Have a Theory

Posted on April 24, 2011 by

I don’t think much of the pedophile shielding (and enabling) Pope Benedict, but in his Easter homily this year he laid out the atheist v. theist divide with succinct eloquence:  If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the … Continue reading →

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Who’s the Pillar of Salt Here?

Posted on April 21, 2011 by

Imagine yourself a teen or young adult church member in America, but you have doubts. What happens when you express them?  At Christianity Today, Drew Dyke, the author of Generation Ex-Christian (Moody), shares his disturbing interview discoveries:  Almost to a person, … Continue reading →

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Good Reasons for Being an Agnostic Watch: A Fifth Force of Nature? Things Just Got More Interesting

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

A “bump” in the data generated at Fermilab has the physics world buzzing. The following is in the New York Times today: “Nobody knows what this is,” said Christopher Hill, a theorist at Fermilab who was not part of the team. “If … Continue reading →

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Atheism and the Quest for Meaning: What Does It Mean to Say That All of Existence is Contingent?

Posted on December 23, 2010 by

It means that life didn’t have to be—it was an accident—and yet here we all are. Our existence is neither inherently necessary or meaningful. Welcome! Now, as human beings, what do we do? Well, we can try to take the incoherence of … Continue reading →

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In Florida, Atheists Told They Can’t Wear Shirts That Say “One Nation, Indivisible” at City Council Meetings!

Posted on December 18, 2010 by

A grotesque violation of the First Amendment is taking place in the city of Cape Coral: And here’s another report on the story:

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The Origin of the Words “Agnostic” and “Agnosticism”

Posted on December 11, 2010 by

I found the following little gem in Google’s library of free and out-of-print books yesterday: it is the story of the origin of the words “agnostic” and “agnosticism”, charmingly told by Richard A. Armstrong, in his book, Agnosticism and Theism in … Continue reading →

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An Agnostic Interviews an Imam: The Imam Takes Me on a Mosque Tour

Posted on November 22, 2010 by

The below clip took place in Palmdale, California in northern Los Angeles County, on Wednesday, October 6, 2010. After I had introduced the imam, Kamal al Khatib (see the opening clip here), he then brought me into the mosque. We removed … Continue reading →

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Atheist Walid Husayin Didn’t Watch What He Was Sayin’ on Facebook—and Has Been Arrested by the Palestinian Authority

Posted on November 14, 2010 by

An otherwise quiet 26-year-old Palestinian barber who happens to be an atheist did a no-no. He went on Facebook, expressed blunt opinions about his father’s religion (his father is a Muslim scholar), joked that he—Walid—is God, supported atheist views on some … Continue reading →

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The Thirteen Missing Explanatory Links in the Atheist v. Theist Debate

Posted on November 4, 2010 by

Below I offer what I would call “the thirteen missing explanatory links” in the atheist v. theist debate. To my mind they constitute the most intractable problems for anyone trying to arrive at some sort of worldview coherence (whether you … Continue reading →

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Agnosticism and Marketing

Posted on October 26, 2010 by

At Marginal Revolution today, economist Tyler Cowen was asked about whether there are some especially good economic ideas out there that are hard to popularize, and his answer led to a brief digression on complexity and agnosticism: [I]t is hard to popularize … Continue reading →

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Thinking about Why

Posted on October 25, 2010 by

The following quote comes from the introduction to Diogenes Allen’s Philosophy for Understanding Theology  (Westminster John Knox Press, 2nd ed 2007): The ancient Egyptians said that the Greeks were like children because they were always asking ‘Why?’ . . . … Continue reading →

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