Tag Archives: religion

If You’re Religious, Do You Put Your Soul At Hazard By Watching Comedy Central?

Posted on September 15, 2015 by

Below are four pretty good reasons for thinking humor is dangerous to religious belief: Humor is dangerous to any confident expression of metaphysics, for it lampoons pretense. It deflates and complicates; it speaks on behalf of the sorts of contending truths … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Albert Mohler Calls Closeted Atheist Clergy “Charlatans and Cowards”

Posted on July 15, 2015 by

Who’s being the coward here? Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an unapologetic young Earth creationist, plays rough with secretly atheist clergy members who have talked in confidence to Daniel Dennett’s The Clergy Project, writing at … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Aquinas and Superstition: Thomist Philosopher Edward Feser Is An Aquinastitionist. What Is That?

Posted on June 14, 2015 by

Aquinastition. When you mix Aquinas with superstition you get Aquinastition. So an Aquinastitionist is an intellectual Thomist who makes apologies for religious superstition. Thomist philosopher Edward Feser is an example, as displayed in his recent essay, “Religion and Superstition,” in The Routledge … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The “Little Missionary”: A Child Healer in Brazil

Posted on June 11, 2015 by

Six years old. She’s called the “Little Missionary,” and the money is rolling in. Religion exploiting children. Is this a bug or a feature? Brazil’s evangelical revolution sees miracle healers take centre stage Poverty and technology contribute to boom of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Holy Shit! The Atheists Really Are Coming!

Posted on May 12, 2015 by

From 16% to 23% of the American population. That’s how fast the religiously unaffiliated have risen in America over the past eight years. Stunning. The Republican Party and the Internet have ruined Christianity in America. Republicans have politicized religion, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Saturday Night Live: Is This A Representation Of The Prophet Muhammad–Or Not?

Posted on May 10, 2015 by

After Charlie Hebdo and Pamela Geller, Prophet Muhammad drawing is amusingly dealt with below by Saturday Night Live. In a picture drawing game, what could a blank canvas be inferred to be–but the Prophet Muhammad himself? So was the Prophet … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

How to Save Adam and Eve from Genetics and Darwin

Posted on May 10, 2015 by

Darwin and genetics have blown up the idea that Adam and Eve had a special creation physically. No new species tends to bottleneck down to two (unless perhaps two stray birds get isolated on an island and start a new … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace: Traditionalists Turn Gay Marriage Into Greek Drama

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

A wedding ceremony needn’t consist of drama–unless someone objects. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” If someone objects, then the Greek drama starts. As in the conflict in Sophocles’ Antigone, in which King Creon feels he has to stop … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Let Them Eat (Or Not Eat) Wedding Cake: Religious Conscience, Gay Marriage, And Empathy For Others

Posted on April 29, 2015 by

With regard to bakers who might balk, out of conscience, in making a cake for a gay wedding, I think many of us who are heterosexual and support gay marriage have a problem: our empathy goes all in one direction–toward … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Does The Holocaust Render Natural Law Problematic?

Posted on March 24, 2015 by

Think about the Holocaust in relation to natural law. Even if the Holocaust doesn’t give you pause in relation to God’s existence, it nevertheless functions as an impasse to comprehension. What was God up to in letting the Holocaust happen? … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Do You Know? Factive Verbs in Relation to Political, Religious, and Scientific Discourse

Posted on March 3, 2015 by

I’m thinking about factive verbs this morning in relation to such things as global warming, God’s existence, evolution, the future of the stock market, etc. ESTABLISH, for example, is a very strong, emphatic verb, as in, “I’ve established the truth … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

How Global Warming Denialists Are Likely to “Reason” about Berkeley Physicist Richard Muller’s Findings

Posted on February 13, 2015 by

I suppose Berkeley physicist Richard Muller is a fool for putting together a team that included a Nobel Prize winning scientist, revisiting all the data on climate change to date, and coming to the same conclusion as the current scientific … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Letter Writers Heart Richard Dawkins

Posted on January 22, 2015 by

The beloved Oxford evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, reads out representative samples of the love he attracts from those who follow his work. __________ The tone and content of the letters remind me of numerous pronouncements made by famous theologians and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

An Atheist Leads a Prayer at a City Council Meeting…

Posted on January 8, 2015 by

No, it’s not the beginning of a joke, but it made me smile. Naturally, before Preston Smith, an atheist, got started on his invocation, a number of the pious council members of the fine city of Lake Worth, Florida, split … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seven Reasons I’m an Antitheist

Posted on December 14, 2014 by

I’m an antitheist. I don’t think, on balance, that religion functions as a force for good in the 21st century. Seven reasons: Religion perpetuates women’s inequality. One element of religion that is quite bad, and that makes me an antitheist, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Aztec Sun God and Jesus the Son of God Bled for You. Feel Guilty? Ready to Sacrifice Your Life to Them? Then the Stories Worked!

Posted on November 28, 2014 by

The Aztec worship of their sun god was rather barbaric because humans were sacrificed to the god. The rationale for this sacrifice had to do with Aztec myth, which held that the sun god sacrificed his very own blood to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Thomas Aquinas on Exterminating Heretics

Posted on November 16, 2014 by

In the Summa, Thomas Aquinas says that you can reason with someone who holds a different doctrine from yours so long as that person is open and searching. On the other hand, if the person persists in his view, and does … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Thomistic Essentialism and Sex in the Real World

Posted on November 3, 2014 by

Virtually every healthy human adult on the planet has a sex life of some sort, and the effect of Thomistic sexual ideology (use sex organs for procreation only), were it to be seriously followed everywhere, would be the generation of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

What are Sex Organs For? Thomism vs. Evolution

Posted on October 29, 2014 by

We know that evolution high-jacks organs all the time to different purposes depending on context. The first tongue may have had the singular purpose of tasting, then it got used by the cat for cleaning the pelt, then by humans … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Thomas Aquinas Says We Are Children of Wrath. Is He Right?

Posted on October 27, 2014 by

In the fourth book of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles, chapter 52, there is quite a dark vision of the world on display. At one point, for example, Aquinas, echoing the apostle Paul, speaks of all humanity as “children of wrath.” God, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments