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What I'm reading now:
The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture
God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible by CJ Werleman
Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life (this is excellent. Well written and fascinating. Highly recommended)
God Is Not Great (Hitchens is extremely erudite but I agree with him a lot here. Excellent so far)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Listening to the audio version. Excellent!)


What I just finished:
Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language
Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (Recommended. The first half is a great read. Thorough and detailed but easy to understand.)
Letting Go of God (I listened to the audio version. It was poignant and funny. Highly recommended!)
His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) (best trilogy I've ever read!)

Series

Happy Atheist Love

Answering Paul’s Questions

A person named Paul commented on HDC on GMNightmare’s deconversion story and I thought they were interesting questions. Both Johnny and GMNightmare already gave long answers, also worth noting, instead of letting it get lost in comments. And I added my 2 cents on at the bottom. :)

Here is Paul’s comment:

I have a couple of questions that I would like answered, and you seem like the type to answer questions. First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang? And [...]

How To Argue

funny-pictures-cat-has-had-many-victimsAlmost all of us argue or have discussions. But there’s actually a right way and lots of wrong ways to go about it. As an ethical person, I don’t really want to do it wrong because that’s being dishonest and unfair. I am definitely not a debater, which is where people actually use logical fallacies on purpose to win an argument. I don’t really care for debates because they seem forced to me. It’s about winning, not about finding out the truth. I think the main reason I hate arguing is because most people fight dirty. I am sure I’ve done it too, mainly out of ignorance. Now, with the following information, we can argue more logically.

Yesterday while being domestic, I was listening to podcasts. The following one was so cool, I actually decided to transcribe it for you because it was both concise and chock full of [...]

Conversations With Craig The Christian 2 – Biblical Interpretations and A Logical Fallacy

atheist-cat-sees-no-evidence

Remember Craig the christian from last month? He emailed me yesterday about the recent post I wrote: Cherry-Picking and a bible Lesson for Atheists. I’ll quote his email and then post my replies.

Craig said: I do not have a problem with your use of the Skeptic’s Bible per se. The issue I have with the Skeptic’s Bible is the use of the King James Bible, which relies on later documents for its translation (8th and 9th century if I remember correctly) as opposed to the 1st and 2nd century documents other translations use (NRSV & NET to name a few).

Neece’s reply:
If you know of a more accurate interpretation of the bible that I can link to online and read online, can you link me? Otherwise I’ll stick to the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. Because it’s the one [...]

Cherry-Picking and A bible Lesson For Atheists

realityI was stumbling around the intertoobs and found a blog post at dmiessler titled The Jesus Quote You’ll Never Hear In Church. The quote is as follows:

Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Now, this is actually the end of the parable of the talents that jesus is telling. Basically the lesson that jesus seems to imply is that god takes what is not rightly his and reaps what he didn’t sow. Of course, jesus freely admits that he tells parables to confuse people so they will go to hell:

Mark 4:10-12 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.
And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: [...]

Young Earth Invasion

funny-pictures-kitten-is-disappointed-with-baby-foodRecently, a friend of mine went to the Center For Inquiry in his hometown. There was a book discussion about “50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a god“. This is part of his email to me about it:

The guy who leads the Scientific Evaluation of Religion things for this location has done a pretty good job the two times I have gone. I really have to give him credit and say I was impressed at how he handled this meeting since IT GOT HIJACKED BY A GROUP OF YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS! That’s right, you heard me. It was pretty interesting for me to see first hand their pulling out all the old cliché arguments for Christianity. They got started when there was a chapter summary that mentioned that most religious people are skeptical of other peoples faiths but not their own, they took issue with [...]

Logical Fallacy 7: The Red Herring

dr392d17A Red Herring is a diversionary tactic. It is an argument brought up in response to another argument which does not address the real issue. There are many types of Red Herring arguments. Sometimes this can be a deliberate attempt to divert the argument and other times it might be done in ignorance. Usually this is an appeal to emotion as well.

The term comes from fox hunting. They used smoked red herrings dragged across the path of the fox to distract the hounds from the fox’s trail.

This is Part 7 in a series about Logical Fallacies, Misconceptions, False Beliefs. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I’m going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there’s a particular fallacy you [...]

Logical Fallacy 6: Argumentum Verbosium: Proof By Intimidation

madcatArgumentum verbosium is also known as Proof by Intimidation, or Proof by Verbosity. It refers to an argument that is so complex, so long-winded and so poorly presented by the arguer that you are obliged to accept it, simply to avoid being forced to sift through its minute details.

This fallacy is epitomized by this lovely statement, “If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, then baffle them with your bullshit.”

This is Part 6 in a series I introduced awhile ago about Logical Fallacies, Misconceptions, False Beliefs. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacies. I’m going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there’s a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using [...]

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