Advocating Reality

Just a quick addendum to my review of 'God's Not Dead', and also a comment about the current state of Apologetics. The Problem of Evil, simply put, is the idea that an All-Powerful 'God' would be able to abolish evil and apparently has chosen not to do so. To many, this idea of a 'God' is evil itself. Imagine, if you will, a grown man raping a 2-year old toddler. Now imagine that an all-powerful bearded man in the sky is watching this unfold, yet doing nothing. For myself, I consider this being to be completely immoral. If it were a human watching this happen, with the power to stop it yet not doing so, we would never hesitate to call the person completely immoral. Why is it so different for a 'God'? Well, according to the movie and to current Apologetics, the solution to the Problem of Evil is 'Free Will'. By abolishing evil in this world, such a being would be abrogating human 'Free Will'. This seems to make sense on the surface...

Major Themes of this film: Martyrdom Martyrdom Atheists are awful Martyrdom Muslims are awful Martyrdom Martyrdom Academics are awful Big Business people are awful Oh, and Martyrdom.  Did I mention Martyrdom? Actually, scratch a lot of what I said before.  Anyone who isn't Christian is awful, and some people who 'claim' to be Christians are also awful. This movie can be summed up as 3 logical fallacies: Arguments from Emotion Arguments from Ignorance Arguments from Authority First, just like with the TV appearance of Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, this movie most certainly is NOT persuasive in regards to the existence of God. Virtually every stereotype which could be played, was played.  The abusive Muslim who disowns his daughter when he learns that she is a Christian.  The scenes with the Academic crowd show them all to be vapid anti-theists.  Every student in the philosophy class, save one, simply go along with the anti-religious n...

Over the course of several years, through education, discussion and hours upon hours of deep thought, I no longer accept the traditional, mostly-absolute view of 'Free Will'. During some of my discussions, an issue kept coming up which kept me wondering about one particular aspect, though. Mainly, what does this mean for morality and law? How do we hold people 'accountable' to our societal and legal rules if they don't really have a say in their own thoughts and behavior? For the duration of this article (rant?), when I use the term 'Free Will' without qualification, I am specifically referring to the version of 'Free Will' which has been traditionally held by the majority of the populace for (probably) thousands of years. It occurs to me that the reason why we can still hold people accountable even without Free Will is because, when our brain is faced with a decision to make, it takes everything possible into account, including memories...

I often question myself when I argue with religious people and other believers in the supernatural - not necessarily my own position, but the manner in which I assert it.  It has been pointed out to me that I tend to be brisk and sarcastic in my arguments.  I agree that this is true, but I think there's more to it than that. Any time I respond to someone, I read my own post over and over again, often times long after posting it, just to look for any possible holes in my argument and to observe how I responded to particular comments.  Time and time again, I find that the real sarcasm doesn't begin until I start to get exasperated with the same argument over and over again.  I also find that it happens when the other party starts asserting what my beliefs are or makes other assumptions about me or my position.  In short, I keep it to a minimum, but it does happen. I have always held strong convictions, but for many years I maintained a strict habit of keeping...

The first episode of the Advocating Reality podcast is up!  I did this one on my own, but I'm hoping to have a co-host or two for the next one. This episode is an introduction to me and to the podcast, and the official topic is "Evolution, Creationism and Intelligent Design". Comments are welcome! Advocating Reality Podcast #1 - Evolution, Creationism & Intelligent Design Links mentioned in this podcast: My YouTube channel:   http://www.youtube.com/user/ddarklighter?feature=mhum TalkOrigins - http://talkorigins.org Email me at advocatingreality@gmail.com Opening Theme: Feed On Me Music Provided By freeplaymusic.com Composed by:Jeffrey N Ayers, Brandon Towers, Matthew P Dana, Matthew A Mrowka, Eric J Donovan, all ASCAP Published by: Freeplaynjj, ASCAP (50%), Rebekah M Music, ASCAP (50%)

I can't even count how many times I have heard Christians use the argument 'Christians were responsible for the Abolition of slavery in the U.S.'  I have been contemplating this claim, and have several points that I want to touch on. First, who do you think started slavery in the first place?  In order for a human being to bend another to his will in this way (and for the slave to accept it), one or both must accept the belief that some humans are superior to others, and also have the right to own another human.  Where do we see this belief echoed time and time again?  Religion, of course - the oldest holy books on this planet advocate slavery time and time again. The Old Testament is ripe for the picking when it comes to this idea, but Christians are always very quick to reject anything from the Old Testament which they don't like, while keeping the bits they DO like - homosexuality is wrong, follow the 10 Commandments, alleged 'prophecies' for Jesus, etc. ...