Advocating Reality

I recently shared a link to a great little article by The Atheist Advocate on patheos.com in which Christians are challenged to wear an Atheist t-shirt for one week, in order to learn about what persecution  means, due to the apparent misunderstanding which is often spread by Christians. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/04/25/challenge-to-christians-wear-an-atheist-t-shirt-and-gauge-reactions/ Pretty good idea, no? Now, I know that '____ Challenge' is currently extremely cliche, but would a good name for this be 'Persecution Challenge'?  Too emotive maybe? I may have found a taker, and I think it would be a really great experience, probably for both of us.  You see, she's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I would be required to wear a Mormon t-shirt for one week, while she would be required to wear an Atheist t-shirt during the same time.   If we both agree on this, how should we document eve...

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...

I am often told that the only reason that I am an Atheist is because I shield myself from the religious side and follow science with blind faith. Obviously, these claims are baseless as none of these people (to my knowledge) have installed cameras or computer logging software to track my actions, but it occurred to me recently that this might actually be a testable claim (a rare event indeed amongst the religious crowd). Therefore, I have created this 'Send an Atheist to Seminary' campaign in order to carry this claim through a real-world test: I am ready and willing to attend a full Seminary 'education' in order to expose myself to 'the other side'. If I come out of it a Christian, then I will preach the Word of God until my dying day. I will renounce Atheism and anti-theism and will publicly debate any Atheist who is willing to do so. There is a bit of a catch, however - I have a family, so not only do I need the funds to attend the Seminary (and all of...

"You can't solve a mystery with another mystery." - Matt Dillahunty, The Atheist Experience I see it time and time again, when theists get backed into a corner, they often resort to a 'Mysterious Ways' argument, or they appeal to 'The Unknown' to account for their unreasonable beliefs.  It's weak, but they use it anyway. This is, of course, not acceptable in the slightest.  If mankind has no actual knowledge about something, why choose to believe the most plausible-sounding lie? For starters, many people are indoctrinated from a very young age to accept authority for authority's sake; but I think that the problem is much deeper than this.  It seems like we want to find answers, but for some reason many of us don't care whether or not those answers are correct.  When you watch or listen to a few debates/arguments between theists and atheists, you find very quickly that 'I don't know' is an unacceptable answer to most theists. ...

Hey everyone, we've finally got Episode #2 finished up!  I think that it turned out well, and we definitely learned a great deal in the process.  Please comment and let us know what you like, what you don't like, etc. Advocating Reality Podcast #2 - Evidence-Based Thinking Thanks! Edit:  I've created an MP3 version of the podcast, I don't want to use the Blogger video module any more.

Just uploaded to Youtube.

I've been devouring science lectures and audiobooks for weeks, and it doesn't seem to be letting up.  I've been re-watching/listening to Cosmos, I've started watching 'Wonders of the Solar System' with Prof. Brian Cox, and I'm currently listening to 'The Demon Haunted World' by Carl Sagan. Why should this matter to anyone else?  It probably doesn't, though I certainly recommend all of the above to virtually anyone.  The idea that I want to get across, though, is one that Carl Sagan spent years arguing for - that we all are capable of thinking scientifically and skeptically; we can all be scientists. If you watch a great deal of television, you tend to find more and more characters which are portrayed as complete morons.  Of course, we have all felt this way from time to time, but I think that all of us are perfectly capable of critical thinking skills.  In fact, I argue that everyone thinks skeptically at least some of the time, but most people...