Religion Archive

I just discovered Julia Sweeney, a comedian and author who grew up a Catholic and gradually lost her belief. This is not your typical argumentative intellectual atheist diatribe. Julia is very sympathetic to the feelings and attitudes of normal religious people. Related Posts:No Related Posts

There is an inherent conflict within Christianity between the urge to preach and convert, and the attitude of tolerance that says “live and let live”. We think we know where the urge to preach comes from. It is supposedly from the “Great Commission” where followers of Jesus are told “Therefore go and make disciples of

I regularly pass a sign in front of a local church that says “Our God answers prayer.” I must admit, it gets the intended response from me. I look and think “Hmmm, answers prayers, eh?” So, there’s no doubt, as a piece of marketing the sign does its job. But are we really supposed to

I spent a few minutes in a coffee shop this morning reading a short book by atheist author D. Cameron Web called Despicable Meme – The Absurdity and Immorality of Modern Religion. This is Web’s first book so I guess he can be excused for his unusually zealous attack of religion. He takes a no

In a world where we increasingly rely on scientific investigation to answer important questions about the world around us, the use of special documents called “scripture” by religious leaders and their billions of followers is puzzling. Religious people just assume scriptures have some special (dare I say, magical) powers that ordinary writings don’t have. But

It is surprising how many people believe that without a god to offer an objective basis for morality, there can simply be no trustworthy right or wrong. This has both a positive side and a negative one, and both are confused and confusing. On the positive side is the assumption that god’s existence somehow legitimizes

In my previous post we briefly looked at David Wolpe’s claim that a some aspects of experience cannot be properly captured in a “scientific” analysis of the sort most skeptics are talking about when they say religious claims lack “evidence”. According to Wolpe, and others who share his opinion, looking for evidence of God’s existence

Author’s note: “This is the beginning of a series of posts about religious non-belief. I don’t like the term ‘atheist’ because it sounds so certain. So I use the term ‘skeptic regarding religious belief’ to denote the position of non-belief. The skeptical position that I take is that there is no good reason to believe

Often Youtube interviews or debates with Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Krauss are long and (I suppose) tedious for most people. Dawkins is a world famous biologist and Krauss a well-known physicist. Both are outspoken non-believers in religion (they are not sure about the term “atheist”). And both are often accused of ridiculing believers. In this

One of the more interesting suggestions made by one of the “new atheists” over the last 5 years or so, is that the term “atheist” should be jettisoned from the sceptic’s lexicon. Sam Harris’ contention is that “atheism” and “atheist” have received such a bad press – especially in the U.S. that non-believing people who