thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
I think about belief, and the reasons I believe, quite a lot. And I sometimes ponder, if I cut it down to just one reason, what would it be? What is it that I just can’t go past? I don’t think I really can simplify it like that, but if I could, this would maybe […]
This post combines two of my interests – the statistics of belief and people’s stories. Are there many adult converts to christianity? Why do they convert? Were they really unbelievers beforehand?
I came across it yesterday, not for the first time, but maybe the 21st. Quoted as if it was significant and telling. You have almost certainly seen it too. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other […]
It is commonly stated that science and religion are irreconcilably opposed. A recent article by atheist author Sam Harris cranks the argument up a notch by declaring Science Must Destroy Religion. To be fair, I think he means “science will inevitably destroy religion”, not the rather more alarming “science has a moral duty to destroy […]
Last post I offered some thoughts on faith, based on Peter Boghossian’s idea that faith is “pretending to know things you don’t know”. I suggested that he was mistaken in what many christians think about faith. So, do atheists think very differently to christians on this?
Last post I discussed philosopher and educator Peter Boghossian’s ‘crusade’ to help atheists wean christians off their dependence on faith. But is Boghossian’s understanding of faith correct? What do christians mean when they use this word?
You may not have heard of Peter Boghossian. But one thoughtful christian blogger (Tom Gilson at Thinking Christian) thinks he’s a “dangerous man” and wonders whether his 2013 book (A Manual for Creating Atheists) might be seen as “a turning point in the decline of Christianity in the West”. Perhaps Tom has been a bit […]
We all like to think that we base our views on evidence, but sometimes evidence gets in the way of a good argument. Here are 8 good ways to avoid evidence (with examples).
Benjamin Corey’s Formerly Fundie blog is one I read regularly. Benjamin mostly writes, from a slightly radical perspective, about christianity and church in America. But his latest blog (Why I Just Couldn’t Be An Atheist, Even If I Wanted To) discussed how he and an atheist friend sometimes discuss their respective beliefs.
I seem to be getting into quite a few discussions about universal fine-tuning lately. Only recently I discussed the argument for the existence of God based on the science of fine-tuning, and before that I discussed the science. Here, I want to give some quotes and references to cosmologists who have written on this topic.