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Logical fallacies and the concept of a soul
When attempting to form a logical argument, it’s vital to be aware of the various logical fallacies people often use. These fallacies are essentially arguments that may sound good and reasonable, but are, in fact, very flawed ways of thinking and arguing. Christian apologetics are often full of many different fallacies, including an article recently [...]
23Jun2010 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Liberals and atheists smarter? Intelligent people have values novel in human evolutionary history, study finds
ScienceDaily Feb. 24, 2010 — More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men but not women, preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.
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BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Girls ‘becoming Facebook addicts’
Parents fear their daughters are becoming addicted to social networking sites, a girls’ school leader says.
Girls seem to be “permanently connected” to sites like Facebook and Bebo, president of the Girls’ Schools Association Jill Berry said.
This issue now tops the list of parents’ worries by some way, she told the association’s annual conference.
Mrs Berry also [...]
Skeptic » Reading Room » A Tribute to Carl Sagan: Our Place in the Universe
Carl Sagan was a scholar and a visionary. He changed the world. His work still does. As I think back on the time I got to spend in his classes, I realize now what made him the best science communicator of his day. He loved discovery, he encouraged exploration, and he celebrated science. That last [...]
17Nov2009 | will | 0 comments | Continued
Activists Protest Church of Christian Science
MEDICAL NEGLECT IS CHILD ABUSE! JOIN VICTIMS IN PROTEST!!!
June 8 from 11:30-3:30pm
200 Mass Ave., Boston, Mary Baker Eddy Library
Dr. Seth Asser, a pediatrician who is dedicated to the cause of protecting children from medical neglect, CHILD, Inc, the RI skeptics Society and the RI Atheist Society would like to invite you to protest the [...]
Not a very bright idea
When Tony Blair first became leader of the Labour Party in 1994, the Sun newspaper, a British tabloid, took to calling him ‘Bambi’, presumably in the hope that the nickname would become established in the public consciousness. It did not, of course, for it lacked any kind of resonance with what people could believe about [...]
9May2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
How to Say You Don’t Believe
By Nica Lalli
writer, educator
With the recent publication of the new American Religious Identification Survey, we now know that there is a full 20% of the U.S. population that claims their religious identity as either a “none” (one who identifies as non-religious) or a “don’t know” (one who chooses to not answer the religion question or [...]
Naturalist Scandinavia Doing Quite Well, Thank you.
Phil Zuckerman spent 14 months in Scandinavia, talking to hundreds of Danes and Swedes about religion. It wasn’t easy.
Anyone who has paid attention knows that Denmark and Sweden are among the least religious nations in the world. Polls asking about belief in God, the importance of religion in people’s lives, belief in life after death [...]
Activism 101
Activism 101
1. What Is an Atheist Radical?
A radical seeks fundamental changes in political, social, economic, or cultural institutions and power relationships. Since atheism doesn’t imply any particular political outlook and is compatible with just about any system, it’s a bit difficult to talk sensibly about atheist radicals. However, when the subject turns to the elimination [...]
Douglas Adams Speaks
This was originally billed as a debate only because I was a bit anxious coming here. I didn’t think I was going to have time to prepare anything and also, in a room full of such luminaries, I thought ‘what could I, as an amateur, possibly have to say’? So I thought I would settle [...]
11Jan2009 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
What is Naturalism?
Naturalism, in essence, is simply the idea that human beings are completely included in the natural world: there’s nothing supernatural about us. Naturalism is based [...]
5Dec2008 | Admin | 1 comment | Continued
George Carlin’s Last Interview
Ten days ago, on Friday, June 13th, 2008, I had the extraordinary privilege of talking to George Carlin. As far as I know it was the last in-depth interview he gave before he passed away yesterday at age 71. Originally it was slated to run as a 350-word Q&A on the back page of Psychology [...]
26Oct2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Living in the Light of Naturalism
An Act of Tolerance
My deterministic outlook initially presented itself as an act of tolerance. When someone would do me wrong I would try to imagine those genetic predispositions and life experiences that led to their behavior. In this way, I was able to forgive them. This tendency of mine [...]
Living in the Light of Naturalism
How I Got Here
Time and memory being the mysterious creatures they are, for the most part it feels like I have always had my current naturalistic point of view, but when I think about it, I realize it’s been a long, circuitous, and sometimes painful evolution, beginning, oddly enough, with [...]
Palin Blurs Line Between Church And State As Governor
WASILLA, Alaska — The camera closes in on Sarah Palin speaking to young missionaries, vowing from the pulpit to do her part to implement God’s will from the governor’s office.
What she didn’t tell worshippers gathered at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown was that her appearance that day came courtesy of Alaskan [...]
Sam Harris on Sarah Palin
Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin’s performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin’s speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal [...]
21Sep2008 | Admin | 3 comments | Continued
Psychology of Supernaturalism; why humans are so screwed up
Psychology of the Supernatural
Sometime during the upper Paleolithic era 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, humans experienced cognitive changes that created the ability to use our modern symbolic language.
These cognitive changes were only possible because a virtual space had been created in the minds of archaic humans.
The need for greater impulse control (niceness) in archaic [...]
Sarah Palin’s Religion: What Do Sarah Palin’s Churches & Pastors Preach?
In principle, the sermons preached in a politician’s church shouldn’t be a political issue, but religious believers themselves insist on making their religion an issue so those sermons and teachings can’t be ignored. If politicians are going to present their religion and religious beliefs to the voting public as part of their qualifications for office, [...]
13Sep2008 | Admin | 1 comment | Continued
New Documentary by Bill Maher ‘Religulous’
When I attended a press screening for Bill Maher’s “Religulous” in New York on Tuesday, it struck me like a lightning bolt on the road to the Kodak Theatre via Damascus: yeah, “Religulous” will probably be nominated for best docu at the Oscars — and God help us all after that.
We know that “Religulous” is [...]
Charles Darwin: ‘Is man an ape or an angel?’
A century and a half after Darwin put forward the theory of natural selection, Steve Jones explains the power of his idea - and the stink it caused
In 1842, Queen Victoria went to London Zoo. She was not amused: “The orang-outang is too wonderful… he is frightfully, and [...]
1Jul2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
Can’t Darwin and God get along?
Of course they can, argues physicist and theologian Karl Giberson, if only many believers were more sophisticated and atheists less dogmatic.
July 1, 2008 | With biologist Richard Dawkins leading the way, many scientists today are locked in an unending match of whack-a-mole with Christian creationists, who insist that God created heaven, earth [...]
A Naturalist System of Virtues
A system of virtues is like a how-to manual or road map describing how to thrive and be effective in the world.
A system of virtues is superior than a moral code because it is up to each individual to decide how best to actualize these virtues in their own lives. In addition, a moral [...]
Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?
I wanted to alert eSkeptic readers about a free beautifully produced booklet on the question “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” published by the Templeton Foundation and edited by myself. The booklet contains 13 essays of varying answers to this question, which itself is part of the Templeton Foundation’s “Big Questions” project (a [...]
17Jun2008 | Admin | 0 comments | Continued
An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee
By the end of the weekend I realized how quaint was the mere suggestion that Christians of this type should learn to “be rational” or “set aside your religion” about such things as the Iraq War or other policy matters. Once you’ve made a journey like this — once you’ve gone this far — you [...]
6May2008 | Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedTranslate
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The Center for Naturalism
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A Chameleon Sky
The sands of time are running out for the central star of this the Hourglass Nebula. With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected and its core becomes a cooling, fading white dwarf. In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to make a series of images of planetary nebulae, including the one above. Here, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas (nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue) outline the tenuous walls of the 'hourglass.' The unprecedented sharpness of Hubble's images revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process and may resolve the outstanding mystery of the variety of complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulae. Image Credit: NASA, WFPC2, HST, R. Sahai and J. Trauger (JPL)
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