1. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #213690 by Chris Bell on July 18, 2008 at 7:16 pm

You can see a small glimpse of Richard's house there. I bet a tour of his house would be fascinationg - lots of artifacts and such.

Hitchens gave a TV tour of his home! Come on Richard!

2. Conversation between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #206569 by Chris Bell on July 8, 2008 at 1:26 pm

Richard: You don't believe that

Lennox: Oh yes, I do.

Richard: Oh. Well...um. You don't believe this

Lennox: Oh yes, I do.

3. Prayer refusal pupils 'disciplined'

Comment #204593 by Chris Bell on July 5, 2008 at 10:06 am

It's my understanding that English schoolkids are often led in Christian prayers because there is no separation of church and state.

Seems like an excellent "teachable moment" to me.

4. Aliens need Christ's redemption, too

Comment #201417 by Chris Bell on June 29, 2008 at 4:19 pm

He spends a lot of the beginning talking about facts that, to him, demonstrate the presence of God. The way that every particle in the Universe can feel the effect of every other, for example.

Lots of people love things like that, and even I get a mystic thrill from it.

I do not, however, continue on and say "therefore, a virgin gave birth."

5. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #179117 by Chris Bell on May 12, 2008 at 4:30 pm

We should organize a mass protest. Let's all follow Kass around while noisily eating ice cream.

6. Mount Vernon schools to hire investigator in Bible case

Comment #168718 by Chris Bell on April 25, 2008 at 10:06 am

As to "just" hiring an investigator, it's a big step. The point is that the investigator will confirm/deny the allegations, and then the school can fire the guy with legal protection.

Very smart, I think.

7. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166372 by Chris Bell on April 23, 2008 at 7:48 am

Is there video of the debate?

I second Dr. Benway's motion. It's all about telling Person From Religion A, "Why should I find your argument convincing? YOU didn't find it convincing when Person From Religion B used it."

8. In Defence of Selfish Genes

Comment #139901 by Chris Bell on March 6, 2008 at 4:43 pm

Simply because it's a classic? This is one of the first pieces I ever read by Dr. Dawkins, and the admiration was immediate.

9. Evidence can't shake your faith if your faith excludes it as evidence

Comment #132485 by Chris Bell on February 24, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Stanley Fish, for that matter, had terrible reviews (three of them!) of the God Delusion in the NY Times back when it came out. It was like Fish never even read the book.

10. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125643 by Chris Bell on February 11, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Maher mentioned a "movie". Anyone know WHAT movie he meant?

11. Why multiculturalism must be abandoned

Comment #125265 by Chris Bell on February 11, 2008 at 6:40 am

A proposal for a new law:

Section 1) It is confusing to the public when non-governmental organizations call themselves "courts". Participants in these courts often do not recognize that the "judgments" of these "courts" are not legally binding. Often, the participants do not seek further legal help from the government because they think their issue has already been settled. THEREFORE, any non-governmental organization calling itself a "court" will be fined 1,000 pounds upon the first violation, and will be closed upon the second violation.

Section 2) Any "court" which reads the following statement aloud to the participants before conducting its business shall be exempted from Section 1.

"This is not a court with legal authority. You may choose to obey the ruling of this court, but you are not required to. If you are not satisfied with the result here, you may be able to find help in the Courts of England."

12. The Passion of 'Anonymous'

Comment #124415 by Chris Bell on February 9, 2008 at 11:43 am

Volokh, the law professor mentioned in the article, has his own blog that is very good for those of you interested in legal issue. He's an expert on free speech.

13. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117050 by Chris Bell on January 28, 2008 at 6:48 am

If Harris is still looking for a different label, "anti-dogmatist" sounds appropriate to me.

adogmatist?

Too bad "objectivist" is already taken by the Ayn Rand fans - although she detested religion herself.

14. Banks are helping sharia make a back-door entrance

Comment #116310 by Chris Bell on January 26, 2008 at 8:29 am

I'm not sure that I see the problem. Private institutions (banks) are designing a product to cater to the Muslim population. No laws are being passed.

I may not like it because I think it needlessly separates and alienates Muslims from mainstream culture. If that is all the article is saying, then I agree. The first sentence of the article seems out of place then.

15. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115193 by Chris Bell on January 23, 2008 at 6:22 pm

Those of you asking for Richard to comment on the article, i would ask why?

16. Huckabee: Guns, God and rock'n'roll

Comment #106987 by Chris Bell on January 3, 2008 at 7:43 pm

I think he is referring to Nader, which makes me echo the idea that religion isn't everything to this voter.

17. Huckabee: Guns, God and rock'n'roll

Comment #106974 by Chris Bell on January 3, 2008 at 7:17 pm

At least the Democrats have pledged to maintain the separation of church and state - which is more than can be said for the Republicans and is the best we can hope for in the current climate.

Remember, freedom requires religion....

18. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104741 by Chris Bell on December 29, 2007 at 10:04 am

God I need to quit my law job and become a prosecutor. The next time some exorcism killed a child in my district, I would indict the local bishop for aiding and abetting.

19. Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists

Comment #104292 by Chris Bell on December 28, 2007 at 9:30 am

flistr8 Yeah. that Gingrich stuff is terrible. Give your relative a copy of Blasphemy by Dershowitz.

20. For the Love of Christ

Comment #101722 by Chris Bell on December 20, 2007 at 8:20 pm

I remember going to an aggressive Sunday school on the invite of some Baptist friends. (The church was having some guy like this speak and they wanted a crowd.) He asked everyone to close their eyes and then invited those of us who didn't have Christ in our life to stand. He promised that no one would look, he just wanted to see the work before him. I stood. He waited a few seconds before yelling, "Everyone look! These are the people we have to save!"

As a 12 year-old in rural Georgia who didn't discuss my unbelief with friends, I was mortified.

21. This Is Not a Test

Comment #99917 by Chris Bell on December 17, 2007 at 8:56 pm

Last I checked, Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have provisions in their constitutions denying public office to atheists.

22. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #99097 by Chris Bell on December 15, 2007 at 2:19 pm

We should try to get this on C-SPAN

23. Pascal's Wager

Comment #98369 by Chris Bell on December 13, 2007 at 2:26 pm

Just accept that Pascal is correct, then realize that things still don't make sense.

24. You can't be moral without God!

Comment #98368 by Chris Bell on December 13, 2007 at 2:25 pm

I recently made a fairly long post about this here.

In summary, don't ask me this question when you can't answer it either.

25. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #97118 by Chris Bell on December 11, 2007 at 1:02 pm

Let's http://prometheusretold.blogspot.com/2007/12/challenge-where-do-you-get-your.html">put a stop to this argument.

26. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #96578 by Chris Bell on December 10, 2007 at 6:20 pm

He still doesn't get it. He refers to atheistic "philosophy" and an atheistic "belief system". These things don't exist!

Just as there is no non-astrology belief system, there is no atheist belief system.

27. Pascal's Wager

Comment #95864 by Chris Bell on December 9, 2007 at 11:24 am

Hey, me too!

28. Fear of censure deflects The Golden Compas

Comment #93630 by Chris Bell on December 3, 2007 at 7:02 pm

Right on Jason P.

It's impossible to do part 2 & 3 without going into the theology.

29. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92983 by Chris Bell on December 1, 2007 at 9:32 pm

I really enjoyed Dennet's "Nurse crop" analogy on Christianity.

30. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92015 by Chris Bell on November 29, 2007 at 5:29 pm

I have two comments. First, I disagree with this:

Nor is it any journalist's damn business whether a politician once took drugs at university.

31. Golden Compass author hits back

Comment #91156 by Chris Bell on November 27, 2007 at 12:31 pm

It's nice to know that Catholic faith is so vulnerable that a children's book can destroy it.

32. Hello Again, Michael Behe!

Comment #86264 by Chris Bell on November 8, 2007 at 9:40 pm

John Done:

Don't get your hopes up. I have never seen anyone (even lapsed theologians) be able to pin down and refute theological claims.

A religious person may attribute that to the "divine" nature of the claim, but as an atheist I have a different explanation. The claims are themselves not true, or describe things that are not true. You can't contradict something that is not true. You can't undermine a description of something that is ever changing.

The "that's not my God your describing" people can never be beaten because, if they were to be beaten, they would just change their description of their God.

33. Face to faith

Comment #82905 by Chris Bell on October 28, 2007 at 8:17 am

This is a good opportunity for people to go comment on the NOMA Debate Point

34. Religion is not incompatible with Science: 'Non-Overlapping Magisteria'

Comment #81779 by Chris Bell on October 25, 2007 at 7:01 am

I agree, science and religion are NOMA. However, I don't think that is as comforting as the religious think.

Science starts by only observing natural phenomena. I suppose it could accidentally observe a non-natural phenomena, but the experiment would be repeated and the regular result would be obtained.

Another way of saying this is that science starts with an assumption of naturalism. Science de facto rules out supernaturalism. Even if science were to come up with results completely opposing religious claims science could never - as a matter of logic - rule out those claims.

- Assume there is no supernatural explanation
- We find that X is the best explanation
- X directly contradicts supernatural claim Y
- Therefore, Y is wrong

I think the problem is obvious.

So I agree about NOMA. However, I am incredibly convinced that science is better because it is so useful. The premise of science is either wrong or right, and a person must choose.

I always think of Hitchens' debate with a pastor who said that "As a Christian he does believe [an absurd fact], though as a historian he has his doubts. Hitchens responded, "I can usually think myself into an opponent's position, but this is something I can't imagine myself saying, let alone thinking."

That's exactly right, which is why no one is comforted by NOMA. Nearly everyone realizes that they must choose, even though NOMA may be a logically sustainable position.

35. If Muslim doctors are intolerant, let them go

Comment #77526 by Chris Bell on October 9, 2007 at 2:15 pm

As a lawyer, this is a fascinating topic. The U.S. Supreme Court switched positions on this issue not too long ago, and it surprisingly switched towards the "atheist" view in an opinion by J. Scalia.

The U.S. Congress (voting 99-0) tried to override the decision by passing the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act", but the Court struck down the override.

So why did J. Scalia, a passionately anti-atheist man, vote this way?

The American system was set up to grant these special exceptions to religious people when the business could stand it. So taxi drivers could reject drunk passengers, doctors could refuse rape victims abortion pills, etc as long as these services weren't crucial to the business. This applied to laws as well. In the actual case, a Native American wanted an exception made to drug laws so that he could smoke peyote in a religious ritual. The exception would be granted if it wouldn't undermine the law too much.

But who made this evaluation? Who decided when a religious exception went too far? A judge.

J. Scalia changed this situation because he said that it was not the place of judges to say when a law "didn't really apply". I agree, and I think it's a wonderful decision. A secular society needs more decisions like it.

You can read the case online. It's Employment Division v. Smith.

And friends are sometimes found in the most unlikely places....

36. Christianity's Image Problem

Comment #76098 by Chris Bell on October 4, 2007 at 5:39 pm

It is widely assumed in the US that religion and public morals are pretty much in lock step. The fact that they are separating more and more visibly is a huge opportunity.

The fact that atheists are seriously claiming the moral high ground has to keep the religious awake at night.