thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
I suppose we all like to think we are very honest with ourselves – we only believe what we really think is true and we don’t close our minds to evidence that goes against our beliefs. I suppose we all like to think that. But I think we are sometimes fooling ourselves. Let’s look at […]
Photo courtesy of Photos of the Great War You’ve probably heard it or read it on the internet – “religion is evil and causes wars, killing, terrorism, etc”. For example, this atheist is quite certain: “we see religion regularly used for war, mass murder, terrorism, and even genocide” So I decided to see if there […]
The argument goes something like this. If christians really believed in heaven, they’d all be dying to go there. If they really thought life was better after we die, they wouldn’t be sad at funerals. Doesn’t this show they don’t really believe it? Comedian Doug Stanhope put it this way: If you really believe that […]
It is not uncommon to hear about someone who says they have been miraculously healed by God. We may also look at some ‘faith healers’ and find it easier to believe they are charlatans. Do healing miracles happen? Is there any good evidence for healing miracles? How do we explain them?
One of the most common arguments I’ve seen used by atheists against belief in God is based on one or more of many obvious mythical, unreal or downright silly beings – commonly Santa, Thor, Zeus, fairies, even the cheesy Flying Spaghetti Monster and a hypothetical celestial teapot. The argument is that there is no more […]
One of the evidences often quoted for the existence of God is miraculous healings. There are many responses a sceptic might make, but one of them is the argument that since healings are claimed by many different religions, they cannot be used to support the existence of any particular God. My friend Steven at Think […]
In the discussions and arguments between believers and sceptics on the internet, you’ll find a number of arguments and statements recurring. Many of them are presented as if they are telling blows for their proponents, without necessarily ever being argued logically. I have discussed the Carl Sagan claim “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence“, and now […]
I came across an interesting blog recently – Think That Through – where Steven had posted on the topic of What’s up with faith?. Steven is an atheist, and his post was discussing his objections to what he understands to be religious faith. The blog is worth reading, and Steve encourages polite discussion even from […]
We often hear that religion “poisons everything“, and that it is a delusion that causes people to do evil things (Physicist Stephen Weinberg once said: “for good people to do evil — that takes religion”.) Some people claim that religion is responsible for many of the evils in history – the crusades, witch-burning, war, genocide, […]
But what is certain is …. that humans believe only the irrational tales of their own culture, not those of others Adele Mercier I hear it a lot these days. “People only believe in christianity because they were born into a christian culture.” “If you were born in Mecca, you’d be a Muslim.” “No religion […]