It was around year 11 of my 16 years of catholic education when I started to realize that praying was simply talking to myself. I was open to hearing some response but there was none. This realization came gradually. It was only a few years earlier that I figured out that Santa Claus isn’t real. […]
Author: Paul
The DBAD Speech
At The Amazing Meeting in July of 2010, astronomer Phil Plait gave a memorable talk informally labeled DBAD or “Don’t Be a Dick”. You can hear this talk on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrFRbGjUtJk He makes the point that most people don’t move from being credulous to being a skeptic because someone jumped in their face and called […]
Atheist (are we allowed to use that word?)
I have often worried about the word “atheist”. It feels like the most honest label if you need to give me one. But is it really so important? In a discussion between Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michael Shermer, they seem to congratulate each other for having used other words to describe themselves: non-believer or agnostic. […]
Quotes from Women
“You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, ‘When you’re done, I’m going to punish you.’ If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That’s the difference between me and your God.” ― Tracie Harris “All […]
How to become an atheist
If you are curious about atheism, here is the least painless way I can think of to learn. I recommend following this order. Take a day, make it a Sunday if you are a Christian, and decide that you will be an atheist for that day. Does it feel radically different? Do you feel […]
Quotes from the bible
When a person asks: what is the best book to read for people considering atheism the answer is generally The Bible. Richard Dawkins says “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.” Isaac Asimov wrote “The Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” According to […]
East Grandview Boulevard
There is a road, as straight as a runway, which is perched on top of “holy hill”. It had that moniker because along this street was a Catholic seminary, a residence for nuns, and a Catholic high school. It included a few houses. The mayor lived there. It would eventually include some townhouses. This was […]
The treaty of Tripoli 1797
In 1797, the U.S. Congress ratified the Treaty of Tripoli. This was at a time when the Congress still consisted of many of our founding fathers. It was also a time when the U.S., a country with many Christians, was at odds with an entity consisting largely of Muslims. As part of that treaty these […]
Theodicy
Theodicy is the attempt to justify how an omniscient, all-powerful, benevolent god could allow such apparent evils like the Holocaust. Many have tried to explain theodicy but it is a bit like getting the square peg in the circular hole. Theodicy can be explained by saying the world is as good as it can be. […]
Lack of evidence
So here is my first post for the issue at hand: maybe there is no god. Even if you believe in one god, how do you know it isn’t just one of the hundreds of gods previously hypothesized. http://atheism.wikia.com/wiki/How_many_gods%3F For several thousand years humans have tried to show that god exists. The results of all […]