A Tippling Philosopher

Bangladesh

After 28 years, Bangladesh revives case to drop Islam as state religion

At a time when the horrific and violent murder of atheist and secular bloggers (much like myself) in the country of Bangladesh has become all too commonplace, it is interesting to read of the idea that there might be a move to reinstate secularism. As Reuters reports: Legal action to

Church

Damning Report Church of England's Failure to Act on Abuse

I have given a good deal of coverage to how the Catholic Church has been battered, and rightly so, over abuse scandals. It seems it is the CofE's turn. Over to the Guardian: The Church of England is to make far-reaching changes to the way it deals with

God's characteristics

Some Questions to Ask God #1: Hell

I promised a number of posts on hell recently. I'm gonna give you hell. In video form. It's an old one (I'm greyer, now), based on questions from my book The Little Book of Unholy Questions: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHJYFuqldVk[

Donald Trump

Marco Rubio Goes To Town On Trump & The Media - His Best Moment?

If Rubio had been this forthright, sensible and erudite, he would have been in with a real chance, perhaps.

evolution

Quote of the Day (not in a good way) - GoodScienceFYou

Today there was an ...interesting comment by GoodScienceFYou, who appears to be a Jehovah's Witness. It was, unsurprisingly, about blood transfusions. JWs are against them, and so seeing the post hoc rationalisation of such is ...interesting. Here is what he had to say. I will start with a

gun control

The Second Amendment IS Gun Control Regulation!!

Over on another thread, there is some talk about gun control in the context of open carry, lack of training and licensing as set out in State legislature. I thought I would thrown this one out again to show that regulation is indeed rather pertinent in the text of the

gun control

Oklahoma House votes to eliminate license, training requirements for openly carried sidearms

Oklahoma seems to have gone nuts. For a Brit, this is all so alien and obviously stupid, to my tiny mind. Not only can they openly carry guns in public, but they are not required to have licenses or training. I am stunned by this. As the Tulsa World reports:

atheism

A Reminder About "Filling The Void"

Here is a reminder that I have just released (in ebook, paperback to follow in a week) a new book that I am really excited about. Filling The Void: A Selection Of Humanist And Atheist Poetry is a wonderful collection of secular and philosophical poetry to give voice to atheists

extremism

"The Critics of Islam Were Right: An Apology to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sam Harris, Bill Maher and Other So-Called Islamophobes"

I have long been a critic of Islam. I have read the Qur'an and done a fair bit of research. I have been branded and attacked by my fellow liberals. My main case against Islam, and its inherent violence, is set out here. I set out the core

Religion and Society

Missouri senate passes controversial religious liberty bill after 39-hour filibuster

To introduce this, the New York Daily News reports: A filibuster by a group of Democratic lawmakers in the Missouri state senate ended Wednesday after nearly 40 hours of non-stop debate. The senators, from the St. Louis and Kansas City areas, tried to stall a vote on a bill calling

belief

Psychology of Religion: Religion - a Hell of a Lot of Fear and Depression (Redux)

I promised to dig out some ones about hell recently, as there have been some threads discussing it. This article is taken from the excellent podcast Reasonable Doubts which itself borrows from source material and commentary from Tom Rees' superb Epiphenom blog here at Patheos. Thanks to these two

Church

19th Century Feminists: Religion & Church As A Barrier To Gender Equality

As it's International Woman's Day... Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote a super chapter ("Woman, What Have I To Do With Thee?) in John Loftus' book Christianity Is Not Great (in which I myself have a chapter on morality). The chapter details "Christianity's

Devil

Hell Ain't Nothing Without Satan, I Tell You!

Due to SJ on another thread making heavy going of rationality, and believing in some of the more problematic areas of Christianity, I thought I would resurrect this one. I will run a few hell and devil numbers over the next week. One of my published works, The Little Book

biblical contradictions

A Phenomenal Visual Resource Concerning Biblical Contradictions

My friend recently sent me a link to this. It is the BibViz Project of the Holy Bible and its contradictions. Just wow. The above is a screenshot of some of it. Go check it out. The description for the project at the bottom is: This website aspires to be

Skepticism

Doug Stanhope on God and Alcoholics Anonymous

Thanks to Sam for this over on another thread. Doug Stanhope has a right go at AA here, and for good reason.

atheism

What Would It Take Me To Believe? And You?

This is one of those questions that comes up in debates these days, often in the slightly different form of "What is the strongest argument you think the other side has?" I am going to be succinct here. There are no theistic arguments that trouble me. There simply

Epistemology

Me & Koresh vs the Gospel Writers & Jesus

Christian: Why is it more probable that your god exists than man made him up? We have an exceptionally high prior probability that your god is false given that we both believe that every other god claimed to be true (before and after) is false. Thus, on prior probability, the

Biblical Exegesis

Herod Has Problems

Over on a previous post and thread from a long time ago, one (Christian) commenter declared that the likes of JP Holding and Jason Engwer had basically dealt with all of the harmonisation issues within the context of the historical problems in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew and their

psychology

Study Calling Out Psychology Studies Is Itself Called Out!

You may remember recently that the world of academic psychology was called properly into question. One of the main findings dealt with was whether many psych studies are repeatable. A study that is reproduced (called replications) to get the same or similar results is more robust. Single studies may just

New Zealand

Weddings Legalised for Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in New Zealand

Anything you can do, we can do better. Or, if you can hold a wedding in the name of an imaginary being, then so can we. As ABC reports: It's official — New Zealanders can now tie the noodle knot in a legally recognised Church of the Flying Spaghetti

Deep Dive

Quote of the Day - A Sticker

In searching for something to go on the back of my car (I fancy a nice humanist badge, I have decided), I came across this succinct gem: Morality is doing what is right, regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, regardless of what is

climate change

Obama on Trump, Science, Reason and World Leaders

This is a seriously good and interesting speech. This is why Obama is a good leader for the US. He is so well respected around the world. Heck, I was in the Hampshire Schools Library Service today and emblazoned, as you walk in, was an awesome Obama quote. Could you

General

Advertising Standards Agency Bans Church of Scientology TV Ad for Misleading Viewers

The TV watchdog in the UK has banned a Scientology advert on account of the claim that it gives aid to "24 million" people. The data was supposedly derived from records spanning 1998 to 2014. However, the ASA deemed this "anecdotal" and called into question what

biblical contradictions

Biblical Contradictions and the Christian Mind

This is a post I once made for John Loftus at Debunking Christianity and I remembered it recently, so here it is. I had been discussing the contradictions of the Bible. Many are fairly irrelevant in the scheme of things and don’t really invalidate the core claims of the

Darwin

Which Badge Do I Choose?

This blog is about the important issues underlying reality. So, my fellow unbelievers, which badge do I choose for the back of my car? Do you have any other suggestions?