Culture

A collection of 292 posts

Biblical Exegesis

Noah's Crane, Noah's Propane...

The whole project renders the historicity utterly ridiculous. This meme is all you need to see.

Religion and Society

God through the Lens of Cognitive Science

Vlerie Tarico is a psychologist, blogger and author whom I rate highly. Indeed, I shared space in a recent book (John Loftus's Christianity Is Not Great) with her, both of us contributing chapters. My Brazilian friend, Sergio Sider, recently captioned her videos from You Tube into Portugese. For

atheism

A Great Myth about Atheism: Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot = Atheism = Atrocity - REDUX

This post was one of my most popular pieces on my previous blog, and I have, over time, revised it slightly to make it even tighter, reacting to previous comments on the last version of this piece. I have tried to be detailed enough for it to be fairly comprehensive,

cognitive biases

20 Cognitive Biases - an Infographic

Just thought I'd throw this out there!

equality

Internalised Patriarchy and Posting Tweets

Internalising patriarchy is a term that can be used to refer to incidents when women perpetuate sexist ideology through their own behaviour. The idea is that as women are themselves victim to skewed ideas of gender roles, and gender, within society, that hey can end up saying and doing things

Biblical Exegesis

The Exodus Revisited: Taking a Commenter to Task

I posted some notes I made on the ridiculousness of the Exodus account the other day. It has been met with pretty universal agreement by fellow skeptics, unsurprisingly, on the threads here and on facebook. So it was interesting when I received the following comment: Because you are self-described philosopher,

ancient history

The Exodus from Egypt as Exceedingly Ridiculous

This is from some years ago. It is still the final argument in my God on Trial talk that I do. I have been kindly asked to give a talk to the Dorset Humanists next month, They seemed to enjoy my last few talks so much as to want me

Aaron Adair

Interview with Dr. Aaron Adair on Biblical History and the Star of Bethlehem

A few years back, I edited a book by Dr. Aaron Adair called The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View. It is a fantastic book that Richard Carrier described in this way: Required Reading on the Subject, December 20, 2013ByRichard C. CarrierThis review is from: The Star of Bethlehem: A

equality

House Erupts as GOP Blocks Measure To Protect LGBT Americans

This is an embedded facebook video so you may need to turn your adblockers off as they often block these. This is a shocker and American GOP politicians should be ashamed of themselves and a system that allows this to happen.

Demographics of Religion

Daily Mail: Is religion about to die out?...

The Daily Mail is not often right. So I am always interested when such headlines as this: Is religion about to die out? Growing wealth is causing belief in moralising gods to decline - and it could make it vanish entirely are offered. It states: According to evolutionary psychologist Dr

Counter Apologist

My Interview of Counter Apologist

Counter Apologist is a blogger with a lot of sensible stuff to say, and has contributed a deconversion account that was expanded for my recent book of deconversion accounts, Beyond an Absence of Faith. Counter Apologist has recently contributed a chapter to my upcoming book on the Kalam Cosmological Argument,

Bangladesh

Bangladesh LGBT editor hacked to death

The BBC is reporting this breaking news, so check back there for updates: Police in Bangladesh say two people including a leading gay rights activist and editor at Bangladesh's only LGBT magazine have been hacked to death. The US ambassador to Bangladesh condemned the killing of Xulhaz Mannan,

Biblical Exegesis

Robert Price on Hell: Why So Late in Telling Us?

This is a point that I have made many times before, and it was good to read it in Robert Price's excellent little pocket battleship of a book, Blaming Jesus for Jehovah. Here he is on p. 69-70: What difference does any of this make? There are two

Caleb Lack

Exploring Intelligence and Religiosity

Some time back, my friend and SINner over at the Skeptic Ink Network, blogger and clinical psychologist, Dr Caleb Lack (of the Great Plains Skeptic blog) produced a series analysing data and theories concerning correlations between intelligence and religiosity in people. There have been a number of studies, and many

equality

Puberty as Defining Marriage and Sex in Islamic Yemen. As Young as 9...

This video is pretty shocking. The girl is awesome - so erudite (it appears) and her uncles seems to have been an excellent influence. But the cleric! The cleric! This is where morality sans religion needs to be better sought. That said, I was surprised to find that the age

equality

Springsteen cancels North Carolina concert over 'anti-gay' law

The BBC reports: Bruce Springsteen has cancelled a concert in North Carolina, joining business groups in condemning a state law that rolls back protection for gay and transgender people. The law invalidated several local anti-discrimination measures that protected gay and transgender people. It also requires people to use public toilets

atheism

Critical Thinking Suppressed, More Empathy Shown in Brains of People who Believe in God

Well, it's hardly surprising now, is it... (at least on the critical thinking side). The International Business Times reports the following (this has done the rounds over the last month): The opposition between religious beliefs and scientific evidence can be explained by difference in brain structures and cognitive

fairness

Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God - why it is unfair that autistic people, men and scientists are less likely to believe in God

Here are some extracts from a fascinating paper released a few years ago - "Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God" by Ara Norenzayan, Will M. Gervais and Kali H. Trzesniewski. Gervais is certainly a name which keeps popping up in conversations about the cognitive functioning of

Easter

Easter Round-Up: Everything You Need To Skeptically Know About The Resurrection

Being that time of year, let me remind you of some things that I have written on the Resurrection (and death and burial) of Jesus: On the Skepticism of the Resurrection On the Skepticism of the Resurrection (part 2) On the Skepticism of the Resurrection (part 3) On the Skepticism

crucifixion

Jesus' Crucifixion and Burial Practices

Some time back, I had a massive debate on my facebook page with someone from the Unbelievable forum, which I have since left (tiring of the time-wasting silliness of some of the posters) about the Roman/Jewish burial practices after crucifixion with regard  to Jesus' death. Here is my

Biblical Exegesis

Joseph of Arimathea As a Rich Prophecy Fulfilment

I have spoken about Joseph of Arimathea before, in the videos linked below. Just reading a chapter by Robert M. Price in The End of Christianity, I came across this very simple aspect which shows, to me at any rate, that Matthew's sole job seemed to be to

Easter

Why was Jesus' tomb not venerated?

To follow on from my Matthew's guards post, here is another problematic scenario for the Easter story. Thinking about the tomb, in the context of the last post, it is incredibly suspect that the place of the greatest spiritual and religious significance in the whole world seems not

History

Animated map shows how the world's first written languages spread

This is a totally cool animated video of the spread of languages. Great stuff. (Ad blockers seem to block it, so turn them off)

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