Reasonable Doubts - A Tippling Philosopher

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Reasonable Doubts

A collection of 12 posts

An Atheist Album

Reasonable Doubts

An Atheist Album

I was recently listening to the latest Reasonable Doubts podcast featuring an interview and some songs by Australian singer-songwriter Shelley Segal. Segal comes from an orthodox Jewish background, but came to reject theism in favour of atheism, and became involved in atheist activism. This, as is u

Are religious people kinder? I'm skeptical...

Are religious people kinder? I'm skeptical...

I have told you before that Reasonable Doubts is my favourite podcast. Well, here is a great RD Extra podcast with Luke Galen, psychologist, looks skeptically at claims of religious people being kinder, more charitable, prosocial. So very worth a listen:

A Christmas Debate for You

A few years ago, around the time of the release of my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination, Reasonable Doubts hosted a radio podcast debate, pre-recorded, between myself and Randal Rauser. Here is the fruit of our labour, detailing the arguments for and against the historicity of the Nativity accounts.

Steve Novella on consciousness: dualism is the new evolution for theists (Part 1)

I was listening to a Reasonable Doubts podcast from a few years ago, and it was, as ever, cracking. This one was about consciousness, its hard problem, dualism, and how it, and neuroscience, are being co-opted as a philosophical area to argue for the "God of the Gaps" style argument in the same vein

Psychology of Religion: Religion - a Hell of a Lot of Fear and Depression

This article is taken from the excellent podcast Reasonable Doubts which itself borrows from source material and commentary from Tom Rees' superb Epiphenom blog. Thanks to these two great sources for the bulk of this article. Some interesting research has recently found out that there is a correlation between

Apologist Knechtle owned in debate with Beahan

SO this is a few years old now, but this debate is great. Jeremy Beahan, presenter on Reasonable Doubts podcast and radio show, calmly deconstructs every argument this rather smarmy apologist gives. I enjoyed listening to this one, and I hope to hear Beahan do more debates. Good stuff.

Review of Justin Schieber vs Max Andrews: Does the God of Christianity Exist?

I have recently listened to a really interesting debate between Justin Schieber of the rather excellent Reasonable Doubts podcast and Max Andrews. Andrews writes at Senentias.org and I believe may be some sort of ‘backroom staff’ for William Lane Craig. His bio is:

God or Godless, a review (and a chat about presuppositionalism)

Last week, I introduced you to John W. Loftus and Randal Rauser's new debate-style book, God or Godless? I am now going to furnish you with a review. I commend Baker Books for sending me a review copy.

Muslims, Christians and No True Scotsmen

The No True Scotsman fallacy is a well-used fallacy in debates about religion with religionists. As wiki defines: No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim, rather than denying the counter

Biblical Exegesis

Some reflection on my Nativity debate with Randal Rauser

It's been a few months since my radio debate with Randal Rauser on the subject of the reliability of the nativity accounts in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. You can listen to the debate by following the link from here. If you have not listened to it, please let me know what you think.

"Kicked upstairs" and killing the fight against poverty - Vatican for "punishment for paedophiles"...

Beth, over at SIN's Incongruous Elements, recently posted on the Vatican approach to sex abuse (that being cover it up or sweep it under the carpet): Fifteen years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor plotted to conceal child molestation

From another campaign for abstinence (from booze…and we all remember how well that went, right?). Thanks to Wikimedia for the image.

The Nativity - a talk, and a debate with apologist Randal Rauser

On Thursday night I gave another talk on the Nativity to the Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub. The talk was a great success. I was able to establish the case in some good detail as I set out in my last book The Nativity: A Critical Examination. There was a good turnout for the relaunching of PSITP and