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What Would Bill Nye Do?

A popular atheological strategy (popular to the New Atheists, internet atheists, militant atheists, and others of this general ilk) that I frequently run across is the argument that biblical writers, or especially Jesus, spoke in such un-scientific terms. For instance, it is claimed that Jesus misspoke about the smallest seed, calling a plant a tree, indeed, not knowing anything about modern agriculture is one recent charge I read. ...

Sabotaging Your Case

Roget's II: The New ThesaurusMain Entry: sabotagePart of Speech: nounDefinition: A deliberate and underhanded effort to defeat or do harm to an endeavor.Synonyms: subversion, underminingSynonym Collection v1.1Main Entry: sabotagePart of Speech: verbSynonyms: block, damage, destroy, disable, disrupt, incapacitate, subvert, undermine, vandalize, wreckUse in contemporary pop culture:"Cause What You See You Might Not GetAnd We Can Bet So Don't You Get Souped YetYou're Scheming On A Thing That's A ...

How Irreligion Poisons Everything

I've demonstrated below that the charges that it is "religion" to blame for causing all the "violence" and "war" are simply unfounded. I've proven secular causes. Non or irreligious causes. Even atheistic ones. And in the last century, the great wars that have killed untold numbers were fought for secular, irreligious reasons.Moving on . . . Another tact taken by those of the New Atheism, like Hitchens, is ...

Does Christopher Hitchens Secretly Want to Abuse Children?

"Nothing optional--from homosexuality to adultery--is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishments) have a repressed desire to participate" -- Hitchens, "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," p. 40"[I]f I was suspected of raping a child, or of torturing a child, or infecting a child with venereal disease, or selling a child into sexual or any other kind of slavery, ...

Lying for Mammy Nature

Dawkins called those associated with "Expelled," liars for Jesus. So I'll assume he thinks my terminology fair."I shall simply say that those who regard [Saddam Hussein's] regime as a 'secular' one are deluding themselves" -- Christopher Hitchens, "god is not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything", p. 25)Let's see what the "About Atheism/Agnosticism" web site claims (do I need to point out that I'm invoking a source not sympathetic ...

No Wars . . . and No Religion Too?

CNN isn't known as a pro-religious, pro "right" organization.******************************Suicide bombings as military strategyExpert: Attacks motivated by logic, not religionBy Henry SchusterCNNThursday, June 30, 2005 Posted: 1605 GMT (0005 HKT) Editor's Note: Henry Schuster, a senior producer in CNN's Investigative Unit and author of "Hunting Eric Rudolph," has been covering terrorism for more than a decade. Each week in "Tracking Terror," he reports on people and organizations driving international ...

Biblical Literacy for Atheists

thnuhthnuh said:When I read how bad theology plays out in the bible (long periods of apostasy punctuated by miracles) I have to agree that the likeliest explanation is that the "miracles" are priestcraft and scare stories. It just doesn't make sense to depend on something as inefficient as a text (or a magesterium for that matter) to spread "orthodoxy".6/07/2008 4:39 PMhttp://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-protestants-catholics-can-learn.html#commentsIn biblical times it wasn’t simply “the text” ...

Calvinism vs. Arminianism

Below are all the links to the massive debate between Calvinism and Arminianism that took place between (mainly) Victor Reppert, Steve Hays, Paul Manata, and Dominic Bnonn Tennant. This post will function as a (almost) one-stop shop for seeing anti-Calvinist arguments, and rebuttals to those arguments. Our opponent, Victor Reppert, has a PhD in philosophy and so makes for an ideal representative of the philosophical arguments Arminians use ...

Things That Conflict With Reppert’s Intuitions: Self-excepting Fallacy #200

Reppert claims he doesn't have to deny inerrancy.I maintain that if he holds to inerrancy, he must give up his critique of Calvinism based on his intuiting, or he must give up inerrancy.Which way will he go?**************************Gen. 6:5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The ...

Like a Broken Reppert

Apparently Reppert wasn't clear on my argument, I'll have to repeat it (and add a new one at the end). He writes,I had asked: "Could it not be rational for a person to say that they have more reason to believe that a predestinating God would not be good than to believe that Scritpure teaches predestination even if, upon the study of the Scripture, they discover that, so ...

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