If the majority of people stopped believing in God, what would stop the world from falling into anarchy?

I watched ‘12 Years a Slave’ the other day. To be honest, I don't know whether I like it. I think there is a certain art in film making which includes being able to tell the story without the graphic and overwhelming demonstrations ‘12 Years a Slave’ relied on. However, there was a conversation between…

Disrespect of Beliefs

There's nothing really to add here.

Is it More Rational to Believe in God?

The BBC's The Big Questions continues to captivates, today with the question of whether it is more rational to believe in God. There has been some allusion to what it means to be rational; the philosopher Julian Baggini refers to science and naturalism. But a strong definition is never given. I'd like to do that (and…

Stephen Fry, Religious Nihilism and the Tyrannical God

As everyone knows, Stephen Fry would be angry with a God that openly manages the natural world exactly as it is, red in tooth and claw, and still maintains that It is good and moral. That is basically what Fry said in this interview. Blakodeel of Deal of Theology posts their disagreement here. Blakodeel's objections…

15 Questions for Atheists

I found 15 questions (and answers) for atheists here, but the original is apparently here (I say "apparently", because they're rehashing of old questions). The questions are brilliant misunderstandings of terms, scientific research and reason. I answer the questions to address the mistakes assumed in the question, because we basically already know the answers. Are you…

Book Excerpt: Miracles

Here's a part of my book, for free. I write it up this afternoon, when I should have been doing more constructive things. Nevertheless, for your cerebral entertainment, here is a subchapter on miracles. (The last paragraph, in bold; I didn't do that. Somewhere between Google Docs and WordPress it did it all by itself.…

Do Atheists believe in God and deceive themselves?

Lindeman, M et al (2013) Atheists become emotionally aroused when daring God to do terrible things is available for free from the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. The study measured different people's emotional arousal by proxy of their skin conductance. The participants were given statements in three categories: neutral, offensive and God. As…

The Hidden God

Austin Dacey has inspired this post. Someone I follow put up a blog about it, and then within the same week Youtube recommended the video to me. Austin Dacey uses many arguments, but this one is the most interesting to me. He calls it the Hiddenness of God but when I wrote that WordPress’ proofreading…

Am I Free to Believe?

  I assume I am not the only person who a religious person has told words to the effect of “I can’t make you believe, you have to choose to believe”. What does that mean? I cannot think of a single belief I hold about anything, big or small, that I have chosen to believe. No,…

Notes on Faith

I don’t have faith. There are things I believe, things I don’t believe, things I don’t know and I have varying levels of confidence for each belief. Everything I believe I have evidence to support. “A wise man apportions his belief to the evidence”, as Christopher Hitchens said in summary of David Hume’s rather excellent…