Is it the Best Myth for the Goal?

Myths ― and the idea of them As I argued a few weeks ago, the material world definitely exists. The material seems concrete to us, and it exists in the most agreeable sense of the word. We are all aware that there is a deeper sense to this, and that the material is simply mind-driven…

Did man create God?

Did man create God? Yes. I like to pick questions a part a little, and so I’m going to do that with this question, focussing on the words “create” and “God”. Firstly, I’m going to present a slightly facetious argument to help unpick the word “God”, and then I’m going to present a much more…

Religion shows morality is discoverable despite God

I think there is evidence for morality being discoverable by secular methods, in religion. To make this argument, I will call on God’s justice and the fact that religions call on their followers to modulate the behaviour of the heathens. And that’s kind of it. The argument acts to do away with the common challenge…

Deep Ecology, Eco-Moral Nihilism and Meat Eating

Contrary to many environmental philosophies, I think it is important to recognise humans as occupying a special niche within nature. Eco-philosophies often have the assumption that humans are, in fact, indistinguishable from the rest of nature and the logical conclusion is that humans have no special rights to abstraction and interference. I think the logical…

xPrae: How I defeated you so soundly (part 2: Understanding another religion)

Inter-faith dialogues, despite their pretty name, should be a case of pitting infallible and mutually exclusive ideas against each other: God says this vs God says that. It’s not, and that’s a good thing. Anyone who has watched an interfaith discussion in a university, on the TV or listened to one on the radio will…

What is a God?

My second assumption is in response to having been told on several occasions that I don’t understand how to read the Koran or the Bible. (I am admittedly showing a monotheistic and Abrahamic influence.) That assumption is this: how one reads the religious text is an important part in understanding what the definition presented in a religious book actually means.

Why do theologians and sceptics talk past each other on the question of God’s “goodness”? And which have a better point?

The question of whether a God character is “good” has continued for thousands of years. Since Epicurus, since Job. The position of the sceptic tends to assume the idea that humans have some idea of what morality is and approximate ways to benchmark it against God’s actions (either in Books or in nature), but the…

“All religions are true, in that the metaphor is true”?

When responding to Stephen Fry’s prose on a “stupid God”, Russell Brand shared a quote that pops in and out of the public consciousness: all religions are true, in that the metaphor is true. The actual quote is “Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it…

Humanist Weddings, Equality and Aggression

This morning Facebook directed me towards a clip from 'The Big Questions', a BBC series that runs in the UK. They tackle three questions in an episode and the Big Question the clip is of is this: "Should humanists have equal rights to religions?" To be honest, the question made me laugh. I've long believed…

Why the Enlightenment is part of our species and Creationism is a retardation of it

ColorStorm told me that some atheists I praise on WordPress are rude. I defined rude in a earlier post as “when you lay unwarranted negativity on the person”. ColorStorm then told me an atheist I praise described Creationism as a retardation of our species. I think that is warranted. I think that can be defended as…