The Brain Creates Religion-Big Think Interview With Lionel Tiger

"It is of course a very vexing issue because people who believe devoutly in religion will tell you that there is no question there. It is already answered, which is that we’re obligate to respect and believe and follow the word of God however that word is determined. I did with a colleague of mine who had been at the UCLA Medical School, head of the Psychiatric Research Institute, Michael McGuire, a book called God’s Brain in which we were I think able to suggest, if not demonstrate that religion is really made by the brain." Read More

50 Atheist Quotes - Born Again Pagan

"1. Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money." Read More

The Bible Should Be Banned

"So many worthwhile books have been banned over the years. The Grapes of Wrath was banned especially in California because it was partially set there and made the residents look bad. Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man was banned in the UK and Paine was charged with treason for supporting the French Revolution. It was also banned in Tsarist Russia. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was banned in the southern US during the Civil War, then in Russia. (full list here)." Read More

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12 Questions I Wish Christians Could Answer » Heaving Dead Cats

"My original title for this article was 12 Ruminations of a Godless Heathen. I don’t expect christians to read these questions and give me answers. I’ve read the bible. This isn’t about wanting to debate anyone over minutiae. These are questions that I would have if the christian god existed. Since I’m fairly confident that no gods exist (due to lack of any evidence of anything supernatural in all the known universe), I’m merely throwing out some food for thought. You might find them interesting or challenging." Read More

The Fallacy of Miracles

"The Fallacy of Miracles

By Colin Flannery

After a tornado recently tore through Joplin, Missouri, the same thing happened that happens after every such natural disaster: people saw the hand of God all over the incident—the Christian God, of course.

The badly injured proclaimed it a “miracle” that they had survived, the slightly injured saw a miracle in the fact that they were not more severely hurt, and those outside the path of the tornado saw God’s hands all over the event, as he lovingly directed the twister around their homes (and, therefore, by definition, into their neighbors’ homes). Each person basically looked one circle in closer to the tragedy and declared it a miracle that they were one circle out. So many miracles, overlapping and inconsistent." Read More

inFact: Logical Fallacies 1

"Ever hear someone argue a point that was effective, even though it didn't quite ring true? Chances are they used a logical fallacy." Watch Video

Transcript from video:

In this first of three videos, we're going to look at some common fallacious arguments; ways that people make their points sounds convincing even when they're not true. A common one is:

The Ad Hominem

Arguing against the person rather than against the argument. Let's say some guy is trying to convince you that Einstein's theory of relativity is wrong:

Einstein? That guy married his cousin. How can you trust his calculations?

Flip it around and you have:

The Bandwagon Fallacy

Which tries to claim that something must be true because so many people believe it:

50 million people have read The Secret. That many people can't be wrong.

Oh yes they can. How about the people whose religious or political beliefs are different from yours? That's a lot more than 50 million right there.

You can also use:

The Argument from Antiquity

To prove that something must be true because people have believed it for a long time.

Chinese medicine's been around for 5,000 years. It wouldn't have lasted that long if it didn't work.

Being ancient only proves that an idea comes from prescientific times. Maybe it works, like the wheel; maybe it doesn't, like burning witches (some more great ancient wisdom).

A related tactic is to pull out

The All-Natural Fallacy

This is a way to sell a product by raising the specter of concern about competing products that might be... "tarnished" by modern knowledge.

You should sprinkle some of this Haitian zombie powder in your wound. Ground human bones, hemlock, stinging nettle, pufferfish neurotoxin... it's all natural.

The Argument from Authority

Ignores the need to have good information and instead relies on an authority figure.

It doesn't matter what your research shows; my information came from a scientist. So it can't be wrong!

But if all else fails, fall back on:

The Appeal to Quantum Physics

This is why people think Deepak Chopra knows anything; he throws around terms like this to make whatever he says sound scientific and advanced.

Quantum physics links our metaphysical beings through quantum entanglement.

Hey it sounded over my head; he must know what he's talking about.

Next time we'll look at some ways that language itself can be misused to accomplish the same thing.

Brian Dunning

Preaching to the Unconverted | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

"And now for something somewhat different. After I posted my article on “Does the Universe Need God?“, there were a few responses at the Intelligent Design blog Uncommon Descent, including a list of questions by Vincent Torley. Vincent then went the extra mile by inviting me to write a guest post for UD. Not my usual stomping grounds, but I ultimately agreed, precisely for that reason." Read More

Does the Universe Need God? | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

"I’ve had God on my mind lately, as I’ve been finishing an invited essay for the upcoming Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity. The title is “Does the Universe Need God?“, and you can read the whole thing on my website by clicking." Read More

Physics and the Immortality of the Soul | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

The topic of “Life after death” raises disreputable connotations of past-life regression and haunted houses, but there are a large number of people in the world who believe in some form of persistence of the individual soul after life ends. Clearly this is an important question, one of the most important ones we can possibly think of in terms of relevance to human life. If science has something to say about, we should all be interested in hearing. Read More

Physics and the Immortality of the Soul | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

No miracle healings « Why Evolution Is True

There’s been a long history of skeptics refusing to accept divine “healings” because those healings are precisely the sort that could occur spontaneously. We never see the type of cure that would be truly miraculous. In “Seeing and believing“, my strident New Republic article that ticked of all the accommodationists, I recount this possibly apocryphal story: Read More