Life Without a Net
Religion and Spirituality
Christian Morality
Where Do Christians Get Their Morality? Ask a random Christian where his morality comes from, and you are likely to get one answer out of a few that are commonly given. Many fundamentalists believe that God is the source of all morality. Without God, they say, humans would not know right from wrong, and we would be … Continue reading
Theism, Hurt, and Leaving
One of the questions I was asked most often this weekend was what happened to me to cause me to leave religion. Each time I told the true answer, I was corrected and told that I was supposed to tell them the incident where I got hurt badly enough to leave religion. I insisted that … Continue reading
Erwin Lutzer: Jesus is the Only Way
Erwin Lutzer is the senior pastor at the Moody Church in Chicago. He’s a disciple of Billy Graham — and for the record, he does quite a good imitation. Last Friday night, he gave a speech entitled “Christ Among Other Gods: Why Jesus is the Only Way to the Father.” After the service, I was … Continue reading
National Apologetics Conference Day One
Northside Baptist Church sits nestled in a generously broad, well manicured parcel of gated land on the north side of Charlotte. Together with its gym and Christian school, it is hard to miss. As I wound my way through the traffic circle and several parking lots, there were dozens of courteous helpers in bright neon … Continue reading
Are You There God? It’s Me, Hambydammit
If you recall, I have been invited to go to a big time apologetics conference. I’ll be leaving tomorrow, and will be doing my best to get into as many conversations with as many big names as possible. Hopefully I’ll have time to blog about my experience in fairly real time, but if I am … Continue reading
Sacrifice
Pretty gruesome stuff, isn’t it? Strapped to a log, nailed down for good measure. Left to die in your own sweet time. A few days ago I watched an episode of Louis on Hulu. If you don’t know the show, you should check it out. This particular episode was interesting to me because I lived … Continue reading
The Power of Prayer
Recently, I was asked by a reader to opine on the causes of “faith healings.” In a nutshell, my answer went like this: Faith healings are nothing more than placebo effects combined with false attribution errors and confirmation bias. As it was not especially pertinent to the question, I didn’t go into much depth on … Continue reading
How to Spot a True Christian
As some of my readers know, I’m going to be attending a conference that — so I am told — is the end all and be all of Christian apologetics. Once I hear what these folks have to say, I’ll recognize that not only is my disbelief in any god incorrect, but my method of … Continue reading
Atheist Agnostics
Our hypothesis is that, even beyond our sample, the majority of agnostics are, in fact, atheists and that many would so self-identify if given the opportunity to qualify their commitment. I’ve said this for quite some time, and now there’s some significant data to back up the claim. The preliminary findings from the study “Beyond … Continue reading
A Parable of Knowledge
avi was born in a small village on a small island in a large sea. His childhood was tranquil and carefree. He learned how to fish and how to farm and pilot a boat, and when he had mastered these trades, he learned how to dance and sing. Life was good. But something tugged at … Continue reading
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