Historical Humanists- Besant, Annie Wood

“The position of the atheist is a clear and reasonable one. I know nothing about God and therefore I do not believe in Him or it. What you tell me about your God is self-contradictory and is therefore incredible. I do not deny “God,” which is an unknown tongue to me. I do deny your God, who is an impossibility. I am without God.”
— Annie Wood Besant Read on…

Famous Freethinkers- Armstrong, Karen

“A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect, “he” becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all-knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified.” Read on…

Christian Science and rationality

I view religion and rationality as very separate. But with most religious ideas, I can at least grasp why people believe them. However, when it comes to Christian Science, I just don’t get it no-how. Read on…

The Secular Conscience

I recently attended a talk by Austin Dacey, of New York’s Center For Inquiry. He has a Doctorate in Applied Ethics and Social Philosophy. His book, The Secular Conscience – Why Belief Belongs in Public Life, was published in 2008 and has received wide attention. Dacey began with a Bible reading: the story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham prepared to obey. Isaac was saved in the nick of time by an angel who said, “Never … Read on…

Faith versus Reason

Frequent commenter Lee recently pointed me to a blog essay by philosopher Michael Lynch, “Reasons for Reason.”

He says current American divisions are rooted in fundamental differences about what makes a belief believable. Lynch sees a problem of circularity in validating reason by using reason, with all beliefs thus ultimately premised on something arbitrary. Read on…

The War Against Secularism Rises

“They want to disown the traditions and heritage of the majority, including the Christian faith and the English language”. Surprisingly enough this quote does not come from the Bible-bashing deep south of America, but from the Local Government Secretary of the UK, Eric Pickles, following the visit of his colleague to show solidarity with the Vatican last week. Who lead this delegation? Baroness Warsi, a Muslim. The series of proclamations of faith and anger at the secular movement marks the … Read on…

Gravity, the god-gene, and Grace

My welfare in mind, Grace declares that coffee today at The Compass Café is out. She hands me Steven Hawking’s The Universe In A Nutshell, then quietly leaves the bedroom. Ten to the power of 36 is big. Just how big I cannot fathom under normal circumstances, let alone when in the grip of the flu. The same goes for a thousand light years across the spindrift of the cosmos. I sink into reverie. When the effects of medication wear … Read on…

God is my co-pilot

PBS ran a program posing (inter alia) the question, “Where was God on 9/11?” The answer: God was in the cockpits of those planes. He was, indeed, the hijackers’ co-pilot. What they did, they did for God. You might argue that theirs was a perversion of religious faith. But people have been thusly arguing for millennia over who’s got the real truth, while religious zealots have tortured and murdered millions upon millions, century upon century, often in service to those … Read on…

A bit of light housekeeping

Once upon a time, this site accepted comments. That was until the Great Mormonism Furor of 2007, which resulted in new Ground Rules for the Eloquent Atheist. You might want to follow that link if you have not previously done so. Even after, or perhaps because of, the Ground Rules post, persons clearly unable to abide by those rules continued to yammer on about the details of Mormon holy underwear construction and other equally weighty subjects. We are not anti-debate, … Read on…

Agnosticism, a personal definition

Agnostic symbol - Dali

Agnosticism is simpler than it sounds, and also much more difficult. Most would define agnosticism as the view that the truth of certain claims (especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims) are unknown or unknowable. Simply restated, man cannot rationally have sufficient knowledge to either prove or disprove the existence of one or more religious deities, if any. As such, agnosticism is not a statement of either belief or disbelief. … Read on…