atheism

Nobody wants to talk to William Lane Craig and he is crying about it

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William Lane Craig, the American Evangelical Christian apologist, wants a public debate during his UK visit. However, the problem he faces is that nobody wants to, (You can see where this is going), so he is claiming that the atheists are scared.

Sigh! …

This month president of the British Humanist Association, Polly Toynbee, pulled out of an agreed debate at London’s Westminster Central Hall in October, saying she “hadn’t realized the nature of Mr. Lane Craig’s debating style.” (thats a polite way of saying that he is a complete kook and really likes babbling mangled pseudoscience).

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“There are no Genuine Atheists” claims an Astrophysicist

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Yep, a real Astrophysicist has made this claim … but we are deeply into kook territory here.

Before we get into details, I think I better first introduce you to the claimant. This comes from a chap called David Klinghoffer. He works for the Discovery Institute as a … well, that does not really matter, because knowing that it is the Discovery Institute tells you all you really need to know; its basically kook central for the Intelligent Design movement.

Since it is indeed “them” you know in your heart of hearts this is going to be truly silly (it is), so here we go. He starts out with …

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Finally some action – Montreal police are investigating Markuze

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First, a bit of context for folks who don’t know. Dennis Markuze of Montreal is a fully certified 100% solid gold kook who, using an assortment of pseudonyms when online (including David Mabus and Hebert Marxuxe) has been issuing a torrent of threating emails and tweets to many skeptic bloggers. When I say “torrent”, I’m not being poetical, its a factual description. To give you a feel for what its like,  PZ wrote the other day …

Every morning when I get up and get on the computer, the first thing I do is delete the pile of spam from Dennis Markuze, each of which is usually cross-posted to 50 to 100 other people. Every time I fire up Twitter, the first thing I do is clear the garbage Dennis Markuze has left there; yesterday I blocked and reported spam from over 25 Markuze accounts, amounting to several hundred messages.

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Not Understanding the word “Atheist”

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You would think folks would understand the word “Atheist”, but to my complete astonishment some sections of the media don’t. Jesse Bogan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports … “Halfmann, essentially an atheist,” writes Brogan, ”testified that he needed the book [the Satanic Bible] to practice his religion, which, he said, primarily meant following the … Read more

Atheist News – 6 Aug

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Here are a few quick links to 5 items of Atheist news today for you all …

Jon Stewart Asks Atheists Against 9/11 Cross: Why Do You Give AS@&T?

Stewart finally weighed in on the American Atheists’ lawsuit to remove the so-called 9-11 Cross from the World Trade Center Site. “By the way, atheists, why do you give a s&@?” Stewart asked …. Perhaps, as a compromise, we could build you an atomic symbol statue. But it has to be made out of billions of crosses.

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Atheist History – Thomas Aikenhead

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Thomas Aikenhead was the last man to be executed for blasphemy in Britain, so what is his story?

In the 1690’s Thomas Aikenhead was, a young Edinburgh medical student at a time when his University’s library held books by Descartes, Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes and other thinkers, and being a keen student young Thomas would often enjoy reading new ideas.

He later  talked about some of his reading with friends, and unfortunately one of them, possibly Mungo Craig, took offense and informed on him to the authorities. In the autumn of 1696 Thomas was arrested and remitted to the Tolbooth Prison “to be tryed for his life” for blasphemy. He mouldered there until December 23, when he crossed Parliament Square to the High Court to be charged under both of Scotland’s Blasphemy Acts, one enacted before and one after the Revolution of 1689.

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