Critical Thinking

Changing your mind about Sam Harris and “New Atheists”

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I’ve often been astonished at the manner in which Sam Harris is demonised. Various claims abound about him being Islamophobic, racist, a bigot, etc… and yet when you dig into what he is supposed to have said, it often turns out to be a rather stark contrast to what is actually being said. To give … Read more

Insight into a couple of “Get rick quick” scams

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The UK’s Mirror has a rather good article (yes really, the Mirror) that exposes a couple of fraudsters who are conning gullible people. So lets take a quick tour of each in turn. Simon Stepsys – “Buy my plan and get instantly rich” The first in our rogues gallery is a chap who claims that he can … Read more

The scope of atheism does not include cosmology

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A rather common claim that often pops up is the assertion that atheists believe that something came from nothing. Here is a specific example within the Christian Post … It seems atheists would much rather believe that something came from nothing, than to believe that Someone has always existed. Of course both beliefs are a matter … Read more

Would you sell your soul for a cookie?

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There is a prevailing religious belief that we all have a soul, but this is simply a historical tradition that came about because our ancestors ran with this idea as a way to explain themselves, the actual empirical evidence for this is exactly zero. The fact that something cannot be detected or measured need not imply … Read more

Refusing to read a college text due to religious beliefs

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There is a story that was recently doing the rounds about college students rebelling and refusing to read course material because it conflicted with their religious beliefs. It all started within Duke University’s student rag and that was then picked up by: CNN, USA Today, Salon, The New Civil Rights Movement, the Washington Post, the Onion AV club, Inquisitr, Slate, the Daily Beast, and of course was … Read more

Claim: A Muslim destroys the New Atheism with clear simple logic

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There is a YouTube clip that is a great example of fatally flawed “thinking”, and the claim presented is that they have clear simple logic that supposedly destroys new atheism. Side note … it is curious that they use the term “New Atheism”, so should we conclude that their argument does not hold true for “old” atheism? … Read more