13
Jan
Posted by Douglas in Atheism, Skepticism, Technology | Tags :Atheism, computer science, debugging, philosopy, sarcasm, Skepticism, software engineering | No Comments
A recent post by Jesse Galef at Unreasonable Faith about why skeptics seem predisposed towards sarcastic forms of humour got me thinking. The question was whether there was a causal link between deriving humour from being able to spot the things that are exaggerated or out of place and being able to spot the things that are similarly incorrect in a proposition (see The Hurley Model of humour as an evolutionary incentive). Jesse describes this as “debugging”, and so naturally I thought of a potential link to my own profession.
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11
Dec
Posted by Douglas in Atheism | Tags :Atheism, moral realism, moral relativism, morality | 1 Comment
Perhaps the single greatest source of misunderstanding in popular atheist/theist dialogues seems to be the problem of moral realism – that is to say that some or all moral or ethical propositions have an objective truth value (for instance, the statement “rape is always wrong”). This is an important point, as it’s used both as a logical argument for the existence of God and an emotive appeal to the consequences of atheism, and it’s easy to see why people wouldn’t want to agree with an atheist who, as a moral relativist, appears to deny that rape is unequivocally wrong. All too often, my impression is that the two sides are arguing about different things, so I’d like to explain what I think the atheist community could do better.
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17
Apr
Posted by Douglas in Atheism | Tags :Atheism, bible | 3 Comments
And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
So a good Christian should be as a child to achieve an appropriate level of humility to enter heaven, right? Apparently not:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways.
7
Apr
Posted by Douglas in Atheism | Tags :agnosticism, Atheism, belief, deconversion | 1 Comment
In the atheist blogosphere, one of the staples is the deconversion story – your prior beliefs, how you came to atheism and your worldview post-deconversion. They’re a huge benefit to the cause of atheism – stories that explain that we’re not just being obstinant, it’s possible to be a decent, honest, moral atheist, and – perhaps most importantly – letting those who are considering leaving their religion know they’re not alone and there’s life after faith. I’m not sure how much of this I can bring to the table, but for what it’s worth here are my thoughts on the subject.
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