I previously wrote about the North Carolina senate race, and Republicans attacking the Democratic candidate for associating with (shudder) the godless. Apparently they’ve gone one step further and released a TV ad falsely implying that Kay Hagan, the Democrat, is an atheist herself. Hagan, naturally, is enraged at the attack on her Christian faith, and … Another anti-atheist campaign ad by Elizabeth Dole

Last week I gave one of my talks where about half the audience was Muslim. (This is what happens when the organizers use a bland title such as “Islam and Science.”) These are always interesting. I don’t go out of my way to criticize Islam, but I forcefully point out the severe weakness of Muslim … Bound by scripture

I commented in a previous posting about the Texas State Board of Education and how its Chair, a fundamentalist dentist, and other board members are willing water carriers for the Discovery Institute. They are pursuing the latest D.I. ploy of having the “weaknesses” of evolution taught in science classes. This ploy, which is really rather … Texas SBOE wants IDeology Taught in Texas Schools

I’ll be giving a public talk on “Islam and Science” in the Madison Public Library this Thursday evening at 7:00. (More information.) It’ll be based on An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam. I jut thought I’d mention it, in case anyone who reads this lives in the vicinity.

We’re pretty used to an atheist having a snowball’s chance in hell of success in American politics. Here is something I hadn’t come across before: a “values voter” firmly decided she’s going to vote against Barack Obama because his mother was an atheist and father was a Muslim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4wQfQtpDAc Does this mean there is someone … His mother was an atheist (horrors)

I’ve added links on the bottom-right frame of the Secular Outpost to two new blogs.

I’ve been reading Phil Zuckerman’s Society without God. It’s a very interesting book, and I’ll write a short review at some point. But one paragraph of statistics he cited caught my attention: Sociological studies have consistently shown that the more educated a person is, the less likely he or she is to accept supernatural religious … Does education have any effect on religious belief?

I was looking at an ad on the Amazon site for Daniel Keeran’s book If there is no God, and I saw this blurb for the book: “Atheism is more than a belief in no god or gods. Take the unbelief test. Do you believe: 1. humans have souls? 2. there is an afterlife? 3. … Take the Unbelief Test!

In Chapter 2 of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins gives an argument for atheism. The argument is a chain of reasoning consisting of five inferences. The first inference is a non sequitur, but I have attempted to rescue the argument by making explicit an unstated assumption, and by clarifying the first two premises. In my last … An Argument for Atheism – Part 4

A miracle is an event (1) brought about by the power of God that is (2) a temporary (3) exception (4) to the ordinary course of nature (5) for the purpose of showing that God has acted in history. (“Defining Miracles” in In Defense of Miracles, IVP, 1997, p.72). In my last post on this … Purtill’s Definition of “Miracle” – Part 6