Frequent correspondent Dianelos Georgoudis recently responded to my request that he present three conceptual problems with metaphysical naturalism. I had planned to address all three in a single post, but the issues are tangled and multifaceted, so I really only managed to address his first one—and this is still a very long post. The other … Metaphysical Naturalism and Consciousness

LINK While we usually address church-state issues that involve violations of the civil liberties of nontheists, this story highlights an extreme example of the reverse sort of issue, where the lack of government neutrality apparently harmed a theist (to put it mildly). Anyone who claims to be a freethinker or a supporter of church-state separation … Report: North Korea Publicly Executes Christian Woman for Distributing Bible

Because Part 5 was posted back in November of 2008, I will condense the previous post here, and add a few new ideas too. In Miracles and the Modern Mind, Norman Geisler summarizes Spinoza’s argument about miracles: 1. Miracles are violations of natural laws.2. Natural laws are immutable.3. It is impossible to violate immutable laws.4. … Skeptical Approaches to Miracles – Part 6

Bill Moyer’s interview with Robert Wright, which aired last Friday, is now available on transcript here. My favorite part was when Moyer’s challenged his Platonism: ROBERT WRIGHT: No. And I think, you know, in a way we shouldn’t. I mean I think if there is you know, something out there called moral truth. And we … Robert Wright with Bill Moyer’s Transcript Available

We’re still dealing with organized ignorance in high places here in Texas. Specifically, as I’ve mentioned in prior posts, our State Board of Education is stuffed with fundamentalist activists. Their latest effort is to make sure that social studies textbooks emphasize how America was “founded on biblical principles.” Below is my letter to the Houston … Everything’s Bigger in Texas, Including the Idiots

It’s generally the more conservative, even fundamentalist, versions of religions that strenuously evangelize and seek converts. So, other than bringing up children in the faith, how do more liberal religions reproduce themselves? I imagine there’s a good deal of stealing from more conservative movements. For example, a college student can come to think scriptural literalism … Liberal converts

Well, here we concentrate the higher class of superstition: religion. We shouldn’t neglect the low-class kind like the basic pseudosciences, however. Such as alt-med. This is a very funny satire of homeopathy. Your name Your email Subject Your message (optional)

I’m reading a book by a journalist, consisting of interviews with Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish sect leader, together with her fawning commentary on Gülen. It’s quite embarrassing really. Gülen speaks in banalities and produces shallow “spiritual” platitudes. He does some hamfisted punditry and generally demonstrates that he has, well, let’s say intellectual limitations. His main … Falling in love with gurus?

This post will probably open a can of worms and take us WAY off topic. It is a letter I wrote to The Houston Chronicle (which they declined to print), noting that the language and tactics of climate-change deniers sounds eerily like that of creationists: Predictably, whenever the Chronicle prints a statement of the fact … Are Climate-Change Deniers as bad as Creationists?

Vic Stenger will have a new book out soon, called The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason. (He’s retired, so he’s allowed to crank them out.) One of the things I was not too successful in having Stenger change during the course of writing was a few passages where he relied heavily … Karen Armstrong rubbished