Some time ago, on the local Christian radio station, I was listening to a preacher explain how Jesus’s death on the cross saved us all by paying the penalty for all our human sins against God. He used the analogy of a judge who lets a convicted person go, because some other person, innocent of … Atonement as satisfying a vendetta

I’ve been reading Bassam Tibi’s Political Islam, World Politics and Europe. Don’t bother with the book itself: it’s almost unreadable. This is not, by the way, Tibi’s fault. He’s a Syrian social scientist who spent his life in Germany—English must be his third language. This book was in desperate need of a good editor, and … Secular asabiyya?

An interesting observation I ran across in an interview with a Turkish journalist: Apparently, many women drivers in Turkey have begun to keep a headscarf in the car. This is just in case they run into a police checkpoint (usually for traffic purposes). In Turkey today, the police are notoriously a stronghold of religious conservatism. … Headscarves to placate the police

I recently read Bruce Sheiman’s An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity Is Better Off with Religion than without it. It’s a bit disappointing, so I won’t write a long review. The thesis of the book is interesting enough: that organized religion and supernatural belief has significant social and personal benefits, and that even those who … An Atheist Defends Religion

I spend a good part of each week in the classroom trying to teach college students some physics. I’ve done a lot of work on supernatural and paranormal beliefs, particularly varieties of creationism and intelligent design. So I’m professionally obligated to deplore any inroads creationism makes into education, and to insist that evolution is a … Evolution as a liberal cultural weapon

On his Dangerous Idea blog Victor Reppert refers to a 2007 article by Washington Post writer Michael Gerson: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071201620.html I did not see this article at the time, and my reason for commenting on it now is that the arguments it gives are ones we have heard many times and ones that will be heard … Atheism Debunked! Again!

Standard accounts of secularization emphasize how social changes that led to the modern world undermine organized religion. Few people actively wanted religion to become a more private affair – secularization has always proceeded against a background of shirt-rending about the erosion of public morality. And few were affected by intellectual critiques of religion. Science, for … Social changes that may undermine nonbelief

Religionlink.com has just put up “Freethinkers: A source guide to atheists, humanists and other nontheists.” It’s intended as a resource guide for journalists interested in various forms of nonbelief, but it’s useful for other purposes as well. It’s worth a quick look.

The discussion following my earlier post on “the hard problem” has gone on at rather great length, and has broached a number of topics. One of those topics has been theistic explanation, and Alex Dalton and Dianelos Georgoudis have raised some points that need further argument and clarification. First, when, if ever, would a rational … More on Theistic Explanation