The Council for Secular Humanism has put out a report by Greg Paul, “Is The Baylor Religion Study Reliable?”. It criticizes the recent book published by Baylor, with lead author Rodney Stark, that reported that US religiosity remained stable and that there were no signs of secularization. Paul points out some very serious errors in … Greg Paul on Baylor Religion Study

Before the US elections in 2008, I complained about the Democrats, and grumbled that throwing the Republicans out was looking like it would not improve the prospects for church-state separation too much. So far, events seem to bear me out. In some respects, we have yet another faith-based administration. Yes, informal entanglements with religion have … Another faith-based US administration

I often think of religion in the context of weirdness. Especially when I get frustrated with religion, I tend to see God as the biggest paranormal claim out there, and the Abrahamic religions being as crazy as Scientology but made respectable by time and custom. That, actually, might be a good reason to also go … Infidel weirdness

Standing alone, atheism is a disagreement. Atheists do not agree that God exists. We are not absolutely certain that there is no God, but then again, we cannot know with 100% certainty that Santa Claus is not real. We think that God, like Santa Claus, is very likely a fiction. A rejection of God is … 5-minute description of atheism

I notice that some comments on recent posts have resurrected the old canard about atheism being responsible for some of history’s worst atrocities. The argument goes like this: Communists committed horrible atrocities. Communits were atheists. Therefore atheism is to blame for horrible atrocities. Prof. Alister McGrath of Oxford Univbersity makes this claim in his book … Atheist Atrocities?

There is a sense in which the whole problem of the existence of supernatural powers such as God is soluble. You try to come up with the best broad picture of the universe. You pay special attention to phenomena that have traditionally been explained as due to gods and demons, spirits and ghosts. If a … With a solution, without a solution

For those interested in the Trilemma, I have made two recent posts criticizing Josh McDowell’s trilemma argument on my blog: http://crossexamination.blogspot.com/ The focus of the recent posts is on the key assumption that Jesus claimed to be God.

I’ve run into a paper by Eric Kaufmann, “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century,” that gives an interesting twist to the debate about secularization. Social scientists have been butting heads for quite some time about secularization, counter-trends of religious revival, and so forth. Kaufmann thinks there’s a new … Peaking secularity

“Atheists have no basis for morality”—this has to be one of the most common charges laid against nonbelievers. There is a sense in which the accusation is correct. It just happens to be incomplete. No one has any basis for morality, at least not in the otherworldly sense of “basis” that informs many conversations about … Atheists have no basis for morality