Liberal religious figures baffle me when they make true but irrelevant pronouncements concerning how science does not strictly imply that their God is a fiction. But credit where it’s due—at least they don’t shit all over science like conservative God-botherers are wont to do. Take, for example, David Barton, the “historian” much favored by the … “False science”

Next week I’ll be traveling to give a couple of talks in Norway and Sweden. As always, I expect the conversations aside from the public presentations will be interesting. I want to ask my hosts about the Scandinavian reputation for deep secularity, the way that for example a sociologist such as Phil Zuckerman portrays Nordic … Scandinavian secularity

The literature on science and religion is dominated, on the religious side, by a desire for establishing consistency between science and (possibly reinterpreted) religious beliefs. I suspect that this whole literature is fatally shot through with a kind of intellectual pathology, assuming that mere compatibility achieves something, while not attempting to make the claims at … Cheap consistency

If two events or states of affairs are independent, then the probability that both will occur is equal to the multiplication of the probabilities of those two events. If p is an event (or state of affairs) that is independent of an event (or state of affairs) q, then:P(p & q) = P(p) x P(q)But … Skepticism and the Multiplication of Probabilities – Part 2

K-Dog said…How many premises are there in your argument, jeesh? Are you aware that even if there are only 5 premises in your argument, and we grant them an .8 likelihood, that your conclusion is only .33 likely to be true! I am guessing that your argument is even longer though which makes it all … Skepticism and the Multiplication of Probabilities – Part 1

If I believed in a god, and one with a sense of humor, I would think she had a big chuckle over timing the South Carolina Republican primary for the same week the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Day. On May 2, 2000, South Carolina became the last state to make King’s birthday an official … Martin Luther King and the Republican Race For Righteousness

Christianity and many other religions are sometimes described by category, rather than by denomination, as conservative, liberal or cultural. To that, I would add a fourth category: political Christian, i.e. a candidate for public office who feels the need to profess deeply held Christian beliefs. In my home state of South Carolina, Governor Nikki Haley … How Would Jesus Vote? Christian Politics in the State Of Lost Causes

No. Christmas officially became a secular holiday on June 28, 1870. That’s when President Ulysses S. Grant declared December 25 a legal holiday, along with January 1, July 4, and a day to be determined for Thanksgiving. We were founded as a secular country under a godless Constitution (no mention of God or Jesus), where … Has Christmas become too secular?