I recently came across this study from the October 3rd issue of the journal Science. It’s about how decreased control over life circumstances increases “Illusory Pattern Perception,” which is the tendency to see connections or meaningful relationships among random data where no such connections exist–basically, it’s apophenia caused by decreased control.
The “decreased control” part of [...]

I’ve recently had a number of people tell me why I became an atheist. Most of the explanations hinge on the core assumption that I know in the back of my mind that God (presumably, the Christian god) is real, but that I’m rejecting him or suppressing him for a variety of reasons (e.g., anger, [...]

Welcome back to Logical Fallacy Thursday. I’m going to look at one of the most common paragraphs in Christian apologetics this week. It’s from C. S. Lewis‘ Mere Christianity, and enough people find it convincing to ensure that I hear it trumped out in casual conversation or serious debate on a regular basis.
Lewis is one [...]

If you’re reading this blog, chances are that your default position toward any claim is skepticism until evidence emerges to warrant belief–or at least that’s your ideal. Although skepticism is a cornerstone of critical thinking, I know that there are still areas of my life that lie unexamined. It’s not that I don’t want to [...]

The ongoing discussion that I’ve been having (largely off the blog) about the recent entries on morality has prompted me to cover one last topic that I only mentioned in passing last time: the Euthyphro dilemma. This should be the last time I talk about morality on the blog for a while, so don’t worry: [...]

I’ve heard two claims a lot in the past year, and I’m going to set them out here for your perusal.
1. Atheism is a religion.
2. Look where atheism leads: godless Communism!
The irony of juxtaposing these frequent criticisms is rich. If atheism is a religion, why is the absence of religion to blame when considering the [...]

A friend recently emailed me about Jesus (I’ve been getting a lot of these of late), and I wanted to highlight one of her paragraphs as a starting point for discussing Jesus’ “sacrifice.”
Once you take your eyes off of YOUR personal sufferings and what you’re going through and focus instead on Jesus and what he [...]

As I’m sure most Pittsburgh residents are now aware, Bishop Robert Duncan of the Pittsburgh diocese of the Episcopal church (the US branch of the Anglican communion) was recently voted out of office by his church in preparation for an October 4 vote on whether or not the Episcopal church should split and align its [...]

I’ve been having a number of interesting conversations recently regarding the post on secular morality, and I’d like to discuss some of the thoughts that have emerged from those exchanges.
One of my entry-level statements when discussing human morality is that no matter where it does come from, we can be fairly certain it’s not from [...]

CNN recently interviewed Jim Wallis and Erik Stanley about the Alliance Defense Fund’s attempt to let pastors make political endorsements from the pulpit. Watch the video below, or click here to see it on YouTube.

What’s wrong here is painfully obvious. In his typical fervor to infuse politics with non-partisan religious activism on social issues like [...]