Religion is in its Death Throes - AC Grayling
- Details
- Created on Tuesday, 02 March 2010 06:45
- Published on Tuesday, 02 March 2010 06:45
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 2374
AC Grayling is an atheist and Professor of Philosophy at the University of London, England. He is also the author of many books and is currently in Australia on a speaking tour - no doubt like Richard Dawkins his timing is to include the upcoming Atheist convention in Melbourne on 12-14 March. He gave an interview to ABC TV in Australia where he discusses a range of subjects including what the world will look like without religion - or as he admits, with less religion. Like many people (including me), he would expect less discord and a higher level of morality.
Read more: Religion is in its Death Throes - AC Grayling
Mini Debate - Sam Harris Faith vs Reason
- Details
- Created on Monday, 01 March 2010 06:46
- Published on Monday, 01 March 2010 06:46
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 4586
Here's a short debate between atheist, scientist and author Sam Harris and fundamentalist Christian, lawyer and author Hugh Hewitt that's worth looking at again. Sam feels that religion is used to justify evil while Hugh says that it's nothing to do with religion - it's just bad people. The two are fairly well matched but it is good to watch if you are interested in a healthy debate.
Sam's main point is that we should try to get away from using faith to justify our actions whereas Hugh thinks that faith is good - the problem being with bad people.
Long, bloody road to Islam reform
- Details
- Created on Sunday, 28 February 2010 14:27
- Published on Sunday, 28 February 2010 14:27
- Written by Salim Mansur
- Hits: 1893
Two notable Muslim leaders died late last year.
Though the deaths of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, 87, of Iran, and Indonesia's Abdurrahman Wahid, 69, were widely reported, the significance of who they were and what they represented in life was not fully appreciated in the West that is rightly bewildered with the violence tearing apart the world of Islam.
Montazeri was a student of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic in Iran, and his designated successor. But when Montazeri questioned the direction of Khomeini's politics, he was demoted, stripped of his title and banished.
Does Teaching the bible in schools teach culture?
- Details
- Created on Saturday, 27 February 2010 06:40
- Published on Saturday, 27 February 2010 06:40
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 1696
Canada, US, the U.K., Australia and many European countries are said to have a Judeo-Christian culture. That mostly means that they started as and to a large extent still are, Christian countries. But it also means that there are things that are ingrained in the way we do things that come from Christian traditions. The most obvious are holidays like Christmas and Easter although these have pagan elements like the Christmas tree and the Easter bunny. But there are others things like a general knowledge of the stories of David and Goliath, of the good Samaritan, walking on water,30 pieces of silver etc. There are many others too but the point being that if we don't know our "origins", then we lose part of our culture. So there are some who say that because of this, if nothing else, the bible should be taught in schools - perhaps in English literature classes. But does it matter?
Read more: Does Teaching the bible in schools teach culture?
Gods who cannot exist- that's all of them
- Details
- Created on Friday, 26 February 2010 05:00
- Published on Friday, 26 February 2010 05:00
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 2309
Victor Stenger is an accomplished scientist and in his book God, the Failed Hypothesis he applied the scientific method to an analysis of the question as to whether any kind of god could exist. His conclusion was that all the ones most people believe in could not exist. There may be others but he lists eight kinds whose existence is simply contrary to the data we have. If you are a traditional Christian or Muslim, then sorry, you either better give up your religion or give up on science as a career because logic, reason and the scientific method say that your god does not exist.
So here is the list of the eight god descriptions that don't make scientific sense - ergo, they do not exist.
The Psychology of Fundamentalists and Atheists
- Details
- Created on Wednesday, 24 February 2010 05:50
- Published on Wednesday, 24 February 2010 05:50
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 3862
Most of the books you can read about World Religions focus mainly on ideology and philosophy. But Canadian Psychiatrist Dr. Khalif Sohail is of the opinion that the emotional, social and political problems we witness in our homes and communities exist not only because of differences in ideology but also because of the conflicts between personalities. When people are angry and want to hurt each other, they can use their ideologies like some people use knives, guns, tanks and bombs. The war that starts with words can escalate to knives and guns in domestic disputes and tanks and bombs in national and international wars.
In his practice, Dr. Sohail has come to realize that people's belief systems may not be realistic reflections of their lifestyles, and he started exploring the relationship between people's ideologies and attitudes, their philosophies and personalities. He realized that ideologies are like book covers and we all know that books should not be judged by their covers.
Half of Americans do not belong to a Church
- Details
- Created on Thursday, 25 February 2010 06:05
- Published on Thursday, 25 February 2010 06:05
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 2588
The membership in Churches in the U.S. is very different when done by a survey of individuals compared to the count by Churches. The Pew Social Trends survey of individuals says that when counting church membership, 93% are Christian and 6% are "other". The National Council of Churches says that 83% are Christian and 17% are other. Subdividing the Christians, Pew says that the majority by far are Non-Catholics while the Churches say the opposite. This implies many non-Catholics are not counted in any count by Churches.
The Churches claim a total membership in the US of 147 million compared to a total population of 304 million. That leaves 157 million who must consist of children and people who don't register in the Churches' count of membership.
Philosophy and Science
- Details
- Created on Tuesday, 23 February 2010 13:00
- Published on Tuesday, 23 February 2010 13:00
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 2188
A Convention of Atheist Alliance International held in California in October 2009 had as would be expected a number of excellent and well-known speakers. Videos of these are long - typically an hour - and therefore longer than usual for the Cobourg Atheist but they are uniformly excellent and if you have the time, certainly worth watching.
Here are my two favourites from this convention by Dan Dennett and Lawrence Krauss.
