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The Capitalist Religion

I was listening to Yuval Harari’s lecture series about his book Sapiens. He classified Capitalism as a religion and convinced me that I had already fully bought in. I’ve been practicing its creed without recognizing it as a religion. I now believe we should formalize it as religion in order to inform and enlighten other […]

Religious Experience

In a piece titled Islam and the Misuses of Ecstasy, Sam Harris takes issue with some atheists about their distance regarding the motivations of religious believers. I, unfortunately, share the perspective that Harris critiques.

I once ran into the anthropologist Scott Atran after he had delivered one of his preening and delusional lectures on […]

Bayesian Anthropic Law

This one has been on my plate for a long time. There is a popular argument for the existence of God/Creator known as the “Fine-Tuning Argument”. When looking at the universe, we notice that it has a specific construction which supports carbon-based life-forms such as ourselves. For example, physicist Paul Davies [1993. The Accidental Universe, […]

Notes: Recovering from Religion

Darrel Ray, author of “The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture” also runs a foundation of support groups for those leaving their faith, called Recovering from Religion. This can be a traumatic time for such individuals, because they are also leaving a close and supportive community. I got the chance to talk […]

Mormon Resignation

Today, I met with the Bishop of my local ward. He’s a really nice guy, and has some personal reasons for disagreeing with some of the teachings of official church leadership (he’s got a gay family member). This made my resignation a bit easier, he could readily identify with my position. Our mutual understand and […]

Minds from Agents

Recently, I came across this SEED article, Divide Midns, Specious Souls; which has this deliciously anti-religious, pro-science quote:

Within the wide range of works arranged along the axis of soulism, from Life After Death: The Evidence, by Dinesh D’Souza, to Absence of Mind, by Marilynne Robinson, it is clear there is very little understanding […]

Deconversion

Ordinarily I wouldn’t post up a bunch of stuff that I encountered on YouTube, but this collection of one persons account of his deconversion from Christianity to Atheism is so thoughtfully considered and carefully presented that I was absolutely captivated, and would like to share it.

The concept of God is, for most believers, […]

Ray Comfort is Bananas, Part 2

The last post about Ray being bananas was far too light on the details. So, I thought I’d say a bit more about the ordeal today, while I have some time.

Ray operates a ministry in Huntington beach, and can usually be found on a soapbox bantering with beachgoers on Saturdays. There are several videos […]

Ray Comfort is Bananas

For a couple of months now I’ve know that Ray Comfort plans on distributing a republication of Darwin’s Origin of Species on many North American campuses. I took quite some time out to write a rebuttal to all of the fallacious arguments that he makes in his Introduction so that AAR could use it to […]

God is an Infectious Disease

Last night I went up to the Inland Empire Atheists MeetUp, to see Darrel Ray talk about his book “The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture.” It was actually part of a normal meeting, (held in a nice and cozy Unitarian Universalist church) so it started off with introductions by newcomers, and […]