Richard Dawkins FOR Children Believing Santa Claus, Christian Apologist AGAINST

The common perception of Richard Dawkins is of a baby-eating, kitten-crushing ultra-realist, denying fun to everyone, especially children. See here, here, here and here, for example, in which various papers accuse him of wanting to deny all the fun of Santa Claus to the kiddy-winks, and MP Tom Watson calls him a 'soulless bore' for...

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Atran on Coyne

Jerry Coyne recently posted a piece called 'Once again, Scott Atran exculpates religion as a cause of terrorism', complaining about Scott Atran's apparent apology for religion in a recent article in the Guardian. A typical taste of Coyne's complaints: When I read Atran’s brand of Islamic apologetics, and when I think of the terrorists’...

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Knowledge, Testimony and Reductionism

Does reductionism - the notion that testimonial evidence simply reduces to facts derived from memory and experience - succeed in explaining how we can know things on the basis of testimony? I shall consider two problems in reductionism that Jennifer Lackey highlights to show that reductionism does not succeed in explaining how we can know...

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CFI UK Debate - Does God Exist?

God and the Bible was the title of an all day event held by CFI UK at the Conway Hall in London. A morning talk was given by Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou on what she called The Real Religions of the Bible, or The Uncensored Bible. The theme of this talk was those bits of the Bible that are rarely mentioned. Most likely...

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Craig describes SSM as 'a sort of legal fiction'

William Lane Craig has revealed some homophobia in the latest Q&A on his Reasonable Faith site, as well as recommending some seditious behaviour. In answer to someone questioning the Supreme Court's decision on SSM, and what Christians should do about it, he says: [Same sex] marriages are a sort of legal fiction which we must respect. He...

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Tim Farron's Illiberal Beliefs

As a LibDem supporter I voted for Norman Lamb, but did not have too many qualms over Tim Farron's election as LibDem leader. Farron made these statements in his leadership election blog and supporting document: I love this party because in my heart and in my soul I am a liberal. I believe in a society in which we are all free...

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Greenwald on Charlie Hebdo

As a follow up to The Disgusting 'Buts', a quote from Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald is wrong on the Charlie Hebdo affair; he is another who thinks the Western hegemony narrative is the lens through which these murderous events should be viewed. His comments in Salon are rather more guarded than one might expect; perhaps he's...

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The Disgusting 'Buts'

“It is quite right that PEN should honour [Charlie Hebdo’s] sacrifice and condemn their murder without these disgusting ‘buts’" So said Salman Rushdie, referring to the boycott of the PEN award to Charlie Hebdo, and I agree with him. But, and I hope that this is not a disgusting 'but', I want to suggest one reason why the 'shameful six'...

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A Compendium of Charlie Hebdo Posts

An index to some good pieces on Charlie Hebdo... Pieces previously discussed, by Stephen Law and Kenan Malik. Daniel Fincke's excellent analysis of the worst responses to CH: Charlie Hebdo assumed disproportionate risk because they kept their head up where it was a target when the rest of the media ducked. That made it so that the...

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Blasphemy must be Normalised

Below is a good discussion between Douglas Murray and Maajid Nawaz. Murray says: ...the gunmen went in to assert Islamic blasphemy laws in a European city on twelve people in the office of Charlie Hebdo... to enforce a particular idea of blasphemy law. If nothing else is clear, that surely is. This is not to say that global politics has...

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