Listening to Young Atheists: Lessons for a Stronger Christianity →

becomingcatholic:

When a Christian foundation interviewed college nonbelievers about how and why they left religion, surprising themes emerged.

This is a great article on young atheists and what made them turn away from the faith. My experience with lapsed Catholics (both those who have become protestants as well as those who are now atheists) bear this out.

The conclusion of the article? If you want to reach atheists, be a saint.

To repeat my earlier comment on this bullshit article:

Fuck this ad hom bullshit. This whole story, which was written by a biased thoughtless numbskull, seeks to frame atheism as an individual’s problem with some church or set of religious ceremonies. The subtext, of course, is that they’re atheists because they want to be atheists. Like it’s cool to be part of the “new atheism” movement (if you can even stomach that fucking term.) That if only church were more engaging these kids would reveal that truly, in their heart of hearts, they believe in some god. He even subheads a section: “The Decision to embrace unbelief was often an emotional one.”

What a steaming load of pandering, dismissive, thought-terminating, condescending bullshit.

First of all, it’s not a decision to believe or not believe something. If that were the case, of course, you could decide to believe you were telepathic and you could have communicated this story to the whole planet without having to publish it (saving us all a lot of grief). You could have chosen to believe you can fly. Yet, you published this harmful bullshit where everyone could see it because you don’t believe you can communicate telepathically and you don’t walk off the Empire State Building because you don’t just believe you can fly. Not believing in your ability to fly isn’t the result of some low self-esteem or traumatic childhood, it’s based on what you know about the natural world. Not believing in gods isn’t based on being bored at church and your fucking single, pathetic anecdote doesn’t help your argument. Not believing in gods is based on the same observation and knowledge of the natural world.

"Faith is the surrender of the mind": Atheism →

limited-probabilities:

luminosusdomina:

The believe that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for once again, no reason whatsoever, into…

Nothing like typing out well-known memes word-for-word (except spelled wrong) as if they’re your own work to show everyone your absolute refusal to think.

Christian school discriminates against homosexual, demands their money back. →

My wife, Danielle Powell, was kicked out of Grace University because she is gay. As if that’s not bad enough, now the school is forcing her to pay back her scholarship money, because they say she wasn’t “moral” enough to deserve that scholarship.

There’s your Christianity right there, America.

A Win for Science in Kansas →

When it comes to writing about attacks on science, there

Why it’s logically incoherent to think G-d needs a cause.

anvilofceleste:

Asking why does G-d not need a cause is like asking why a liar never tells the truth.

…because in either case the answer will be a lie?

Because of the definition of G-d as with the definition of a liar, it would be a logical contradiction to say G-d has a cause.

So, you’ve defined your concept of god into existence. That’s easy to do, but it doesn’t have any impact on the truth value of the claim. You can keep telling us about your concept of god and why it must exist and then provide excuse after excuse for why there’s no evidence, but we’re just going to keep asking your to point to evidence. This is an appropriate place to refer the allegory of the Leprechaun in a box (performed here by Jeff Dee and Matt Dillahunty.

 So the criticism of the cosmological argument that it doesn’t explain the cause of G-d is not valid. 

Actually, it’s plenty valid. You don’t know what logical validity is. You can’t just change the premise upon which your argument is built in order to force the conclusion to be sound because you end up begging the question. In other words, you can’t just say “well, whatever god I’m talking about has no cause,” without answering the obvious question, “how do you know that?” Now you’re stuck answering the question of A)  how you know that your god exists B) How you know it has no cause and, the original question, C) why it needs no cause when, presumably, other things do.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t than live my life as if there isn’t a God and die to find out there is.

Well, I sure hope you live your life as if there is the right god. What if you decide to live your life as if the Christian god is real, when, in fact, it’s an ancient Norse god and he’s pissed off you worshiped wrong. Or what if you lived your life as if the Islamic concept of god is real when, in fact, the real god is more closely linked ancient Mayan mythology?

Pascal’s Wager is a false choice

The thought process you’re engaging in here is a fallacy called Pascal’s Wager and, frankly, it’s ridiculous. It sets up this situation where you waste time and energy and, almost certainly, money on a view of god you’ve decided to embrace to somehow outsmart a false dichotomy. The only options are not the god concept you’ve embraced or no god. Humanity has come up with thousands and thousands of god myths.

This isn’t game theory where there are four choices 1) Believe, die, find no god, no punishment 2) Believe, die, find your god, reward! 3) Don’t believe, find no god, no punishment 4) Don’t believe, find a god, get punished.

This is more like a roulette wheel. There are many choices of gods to believe in. How do we choose which belief is most accurate? I use reason and evidence. None of the the evidence points to the existence of any gods, just like on a properly balanced roulette wheel, none of the evidence points to the ball landing on “19.” It may land on “19,” but that’s not a good reason to put all your money on it.

Aren’t you just a liar?

By the way, if there is a god, even if you’ve decided to “believe” in the right one, isn’t the fact that you didn’t come by the belief organically, but instead had to pretend to believe a thing just to cover your ass from some imaginary threat a deception on your part? Aren’t you trying to fool the god into thinking you accept it as true? Can belief really be decided upon? I mean, I know the sun isn’t going to shine silver tomorrow morning. It’ll be yellowish, like every other day. I can’t just decide I believe it will be silver tomorrow, that’s not how we believe things. I can’t just believe my car has wings. I can lie and say I believe it, but I’m not going to fly over a cliff. By “deciding” to believe anything, you’re basically lying. Do you think the god you’re pretending to believe in is so stupid that it wouldn’t know you’re a liar?

(via cjlaroza)

Police: Evidence in killing of former beauty queen points to ex-priest - CNN.com →

McAllen, Texas (CNN) — All evidence pointed police to one conclusion: A priest had killed a beautiful 25-year-old schoolteacher.

Searchers had found the lifeless body of former Miss South Texas, Irene Garza, face down in a canal in her hometown of McAllen. She’d disappeared on the day before Easter after going to Sacred Heart Catholic Church for confession.

An autopsy determined Garza had been raped while in a coma, and then had died from suffocation. Near Garza’s body investigators found items that belonged to the church, including a candelabra.

…

Now, more than half a century later, Feit lives in a pleasant neighborhood in Phoenix, after leaving the priesthood in the late ’60s. In a sworn statement to authorities and during an interview with CNN, Feit denied he killed Garza. Feit told police Garza left the rectory after he heard her confession and the last time he saw her, she was standing outside the church.

But to this day, police officers and law enforcement agencies that have dealt with the case say they believe Feit killed her.

As if we need more examples that the phrase “good Catholic” is entirely without merit. Being a believer in any faith doesn’t bestow any goodness or sense of morality upon you. It just acts a disguise. A moral mask. Other people see you wearing a priest collar and assume you’re a good man. It’s why police can know for 53 years who the rapist/murderer is and yet he’s a free man.

“We were accusing a priest that — in those days priests were infallible, ” said Lynda De La Vina, who was 9 years old at the time.

Another cousin, Noemi Sigler, was only 10 when Garza was killed. “It was impossible for a priest to do such a deed. I mean, if you thought of it, that would be sacrilegious.”

Conservative minister: Christians can’t drink Starbucks | The Raw Story →

I’m singing a little jingle in my head right now that’s like “who’s gonna get a little starbucks today, it’s me!”