Truth and the Devil

With the popularity of recent publications by atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennet, I get hopeful that atheism will become a more acceptable philosophical position now and in the future. However, there is still a lot of hatred in the world for those who promote a rational world-view, in lieu of mysticism and superstition. Though I must admit, Canada isn’t the first place I think of when I hear about violence towards atheists.
While hanging posters promoting a lecture by Victor Stenger, author of God: The Failed Hypothesis, two atheists were attacked.

One of the men hit him in the face twice, and butted him on his face, causing his nose to bleed, Mr. Trottier said.

If anyone is wondering about the name of this website, I’ve updated the ‘about’ page of the site with a full description:

The name Truth and the Devil is inspired by the story of temptation by the serpent and the pursuit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were told by God not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for they would surely die. The serpent told them that their eyes would be opened. The serpent was right.

Every once in awhile I will post some articles that were lost when our old site, Structured Thought, was taken down. This is one posted back on July 16, 2006.

There seems to be another world outside of mine that I do not understand. I was raised in the belief that no matter what you look like, who you love, or what you believe, above all else, we are all human beings and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. However, there seems to exist a rather large portion of the population that discards your common humanity in favor of which superstitious belief system to which you subscribe. Where your value and dignity as a human being is based upon your opinion of thousand-year-old books.

Global Warming denial among some conservatives has developed into a conversation with some of the most perverted ethics I can imagine. In an attempt to get out of taking any sort of responsibility for the health of the Earth as a whole, these conservatives have first denied that global warming exists, then denied that it was man-made (i.e. part of a natural cycle), and now are simply denying that we need to actually do anything about it.

For those of you who haven’t found this already, I thought I’d link to the Mr. Deity videos. They’re short (3–5 minutes), hilarious videos parodying god and creation. I’ll include the first 6 here, but they’re already up to episode 7. You can subscribe to the video podcast on iTunes.

A common misconception or accusation against atheists is that we are arrogant. Many theists believe that for atheists to claim that absolutely no god exists would be for us to claim to have all of the knowledge in the universe (omnipotence), which we do not have. Despite the fact that I know of no atheist who actually claims such a thing, let’s look at this from the other point-of-view.

Apparently there’s some new ‘woo woo’ bullshit percolating through the country at the moment. Some ‘philosophers’ are touting a new self-help method of turning your life around called The Secret. It seems Oprah is all over it, helping to reveal the ’secret’ and expand its marketing empire. Currently there’s a DVD, book, CD and more.

Josh Rosenau is a fellow KU student who writes on ScienceBlogs. It has been interesting to read his arguments against the views of Sam Harris. It interests me most because they both seem to share a similar worldview and have disdain for fundamentalism and dogma, and yet Josh fervently disagrees with what much of Harris has to say. To me, Josh’s arguments are quite well thought out, but yet don’t quite cohere into a valid criticism of Harris. I do not write this as a criticism of Josh, as much as I feel that his criticism of Harris doesn’t take into account some of Harris’s own nuanced views. Ironically, I have some of my own small criticisms of Harris which I wish to share. I’ll use Josh’s post as a jumping off post from time to time.

Mr. Richard Smith, whom my original Lawrence Journal-World letter was directed to has decided to reply in yet another letter. It’s basically the same arguments he put forth in his previous letter, as well as in his (multiple) comments at the Lawrence Journal-World website. I’m not sure if I’m interested in continuing any kind of back-and-forth in the pages of the Journal-World, as my intention isn’t to get the upper hand in an argument. I’m simply interested in informing other people in my area that not everyone thinks like Mr. Smith, and those of us who have no God are quite capable of living fulfilling, moral lives.

There’s quite a little theological fur-ball going on over at the Lawrence Journal-World website in response to my letter to the editor. Unfortunately, many seemed to have not actually read the letter, or at least chose not to understand it, which is only expected from those with deep religious conviction. However, one response caught my eye: