Hate the Tenets, Not the Teneteers

Folks frequently make the following distinction: Respect the religion, but condemn the “bad” things people do for it.
Recently I have spoken out against religion and its tenets of faith for various reasons, among them are terrorism, denying medical care to children, racism (as found in the Christian Identity movement), and missionary work (which, among other [...]

If Faith in God to Heal your Child Is not Faith – What Is It?

On a couple of my previous posts, particularly this one, How Religion Does Not Save (about the children of “faith-healing” parents), and this one, “Because I Love Her” Is a Rational and Logical Response, the discussion seems to return to “what really qualifies as faith.”
I defined faith as belief in something without or in spite [...]

Having “Faith” In Science

The topic of “faith” in regards to (particularly atheists’) “devotion” to the scientific method (and the institution of science generally) seems to be recurring at more regular intervals of late…
It was raised on several occasions in last weeks’ HIV/AIDS posts here and here, and this article at Wired (Artist Builds Temple of Science) makes the [...]

What Is Your Purpose?

Over the weekend I had a fascinating email exchange that I wanted to share and ask others’ opinions on. It started with this posting in the comments section of Sunday Funny #6:
i know this is slightly off subject, but i have a question. what do you live for? what is your purpose? i find that [...]

A F-Aitheistic View?

I plan to post a more comprenshive roll-up of my Religious Labels survey’s “first week” (if you haven’t taken it yet — please do), but I wanted to open up discussion on what I am finding to be some rather surprising results.
A couple weeks ago I wrote a post entitled “Avampirism” in which I chided religious folks for calling atheism a “faith.”  In [...]

“Because I Love Her” Is a Rational, Reasonable, and Logical Response

In his book The End of Faith Sam Harris points out, “People of faith naturally recognize the primacy of reason and resort to reasoning whenever they possibly can. Faith is simply the license they give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail” (232). To believe something true without evidence or in spite of evidence is [...]