That’s a nice alphabet you got there, it’d be a shame if something were to happen to it. It is often said that fear stems from a lack of understanding, and in that light, I want to address LGBTQIA+ words and terms.To start with I will go over the letters themselves, what they stand for,…
Read More “The Alphabet Mafia, and a guide to our terminology and words.” »
As someone who spent a lot of time in debate groups and debating others online, I often found myself asking if this was a fruitless endeavour. Am I wasting my time? I thought. Am I changing other minds? Are other minds changing mine? Am I learning? Am I growing? In this article, I hope to…
Read More “Is Debating Pointless? Part 1: Types of Debate and Changing Minds” »
Language and linguistics are one of those things that I get an odd sort of pleasure looking into. As a lay person, I lack training in this field and I often discover things about words I’ve used for years that I never knew. Sometimes it’s a case of delving into the etymology and not just…
Read More “The Relationship between the Suffixes -Ism, -Ist, and -Ic” »
Generally speaking, in the Answers in Reason Facebook Group and on the Answers in Reason Facebook Page, we don’t have to take any mod action.If we do it’s usually blocking some form of spam. Those that actually engage on our page and in our group soon realise it’s not a war zone, we are not…
Read More “Rules of Engagement – Mods and Members of AiR.” »
The burden of proof is often discussed, and it is no secret that we constantly see the burden being shifted in debates. Quite often, something is presented with no justification and when asked for is met with: “prove I’m wrong“, “do your own research” or threats. This sort of behaviour can be explained simply through…
Read More “Why Do So Many Misunderstand The Burden of Proof?” »
There is a small nuance between ‘a belief’ and ‘I believe’. There’s also a misunderstanding around the logical entailments of beliefs. In this short piece, I hope to explain the difference. Basic definitions of Belief A belief is: But “a belief” isn’t just that. It should be considered more in the noun sense. A belief…
Read More “What is a Belief? What does it mean to Believe?” »
Another day in the X-Twitterverse is another opportunity to be harassed by countless bots, see posts you don’t care about from people who have paid to be put into your feed and see Elon Musk, a once-respected entrepreneur, post some ignorant/misinformed nonsense. Yesterday [in relation to writing this response] was no different, this time resulting…
Read More ““Cis is a heterosexual insult” – Fact Checking Musk: Engendered Conversation” »
Introduction: Discourse shapes our society, and within its bounds, we find the power to uplift or to dismiss, to validate or to negate, to ‘win’ or to understand.With this in mind, I want to draw attention to the words of Sarah Maddox, which hopefully remind us of a vital aspect often missed in debates on…
Read More “Listening Louder: The Importance of Recognising Our Privilege in Discussions” »
If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media, you’ve likely encountered the term “gender nonconformity.” While this may come across to some as ‘just the stuff of trending hashtags’, it is actually a profound societal shift. A revaluation and realignment of perceived social norms and ‘traditional gender roles’. So, “what does the world…
Read More “Gender Nonconformity: The Latest Frontier in Human Freedom?” »
Whilst, in theory, treating everyone the same works and seems fair, if you take the time to actually understand people you will see that we are not exactly the same. This article hopes to cover some misconceptions about inclusion and diversity, and how we need to be equitable to level the playing field before we…
Diversity on Earth encompasses a vast array of differences, from race and physical attributes to mental attributes, illnesses, non-human life, biodiversity within life, and the complex classification of species. While our tribalistic evolution has fostered in-group biases, evidence suggests that embracing diversity can lead to happier and more productive societies. In this article, we will…
Read More “Celebrating Diversity on Earth: Understanding the Myriad Forms of Variation” »
There are many that will state free will is an oxymoron or logical impossibility. They might utter phrases like “if it’s free it’s not will, if it’s will it’s not free” The problematic nature of comments like this, is they take the meaning from individual words and not the concept itself. Having addressed various of…
Read More “Deterministic Free Will – A digital approach for a modern era of Compatibilism.” »
When we first breathed AiR onto the internet, it was born of a world of debate groups, bad theistic arguments and anti-pseudocience. We’ve had site and logo rebrands but have always kept the “atheist A” as part of our banners and logos. An example of some past Logos and Designs Learning, Growing and Adapting to…
It’s no secret that I am a big fan of AI. I use it a lot as a tool to expand on ideas that I have, and to convert stuff that I’ve created into the appropriate format for various things. As a tool, I find it absolutely incredible, especially as someone with a physical disability…
Read More “Moral Metrics: An AI’s Attempt to Quantify Philosophical Systems” »
Morality is one of my favourite topics so I was overjoyed when someone posted this question in our debate group. It made me realise that I think about morality in a different way to what I used to. Whilst I used to be firmly in the subjective camp, learning more about morality and moral language…
Read More “Where Do You Stand On Morality? What Are Your Justifications?” »
(Or ‘The Ice-Cream Analogy For Morality’) One of the most common arguments within online debate groups (at least, those that pertain to philosophy) is whether morality is objective or subjective. I have been in dozens, if not hundreds, of these discussions myself. What I have found is that, largely, we just tend to talk around…
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