Introduction An argument that I often hear is that ‘lack of belief in God’ and ‘do not believe God exists’ are the same thing. Or the argument that ‘Just because I do not believe Y does not mean that I believe X’. I will say outright now that I tend to agree with this, with…
Rockin’ Atheism Part 3: Atheism in Greek Antiquity
Introduction In the previous two parts of this series we covered why prescribing words for others does not work, and had a brief look at various definitions of atheism. This part will cover, in brief, the history of atheism and atheists in Ancient Greece. It is not uncommon for some atheists to argue that they…
Rockin’ Atheism Pt 2: Defining Atheism
Introduction In the previous part of this series we looked at the problems inherent in the idea of stating that the word atheism can only have one definition, and arguing that everyone must use one particular definition. In this part of the series we will look at the various ways in which atheism is defined,…
How Rational Are You?: A Nightmare on Reason St.
Introduction Many of us have our favourite characters from TV shows and films, as well as favourite TV shows and films. We laugh at our favourite comedies, or cry at our favourite dramas, or jump at our favourite horrors. We become so engrossed by the content that the stalker on the screen holds us in…
Rockin’ Atheism Pt. 1: The Wrongness of Aron Ra
Introduction A discussion involving Aron Ra, centered around the definition of atheism, blew up on Twitter the other day. Generally, it is not a discussion I tend to get involved in. That is not to say that I have not got into discussions about how it is defined, it is just to say that for…
Is it rational to form beliefs based on testimony?
Introduction When the word testimony is brought up most people’s minds will immediately be brought to a court room scene, or to someone bearing witness to some religious experience. A witness in the box stands in front of the court and gives their eyewitness testimony as part of the evidence for either the prosecution or…
The Faith of Science
Introduction The sun will rise tomorrow. This seems to be an uncontroversial statement. The sun came up today, and the sun came up yesterday, and the day before that. Just as it has for millions of days before that. Gravity held today, just as it has held since the formation of the universe. This is,…
Beliefs, Language, and Logic
Introduction Logic is an important part of rationality. After all, acting rationally is acting in accordance with reason and according to the rules of logic, among other things. Which means that understanding the rules of logic are important if one wants to claim rationality for oneself. There is more to logic than simply the rules…
More on Beliefs and Justifications
Introduction One of our authors, Davidian, here at Answers in Reason recently published an excellent article discussing the burden of proof on beliefs. The response to this article by many atheists and sceptics on Twitter was interesting to say the least. It received an awful lot of pushback, with many arguing that Davidian did not…
Descartes, Scepticism, and You
Introduction There will, of course, be many contemporary sceptics and atheist who read the title and simply groan. Dismissing the article before reading it because of some misinformed idea about Cartesian scepticism, or some excuse that they do not need to read up on scepticism because they are ‘freethinking truth-seeking sceptics’ already. To some extent,…
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