I’ve written many articles about atheism, atheists, theists, gods, logic, rationality, ethics and morality etc. but as this is my 100th published post on Answers in Reason I wanted to do a special post. I wanted to give you an insight into my past and what lead me to my present, as well as how…
Begging the question is a fallacy in which the premises of an argument assume the truth of the conclusion instead of supporting it. You may have also heard of this being called circular reasoning. The phrase begging the question originated in the 16th century as a mistranslation of the Latin petitio principii, which in turn…
This post is set to examine the average theistic presentation of evidence, whether it is strong, weak, convincing, or even really evidence at all. We (atheists) often tell theists their ‘evidence’ is ‘not evidence’, and this is often incorrect. Evidence is indicative rather than completely conclusive (even if we do make conclusions off of evidence),…
Language is descriptive. It is defined through use. People might describe their use of words in slightly different ways, be that through regional differences, common usages, or indeed there might be contextually correct usages of words. So what is this Normative thing all about then? When we speak about ‘Normative’ usage of words we largely…
Read More “So what is this ‘Normative’ thing all about anyway?” »
IntroductionA few days ago, Davidian, another of the authors here at Answers in Reason, linked me to an article titled ’36 Questions for Atheists’ on a site called ‘Adherent Apologetics’. While generally I would not respond to an article like this, I thought it might be interesting to reply. It is not that there is…
Read More “TrolleyDave’s response to ’36 Questions for Atheists’” »
Questions are great. They, hopefully, make us think about things and can open a world of conversation. I have spent a lot of time on the internet discussing various topics, and have often found the religion-based ones a bit of a dead-end. On both sides, we seem to have folks more concerned about pushing their…
Unbelief (or non-belief) and disbelief are two words that seem to be conflated by many folks on the internet. I’m not sure if this is down to a misunderstanding of their definitions, or just due to how they are quite similar words. I’ve recently written a few articles that are worth reading before this article,…
Read More “Unbelief and Disbelief – Conflated and Misunderstood Terms – Volume 6” »
I come across a number of theists on the internet, and I actually enjoy discussing beliefs. There are many theists I prefer to talk to than atheists. You get dogmatic fundy types on both sides. Admittedly I don’t feel any danger from the fundamentalist atheists, they just discuss philosophical concepts ignoring the philosophy. (Which can…
“We are all born atheist!” is something we have heard a lot. I’ve said it in the past. I am sure if you are an atheist you have said it too. But how true is that? What is an Atheist? An atheist is someone who subscribes to atheism. Atheism is polysemous (has many definitions).We have…
I have written a few articles recently speaking of logic, propositions, and beliefs. Some folks agree, and others do not, so I thought I would expand on why I believe we should be using the rules of logic. In CMT5 – I don’t believe, I tried to explain the difference between how folks used the…
Hello, and welcome to Fresh AiR! – I’m Joe… Words you will have heard a few times if you have already started listening to season one. What is Fresh AiR? ‘Fresh AiR’ is a podcast, hosted by Joe, Martijn and Dave. It is part of Answers in Reason but hopes to bring a fresh perspective…
I’ve come across a lot of bias on the internet. I have even spoken at length in previous articles about Confirmation Bias, and how I have made mistakes through a cognitive bias to people I trust. I’ve noticed in conversations with people I felt I had a mutual respect with, they are often less inclined…
My fellow atheists and I often have extreme reactions to certain words*. I think due to the debate and some of the people we attribute them to, we have a knee jerk response. Whilst I understand why in some instances, it’s because we have a single minded view on the definition, in others it is…
Read More “Dirty Words – Conflated and Misunderstood Terms Volume 4: Belief, Faith and Evidence” »
This article is to define and discuss objective and subjective, morals and morality. As with any article on AiR we don’t always agree. Where science is concerned and the evidence is irrefutable we of course accept and believe it to be true. When it is opinion or something philosophical we may have differences. As such…
THE FINE TUNING ARGUMENT DEBUNKED BY SCIENCE (And Holy Koolaid) The fine tuning argument is the most overused argument in the creationists’ toolkit. If you’re not familiar with the fine-tuning argument, it goes something like this: The parameters for life are so finely tuned that if they were tweaked ever so slightly, all life would…
Read More “THE ‘FINE TUNING’ ARGUMENT DEBUNKED – Holy Koolaid” »
Fanboys, Fundamentalists, and Conspiracy theorists are the prime users of Confirmation Bias. In fact, everyone at some point has operated using confirmation bias based on their cognitive biases, but in most circumstances, you could drop them in to one of the above categories. So let’s start with some definitions of the terminology shall we? We…
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