What you ought to do.
Created by Kristyn (who is Autistic) If you like our comics we think you’ll love the Fresh Air Podcasts and YouTube channel
If There’s No Evidence, It Doesn’t Exist
Introduction There’s an argument that I have seen pop up a lot over the last few years from my fellow atheists and sceptics. It’s an argument that I think needs to be addressed, for several reasons. Among these reasons are that it shows bad epistemology, bad reasoning, and bad logic. The argument also shows bad…
Composition Error Fallacy
Too many times I’m seeing this kind of ‘reasoning’. “Nazis don’t like inclusivity.” “OH, SO YOU’RE SAYING I’M A NAZI BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE INCLUSIVITY!” If you like our comics we think you’ll love the Fresh Air Podcasts and YouTube channel
Confused Claims, Contradictions and Incoherence
Confusion is rife on the internet, especially on places like Twitter where people seem more interested in “beating” the last tweet in a discussion than maintaining a coherent thought process. Many of us atheists might think these contradictions might be limited to god claims, holy books, and fundamentalists but that is far from the case….
Read More “Confused Claims, Contradictions and Incoherence” »
Why Should We Choose Our Language Carefully?
Language is a tool for imparting ideas and desires to one another. A living language like English has so many twists and turns in with many words not only being polysemous but also being used in a metaphorically descriptive way rather than relating to any normative use. If you were to tell me the traffic…
What Do You Know About Knowledge?
Knowledge, is it just things you know? What do we mean by know and knowledge? Why does there seem to be muddiness in its application? For the most part, when I discuss knowledge I am talking about epistemic or propositional knowledge, but what does that mean? What are other uses of knowledge? Is there a…
In Response to Daniel Goldman on Belief
Introduction Recently I encountered Daniel Goldman a couple of times on Twitter. The first time was during a discussion about the use of the words atheism, theism, agnosticism, etc. The conversation was pleasant enough, especially when we consider how many of those kinds of discussions go! The second encounter was a discussion about belief, and…
Misunderstanding The Null Hypothesis and Knowledge.
The null hypothesis is used in science, and we atheists tend to have a lot of respect for science, the scientific method, scientific and empirical evidence. We think of ourselves as logical and rational people. We feel we know a lot about the topics we discuss, especially when it comes to science. In conversations with…
Read More “Misunderstanding The Null Hypothesis and Knowledge.” »
Forming a Hypothesis
‘Hypothesis’ is a scientific term that, whilst it may have some colloquial application, is defined as: a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. Oxford Languages Or an idea that proposes a tentative explanation about a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena observed…
Scepticism, Dogma, and the Definition of Atheism
Introduction The collective moans of all those reading the title of this article can be heard. I wouldn’t blame you for moaning either. After all, who needs another article arguing for what the definition of atheism is? And I would agree with that! There are plenty of arguments out there about what the ‘true’ definition…
Read More “Scepticism, Dogma, and the Definition of Atheism” »
Why am I interested in Philosophy of Religion?
I quite often get asked why I am interested in the philosophy of religion, and the answer may surprise you, especially after releasing a lengthy philosophy of religion article recently: ‘Why Do I Believe No Gods Exist?‘. In short, I’m not. However, as with most answers in philosophy, it’s a bit more complicated than that….
Read More “Why am I interested in Philosophy of Religion?” »
Impossibly Possible – Logical and Metaphysical Possibility Explained
Something that comes up quite often in conversations is people saying things are logically impossible. This, at times, is used correctly however, there is often a misunderstanding over what is meant by logical and what it means by possible. Possibility When speaking of possibility we are talking about the likelihood something can happen. This is…
Read More “Impossibly Possible – Logical and Metaphysical Possibility Explained” »
Why Do I Believe No Gods Exist?
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…
Reason and the Reasoning Process
As a site that proclaims to have ‘Answers in Reason’ we have very few articles about what this actually means. When we speak of reason, we are speaking of the cognitive process of; actively thinking through a topic and coming to conclusions based on all available/known arguments and data. To summarise Plato, reason is the…
The English Language Barrier
You often hear it said that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. Whilst this is tongue in cheek, it holds some truth to it. A prime example is how in America “chips” refers to what Brits would call “crisps” and what Brits would call “chips” Americans would call “fries”. We…
There Can Be Only ONE!
The repetitious nature of folks trying to prescribe a singular definition of atheism, and claiming that other definitions are, “talking about something else” or are “wrong”, seems to never die. What’s worse, these folks who take you saying that there are actually multiple uses of atheism claim that YOU are the one being prescriptive and…