Dave’s Mailbag: BB wants to save my soul

This is from a comment thread on a YouTube video of mine. This fellow, BB, posted 14 comments back-to-back due to character limits. I told him I’d respond in a blog post rather than leave a huge string of comments in return. Here are his posts reconstructed into one block, and my response:

BB:

have you accepted God into your life and turned away from sins and shared the gospel with everyone you care about and know?

Dave:

Um, I’m the Public Relations Director for American Atheists.

BB:

Well, you probably make a living selling books on the philosophy of Atheism. Which is a motivation for thinking you might be intellectually dishonest as your living relies on selling this philosophy, which makes it hard to ever convince you otherwise.

If not then we can have an honest and open discussion based on just logic without any agenda behind it from both our parts.

Dave:

No, I don’t sell books for a living. I’m not a bookstore. I do public relations.

BB:

You seem like a cool intelligent guy. I can convince you that no religion, no church can ever cleanse you of sin, only sincere repentance, and trusting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.

If it’s true we just go in to the ground when we die then you can’t say ‘See, I told you I was right’ and I can’t tell you ‘I’m sorry I was totally wrong’. But if it’s true there is a heaven and you can go there, wouldn’t it be logical to find out how to get there?

Dave:

There’s no such thing as sin. It’s an imaginary concept. Sin (i.e. “transgression against divine law”) doesn’t really exist, because “divine law” is imaginary.

Yes, IF it were true that there is a heaven and you can go there, it would be logical to look into it. But there isn’t, and you can’t. If you want to claim otherwise, you have the burden of proof. Good luck.

BB:

ok well the burden of proof is actually on you as you claim to have proof that God doesn’t exist. If you’re not saying that you have proof then I respect your intellectual consistency and honesty. This is because the best we can do is follow the evidence, because nothing can be proved.

You can’t prove that you walked the earth yesterday. We have to go by evidence such as eye witness testimony.

So we’ve recognized that proving anything is impossible. So the next step is to trust Evidence. We can only trust Evidence if it is shown to be reliable.

So the only thing stopping you from investigating heaven and grabbing the only ticket that will get you there is because you are unsure if there is such a thing as sin.

Well I can tell you that there is such a thing as sin.

There is such a thing as sin because sin is defined outside of culture. Everyone refers to a moral code outside culture because if we lived in a culture where gassing jews or slavery was ok, it still wouldn’t make it right.

That’s why Ghandi and Martin Luther king and others like them existed. They went against their culture because they put objective moral law on top of cultural laws.

No one can live atheism out in real life consistently. For example if you found your wife in the arms of another man you wouldn’t say hey it’s your right to believe unfaithfulness is wrong so I’m not gonna judge you for it.

Loyalty is right not because anyone defines it, it’s right because that’s what we know in our hearts to be true.

God says he has written these moral codes in our hearts. These objective moral laws are intelligently and lovingly created by an intelligent and loving being.

God respects our free will to choose to do right or to do wrong, that’s why people choose to be unfaithful and others choose to be faithful.

So if there is no God then morality is subjective, it’s all relative so Hitler was right in his opinion and I am right in my opinion. Then chaos erupts.

No God, no harmony, no justice. Just chaos and destruction.

Which speaks allot to the condition and the reason for the condition of some parts of the world today.

So once we’ve deduced rationally that there is a God who gives us objective moral values and we can choose or not choose to follow these, then we can go on to find out what happens if we choose to follow these or not.

If we don’t then God grants us our desire. Eternity away from him. If we do then God grants us our desire. Eternity with him.

I’d say I wouldn’t want to find out what eternity is like without him, why? because Satan is without God by his own choosing and he rules hell. Would you want to meet Satan and find out what kind of gastly things he would do to you?

I’d prefer heaven where everything is awesome.

Also I want to take as many people with me to heaven cuz I love my fellow human being. 100 years is nothing vs eternity.

If someone gave me a billion dollars to be without God I’d rather be a homeless person with God because this life is so short anyways.

Okay, so we’ve defined how God exists, what’s good and evil, free will and what sin is.

Now we have to find out what God wants from us. 1. Put your trust in him to guide your life. 2. To show loyalty, love and trust, then turn from sin, otherwise you become a hypocrite.

No sin is worth going to hell over. Remember Jesus spoke more about hell then he did about heaven. He described it as a lake of fire. I would assume that it’s a place of total destruction and chaos. Maybe the equivalent of a dentist poking your nerve for eternity.

Not paradise. lol

In the end, not sinning and praying sincerely from forgiveness isn’t hard.

I don’t think if someone offered you 100 women to pleasure you sexually outside the blessing of God, but you had to site in a dentists chair and take him touching your nerve for 8 hours, you would absolutely deny it. Why? Because it ain’t worth it.

That’s just 8 hours. lol imagine forever. So in perspective it’s good news.God offers you a free ticket to heaven, just take it man and share it with as many people as possible, especially those you wanna see in heaven with you such as your loved ones.

Dude, I’m pleading with you just do it. Any reputation or wealth in this life is not worth it. Now why would I sit here and write a 13 comment reply to you, not asking for money, not to join a religion or to even go to a church, spending my own time?

I don’t believe in silly things. Please for the love of God, do it.

Thanks for listening. Any other questions you might wanna ask?

Dave:

You’ve got to be kidding me. First of all, just, wow, 14 comments back to back. I’m strongly considering banning you, except that skimming them, it appears you are sincere. I’m going to respond to this, but not here; I have a blog and I’m going to do it there. The blog is at muSASHA . o r g. I can’t do it tonight but I’ll get to it when I can.

And here’s my full response:

If you are making the positive claim that a god exists, you have the burden of proof. Same goes for sin.

I agree with you about your stance on evidence and our inability to prove things with 100% certainty. It’s called the problem of induction and I’m totally with you there.

I’m not “unsure” about the existence of sin. I mean, in a very technical sense, I’m agnostic about it, but for all practical purposes, I don’t believe sin exists, because I don’t believe in divine law, because I don’t believe in anything supernatural. If you want to convince me sin exists, you first have to show me that divine law exists. In order to do that, you have to convince me that a divine lawgiver exists. So really, being “unsure” about sin is NOT the “only thing” holding me back. I don’ t believe in your god, either.

You speak of objective morality. Objective from what? You mean, outside of culture? It seems like that’s what you’re saying. If all life in the universe were to be wiped out at the same instant, would slavery still be unethical? I don’t know if we can really answer that. It wouldn’t matter at that point. Ethics, the subfield of philosophy that prescriptively tells us how we ought to act, is a human invention—and we are the only species that has them, that we’re aware of—but morals (a subfield of ethology, that descriptively tells us how animals interact) evolve in cooperative species all by themselves. There’s a lot of game theory involved but this is not a mystery to science. If you’re interested in how morality evolved, I recommend Matt Ridley’s wonderful book, “The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation.” Other good books are Robert Axelrod’s “The Evolution of Cooperation” and Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis’ “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution.“ The last two are pretty math-heavy but they do an excellent job of explaining how this works, and Richard Dawkins wrote the forward of the former.

Slavery is wrong because we decided that people have rights and shouldn’t be owned by other people. That’s not objectively provable, and it wasn’t always the case. Our society has progressed ethically from the time when slavery was the norm (although by raw numbers, not per capita, there are more slaves in the world today than at any point in history). I disagree with your conclusion that sin exists and we can know this because everyone “refers” to a moral code outside of culture. I don’t, for one. Moral codes are inextricable from culture from an ethology perspective.

On to your next point: You say “no one can live out atheism consistently” because, for example, if I found my wife in bed with someone else, I wouldn’t be okay with it. What?…

First of all, that’s a non sequitur. Atheism is the simply the lack of belief in the existence of all gods. This has absolutely nothing to do with sexual ethics?… You seem to be missing about a dozen premises between your first premise and your conclusion there. Second of all, you don’t know me. I would be fine with that; I’m polyamorous. I would hope that she’s being safe about it, but I wouldn’t begrudge someone for having consensual sex. My wife is not my property and as an adult, she can make her own decisions about who she has sex with. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s none of my business, but I would not be mad or jealous. Please note: I’m speaking hypothetically because I’ve never been married, although I was engaged for awhile once.

Then you go on to say that loyalty is right not by definition but because “we know in our hearts” that it is. Yeah, that’s the evolved morality thing we were talking about earlier. See 3 paragraphs up. By the way, loyalty is not always right; it depends on your system of ethics. Hitler’s troops were following orders when they gassed Jews. I think we’d both agree that what they were doing wasn’t ethical, even though they were being loyal when they did it.

Next you claim that God has written these moral codes in our hearts. A couple of major problems here: You jumped right into “God has…” without first showing that a god exists in the first place. What is your argument for god’s existence? Secondly, what do you mean he has “written in our hearts” blah blah blah? I assume you don’t mean that literally; a heart is a muscle and I’m pretty certain there’s no classical Hebrew etched in there, although I haven’t physically checked because that could prove rather tricky If you mean that God has imprinted a gut feeling of these moral codes, then we can work with this. First of all, I try not to think with my gut; I try to think with my brain. The reason I try not to think with my gut is that my gut and your gut can disagree and there’s really no good way to resolve that as far as knowing who’s right and who’s wrong. Only with evidence and logic can we systematically rule out wrong answers and settle on right ones. Second, again, we have this problem that you haven’t shown your god exists at all, let alone that he has done any such thing as imprint moral codes into us. Citation needed!

You wrote:

These objective moral laws are intelligently and lovingly created by an intelligent and loving being.

Bare assertion. Citation needed.

You wrote:

God respects our free will…

I’m not even remotely convinced that humans have free will. Free from what, anyway? The laws of physics? First define “free will,” then convince me that we have it, and we can go down this road. And you still haven’t explained how you know a god exists at all, nor how you claim to know that he respects our free will, even if we have it.

Next you go off on a spiel basically saying that if there were no god, then there would be ”no harmony, no justice. Just chaos and destruction.”

Well, that pretty much seems to be the case. The universe doesn’t know or care that we exist. Nature just does what it does, following simple patterns, or as we call them, laws. Complexity can come out of this, e.g. life on Earth as we recognize it. We have perfectly adequate, natural explanations for all of this. What makes you think there IS justice? Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. Lots of people in the world are dying of starvation and elsewhere in the world, someone is tying $4,000 to some helium-filled balloons and letting it float away just because he can afford it and he’s bored. Look around, man. There’s no justice. The world is what we make of it.

Reading through the rest of your post, I don’t even really see the point of continuing from here. Your argument is a mess and since your later premises depend on your earlier ones, I think you need to go back and revisit them before we can move forward.

Feel free to try again! Thanks for your message(s).

Until next time,

Dave

Dave Muscato is the Public Relations Director for American Atheists based in Cranford, New Jersey. An atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker, he is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com

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Does stress cause leukemia? A skeptic asks two experts

Hello all!

It’s been awhile since we’ve done a good skeptical debunking—most of our articles lately have been counter-apologetics and so on, so I thought it was time for a change of pace! Enjoy.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook:

Did you guys know that stress can lead to leukemia?

As it happens, my parents are both hematologists/oncologists & cancer researchers. FYI, leukemia is cancer of the bone-marrow stem cells.

I responded:

Is this like in the way drinking water can lead to leukemia? I’d love to see some peer-reviewed research if not!

She responded:

There is peer-reviewed research.. but it’s like connecting the dots. I had my blood levels checked a few months back and saw that I had high MPVs [editor's note: mean platelet volume] from stress. Then, I went on to learn about large blood platelets which have an average life span is 5-9 days. So if the stress were to continue consistently for long enough, leukemia could develop. I did so much digging only to realize that I needed to find a way to chill out, asap. The stress was from neuro-lyme.

I was skeptical of my friend’s claim that stress can lead to leukemia, especially since it seems to be based on anecdotal evidence, and so I asked for my parents’ opinions. They are both Ivy-League trained, practicing clinicians with medical degrees. My father has authored about 16 research papers in proper peer-reviewed academic journals, and my mother about 5. Between them, they have over 60 years of experience treating and researching cancer, and are both Fellows of the American College of Physicians. For their full credentials and CVs, please visit marymuscato.com and joemuscato.com.

My father and mother (left and second-from-left) with two other doctors at a 2006 American College of Physicians conference

I called my father and asked if stress can cause leukemia. He said:

Nope. Of all the diseases where I think it couldn’t be related, that would be it.

My mother asked if she could supply me with a written response, so I’m just copying & pasting what she wrote. Here’s what she had to say:

Where do I begin? Normally, platelets live 10 days, and are big, juicy, sticky platelets when they “hatch”, and come into the bloodstream, from the marrow. As they age, they put lots of “fingers in the dike,” and the resultant platelets are smaller. If the MPV, mean plt volume, is big, it means that platelet turnover is increased, suggesting a shortened plt survival, less than 10 days. The most common cause of this is “ITP”, which means idiopathic (now autoimmune), thrombocytopenic purpura, where a person has antibodies against the platelets. This is an autoimmune problem, where the person, for unknown reasons, makes these antibodies, that attack the platelet membrane, and alert the spleen that there’s something wrong with the platelets. The spleen then does it’s assembly-line job of removing these abnl platelets from the circulation, destroying them in the spleen. Hence, the shortened platelet survival time, and the new baby plts, made, maybe 10-100 times the nl rate, are big. They work really well, and people who have this disease don’t have as much bleeding as one’d think, as the plts are extra big and sticky. 

If someone has low platelets from decreased production, rather than increased destruction, as in aplastic anemia, or leukemia, where, in the former, the marrow is pretty empty – no seeds in the garden, so no platelets will be made and released to the circulating blood. This usually occurs with red cells (anemia), and white cells, (no white cells to fight infection, phagocytize bacteria and then engulf bacteria, killing them). People with leukemia don’t have empty marrows, but their marrows are overrun with infant marrow cells, that don’t mature into normal red, white cells or plts, but stay as infant cells, almost always the white cells, neutrophils, and the marrow gets tons of these useless infant cells, called blasts, or myeloblasts, that take up all the room in the marrow, so there is no room for normal clones of cells to do what the body needs – normal red, white cells and plts.

Those people with AA or leukemia, have decreased production of plts, and their MPVs are NOT increased – they’re not making much of anything. They have terrible problems with bleeding, infection, anemia, often need transfusions of red cells and platelets, need to be in the hospital as they’re totally vulnerable to get infections w/o having good, mature white cells. The MPV is a result of not making many plts, and is the effect of decreased production. It is not the CAUSE of anything, but the result of not making new platelets very quickly.

The MPV is not a cause of leukemia at all. It is an effect of not making lots of platelets, as baby plts are big. True, true and unrelated. [emphasis added]

Leukemia is formed when an abnormal clone of white cells gets a directive to grow faster than the normal clones, so the bad clones overrun the good marrow cells.

I added to my friend that I’d be happy to pass along citation numbers for any papers she finds that show a causative link between stress & leukemia, if she’d like my parents to give them a look and respond to them. If that happens, I’ll post their responses on the blog as well.

I’m not saying I agree nor disagree with my parents; I have zero knowledge of this subject. However, my parents do have knowledge of it—expert knowledge of it—and I think it makes sense to trust the experts until or unless a convincing body of good evidence is presented that indicates they’re wrong. That’s really how we should approach all claims like this, if you ask me. Experts can be wrong sometimes, sure. But we go with the best information we have, and trusting people who know more than you do is necessary for making our way in this world.

I think it’s irresponsible to post things like “Did you know…?” as though this is an absolute fact, if this is not the consensus view of professionals. In this particular case, it happens to be physically impossible as well, given the actual mechanisms of leukemia.

Have a great Friday, everyone!

Dave

Dave Muscato is an atheism activist, blogger, and public speaker. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard, and monthly or more on SkepticFreethought.com. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com

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Dave’s Mailbag: Accommodation vs. Confrontation; Avoiding activism burnout; The internet as a source

Hello all! Dave Muscato here. It’s time again for one of my favorite types of posts: Reader mail!

I received the following about my previous post about the Vatican and youth culture. Hang on tight, folks; this is gonna be a long one!

Dylan C. writes:

Hey Dave, hope you had a pleasant day at the courthouse. [NB: I had jury duty the other day]

I’m curious about something. It seems to me from a great number of your recent postings that you have grown increasingly paranoid and irrational in your analysis of information and subsequent conclusions. I assume that as a self-identified activist, you have taken the time to search out and discover things that are important to keep in mind as an activist. In other words, what are some of the key principles that an activist ought to follow in order not to allow their identity as an activist to become all-consuming and deterministic? I ask this because I am concerned for you, for your health, for your sanity, and for your reputation.

“It becomes very difficult for a pastor to get away with lying for Jesus, when anyone—especially young people—can whip out a smartphone and find real answers on Wikipedia faster than you can say the Lord’s Prayer.”

I’ve noticed that you enjoy coming up with and using catchy one-liners such as this to add humor and emotionally-charged content to your posts. But I’m going to have to challenge you on this practice. You of all people should know the significant dangers and limitations inherent to the use of Wikipedia and Google for discovering the “truth”. And young people especially tend to be completely ignorant of how to avoid these dangerous pitfalls. Anyone can post information on the internet, and for just a little bit of financial investment, they can also utilize search engine optimization to make their information more highly visible. A lot of this information is of course from activist groups, some much more biased than others, but all significantly biased nonetheless. The fact that we have labeled this the “Information Age” is a horrible joke to me at best. In fact, from the internet, equally as much as from the “pulpit”, young people are told what to believe. This is REALITY, and I dare you to disagree with me.

Here’s my response:

Hey Dylan! I really appreciate your feedback. It is true that I have shifted more toward a “confrontationist” approach to religion, as opposed to an “accommodationist” approach. There is actually a division within the secular movement about this: There was a debate/panel discussing the topic at the Skepticon 3 conference that’s worth watching if you’re interested.

Many atheists believe, although we disagree about the existence of gods, that churches have a lot to offer and the best course of action is to work together on “interfaith” activities to make the world a better place. Confrontationists, on the other hand, see religion as dangerous, and see religious moderates as enablers for fundamentalists. The accommodationists dislike that confrontationists add to the stereotype of “angry atheists,” and the confrontationists dislike that the accommodationists give irrationality a free pass.

I’m reminded of the conflict between hellfire & brimstone preachers versus welcoming congregations. The hellfire & brimstone preachers dislike that the welcoming congregations permit gay people, etc, while the welcoming congregations see the hellfire preachers as turning people away from religion and not teaching the “loving” aspects of Christianity.

The infamous “hellfire” campus preacher (and friend of mine), Brother Jed Smock

I feel I must stress that my natural inclination is to be an accommodationist. It feels right to me, and it’s difficult for me to criticize religion as a whole, when I have personally enjoyed so many positive experiences as a formerly religious person, and considering I have many friends whom I love and who are religious.

However, the more I research religion, the more I come to realize that religion is the root of virtually all of the things I consider wrong. The Biblical theme that some God “gave” humankind dominion over the the whole of the Earth and all the animals on it, along with the idea that this God is “in control” of the environment and would not allow us to perish before Jesus returns, is directly at odds with the urgency of the global environmental crisis, and with vegetarianism/veganism. The Biblical theme that woman are subservient to men is directly at odds with feminism. The Biblical theme that souls exist and life begins at conception is directly at odds with reproductive rights, abortion access, and stem cell research. The Biblical theme that there is an afterlife is directly at odds with the secular humanist priority of making this life count for everything it’s worth because you only live once. The Biblical creation mythology is directly at odds with the science education and the teaching the scientific fact of evolution by means of natural selection. The Biblical theme that a man should not lie with another man is directly at odds with LGBTQ rights. Etc, etc.

In fact I am hard-pressed to come up with a cause I care about that DOESN’T have its root conflict in religion. I care about a lot of things and wish I could be an activist for them all, but I understand the prudence in picking one’s battles. Fortunately, it’s not a hard choice: By choosing to focus on atheism activism, I am in effect also fighting for LGBTQ rights, women’s right to choose, birth control access, stem-cell research, science education, vegetarianism, secular humanism, and critical thinking.

I’m curious as to what you mean by “increasingly paranoid and irrational in your analysis of information and subsequent conclusions.” Correct me if this isn’t what you meant, but I assume in effect you mean my increasing willingness to blame religion for social ills. As I stated, it is true that it’s becoming easier for me to criticize religion as a whole. I assert that this is because I am learning more about the pervasiveness of religion in society as the source of many twisted beliefs. These beliefs cause people to do many terrible things out of ignorance and just plain indoctrination.

I am intolerant of bigotry and make no apology for this. If that makes me a confrontationist, so be it. Because I have a conscience, I cannot stand by idly when I see violence, whether physical or structural. I cannot stand by idly when I see irrationality guiding moral decision-making and public policy. These things are just too important.

You ask:

…What are some of the key principles that an activist ought to follow in order not to allow their identity as an activist to become all-consuming and deterministic?

This is an important question and I’m glad you asked. This applies to activists of all stripes, not just within the secular movement. Here are what I consider key principles to avoiding burnout:

1. Make a conscious effort to separate your work and your life. For most professional activists I know, their activism began as a volunteer passion. Sometimes, it is difficult for them to turn that “off” when they go home at night. If you are accustomed to spending your free time doing activism, and you then find yourself doing it professionally, you have to make the decision to spend your free time NOT doing activism. This means having hobbies, and making time for them. For me, this is photography, playing music, and taking road-trips. I always make sure to practice my guitar or bass at least a half-hour a day, to keep up my chops but also to take a break from the computer.
   -
2. Have some friends who are not part of your cause. I make a conscious effort to make sure my relationships with my religious friends stay strong. It’s also good to have friends who share your values but simply aren’t activists about it. It gives you some perspective.
   -
3. Read/watch fiction. This is very difficult for me personally but I think it’s good advice. It’s important to have an escape. I tend to read only non-fiction, and I like to watch documentaries, but I make an effort to watch funny TV shows and occasionally read a novel.
   -
4. Regularly study the opposing point of view. Understand that other people do not share your perspective for a reason, sometimes even good reasons. I make every effort to read apologists’ books when they are recommended to me, if for no other reason than to critique them and practice the name-the-fallacy game.

Now on to our third and final point: the internet as a source.

Of course, I do not recommend that anyone interested in atheism or secular history use Wikipedia as their sole source. Wikipedia is very good for certain subjects and less good for others. But what I love about Wikipedia is that hard sources are provided at the bottom of every article, and information without solid citations is flagged and removed.

It is equally important, if not more so, to read proper history books from credible historians. But I disagree with you about using Google to find sources. Google indexes not only blogs and interest-group websites, etc, which may be heavily biased and contain factual errors and logical fallacies. Google also indexes accredited university websites, peer-reviewed academic journals, and fact-checked magazines and so on.

These are legitimate sources for correct information and I completely disagree that people searching on Google are being told what to believe equally with what comes from the pulpit. Not believing what comes from the pulpit brings with it the threat of “Hell,” for one thing. Not believing what comes from the pulpit, for many young people, comes with the threat of losing internet privileges, games, toys, etc, and sometimes even food. In extreme cases, though unfortunately not all-too-rare, not believing what comes from the pulpit comes with the threat of being disowned and being homeless.

It is simply not true that people are being told what to believe equally on Google and at church.

With regard to Internet sources, the information is simply there. People choose to read it or not, and choose to accept it or not. They can choose to explore opposing points of view with just a few clicks, and just as readily access training on how to think critically and examples of various logical fallacies.

So-called “Internet literacy” is a skill that must be learned—fact-checking information from one site against other sites, using logic and critical thinking to see if the information is coherent with what you already know, and making sure what you’re reading is internally consistent and contains no fallacies. There is a very famous example of teaching Internet literacy regarding a fictional “tree octopus” that’s worth a read if you have time.

I think the most important thing, when it comes to claims of any kind, is to be skeptical. I consider myself a skeptic—SASHA stands for Skeptics, Atheists, Secular Humanists, & Agnostics—and skepticism is an important part of my worldview. Skepticism is, in my experience, NOT taught or encouraged in religious settings. In fact in my experience, I have seen it actively discouraged, painted as the work of Satan, trying to trick people into losing their faith in Jesus. Frankly, I find this ridiculous, although I more-or-less believed that myself at one time in my life.

As I mentioned above in #4, it’s important to regularly study opposing points of view. It expands your mind and forces you to think critically, which I think is never a bad thing. As Sam Harris wrote in Letter to a Christian Nation, “I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.”

I hope this article has been helpful to you. Thank you again for your message, and please let me know if there is anything you would like me to clarify.

Until next time,

Dave

Dave Muscato is the Kansas/Missouri-Area Volunteer Network Coordinator for the Secular Student Alliance. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A non-traditional junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com

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Dave’s Mailbag: Atheism, defined

Yesterday, the Atheist Alliance tweeted:

What do you consider to be the exact definition of atheism?

There are many incorrect definitions of atheism floating around. It’s important for religious extremists, in their deliberate attempts to misinform (see my previous post about lying for Jesus), that atheism be depicted as nonsensical, demonic, or irrational. For example, this display:

It says: “Atheism: This is the belief that there is no god. This is a very common belief of those who do not wish to be responsible for their actions, as if there is no god there is no judgment. This belief was started by Charles Darwin, but has very recently (within the last 30 years) become a popular religion.”

I do a talk called “Atheism 101″ that covers the definition of atheism, among other things. In it, I discuss the difference between agnostic/gnostic and atheistic/theistic. The question should not be worded, “Are you an atheist or an agnostic?” but rather “Are you an atheist or a theist?” and independently, “Are you 100% certain that God does or does not exist (gnostic) or do you acknowledge a possibility that you are wrong (agnostic)?”

I tweeted back to the Atheist Alliance:

@atheistalliance Atheism can be defined precisely as “the lack of faith in the existence of a god or gods.”

I think this is the most precise and accurate definition I have come across. In my talk, I use this. For a thorough breakdown of the definition of atheism, with sources, I recommend this webpage.

This has been on my mind because I received the following message today:

Your professed “belief” in the religion of athiesm has everything to do with your selfish desire to continue in your favorite sins. You have a strong motive to hope that there isn’t a Holy God who will punish you for your sins. Those making a profession of faith in the religion of atheism hope that if they scream loud, long, and shrill enough, they will be able to convince themselves that God doesn’t exist. I don’t believe that your even an atheist Dave.

First off:

1. Atheism is not a religion. The definition of a religion is arguable, but the one I use and agree with comes from anthropologists Drs. Craig Palmer and Lyle Steadman in their excellent book, “Supernatural and Natural Selection: The Evolution of Religion.” They define religion as “a communicated acceptance by individuals of another individual’s ‘supernatural’ claim, a claim whose accuracy is not verifiable by the senses.” They continue: “The distinctive property of such acceptance is that it communicates a willingness to accept the influence of the speaker nonskeptically. While supernatural claims are not demonstrably true, they are asserted to be true” (pg ix). Since atheism makes no supernatural claims—in fact many atheists are metaphysical naturalists—it definitively is not a religion.
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2. My belief that atheism and science are the most likely contenders for an accurate description of the universe’s workings have nothing at all to do with sin. I don’t believe sin exists. I believe that some acts and behaviors are anti-social and, on ethical grounds, should not be committed. I believe that other acts and behaviors are pro-social and, on ethical grounds, should be encouraged. But I find the whole concept of sin—transgressions against divine law—to be ridiculous. I don’t believe there is any such thing as divine law, because I am an atheist.
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3. This entire statement is just a bare assertion. In no way does the sender attempt to provide reasons for the claims he is making, or explain on what basis exactly he is claiming to know these things about me and other atheists.

I think the sender is unable to see atheism for what it really is because doing so would make him insecure in his faith. It’s necessary for him to misunderstand atheism because atheism, understood, is the more rational position. So he builds a straw-man and uses it as a human shield. It’s really quite pathetic, pitiable even.

What’s really wrong with his message, though, is where he says “[atheists make] a profession of faith.” Atheists lack faith by definition. Faith comes from the Latin “fidere,” which means “to trust.” In the theological sense, this means trusting that God exists, or that God will provide, etc, even though the logical arguments and evidence are insufficient for belief in themselves.

I am proud to say that I do not have faith. I am a skeptic: I have an attitude of doubt, an inclination toward incredulity. I think faith is dangerous, irrational, archaic, and puerile. If you are a logical person, a good critical thinker, and you come across an argument that lacks evidentiary backing, contains fallacies, or is nonsensical, you do not [continue to] believe that argument. Faith is the admission that you are not being logical, that you are not a good critical thinker, continuing to believe something when the reasons you have to believe it aren’t good enough on their own. Saying you have faith is saying, “Here are the reasons I believe this. Here is the evidence supporting why I believe this. Oh, the reasons have logical problems? Oh, the evidence is not very strong? Well, I choose to believe it regardless.” Or even worse, sometimes people say, “I don’t need evidence. I don’t need logical arguments. I have faith.” Faith is the very model of a circular argument. As Mark Twain is credited with saying, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

I have never met a Christian who claims not to have faith. If you call yourself a Christian and do not have faith, I would really like to hear from you. Hebrews 11:6 says that “without faith, it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:1 says: “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” This is directly at odds with skepticism. It is my position that if you are a skeptic, and you also claim faith in a god or gods, you are doing one or the other incorrectly.

I think my favorite part of this, though, is where he says, “I don’t believe your [sic] even an atheist, Dave.”

This is my license plate:

(Atheos is Greek for atheist). If I’m not an atheist, I don’t know who is.

Thanks for reading. Until next time,

Dave

Dave Muscato is the Kansas/Missouri-Area Volunteer Network Coordinator for the Secular Student Alliance. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A non-traditional junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com

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When nature burps

The following is a guest post by Alex Papulis. It is a response to Dave Muscato’s previous article, “Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results.“ Enjoy!

Dave claims that global skepticism, with one slight qualification, is the most defensible position, and I ask: with what does Dave think he can defend any position, be it global skepticism or any other position?

Let’s frame the issue with a little story. Imagine a universe where things have no purpose or design. Things just happen the way they do. Imagine, now, that in one corner of the universe, a bunch of particles happen to get together and form the letters of the sentence “Giraffes exist.” Imagine also that in some other corner of the universe, another bunch of particles happen to get together and form the letters of the sentence “Giraffes don’t exist.” I have two questions: 1) why should we think that one versus the other of these sentences that the universe has produced reflects something true about the universe, and 2) how does the universe in this story significantly differ from our universe? Does the production of the sentences differ significantly in character or circumstance from the production of our beliefs, and in either universe do we have a reason to think on any particular occasion reality has been correctly reflected?

The fact of the matter is, our beliefs are just as much a product of nature as hurricanes, dust, and cloud formations, and nature doesn’t aim at anything, it just is what it is. Dave’s beliefs (including the “I think therefore I exist” sort) are the product of something that doesn’t aim at truth, so unless he has some other belief-forming mechanism that he can invoke when he wants to defend global skepticism or any other position, I don’t see how we can actually speak of defense.

A deistic creator, i.e. one that winds the world up and lets it go and perhaps the sort that Dave writes that he is dangerously close to believing in, doesn’t make the situation any better. Put simply, if the creator isn’t concerned with whether or not human beliefs correctly reflect reality, then even if we did believe in such a creator, we still have no reason to think any of our beliefs our true.

Dave writes that what he’s concerned with is what works. If using evidence gets things right, then he’s satisfied. But that’s just not going to work. First, his beliefs about what works or gets it right are just as indefensible as any other belief; he has no reason to think they’re true. When nature burps, we believe, and that’s that. Aren’t his beliefs that such-and-such activity works and gets it right caused by unconcerned nature just as much as the theist’s? And furthermore, doesn’t his global skepticism apply to these beliefs about what works?

Second, and perhaps more importantly: is Dave saying that science doesn’t actually tell us about the world? If he does think it tells us about the world, then he needs to address, in addition to the bigger problem above, the issue of induction: why should we think the past/observed states are a reliable guide or evidence for the future/unobserved states of the world? If, on the other hand, he doesn’t think science tells us about the world, then we should be clear about that.

Have I made a mistake? Think I’m wrong? Let me know in the comments or feel free to send me an email/FB message.

Alex Papulis is a former Mizzou student, now in his first year of UW-Milwaukee’s philosophy MA program.

Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results

Hello all! Dave here.

This article is a response to Alex Papulis’s guest post called “The Problem of Induction – A Response,” which is itself a response to an earlier post of mine.

The title of today’s post refers to a disclaimer often found in investment literature—stock recommendations, investor prospectus documents, and so on.

I think this about sums up the problem of induction. I have previously claimed, paraphrasing Michael Shermer, that science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works. To be more precise, it’s the best tool for understanding how the world seems to have worked so far. There’s an important distinction: If Hume is correct, we really have no solid reason to believe that we can extrapolate what seems to have happened in the past into future predictions. Or even look at the past and have certainty about what happened then.

For example, Stephen Hawking has said with regard to the Big Bang, “We observe that distant galaxies are moving away from us. They must have been closer together in the past.”

The Big Bang (click to enlarge)

Oh really? While it’s tempting to say that this is true, really all we can say is that, unless nature is inconsistent, it makes sense that distant galaxies were once closer together.

But what basis do we really have for saying nature is consistent? It’s an assumption we have to make in order to do science, sure. And generally speaking—as far as we know—the fewer assumptions you have to make, the more likely you are to be right. So why assume that nature is consistent? Just because it usually seems to be… except when it doesn’t? Maybe that is what a miracle is: An inconsistency in nature. As good skeptics, we must admit the possibility. Although, if miracles can be, at least in theory, understood by natural science, then I think it’s just a semantic error to call them miracle. They’re more correctly things we can’t yet explain.

So what should we do? Abandon science and metaphysical naturalism in favor of global skepticism?

From a purely epistemological perspective, I think we have no other option. Global skepticism (with the single exception of self-existence a lá Descartes) seems to be the only bulletproof epistemic position. But here’s where Alex and I disagree: If the only defensible position is global skepticism, then it takes just as much faith to believe that evidence leads to truth as it does to believe in a deistic creator – or at least, both positions require faith (belief without real [non-circular] evidence). I think it takes more faith to believe in a deistic creator than it does to believe the that something came from nothing, merely because belief in a deistic creator begs the question, and the latter theory does not.

The only entity in a position to have 100% certainty of God’s existence is God. That actually goes for anyone. I am 100% certain that I exist: Not 95% confident, not 99% confident, not 99.9999% confident—I am certain. I know this because I could not be pondering such things if I didn’t exist.

That makes us all agnostics. (If you are certain a god exists, please let me know how you know this in the comments. Remember, to be certain about something, it means that it’s logically impossible that you’re wrong.) But what about belief? Which is more reasonable?

Occam’s Razor itself is an assumption, so it is circular to say “The belief with the fewest assumptions.” I would say that the default position, therefore, is to just say “I don’t believe.” There are an infinite number of things we could believe in but don’t, and the way that we have come to decide what’s believable and what’s not is based on what’s supported by evidence.

Is this wrong? Perhaps.

Does it work? Every day, in every field of scientific inquiry, throughout history, with the single exception of unsolved (I prefer to say not-yet-solved) miracle claims. It works in medicine, in agriculture, in cosmology, in every science you could care to name. And from where I stand, that’s really all I care about—what works. Considering the only entity I’m certain exists is me, what works in my favor seems to be something I’d be in favor of, right?

Epistemically, I think the jury is still out. I’m an agnostic atheist, but I’m dangerously close to believing in a deistic creator. I really don’t have any good reason for preferring not to believe other than that it seems to me to be more economical in its assumptions, and I prefer that. But is it true? I have no way of knowing. Do you?

Curious for your thoughts,

Until next time!

Dave

P.S. In a future post, I’ll tackle the ethical implications of such hardcore skepticism. Should be fun—stay tuned!

Dave Muscato is the Kansas/Missouri-Area Volunteer Network Coordinator for the Secular Student Alliance. He is also a board member of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A non-traditional junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com. Opinions posted here do not necessarily reflect the views of MU SASHA, the Secular Student Alliance, nor the Humanist Community at Harvard.

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A Poorly Illustrated Guide to Genetically Modified Organisms

Anybody in the mood for a tasty meal? I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all morning working on the main course: a heaping casserole of haute SCIENCE! On the side, I’ll be serving up a generous spread of odiferous fruits, sinfully steamed vegetables, and decadent meats… but there’s a catch! All of my splendid victuals hold a dark secret: someone has been tampering with their very DNA. That’s right, I’m inviting you over for a dinner of Genetically Modified Organisms. I hope you’re hungry.

These chimeras of the kitchen, these degenerates of digestion, are showing up in produce departments worldwide. But what exactly are they? GMOs are creatures whose genetic makeup has been altered in order to confer a useful change in anatomy and physiology. These organisms are created by taking existing genes from one critter and inserting them into the genome of another, usually by means of a viral vector. Examples include corn that produces its own pesticide, cows with increased milk production, glow-in-the-dark kittens, soybeans immune to certain herbicides, and bacteria that synthesize pharmaceuticals.

Did you say glow-in-the-dark kittOHDEARGOD.

Genetic engineering isn’t all recombinant kittens and spliced rainbows; there is a vocal group of concerned individuals ardently opposed to the proliferation of GMOs. These organisms are despised by many, especially within the organic and natural foods movement. Yet there are many that hail GMOs as nearly miraculous boons to society. What are you to make of this discord, Dear Reader? Are GMOs a blessing, a curse, or more complex? I’ll do my best to stir this pot of biological soup and explore the many flavors of this very issue over the course of my next 3 articles, hopefully adding a subtle note of Skepticism to the bouquet. In this series, I’ll be looking at the potential impacts of GM technology. Specifically, I will be addressing the many criticisms leveled against GMOs. These arguments fall into 3 broad categories, and I’ll be dealing with each in separate articles. The categories are:

1. Hazards to human health

2. Effects on the environment

3. Offenses against Nature and Decency

Won’t you join me, Dear Readers? I’ll even let you take home the leftovers.

Part 1: GMOs and human health

Dave’s Mailbag: “A question about your skepticism…”

B writes:

I just watched your 2 hour debate video and really enjoyed it! I thought you made some very rational arguments and definitely made your arguments more credible by giving sources and such. Overall a very thorough and superb debate on your part.

How far you take your skepticism? The part of the video when the kid said there is more evidence of  the resurrection of Jesus than there is of Julius Caesar. You disagreed and argued that there are books written by Julius Caesar, so his existence is more credible. Would you be skeptic that the books were forged? I mean there would be no apparent reason as to why someone would forge the books, and a document in religion to promote an agenda would be more likely forged, but would you still be skeptical? At what point is it logical to say that something is true? How much and of what kind of evidence is needed?

Thanks for your time.

My response:

Hi B! Thanks for your message. I appreciate your comments.

It’s certainly possible that Julius Caesar’s books are forgeries, but it’s highly unlikely. We have no reason to suspect that they were, unlike, for example, the many irreconciliable contradictions in the New Testament about the details of Jesus’s alleged resurrection. Caesar’s books are, for the most part, lost to history—all we have today is his journals from war, which don’t make any unlikely or outrageous claims. Contrast this to the fact that a resurrection as alleged would contradict everything we know about biology, medicine, etc. The whole thing is just dripping with obviousness as mythology.

So in a technical sense, I am open to the idea that Caesar’s books are forgeries. Being skeptical means being open to the idea that you’re wrong, and never claiming 100% certainty in your conclusions. I feel comfortable saying that I believe to a very high degree of confidence that Caesar’s books are genuine, although I wouldn’t claim that zero editing has taken place, nor that I claiming certainty about these things. Hand-written copies of ancient documents have a tendency to change bit by bit, but that’s okay: Nobody is claiming that there is divine truth in Caesar’s books.

As far as the point it’s logical at which to say something is true, I’m not sure we can ever really say that with total certainty. In discussions of epistemology, I tend to side with this position:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

in basically saying that any knowledge about the universe at large, or indeed anything outside one’s own mind, is by definition an uncertainty. It’s all subject to the filter of our senses, and it’s clear that those aren’t perfect, or magic shows would be no fun at all!

The one thing I’m absolutely certain about is the fact of my own existence. Everything else, if we’re going to be precise, is technically a belief. I believe that evidence and the scientific method are the most accurate approach to knowledge on the basis that they are the most consistent and logical approach to knowledge. I believe that faith, because it is inconsistent and unfalsifiable and by nature not bothered by things like lack of evidence, is really a fundamentally useless approach to finding out what’s true about the world. To quote Carl Sagan, “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe.”

Science is the best tool ever discovered for drawing up a consistent and clear picture of the world around us, but it’s still a picture, not the world itself. The problem of induction will always stand in our way of reaching 100% certainty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

So to answer your final question, within the system of empiricism, no amount of evidence is ever sufficient to say that something is true with 100% total certainty. That’s just not how evidence works, unfortunately. The more evidence you have that suggests a certain conclusion, and the better quality evidence you have, the more confident you can be in saying that it’s probably correct. But, there is always the possibility that you will discover additional evidence and find out that you were wrong all along. You can approach 100% confidence in statistics… 90%, 95%, 99.99999%, but under the banner of empiricism, 100% certainty is just not possible. That only works under the umbrella of rationalism (mathematical proofs), which are deductive, rather than inductive, and under the banner of faith, which—if you ask me—is just plain incorrect, because it incorrectly equates belief (a prerequisite for knowledge) with knowledge itself.

This article may also be helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology#Belief

I hope that this helps!

- Dave

Dave Muscato is the 2012 Writing Intern for the Secular Student Alliance in Columbus, Ohio. He is also Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com. Opinions posted here do not necessarily reflect the views of MU SASHA, the Secular Student Alliance, nor the Humanist Community at Harvard.

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Columbia, Missouri-area named 22nd “Brainiest City” by The Atlantic

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Hello all, Dave here!

Universities tend to draw in brains, and the University of Missouri is no exception.

Jesse Hall, University of Missouri-Columbia

What makes Columbia different is that, for a Midwestern town, we’re very liberal: We’re a city of about 110,000 with a Planned Parenthood clinic, a strong LGBTQ advocacy presence, and lots of other great stuff. Around 50% of adults in Columbia have bachelor’s degrees, and about 25% of adults have master’s degrees. Go 20 miles in any direction and things are very, very different. According to our Wikipedia page, we’re known as “The Athens of Missouri,” which is weird, because there actually IS a small town called Athens, MO. I’ve never heard anyone call us that in person, but it fits, I think. We’re a blue island in a sea of red.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/06/americas-brainiest-cities/2132/#

I was born and raised in Columbia, and although I also lived in Philadelphia and travel a lot, I think it’s a great town and I keep finding myself ending up back there. What makes Columbia so different? It has a strong secular mindset, even if all its citizens aren’t nonreligious. It has a lot of scientists and a lot of doctors, people who value and are good at critical thinking. And this are very positively linked with brains.

I’m glad Columbia made the list!

- Dave

Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.

Follow Dave on Google+
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Helpful resources:

Godisimaginary.com – Iron Chariots Wiki – Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an – AtheismResource.com – TalkOrigins.org

YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup

Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick

and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!

The (Un)Death of a Dream

Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!

First time here? Read this.

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Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!

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I sincerely want the zombie apocalypse to happen.  I want to wander the post-apocalyptic countryside with my katana (or machete) slaying the monsters all day and night. Such a cruel joke the universe has played in offering me the false promise of a coming apocalypse. Skeptics, gather your toolboxes, and prepare yourselves for what may be a painful debunking.

For years I clutched them to my breast as a harmless indulgence of my childish lust for the fantastic.  But now that stupid old reality has flirted with the notion of zombies, I must confront the dream, and let it die.  After much thought and cognitive dissonance, I’ve emerged with my skepticism intact.

But oh how I wish it were true.  I am sure I’m not unique in this regard.  My generation looks forward to the zombie apocalypse as eagerly as the greatest generation looks forward to the rapture.  We’ve grown up projecting our rage and alienation onto zombies, and then imagining ourselves wantonly slaughtering them without mercy.  We were born to kill zombies. The post-apocalyptic countryside is our promised land, in which we may finally vent our 20+ years of pent up social aggression.  We want this so bad, that even the slightest spark of pseudo-evidence might set our imaginations ablaze and burn down our carefully constructed rational worldview.

We are witnessing the birth of a paranormal belief cult, and if we’re not careful, we may serve as midwife.  The media feeding frenzy is capitalizing on our collective obsession with zombies, and providing stories that could be mistaken as evidence for zombies, perhaps offered humorously at first.  All it takes is time and internet incubation for this silly little fantasy to blossom into a genuine threat to public rationality.  As an avid fantasizer of the zombie apocalypse, it is with great sadness that I now prepare myself to debunk the forthcoming zombie craze.  Zombies have become a thing that will soon need be debunked. Soon, The zombie apocalypse will be our Nessie.  Our Bigfoot.  Our UFO’s.  As skeptics, it will be our enemy.  This realization ruined my day.

Of course, I do not dismiss the possibility of zombies a priori.  It may be that zombies are real and in the early stages of uprising.  I hope so.  But I’m skeptical.  I invite the rest of you, who also hope for a zombie uprising, to remain skeptical.  Let us adopt the position of James Randi in his quest for real magic; of Joe Nickell in his investigation of monsters; of Sagan on UFO’s.  We would be delighted if it were true, but we don’t let that determine what we believe, or even what we pretend to believe, for the lulz.  Even if you never took the recent events so seriously, you can recognize that many of the internet trolls, in their dark, damp, stinky internet caves, have taken it quite seriously, and really do believe that the event in Miami (and those elsewhere) heralds the zombie uprising.  Any tiny bit of encouragement we give the trolls now, we reap ten-fold five years down the road when we find ourselves scrambling to debunk the virally spreading zunkum (zombie-bunkum), should the zombie apocalypse turn out to be fictitious.

To conclude, I’ll say that the events reported by the media that have thus far fueled the zombie craze are insufficient to support the conclusion that the zombie apocalypse is happening.  I remain open-minded on the issue, but am inclined toward the negative, despite my desire for the positive.  But, I have been refining my post-apocalypse survival plan with my post-apocalypse partner, and we should be in good shape.  It is rational to be prepared.

Art by John Stephens @ http://thecinema12.blogspot.com/

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Seth Kurtenbach is a philosophy Master’s student and computer science PhD student at the University of Missouri.  His research focuses on applications of formal logic and game theory to questions about knowledge and rationality.  He is growing a mighty beard, in order to increase his philosophical powers.  Feel free to contact Seth at seth.kurtenbach@gmail.com with inquiries about philosophy, logic, guest blogging, or visiting to give a presentation!

Helpful resources:

Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org

YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup

Blogs: Zachary Ernst,  Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick, Rationally Speaking.