For quite some time now, I've been saying that not only do cultures create their gods in their own images, so too do individual believers within these cultures invent their gods in their own individual images. Not too long ago, we got some medical data which seems to support this contention.

A year or so ago, I remember reading about some ( Read more... )

The other day I told the first part of my encounter with a christian revival tent rally, and one of the believers there. Today, let me tell you about the latter half of my evening there.

As the evening went on, there were a number of speakers interspersed between the songs. Lay people, so far as I could tell, who were giving their “testamonials” ( Read more... )

So, as promised, I attended the Freaky Weirdo Brand Deluxe Christians’ tent rally on Saturday.

I had never attended one of these events before and really, really did not know what to expect. It was a relatively small and unspectacular affair, as I had expected it to be; I doubt there was more than twenty-five people present (aside from the eight ( Read more... )

I’ve had a thought rumbling around in my head in recent months - a product of one of my occasional and innumerable hypothetical debates with theists - which a post this morning on the atheist community prompted me to begin to formulate more textually.

It runs along similar lines to a lot of my thoughts on this topic (which you can view as pedantry, ( Read more... )

“Listen, I realize that Lord of the Rings is just a story written by one guy, okay? I’m not one of those fundamentalists who believes everything that Tolkien said just because it’s in some book. I don’t believe in Sauron or anything. That’s obviously bullshit. I do believe in Gandalf the Grey, though, don’t get me wrong. I believe that he was some ( Read more... )

Most of you will be aware of Pascal's Wager, and indeed, of those of you who aren't aware of it by name, most of you will likely have heard it without knowing what it's called ( Read more... )

I was thinking today about a particular line of “thought” put forth by certain christians of a particularly evangelical stripe. I know that the odious Ray Comfort has popularized it, though I don’t know if it originates with him or not ( Read more... )

I’ve pointed out a time or three that one of the central tenets of modern christianity is that their god, Yahweh, is an absolutely inept communicator, incapable of making himself understood or speaking and a coherent or comprehensible way; the bible is about 90% stuff that you’re apparently not supposed to take literally, or indeed observe at all, ( Read more... )

I was giving some thought to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah the other day ( Read more... )

It is once again Wednesday, and with this turning of the week, we once again find ourselves in line for that most exciting and fruitful of occasions; Share the Wealth Wednesday ( Read more... )