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Schieber vs Hernandez: Does God Exist
Having some time to kill yesterday, I watched a theism/atheism debate between Justin Schieber and Eric Hernandez, hoping to see a new or (at least) interesting argument from the theism side. Alas, Hernandez’s arguments were old, illogical, debunked-centuries-ago nonsense, from a very particular strain of Christian Protestantism.
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Confabulation, Math, and Self-Knowledge
As with many other people, I often find myself denigrating things that I consider ridiculous, and on my best days I’ll catch myself and ask myself ‘ok, but *why* is that ridiculous…?’. There’s that weird experience of being in two places at once, the Brian that’s experiencing the ridiculous and seeing it as the silliness…
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Punching Nazis
Due to the recent rebranding of white supremacists, fascists, and nazis as “the alt-right” and their subsequent resurgence, there has been much hand wringing about ‘punching nazis’ as an appropriate response against those who are moving to enact genocide. This hand wringing holds echoes of the “just ignore them and they’ll go away” nonsense that…
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Objection to the George Wainborn Park Ireland Canada Monument
It’s come to my attention that there’s an organization pushing for a monument to be raised here in Vancouver, in George Wainborn Park, “for the sole purpose of providing recognition to the significant contribution of Irish Canadians and Canadians of Irish descent to Canada”. I object to this (and yes, I’m Irish) for a number of…
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The Writing of Philosophy
I’ve been thinking about the writing of philosophy, whose writing I enjoy the most, whose style I most wish to emulate, and I think that there isn’t just one philosopher who’s style I love. (all of the names that follow will be white and male, as I’ve been slowly going beyond what was available in…
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Being an Effective Devil’s Advocate
Scene: a coffee shop where two people are in a heated discussion over a complex topic. Galina: “So you can see that, generally speaking, this is predominantly the case!” Bob: “No! What about this one time, that thing happened! That shows that you’re completely wrong!” Galina, confused: “I don’t understand what that has to do…
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Beliefs Don’t Change in “Real-Time”
An acquaintance of mine sent me a link to a conversation between Dan Dennett and Sam Harris, wherein Dennett attempts to explain the holes in Harris’s puerile arguments against the concept of “free will”. In any case, this particular post isn’t about Harris, but a particular point he reiterates repeatedly: that we can (and should)…
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Secular Humanism is not about Silencing Belief
Sometimes I wonder what getting a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University entails, or even a Ph.D. in Religion and Literature from the University of Virginia. Alas, if the Rev. Dr. David Fekete is any indication, it entails not being required to actually know what you’re talking about, and to just blather any old thing without…
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“Rational” Should be Treated like a Four-Letter Word
[This is primarily a talk I gave at a Vancouver Skepticamp recently, with some expansion/clarification at the end in response to some feedback I received] I’d like to talk about how we use the word ‘rational’ in everyday conversations, and how we use it in skeptic/atheist/freethinker circles. I don’t consider anything I say here to…
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Walls of Words
[This essay is going to focus primarily on the skeptic/atheist community, as that’s the community I mostly interact with. I’m sure it holds true for others too, so don’t read this essay as me claiming that this is somehow unique to skeptics and/or atheists. Additionally, this essay only applies to people who want to discuss things…
