god is not Great: (not) A Book Review

Regular readers may remember me expressing an intention to write a review of god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens. With my apologies, I must now tell you that I have decided not to write that review for two distinct, but connected, reasons. Firstly, I have allowed too much time to pass since finishing the […]

Open Thread: Do Militant Atheists Want to Wipe Out Religion?

On my recent article Tugging at Loose Threads, Evanescent and Storbakken resumed a debate they had suspended on another blog. It was completely off topic, so I’m starting an open thread for them, and anyone else, to continue it. Evanescent’s last comment was: Storbakken said: It is not my intent to go round and round […]

The Empty Vase

Religion has nothing worthwhile to say on anything. Evanescent Theology is the art of knowing the unknowable. It is an immensely vast and complicated area of study requiring much careful research and dedicated learning to master. Many great minds devote their lives to the subject, gaining qualifications and passing on their wisdom to new students. […]

Tugging at Loose Threads

I’ve always found it helpful to think of a belief system a bit like an item of clothing, like a woolly jumper. If you find a loose thread, you should pull at it. If the jumper is well made and sturdy, the thread will just break off and the clothing will survive with no scars. […]

An Example of Cold Reading

I’ve been planning for ages to dig out this video clip and post it. It’s an excerpt from the film Young Sherlock Holmes, in which an adolescent Watson is given a quick lesson in “simple deduction”. Although they don’t use the term, it is a form of cold reading, and although this is obviously a […]

Carnival Alert

The 9th Humanist Symposium is now up at Greta Christina’s Blog. The 77th Carnival of the Godless is available at The Skeptical Alchemist. Enjoy your Sunday reading!

Another Dawkins Review – the Mind Boggles

Google News Alerts brought to my attention this article by Kyle Lee in the Chicago Maroon, entitled Dawkins’s militant atheism delusional, in which he discusses some of his grievances with Dawkins and, in particular, his book The God Delusion. Unfortunately, Lee forgot to do one teeny, tiny thing that could have helped him out a […]

Crossing Over With Tobe

Many people hold the view that if God exists, then he is supernatural and, therefore, beyond the realm of science – which can only study the natural – to discuss. The same could be said of anything supernatural, from ghosts to telepathy; if science can study it then it is no longer supernatural. It is, […]

The Exterminator Got Me Again (Evolution Meme)

The Exterminator tagged me (again). The idea is that you pick five posts from your archives that show how your blog has evolved, and explain why. Then you tag five more bloggers to do the same thing. When Ex tagged me he apologised, but the truth is that I’m very grateful; for one thing, it’s […]