Baltimore Police Decry "Rush to Judgment"

Today, six police officers from Baltimore were charged with crimes including murder, as a result of findings by the medical examiner that ruled Freddie Gray's death was a homicide.  Gray had been arrested on charges of carrying an illegal switchblade knife.  But it turns out that Gray was carrying a legal-sized pocket knife, according to the prosecutor, and the knife was closed and inside his pocket.  Gray had actually broken no law.  But that didn't stop the police from arresting him and then subjecting him to a so-called "rough ride" that caused severe damage to his spine, and ultimately, his death.

More Obstinate Buffoonery - Denial of Fideism

I noted earlier how obstinate religious people can be in sticking to their beliefs despite any logic or evidence you may present to them that would refute those beliefs.  This is the true nature of their faith, no matter how much they may protest that faith is based on reason.  They don't acknowledge the doctrine of fideism, but they live it to the hilt.

The Obstinacy of Religious Thinking

I have spent the past few years on a personal quest to expand my knowledge about things outside the areas of my professional expertise.  In particular, I have been very interested in learning whether there may be some justification for religious belief that I was unaware of that might be worthy of consideration.  This could potentially cause me to change my mind about what I believe, and there certainly are many religious believers that are convinced.  Surely at least some of them should have pretty good reason to believe what they do.

Religious Bigotry Revisited

The discussions about religious-based bigotry against gays never end.  I recently posted about religious bigotry against gay people.

In the latest round at Victor Reppert's blog, he thinks it's wrong that Vanderbilt University should disallow discrimination based on religious "creed" in its school-sponsored clubs and organizations.  In this case, a non-denominational Christian organization called InterVarsity had ousted one of its leaders who was homosexual on the basis that he didn't adhere to the "basic Christian doctrines".  There was no explicit mention of homosexuality, but because of that homosexuality, it was presumed that the person didn't meet the ideological requirements of the group.  The university rightly recognizes this as unjust discrimination.  I call them bigots.  Victor thinks I would do the same in a similar situation (for example, if the Campus Freethought Alliance were infiltrated by the Campus Crusade for Christ), and therefore, I am being intellectually dishonest.

The Myth of the Myth of Separation Between Church and State

It has been fashionable among Christians lately to promote the idea that Jefferson's concept of separation between church and state is really just a myth - that the constitutional prohibition exists only to keep government from interfering with the church, but not to keep churches from being involved in the affairs of government.

That view is espoused in this paper from Tim Greenwood of Tim Greenwood Ministries, from which I have taken a few quotations:

Public Accommodation vs. Religious Freedom

As a response to the federal court's overturning a ban on gay marriages in Indiana, lobbyists (particularly from the American Family Association) began working with the state legislature to advance a law that would allow businesses to openly discriminate against gays.  Since the bill was signed into law, Governor Mike Pence has been fending off questions about the effect of the new law, but the lobbyists who pushed for it have not been completely silent.  They understand that any attempt to clarify the law would in effect destroy its real intent.  The law treats public accommodation businesses as if they were humans with religious beliefs, and explicitly allows them to refuse services to anyone who is not a member of any protected class, on the pretense that rendering these services would be a violation of the religious beliefs of the business.  Of course, Indiana does not define the LGBT community as a protected class for discrimination purposes.

The Joke that is Called "Conservapedia"

Victor Reppert posted an article from Conservapedia that purports to highlight the hypocrisy of atheists.  This reminded me of how patently ridiculous Conservapedia is.  It's not that I think there is no hypocrisy among atheists.  But the articles there are so blatantly biased that it's difficult to see how anybody could take it seriously for any purpose at all.  In particular, I find it stunning that Victor Reppert, a philosopher with a PhD, would even consider making this the topic of a post on his blog "to generate some discussion".

To be fair, Victor says that he does not agree with all of what they say.  Which raises the question:  How much of this crap does he agree with?

Reppert's "A Portrait of the North Carolina Killer"

This is my response to Victor Reppert's post linking the Craig Hicks murders with a supposed hateful atheist ideology.  He says:

Just put "a new dark age" in for "hell" and you can see why someone might use force on behalf of atheism.  The more atheists insist that they are immune from the kind of temptation that leads to religious violence, the more concern I have. If you really think atheism leaves you with "nothing to kill or die for," then all I can give you is the Strait answer.

The Epistemology of the Religious Experience

I was recently involved in an interesting discussion that focused on how we can make claims about what exists.  One of the things theists claim is that they have a certain cognitive facility apart from perception of sensory information that gives them knowledge about God.  This facility manifests itself as "religious experience", and is supposedly on a par with sensory experience as an epistemological mechanism.

An Awesome Sight: the Red Sunset

I was in a discussion once where a theist said that the beauty of the sunset was reason to believe in God.  I certainly don't deny that a sunset can be beautiful, and I feel the same sense of awe that he does when I see it.  But that sense of awe does not translate to "God made all this".  I marvel at nature.  Nature holds many wonders and secrets to be discovered.  And that's beautiful.