Category Archives: New Atheism

Two Views of Reality, Completely At Odds

Two articles that showed in my RSS reader today: Godlessness is the last big taboo in the US, where non-believers face discrimination and isolation. [From Atheism in America - FT.com] and The InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter at the State University of New York at Buffalo has three weeks to come into compliance with the school’s …

February 6, 2012 – 1:47 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Arts and Culture, New Atheism, The Faith | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

Says the Madman: “Humanity Is Dead, and We Are Its Murderers”

“Whither is humanity? cried the Madman. I will tell you. We have killed it. We are its murderers! But how could we do this? Are we not plunging continually? How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” When Friedrich Nietzsche’s Madman told the world, ”God is dead, and we are his murderers,” it was as if …

January 24, 2012 – 5:00 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Worldviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (67)

Sam Harris and Lawrence Krauss Talk About Nothing, and Make About That Much Sense

Lawrence Krauss says to Sam Harris, Indeed, the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” which forms the subtitle of the book [his recent A Universe From Nothing], is often used by the faithful as an unassailable argument that requires the existence of God, because of the famous claim, “out of nothing, nothing comes.” …

January 13, 2012 – 12:13 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Listen! You’ll Hear It! (Reductionism Fails)

There is a school of thought that says physics is the ultimate reality; that everything reduces to subatomic particles mindlessly subject to natural law. The story is told—I don’t remember where I heard it—of two young women sitting in the front row of a concert hall, holding the score for the music the orchestra was …

January 13, 2012 – 10:40 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Arts and Culture, New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Coyne Responds on Free Will

Jerry Coyne has responded to my piece (and others’) yesterday on his Free Will article in USAToday. He begins, Predictably, at his own website the Thinking Christian says that the assumption of natural laws that absolutely determine our choices is an unjustified a priori conclusion, not supported by science itself. (Nope, it’s a conclusion based …

January 3, 2012 – 11:53 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (18)

Jerry Coyne: “Why you don’t really have free will” – USATODAY.com

Jerry Coyne, who knows a lot about biology, doesn’t know nearly enough about other things on which he claims to be an authority. If what had written were only on his blog I would ignore it, but USAToday published it online: “Why you don’t really have free will.” It includes, Now there’s no way to …

January 2, 2012 – 10:04 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (169)

It Must Be Christmas: I Agree With Jerry Coyne!

I’ve been quite critical of University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne on more than one occasion, so I was quite surprised to find myself nodding in agreement with him today on a religion-related topic. He opened up this blog post saying, There’s a pretty dreadful piece by Tim Padgett in the latest online Time Magazine (I’m …

December 23, 2011 – 6:16 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Postmodernism/ Relativism, The Faith, Thinking Christianly | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Dawkins’ Principled Stand Against Most Forms of Genocide

Two Recent Headlines: Source 1      Source 2 Maybe Richard Dawkins would say that destroying Christianity is not like killing off a nation, morally speaking. If so, then he is blind to historical and geopolitical realities. Here’s what the Rev. George Pitcher said about it. You’ll find it in the second source article: But one of these …

December 20, 2011 – 10:02 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism | Tagged , , | Comments (34)

Coyne Was Right After All: Science Has Vanquished Christianity

I ended last night’s post by asking whether Jerry Coyne might have been right when he wrote, Many religious claims about the “truth” have already been disproven by science. There was a second part to that claim (that religion has never disproved science) which I invite you to continue responding to on that other thread. …

December 19, 2011 – 9:10 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Evidences, New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)