Monthly Archives: April 2011

Egypt’s Muslims: as inconsistent as U.S. Christians

A couple days ago, Andrew Sullivan puzzled over poll results saying that, “About six-in-ten (62%) think laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Quran. However, only 31% of Egyptian Muslims say they sympathize with Islamic fundamentalists, while nearly the same number (30%) say they sympathize with those who disagree with the fundamentalists, and 26% [...]

Common atheist misconceptions?

It amazes me how some misconceptions about things like evolution, Biblical scholarship, and so on persist among Christians in spite of repeated debunkings. Part of the problem is that while many Evangelical leaders know better, few try to enlighten their flock and some will even throw a fit when someone like Bart Ehrman starts explaining [...]

Debunking the resurrection on Easter

Mike Haubrich has just informed me that Minnesota Atheists’ Atheist Talk radio programming will be rebroadcasting the interview I did with them this Sunday–on Easter! Mike actually didn’t realize it would be Easter Sunday until I pointed it out to him. You can download the podcast any time (at the above link), but if you [...]

The importance of quantifiers

I’ve been beating up on philosophy a lot here over the past few months, but if there’s one thing studying philosophy has taught me, it’s the importance of quantifiers. Consider an example sentence from Lester Hunt (a former philosophy professor of mine, incidentally): “Why do environmentalists seem unfazed by their mistaken, even grossly and absurdly [...]

The state of biblical scholarship, philosophy, and atheism

A comment signed Deisticially asks about a whole bunch of things I haven’t written about recently (if ever), so I’m using this as an excuse. Comment edited for spelling: Firstly- why do atheists claim that the majority of biblical scholars believe that Jesus was an endtime prophet? To my knowledge (and according to Wikipedia), the [...]