Why The Kalam Cosmological Argument Is Incompatible With Libertarian Free Will (Meme Edition)
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
4y ago
I've argued before that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is incompatible with libertarian free will, but it requires a few assumptions. First it must be the case that thoughts are not merely events but are things that pop into existence. Second, to say the "agent" is the cause of its thought requires an agent to somehow be distinct from its consciousness, such that it can make decisions prior to consciousness. For example, if an agent causes its thoughts it can't do so consciously, because the cause would be prior to the thought, which is the consciousness. I fail to see how an agent can have a ..read more
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The Principle Of Sufficient Reason: Why Even God Cannot Satisfy Its Requirements (Meme Edition)
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
4y ago
Appealing to the principle of sufficient reason is something almost all theists do. I created a meme years ago on why Munchhausen's Trilemma makes the PSR impossible to adhere to. Realizing that version was too big, I've now created a more social media friendly version. Feel free to download this and upload to your social media ..read more
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Something From Nothing: Why Almost Everyone Gets The Big Bang Wrong (Including Atheists) Meme Edition!
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
4y ago
I created an infograph years ago on why almost everyone gets the big bang wrong but realized it was too big for social media, and so I created a more meme friendly version. This topic is one of my biggest pet peeves because it allows the theist to make claims that just aren't true, especially regarding cosmological arguments. Feel free to download this and upload to your social media. Spread the word ..read more
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It's Been A While...
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
5y ago
I haven't blogged in months and it's mainly because I've gotten tired of refuting theism and religion. I just don't have the time and interest for long-form blogging anymore, so I'm taking an extended break. I might occasionally post an argument I think of, but I don't know how often I will do that. If you want to follow me in any capacity, you can follow me on Twitter, because that's the only place I'm still active. Just click on the Twitter link over to the right. I recently made a simple argument there: 1. The Christian god is eternally & intrinsically trinitarian. 2. If a god is lo ..read more
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Quote Of The Day: A Neural Network Framework For Cognitive Bias
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
5y ago
A particular question comes up for me when debating god's existence about why we homo sapiens would have so many cognitive biases built into our thinking if it is the case that god created us for the purposes of knowing god's existence and the truth (as many theists claim): Why would god design us with so many flaws hindering our ability to know the truth if our very purpose was to know the truth? For example, why would god give us a confirmation bias that makes it difficult for us to notice contrary evidence? Can this all be swept under the rug with the ol' "God has morally sufficient reaso ..read more
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Quote Of The Day: "Nones" Are Growing And They're Not Civically Engaged
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
5y ago
Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and opinion writer for the Religion News Service is fearful for the future of civic engagement in the US because the rising "nones" (those with no religious preference), are the least likely to volunteer. In his recent OP-ED, he created the following treemap of the religious composition in the US as of 2018 taken from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study: Protestants, once a dominant majority, now are only 39% of the US population, followed by the "nothing in particular" nones at 20%. Further dow ..read more
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Religions And Birth Rates: Not What You Think? | Hans Rosling
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
6y ago
It seems that I discovered Swedish born statistician Hans Rosling a little too late. He died February 7th, 2017 of cancer, just before I stumbled upon his many inspiring talks on the changing facts of world data. A point Rosling made over and over again is that many of us are operating with 20 or 30 year old statistics in our heads in terms of how we think the world is. We tend to think, for example, that many third world countries today are statistically where they were in the 1980s and 90s in terms of birth rates and poverty rates. This makes us mistakenly think that in countries like India ..read more
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Socialists Are The New Atheists (Sort Of)
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
6y ago
A recent poll from Gallup came out this month that showed socialists are now the least trusted group to be president, and atheists now are only the second least trusted group. The survey showed that 60% of Americans would vote for a well-qualified person for president who happened to be an atheist, compared to only 47% for a socialist on the same conditions. Twenty years ago, another Gallup poll showed that only 49% of Americans would vote for an atheist, similar to where socialists are now. While there are obvious differences in what a socialist is and what an atheist is (socialism is a pol ..read more
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"No Religion" Largest Single Religious Affiliation
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
6y ago
I haven't been able to blog not nearly as often as in the past due to more important obligations, so I have a quicky here. The 2018 General Social Survey (GSS), which tracks, among other things, religious adherence indicated that the number of "nones," or Americans with no religion has risen above all religious denominations. The nones are now at 23.1%, higher than the number of Evangelical Protestants—long America's dominant religious group—who have fallen in recent decades to 22.8% (though statistically within the margin of error.) The below image is courtesy of Ryan Burge's tweet: Judgin ..read more
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What Would I Do With An Extra $1000 A Month?
Atheism And The City
by The Thinker
6y ago
The 2020 presidential race is nearing full swing and in my opinion there is no shortage of good candidates to choose from on the Democratic side. A little less than a year ago I came across Andrew Yang, an Asian American entrepreneur running for president in a campaign centered around UBI: universal basic income. His idea of UBI is you'd give every American citizen between the ages of 18 and 64 $1,000 per month, no questions asked. I've been warming up to the idea over the past few months and I'm basically at the point of supporting it, although I stop short of an enthusiastic consent. The ..read more
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