In a forthcoming article in the New Statesman, Sam Harris states that not only is the idea of god a delusion, but so also is the idea of free will. He states that "we can find no room for it in the causal order" and that "all of our behavior can be traced to biological events about which we have no conscious knowledge." Finally, he states that "every person represents a confluence of forces that he did not will into being - and we can be lucky or very unlucky in this respect."

While…

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Last week I was having dinner with a fellow atheist and he was talking about a mutual acquaintance who was preaching to him about creationism. I expressed my views on the subject, being a former creationist, but he said that he wasn't in a hurry to respond because as far as he was concerned, this person was his enemy.



This, I am afraid, is an all too common response among atheists. Our behavior towards the religious is in need of a makeover. Yes, we are the targets of bigotry and… Continue

Here's my three-word rebuttal to Hume's is-ought gap: "Get over yourself."



A lot of people seem to think that not having ethics that are sourced outside ourselves is a problem, and that it requires a well-thought-out solution. This is not the case. It has become increasingly obvious that our ethical sense is built on the bedrock of biology and natural selection, and that guilt, compassion, fear, and anger, emotions commonly associated with being ethical, are instincts dictated by… Continue