Beware Of Sex/Gender Studies Supported By Conservatives

"It’s a science thingy breakdown! This one can barely be called a science thingy. It’s not great. Dr. Alan Smerbeck is here to debunk one of the go-to citations for conservatives’ homophobia. Does it hold up? No. Look I’m not going to pretend like it’s a close call. Listen to find out why this is a shit study."

Click on the link below for a podcast exposing the usual bad studies on this subject:

How Different Are The Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?

Souls And Identity

The TMM YouTube channel is one of my favorite counter-apologetics sources. Click on the link below for a detailed rebuttal to the claim that humans have a material body and an immaterial Soul.

Why Souls Are Nonsense

The Supernatural And Reality

"What would you do if we found something to confirm the supernatural? Jon in CA wants to know if science and the supernatural are compatible "

Click on the link below for a concise answer to this common question from science-based thinkers:

What If There Is Evidence For The Supernatural?

Why Are People Antiscience?

"From vaccination refusal to climate change denial, antiscience views are threatening humanity. When different individuals are provided with the same piece of scientific evidence, why do some accept whereas others dismiss it? Building on various emerging data and models that have explored the psychology of being antiscience, we specify four core bases of key principles driving antiscience attitudes. These principles are grounded in decades of research on attitudes, persuasion, social influence, social identity, and information processing. They apply across diverse domains of antiscience phenomena. Specifically, antiscience attitudes are more likely to emerge when a scientific message comes from sources perceived as lacking credibility; when the recipients embrace the social membership or identity of groups with antiscience attitudes; when the scientific message itself contradicts what recipients consider true, favorable, valuable, or moral; or when there is a mismatch between the delivery of the scientific message and the epistemic style of the recipient. Politics triggers or amplifies many principles across all four bases, making it a particularly potent force in antiscience attitudes. Guided by the key principles, we describe evidence-based counteractive strategies for increasing public acceptance of science."

Click on the link below for a scholarly, in-depth look at the danger and harm of anti-science, as well as its causation and recommended remedies:

Why are people antiscience, and what can we do about it?

Just Another Gap In Our Knowledge Closing

"Not only could this discovery shed more light on how life began here on Earth, but it could also give astronomers another clue in the search for life on other planets where these essential chemical ingredients are just beginning to form."

Click on the link below for the details:

Scientists Identify Chemical Reaction That May Have Triggered Life On Earth

Like Religion, Alternatives To Medicine Continue To Survive Without Supporting Evidence

Since establishing this blog several years ago, I have focused much of my energy on attacking the two major pseudosciences of religion and alternatives to medicine. Click on the link below for an interesting video on the history of the latter. Ironically, many religious folks will shake their heads and say how silly were those practices. The reality: both are silly and harmful to the informed today.

"Modern medicine has seen more development in the past 50 years than in all of human history combined. Many long-practiced medical treatments now seem completely bizarre in retrospect - things like putting animal dung on a wound, drinking urine, carving holes in your skull, or drinking medicinal potions made of morphine or mercury. But which practices are considered the most peculiar from all of human medical history? Which practices were once used as medicinal treatments only to be later found incredibly dangerous?"

Bizarre Medical Practices From History

A Look At Reality Through The Eyes Of Writers During Biblical Times

One of the most controversial claims by some atheists is that the Jesus of the Bible is mythical. I have posted many times regarding the issue. There is not enough evidence to settle the issue either way. However, clearly, many of the stories about him are mythological in nature. Recently, Richard Carrier, a noted historian of Christianity and a proponent of Christian mythicism, was recently interviewed and presented in-depth how the writers of that time in history viewed reality. Click on the link below for a video of the interview:

Why People Don't Understand Mythicism

An Antidote Against Religion In Public Schools

In recent years, conservatives in the US have been trying to insert Evangelical Christianity into public schools through "After-School Clubs" within the schools, specifically "Good News Clubs." To combat these harmful, and unconstitutional, gatherings, some secular groups have organized "After School Satan" clubs. These clubs, with the "tongue-in-cheek" title, are actually promoting good character traits and critical thinking skills. Needless to say, since most of the culture is religious in general and Christian in particular, there has been significant push-back to them: (link), (link), (link), (link).

A Look At Mythology And Religion

"Myth: 'a collection of myths especially one belonging to a particular religion or cultural tradition' 'a book discussing Jewish and Christian mythology' 

"More colloquially, it's used to describe beliefs that we, generally, feel are antiquated, untrue, or shouldn't be believed. As Christians have the core of their identity tied to their religion, calling it a myth can be offensive."

Click on the link below for a video of Matt Dillahunty clarifying the relationship of religion to mythology:

Atheists Debates: Calling Christianity is offensive

Evolution Is True (Full-Stop)

"Many of us are returning to work or school after spending time with relatives over the summer period. Sometimes we can be left wondering how on earth we are related to some of these people with whom we seemingly have nothing in common (especially with a particularly annoying relative).

"However, in evolutionary terms, we all share ancestors if we go far enough back in time. This means many features in our bodies stretch back thousands or even millions of years in our great family tree of life.

"In biology, the term "homology" relates to the similarity of a structure based on descent from a shared common ancestor. Think of the similarities of a human hand, a bat wing and a whale flipper. These all have specialist functions, but the underlying body plan of the bones remains the same.

"This differs from "analogous" structures, such as wings in insects and birds. Although they serve a similar function, the wings of a dragonfly and the wings of a parrot have arisen independently, and don't share the same evolutionary origin.

"Here are five examples of ancient traits you might be surprised to learn are still seen in humans today."

Click on this link for all any reasonable person needs to fully accept evolution as a reality.

Answered Prayer Fallacy

All religious belief is unsupported by objective evidence. Religious people who believe in divine intervention usually claim that their prayers are answered by God. Since physics tells us that the Laws of nature are regular and fixed and if they were subject to intervention by a God (miracle?), we would expect dramatic effects within our reality. Science has never confirmed any such event and since such would be an extraordinary event requiring extraordinary evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that prayer effects are most likely the result of the fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter (After this, therefore because of this): correlation interpreted as causation. Regarding the claims of medical miracles, the realities of spontaneous remission and unusual events are ignored.

Faith Healers: They Know It's A Scam

"Certain conditions faith healers avoid like the plague. Here are a list of things faith healers will never attempt to heal because they always fail spectacularly. While pastors and prophets like Benny Hinn, Alph Lukau, and Kenneth Copeland will often make grand claims about their healing powers and tell elaborate tales of the miracles they've seen and performed, most of their stunts all have one thing in common. Let's explore the trend and see what exactly faith healers will and won't attempt to heal and why."

Click on the link below for a 10-minute video focused on the types of issues these charlatans will not touch:

The Miracles That Always Fail 

Comparing Religious Indoctrination With Other Child Abuse

The following essay is the best justification for considering religious indoctrination of children an abuse I have read:

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Is Teaching Young Children Religion a Form of Child Abuse?
© 2000 by Larry Gott

Most people suppose they know what constitutes child abuse. Abuse may generally be defined as action or behavior towards a child that causes harm. But what, exactly, do we mean by harm? Is it always clear-cut?

Reasonable people would agree that hitting a child hard enough to cause bruising or other injury constitutes abuse. But, even though many states have called spanking abuse, many parents believe it is not. It is open to debate. Burning a child with cigarettes is clearly abuse. But smoking around children, even though it is known that secondhand smoke causes cancer, heart disease, and respiratory problems, is not so clearly abuse in the minds of many. The matter is open to argument.

Other gray areas include shouting at one’s kids. That’s just “normal” in many households, but, carried to extremes, it can be abusive, too. Belittling and shaming children, also can be called abusive. Calling children names, labeling them (“you’re stupid,” “you’re destructive”), and threatening them (even if the threats are not carried out), all are forms of abuse, depending on which experts you choose to listen to.

Admittedly the grayest of the gray areas is the teaching of children. Can the secular and religious education of children be abusive? Secular teaching may be more or less effective in preparing children for their adult lives; more in cases where children are taught how to think, to reason for themselves and derive answers from evidence; less where they are taught what to think and the conclusions at which they should arrive.

I've come to believe that teaching religion to children is a form of child abuse. Parents quite naturally think that their children should be taught whatever the parents believe. In a seemingly never-ending cycle, parents who were themselves brainwashed as children pass along to their own children the religion they were taught. It never occurs to them to examine what they’ve been taught to see whether it has been helpful or harmful.

Rather than teaching children that some behaviors are harmful, religion (Christian religion in particular) teaches them that their very natures are evil, their thoughts corrupt and their actions so vile that they deserve to be tortured for eternity unless they continually beg some implacable cosmic bully for forgiveness. Children are taught that an invisible god, or one of his minions, is looking over their shoulders at all times. While many adults resent the proliferation of surveillance cameras, they teach their children that someone who can see through walls is always watching them. It is a wonder, given that kind of upbringing, that most people are not schizophrenic.

Stuffing immature minds full of dogma when they haven't the means to sort through it critically damages the developing psyche. No amount of post-adult reason ever completely liberates the subconscious from all that ecclesiastical baggage. The pain it creates is lifelong and debilitating.

Teaching children religion is abusive because it creates confusion and discourages critical thought. Further, it fosters guilt, which is particularly destructive, because it remains in the subconscious long after the reasons for it are recognized and understood.

It needs to be said that, while some teaching may ultimately be harmful, it does not constitute abuse in the sense that the parent or teacher intends harm or is indifferent to the consequences of the teaching. The harm done is the end result of a cycle that started eons ago. Unfortunately, relatively few people as adults thoroughly examine what they’ve been taught. The whole idea of “faith” is designed to repress critical thought and to encourage acceptance instead. The result is that faulty thinking is passed on from generation to generation. Anything that makes the mind work less well, or causes emotional pain may be characterized as harm, and its inculcation is abuse. 

Use Your Words Properly

A Theist BELIEVES that there's a god (full stop)

An Atheist BELIEVES that there’s no god (full stop);

A Gnostic KNOWS OF, AND ACCEPTS, a claim presented (full stop)
An Agnostic HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF, AND REJECTS, a claim presented (full stop).

The word “Agnostic” has to be specific to a claim. One can’t just say that they are agnostic PERIOD. Thus, I am an atheist and an agnostic TO THE SPECIFIC CLAIM THAT THERE IS A GOD. I am agnostic about many claims, and a gnostic about many claims.

The Elements Behind Theocratic Dictatorships

"Today, we compare the far-right religious extremists who are fighting to gain power in the US with the protests against the theocratic regime in Iran supporting women's rights in the country."

Click on the link below for a podcast presenting the dangers and realities of theocratic government using the USA and Iran as examples:

How Theocracies Begin And End

Religious Indoctrination Of Children: A Harm Society Denies

"I shall probably shock you when I say it is the purpose of my lecture today [is] . . . to argue, in short, in favor of censorship, against freedom of expression, and to do so moreover in an area of life that has traditionally been regarded as sacrosanct.

"I am talking about moral and religious education. And especially the education a child receives at home, where parents are allowed—even expected—to determine for their children what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong.

"Children, I’ll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people’s bad ideas—no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith."

Click on the link below for support for the above:

A superb article against the religious indoctrination of children

Nationalism Is A Bastardization Of Patriotism

"Nationalism is dangerous. There is nothing wrong with being patriotic, but Americans often forget, or may not even be aware of, how quickly enthusiastic patriotism can devolve into nationalism. Patriotism and nationalism are often used interchangeably, but they are very different. Patriotism is love and pride for one’s nation, while nationalism is the idea of the superiority of one’s culture, government, people, and nation over others."

Click on the link below for a brief, succinct, and thorough article describing this disease that is ravaging the US:

Nationalism is Dangerous

For a scholarly article looking at the history of society's evolution and coherence, click here.

The Birth Of Christianity And The Telephone Game

"When @ColdCaseChristianity 's J Warner Wallace pitched his pet Q-source theory to @MelissaDougherty , his apologetic and gimmick commitment to the gospels as eye-witness testimony caused him to demonstrate the ways the gospels are more-likely to NOT be testimony."

Christian apologists attempt to support their religious beliefs by looking at history but fail terribly. Click on the link below for a debunking of the reliability of the Bible, and Christianity in general, through the analogy of the Telephone Game:

Christian Cop Shoots Bible in the Foot

Let's Compare The Major Religions

"Most major religions have founders who are wrapped in layers and layers of obvious mythology—to the point that little of interest remains when the myths are peeled away. Christianity is far from unique when it comes to sketchy evidence about an ostensible founder who is now heralded as a prophet, god, or demi-god. For centuries—or even millennia—religious teachings have pointed to great individuals, prophets, demi-gods, or supernatural beings as the source of divine revelation. But looking closely at these claims can be rather like holding cotton candy in the rain."

Click on the link below for a fascinating expose of the mythical qualities of the major religions:

Buddha, Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammed: Larger-than-life historical figures or largely legends?

The Gaps Continue To Get Smaller and Fewer

Anyone who is aware of the interactions between religious apologists and their counter-apologists knows that virtually ALL arguments for a God involve the God of the Gaps fallacy: a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence.^[1][2]   It's clearly a logical fallacy, an appeal to ignorance. 

Click on the link below for a podcast discussing a recent finding that gets us much closer to solving one of the mysteries that is used by religious apologists; abiogenesis:

New Discovery in the Chemistry of Life