The Logical Atheist

I heartily recommend Robert Tracinski's "Why I Don't 'Believe' in 'Science.'" Please don't think you know what you'll find in it. Tracinski says things that are worth saying and digesting. Pertinent quote: Some people may use “I believe in science” as vague shorthand for confidence in the ability of the scientific method to achieve valid results, or maybe for the view that the universe is governed by natural laws which are discoverable through observation and reasoning. But the way most people use it today—especially in a political context—is pretty much the opposite. They use it as a way of declaring belief in a proposition which is outside their knowledge and which they do not understand. There are a lot of people these days who like things that sound science-y, but have little patience for actual science. These are the kind of people who gush when Elon Musk tells them he’s going to put a million people on Mars but seem less excited about di...

Many philosophers, including St Thomas, have held that the voice of individual conscience is   the voice of God speaking to the individual, whether he is a believer or not. This would resolve the alleged conflict [between obeying God and exercising  moral autonomy] because in following one's conscience one would at the same time be discharging his obligations as a worshiper to obey God. However, this manoeuvre is unsatisfying, since if taken seriously it would lead to the conclusion that, in speaking to us through our 'consciences', God is merely tricking us: for he is giving us the illusion of self-governance while all the time he is manipulating our thoughts from without. Moreover, in acting from conscience we are acting under the view that our actions are right and not merely that they are decreed by a higher power. Plato's argument in the  Euthyphro  can be adapted to this point: If in speaking to us through the voice of conscience, God is informing us of what is...

What we have, then, is a conflict between the role of a worshiper, which by its very nature commits one to total subservience to God, and the role of moral agent, which necessarily involves autonomous decision-making. The point is that the role of worshiper takes precedence over every other role which the worshiper has -- when there is any conflict, the worshiper's commitment to God has priority over any other commitments which he might have. But the first commitment of a moral agent is to do what in his own heart he thinks right. Thus the following argument might be constructed: (a) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship. (b) No being could possibly be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent. (c) Therefore, there cannot be any being who is God. --James Rachels, "God and Human Attitudes"

I've heard at least one skeptical atheist say -- and I'm sure many others also believe it -- that one cannot be too much of a skeptic. But they don't really mean it. How do I know? I know because they regularly mock people who express skepticism about things they apparently believe in: evolution, vaccination, the roundness and old age of the earth, catastrophic climate change, the legitimacy of the state, and so on. (I'm doubtful of only the last two.) Why are some skeptics more equal than others? "No," the skeptical atheists are likely to reply. "We good skeptics have sound reasons for our doubt, while the bad skeptics have none for theirs." But both kinds of skeptics think they have good reasons for their doubts. Evolution-skeptics are aware of what evolution-believers regard as evidence, but the former think it is bad and possibly even fabricated. I'm not saying they are right, only that they have their reasons too. We can resolve this disagr...

The Christian religion is a compound and combination of all the theological writings of the followers of Moses and Jesus. We have no evidence that either of these men wrote any part, either of the Old or New Testament. From Genesis to the Apocalypse of St. John, a vast variety of fact, fable, principle, wickedness, and error is exhibited to view. The book, though bound together, appears to be in many respects discordant; the historical part has no accurate connection; the moral part is distorted, deficient, or wicked; the doctrinal parts are either unintelligible, or contrary to moral and philosophical truth.... What is a book, whether it be denominated sacred or not, unless the human mind is capable of discovering the evidence by which the truth of such book can be substantiated? The Bible, which means nothing more than a book; the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which means nothing more than the heterogeneous writings contained in the former, and the incoherent and unintell...

The principle of morality is founded in the nature of man, and modified by his reciprocal relations; this principle cannot be augmented in its force or application by a reference to those barbarous phantoms and incongruous beings which the theology of the Jews and Christians, as well as all savage nations, has presented to view. Individuals and nations will always be wicked so long as they adore a divinity of loose and immoral character. Theology must first be rendered pure, and then it will become a question of magnitude, what influential relation it bears to the science of morality and happiness of the world. --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806),  Principles of Nature; or, A Development of  the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species

The nature of ancient institutions, instead of forming a reason against the activity of mind, should be considered as constituting a double stimulus; these institutions are such a complete abandonment of every just and correct principle; they have been so destructive in their operation and effects, that nothing but the strong and energetic movement of the human understanding will be capable of subverting them. The whole earth has been made the wretched abode of ignorance and misery; and to priests and tyrants these dreadful effects are to be attributed. These are the privileged monsters who have subjugated the earth, destroyed the peace and industry of society, and committed the most atrocious of all robberies; that which had robbed human nature of its intellectual property, leaving all in a state of waste and barrenness. Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus, and Mahomet, are names celebrated in history; but what are they celebrated for? Have their institutions softened the savage ferocity of man? ...