Miracles are impossible! As an atheist, I could not understand how anyone could believe in the miracles of the Bible. One of the most famous philosophers of the last few centuries, David Hume, expressed it perfectly for me in the following logical syllogism [1]: 1. Miracles are violations of natural laws. 2. Natural laws are …
As an atheist (and a big fan of Dawkins) I often mocked my Christian friends and family for needing to have faith to overcome the clear lack of EVIDENCE for the existence of Jesus. I used to agree wholeheartedly with the words of one of our more sceptical readers: “If you want to believe, then …
I became an atheist at least partly because of my experiences with “Christians”. Sure, their failure to be able to answer the most obvious (to me at least) questions about their beliefs in relation to the reality that modern science has revealed was an issue. However, far more important was the behaviour of many “Christians”, observed and …
As an atheist I enjoyed testing the belief of my Christian friends and family by asking them if they knew where their Bible comes from (often they didn’t), and then asking them how they could possibly believe in such a “book”. For example, it’s a known fact that not one single original New Testament manuscript …
Well, what does the evidence show? As an atheist, one of my most firmly held beliefs was in the natural goodness of people, even if it was only a consequence of a materialistic evolutionary process.It usually goes without saying that, in most of us at least, resides a fundamental belief in what it means to …
As an atheist, this was one of the easiest arguments to have with a Christian: How can God exist with so much evil and suffering in the world? Stated in a logical syllogism: The God of the Bible is all-Good The God of the Bible is all-Powerful The God of the Bible is all-Knowing Yet, …
As an atheist I enjoyed testing the Biblical knowledge of my Christian friends and family, because they usually failed dismally! Having proved my point, I liked to explain to them how we atheists were atheists precisely BECAUSE we had actually read the Bible. And it’s a fair observation that many professing Christians have a very …
Well, we convince ourselves that it’s because we have found the truth of the matter in question. But is this itself actually true? Are we in fact interested in Truth at all? Or is there something else in our nature that is more likely to drive what we believe? Something that overrides …
Why do people believe what they believe? (Part 1) Read More »
In a recent study conducted by Stephen Fleming et al (1), and funded by the Wellcome Trust (which was the only non-government sponsor of the Human Genome Project), it seems that development of a crucial aspect of advanced thinking in individuals – known as metacognition – is primarily the result of: Cultural environment, and, if …
Why do people believe what they believe? (Part 2) Read More »
Or, for this episode, what we should learn from history but don’t! As an atheist I was always proud to point to science as a transcendental reason for my enlightenment, and in fact I still do. The little I have learned about our universe and how it works (speaking relative to what there is …
Why do people believe what they believe? (Part 3) Read More »
