Christopher Hitchens Compilation - Christopher Hitchens - Youtube - JediJesseS The Opposite of Debunking Kyle Hill - JREF 16 If we want people to understand the full range of skepticism we have to also stress the affirmatives. We need to live up to the charge of promoting science and critical thinking Miracle buster: Why I traced holy water... Jon White - New Scientist 29 Indian rationalist Sanal Edamaruku faces a Catholic backlash after insisting that the "holy" water dripping from a statue of Christ came from a leaky drain Book Excerpt: Why We Blame God for Our... Matthew Hutson - Wired 7 "If there's no obvious responsible party, we find a scapegoat. Why smart people are stupid Jonah Lehrer - The New Yorker While philosophers, economists, and social scientists had assumed for centuries that human beings are rational agents—reason was our Promethean gift—Kahneman, the late Amos Tversky, and others demonstrated that we’re not nearly as rational as we like to believe. One in seven thinks end of world is... Chris Michaud - Reuters How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith...
Richard Dawkins English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born Clinton Richard Dawkins; 26 March 1941)[24] is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. Dawkins is known as an outspoken atheist. Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and Internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.[26] Background[edit] Early life[edit] Education[edit] Teaching[edit] In 2011, Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a private university in London established by A. Work[edit] Evolutionary biology[edit] Fathering the meme[edit]
Sam Harris (author) American neuroscientist, author, and podcaster Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Early life and education[edit] In 1997, after eleven years overseas, Harris returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000.[26][27][28] Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.[26] He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles,[26][29][30] using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.[26][30] His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. Career[edit] Writing[edit] Podcast[edit] Nathan J.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Novel by Mark Twain A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Some early editions are titled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. Twain wrote the book as a burlesque of Romantic notions of chivalry after being inspired by a dream in which he was a knight himself, severely inconvenienced by the weight and cumbersome nature of his armor. It is a satire of feudalism and monarchy that also celebrates homespun ingenuity and democratic values while questioning the ideals of capitalism and outcomes of the Industrial Revolution. Plot[edit] The novel is a comedy set in 6th-century England and its medieval culture through Hank Morgan's view; he is a 19th-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut, who, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England where he meets King Arthur himself. "'Bridgeport?'
The Nonbelievers & Godless Heathens of the Atheist Republic What do you want the Atheist Republic mission and goal to be? How can we accomplish that? Send us your views. We might add your answers on this page. Here is what others from the Atheist Republic community have to say: Curtis Robinson Atheist Republic should address the challenges that Atheists face (internal & external attacks, building confidence, and more importantly connecting with others with similar views). Anonymous: ...We should no longer be a generation of people hidden away in cyber-space commenting about what we think and believe.
Dawkins praises Hitchens in convention for being an atheist even while facing death By: Eryn SunChristian Post Wednesday, 12 October 2011, 6:47 (EST) Reappearing in the public eye after months of absence, the much weakened and gaunt Hitchens, who currently suffers from esophageal cancer, accepted the “Richard Dawkins Freethinker of the Year” award over the past weekend in Houston at the annual convention of the Atheist Alliance of America and Texas Freethought. The 62-year-old author, who had at one point temporarily lost his voice due to his sickness, was able to stand up and speak again before the young crowd of atheists, countering in his usual manner the “spread of delusion” and championing “freedom of inquiry.” Receiving the award directly from Dawkins, fellow atheist and member of the “Four Horsemen of the Counter-Apocalypse,” Hitchens felt honored but a little embarrassed to be receiving the award, he previously told The New York Times. “I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do,” he shared. “I’m not sure we need to be honored.
Sam Harris (author) Samuel B. "Sam" Harris (born April 9, 1967)[2] is an American author, philosopher, and neuroscientist. He is the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason.[3] He is the author of The End of Faith, which was published in 2004 and appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. The book also won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction in 2005.[4] In 2006, Harris published the book Letter to a Christian Nation as a response to criticism of The End of Faith. Harris grew up in a secular home in Los Angeles, and is the son of the TV producer Susan Harris,[9] and actor Berkeley Harris. In 2009, Harris earned a Ph.D. degree in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles,[11][20][21] using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.[11][21] He also rejects the claim that the Bible was inspired by an omniscient god. Harris says the idea of free will is incoherent.
Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942)[1][2] is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.[3] Early life and education[edit] Dennett was born on March 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth Marjorie (née Leck) and Daniel Clement Dennett, Jr.[6][7] Dennett spent part of his childhood in Lebanon, where, during World War II, his father was a covert counter-intelligence agent with the Office of Strategic Services posing as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Beirut.[8] When he was five, his mother took him back to Massachusetts after his father died in an unexplained plane crash.[9] Dennett says that he was first introduced to the notion of philosophy while attending summer camp at age 11, when a camp counselor said to him, "You know what you are, Daniel? First ...
Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography is Christopher Hitchens's contribution to the Books That Changed the World series. Hitchens, a great admirer of Thomas Paine, covers the history of Paine's 1791 book, The Rights of Man, and analyzes its significance.[1] Reception[edit] References[edit] Hitchens Zone - Great Atheism Quotes Mark Twain "There are those who scoff at the school boy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was the school boy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain't so." "Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employ a million." "The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also." "A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” Blaise Pascal "Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions." Isaac Asimov "Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." "Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?"
Freedom From Religion Foundation Ayaan Hirsi Ali Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Dutch: [ɑˈjaːn ˈɦirsi ˈaːli] ( When she was eight, Hirsi Ali's family left Somalia for Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia, and eventually settled in Kenya. She sought and obtained political asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, under circumstances that later became the centre of a political controversy. Life and work[edit] Youth[edit] Hirsi Ali's father had studied abroad and was opposed to female genital mutilation, but while he was imprisoned, Hirsi Ali's grandmother had the traditional procedure performed on five-year-old Hirsi Ali.[13] They settled in Nairobi, where Hirsi Ali attended the English-language Muslim Girls' Secondary School. She sympathised with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and wore a hijab together with her school uniform, which was unusual at the time but gradually became more common. Early life in the Netherlands[edit] Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands in 1992. Once in the Netherlands she requested political asylum, and obtained a residence permit.