Dec 06 2011
Unrelated Photo!
A local very cool podcast about atheism and all things philosophy had me on to talk about atheist activism and the SC billboard campaign. It’s got my deconversion story, horror of childhood religion, and limited occurrences of me going “um, like”. If you’re into podcasts, you should give it a listen! I have my super sexy horrible cold voice and everything.
Ashley's co-blogger is a third year student at Northwestern University who runs on coffee and snark. . At some point, she'd like to make people sit on couches and tell her about their feelings, but right now she writes in different places around the internet and makes silly faces when she doesn't know what to say. She's the president of her local Secular Student Alliance affiliate, and she is on the Secular Woman speakers bureau. Opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Secular Student Alliance
:)
2 comments
1 ping
Dean J. Smith
December 12, 2011 at 5:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I guess you kept your promise to read our hate mail.
mralstoner
December 13, 2011 at 8:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Regarding Ep. 18 – Atheists Need to Argue with Emotion …
I have started to talk to fellow atheists about emotion too, but I found it only confused and irritated them until I learned to clearly distinguish between beliefs/knowledge and values.
Atheists are good at talking about beliefs/knowledge, and this is where reason and science reign supreme.
But atheists are totally clueless when talking about values/motivation. In the absence of a god, values can only come from emotions/feelings e.g. “reason is … the slave of the passions” as David Hume said.
Neuroscience and psychology are starting to confirm the Humean picture of emotion-driven motivation. But it is counter-intuitive to atheists who are obsessed with reason and science. This is a huge mental hurdle that stops most atheists graduating from atheism to humanism. So it is going to take a huge slap in the face to wake atheists up to this fact. Somehow I think that is your specialty. Have fun …
PS – I tried to post this over at amatterofdoubt.com but I can’t login for some reason.
Atheist vs Christian Billboard: Let’s Be Friends « Ashley F. Miller
December 18, 2011 at 9:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] president of the Pastafarians at USC has done a nice write up, go listen to the podcast I did at A Matter of Doubt, [...]