Archive for September, 2011

Welcome to our new home on Freethought Blogs.  The transition seems to have gone smoothly, so I assume we’ll have some new people stumbling across us. The Atheist Experience is a live public access call-in television show based out of Austin, Texas.  It launched in 1997.  You can learn more about the show here, including information on how to watch live and view the extensive archive.  We’ve got two hosts — Matt Dillahunty is on three out of every four weeks, and I (Russell Glasser) host the fourth week.  We also have five rotating cohosts: Don Baker, Jeff Dee, Jen Peeples, Martin Wagner, and Tracie Harris. Since we have fifteen years of live callers behind us, we’ve covered a pretty wide range of personalities.  They range from slickly packaged professional apologists like Ray Comfort and Matt Slick on one end, to just plain unexpected silliness on the other. The Atheist Experience is sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin, a terrific social group which also supports two other podcasts: The Non-Prophets, a round table discussion group; and Godless Bitches, an atheist feminist podcast. We’re all looking forward to interacting with the Freethought Blogs community at large, and I’ll be writing a new post introducing myself personally as one of your regular bloggers.  Talk to you soon!

Hi, folks!  Pardon our dust as we move over from our old digs at http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/.  Looking forward to becoming a part of the freethoughtblogs community! Keep an eye out over the next few days for introductory posts from each of our contributors: Martin, Russell, Matt, Tracie, Jen, Don, and Jeff.

Russell and Jeff in the self-described “awesome episode.”  One theist caller gets 20 minutes, while another gets summarily dumped after his opening statement.  A new study shows that belief in God is linked with intuitive thinking, or to put it another way, preferring to choose the answer that sounds good over thinking carefully about what’s probably correct.  Be there! Also, as I mentioned on the show, Lynnea and I have plans to hang out in a bar with Orlando-based fans on a weeknight in November.  Check out this page for planning if you’re nearby.

Secular charities mentioned in today’s show include: Planned Parenthood Austin Doctors Without Borders Capital Area Food Bank Atheists Helping the Homeless These organizations help real people in this life – the only one we’re sure to get. They’re transparent about what they do, and serve anyone in need. As I mentioned on the show today, the idea that some reward awaits the faithful in the afterlife is one of the religious doctrines that impairs our ability to solve the problems that plague humanity. It makes it easier to ignore suffering if you think some people are better off dead. Well, it’s not okay with me for people to go without medical care because they’re poor. It’s not okay for people to go hungry in a country where obesity is a major health concern. It’s not okay for women to be pregnant year after year until they die of exhaustion. The organizations above are doing what they can to solve these problems. If you can help, please do, and thank you. And now, open thread – have at it.

Fresh from the “Someone Is Wrong on the Internet” files, this message was sent via the contact form on the ACA website. My understanding about atheism is you claim that because there is (supposedly) no evidence for God existing that this equates to there being evidence for God NOT existing (please correct me if I am wrong about this). Kind of, but not exactly. The default position for any positive claim lacking evidence is usually disbelief.  “Disbelief” doesn’t mean “proof against,” and it doesn’t mean “dogmatic certainty” — it just means, to put it simply, that you generally don’t believe in stuff without having reasons in favor of it. To give you a small example: Suppose I told you “You know, I died last week, but I rose from the dead on the following morning, so here I am replying to your email.”  Would you believe me or not? I think it’s safe to say that you would ask me whether I have evidence or not.  My failure to provide any wouldn’t constitute proof that it didn’t happen, but it wouldn’t look good for me.  Don’t you agree? Or suppose I tried to sell you a car which, by all appearances, seemed to be a twenty year old lemon, but I said “This car has a secret switch which can make it FLY.  And I’m selling it to you for the incredibly reasonable price of $10,000.”  That’s actually a great price for a flying car… but I’m sure you wouldn’t buy it without evidence. You see the difference between this position and what you’re saying? My question to you is this: 1) Do you have a brain? You probably think so. 2) How do you know? For the sake of epistomological argument, you could be merely a computer-based machine, akin to a very advanced robot operating on Artificial Intelligence 3) How can you prove this? Given my previous challenge, you probably can’t...
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