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After my “William Lane Craig says reason leads to atheism” post, it’s only fair that I post the e-mail commenter Annatar got when they e-mailed Craig’s website about the quote:
Volunteer representing William Lane Craig denies reason leads to atheism
May 17, 2012 at 10:52 am 
Chris Hallquist Bruce Schneier: get rid of secondary screenings at the airport
May 16, 2012 at 12:19 pm Chris Hallquist I had mixed feelings about Sam Harris’ endorsement of profiling at the airport. The rest of the blogosphere reaction was more uniformly negative, and when security expert Bruce Schneier wrote a rebuttal to Harris (which Harris posted on his own site), this was taken as a decisive refutation of Harris. But I think people have missed the most interesting part of Schneier’s response, which is at the end:
Beta testing a book: The many gods I don’t believe in (yours included)
May 16, 2012 at 11:00 am Chris Hallquist This chapter, titled “The many gods I don’t believe in (yours included),” is not quite finished. No “in this chapter,” only just started adding subheadings, and the endnotes aren’t done. Not much of a conclusion either. I could have spent more time on it, but I just got sick of writing it after awhile. The problem is that I consider the stuff I cover incredibly basic, more basic in some ways than the things covered in chapter one, but I know these points somehow manage to be points of contention anyway. If you thought the last chapter was condescending, you may find this one even worse. But tell me what you think.
Previously:
Introduction: The one book that will convince you Christianity is false
Chapter 1: Don’t panic!: On finding atheism unfamiliar and scary
What I want as an atheist
May 15, 2012 at 11:18 am Chris Hallquist I’m slowly cleaning out my list of “things I’m meaning to respond to” from when I was sick. One of them was a post by Andrew Sullivan titled “What Do Atheists Want?”, which links to and quotes from this longer post by Anthony Pinn at Religion Dispatches. Here’s the part Sullivan highlighted:
The Korean health care system rocks
May 14, 2012 at 10:56 am Chris Hallquist Today, I went to the hospital to get the stitches from my appendectomy taken out. There were just four of ‘em, so it was fast and easy. Then I found out I was getting billed for it. “Damn,” I thought. “Shouldn’t getting the stitches out have been included in the bill I paid last week?” I also wondered how much it would cost for that few minutes of work. $50? $100? $200? I had insurance through work, but in Korea your insurance only covers 55-70% of any given medical bill.
Greta Christina tears into Edwina Rogers
May 14, 2012 at 10:06 am Chris Hallquist A lot of people have been unhappy about the Edwina Rogers fiasco (which I wrote about here), but Greta has the harshest take yet. I agree with everything she says. I especially like the fact that she emphasizes the mere fact that, yes, having a former Republican operative as Executive Director of the SCA is a problem even without the terrible interviews:
Richard Carrier does a fascinating interview with Susan Haack
May 11, 2012 at 12:23 pm Chris Hallquist Read it here. What I especially found interesting were her comments on the “what’s wrong with philosophy?” issue:
Follow up to the “what is Dawkins wrong about?” discussion
May 11, 2012 at 10:56 am Chris Hallquist Now I’ve had a chance to read the whole of the “what is Dawkins wrong about?” discussion, here are my comments on some of the main points raised. First, let me say that I was absolutely wrong about the abuse thing. As JustKat said:
“I want to copy and paste the whole chapter and write, ‘This!’”
May 11, 2012 at 9:30 am Chris Hallquist I know this is patting myself on the back, but I still decided to quote this comment on the draft of the first chapter of my book:
This is probably not helpful but I want to copy and paste the whole chapter and write, “This!”
I look forward to reading the rest, and to buying it in tangible form when it’s published!
First of all, I want y’all to know that such comments are helpful. I don’t just need to know what I’m doing wrong, I need to know what I’m doing right. Also, I want to encourage more people to read the drafts.
On Edwina Rogers, the new Republican head of Secular Coalition for America
May 10, 2012 at 9:56 am Chris Hallquist So you may have heard the Secular Coalition for America’s new executive director Edwina Rogers. I initially wasn’t sure I was going to blog about this, because the interview she gave with Greta Christina (transcript here) was so incoherent that I wasn’t sure what to say about it, except what I said in a tweet a couple days ago, that you need to be able to express yourself clearer than that to be qualified to head the SCA.
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