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Monday, April 04, 2011

Toronto Skeptics in the Pub



Join us on Friday, April 15, 2011 at the Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., Toronto for an event sponsored by the Association for Science and Reason (ASR).

The speaker will be me and the subject is The Accommodationist Wars.


4 comments :

Michael5MacKay said...

Grrrh! I'd love to be there, but my flight back from Edmonton doesn't get in until 11:30 pm.

Denny said...

I hope, after Larry’s presentation to the Association for Science and Reason, he will post an abstract at Sandwalk. I’m curious about whether Larry will address the fact (explicit in Humanist Manifesto I and implicit in Humanist Manifesto III, plus any number of reputable dictionaries, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision) that atheism is a religion (albeit non-theistic) meeting all the criteria associated with a human belief system that manifests worship and devotion. If his talk addresses atheism as a religion, he could provide two significant benefits.
1. He could provide a scholarly defense and definitive definition of atheism as a non-religion, and
2. He could resolve all the apparent contradictions inherent in debates about atheistic accommodationism.

steve oberski said...

@Denny Perhaps you could write Larry's presentation for him and save him all the bother.

Larry Moran said...

Denny asks,

I hope, after Larry’s presentation to the Association for Science and Reason, he will post an abstract at Sandwalk. I’m curious about whether Larry will address the fact (explicit in Humanist Manifesto I and implicit in Humanist Manifesto III, plus any number of reputable dictionaries, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision) that atheism is a religion (albeit non-theistic) meeting all the criteria associated with a human belief system that manifests worship and devotion.

Denny, I don't believe in the existence of any supernatural beings. Therefore I am an atheist. I also don't believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. None of these non-beliefs qualify as religions.

I am not a humanist so I can't comment on that particular belief.

If his talk addresses atheism as a religion, he could provide two significant benefits.
1. He could provide a scholarly defense and definitive definition of atheism as a non-religion, and ...


Done. It's no more of a religion than non-belief in anything else. Denny, I assume that you don't believe in the Hindu gods. Does that mean you belong to the religion of non-Hinduism? Do you also practice the religion of non-Mormonism?

2. He could resolve all the apparent contradictions inherent in debates about atheistic accommodationism.

I'll do my best on that one but I won't promise to post anything.

Care to list a few of these contradictions just to help me out?