The ISHV Cyber Think Tank is a digest of articles, interviews, and other musings compiled by ISHV Board Member Robert B. Tapp.
ARTICLES
James A. Haught, The Long, Slow Death of Religion
“All those factors undoubtedly play a role. But I want to offer a simpler explanation: In the scientific 21st century, it’s less plausible to believe in invisible gods, devils, heavens, hells, angels, demons — plus virgin births, resurrections, miracles, messiahs, prophecies, faith-healings, visions, incarnations, divine visitations and other supernatural claims. Magical thinking is suspect, ludicrous. It’s not for intelligent, educated people.
Significantly, the PRRI study found that the foremost reason young people gave for leaving religion is this clincher: They stopped believing miraculous church dogmas…..For decades, tall-steeple mainline Protestant denominations with university-educated ministers tried to downplay supernaturalism — to preach just the compassion of Jesus and the social gospel. It was a noble effort, but disastrous. The mainline collapsed so badly it is dubbed “flatline Protestantism.” It has faded to small fringe of American life.”read
Mikki Morrissette’s site, "Attainable We" read
The Freethough Trailread
Great news: Dawkins FOundation's merger with the Center for Inquiry is complete read
Mark Oppenheimer, The Evangelical Scion Who Stopped Believing (Bart Campolo)
“He loved everything about Christian ministry except the Christianity. Now that he had crossed the bridge to apostasy, he needed a new vocation. ….Atheists and agnosticshave long tried to rebottle religion: to get the community and the good works without the supernatural stuff. It has worked about as well as nonalcoholic beer.”read
Valerie Tarico, Should Atheists Pray?read
The God Loopholeread
Gleb Tsipursky, 3 Steps to Intentional Living read
David Breeden, Resolutions and Diseases of the Soul read
Dale McGowan, Welcome to Patheos Nonreligious read
Naomi Golder, In Place of Prejudice
“In the absence of metaphysical guarantees – whether in gods, the universe, or an essentially social self – each of us faces a task to construct, rather than discover, ideals by which to live. The process of construction will be contingent, messy, political. Will we be strong enough to engage in such construction honestly? Will anything like a universal social morality emerge? In the debate at 2015’sHowTheLightGetsInfestival I defended the interest of these questions, but I didn’t pose any answer. As I see it, the questions are empirical, and still open.”read
VIDEOS
Sam Dresser, Great news: pleasure is the purpose of life. Bad news: moderation is key (Epicurus) (6m)watch
Peter Singer & Richard Dawkins – Living Ethically, Vegetarianism, Abortion, Charles Darwin (43m)watch
Steven Pinker: The Genius of Charles Darwin: The Uncut Interviews(1h 8m)watch
Steven Pinker: The Psychology of Religion – Steven Pinker (41m)watch
Sam Harris on Veganism (22m)watch
Sam Harris’ Greatest Anti Religion Speech EVER!! (10m)watch
Sam Harris Explains Religions (30m)watch
Sam Harris on religious belief (Full) (55m)watch
Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris in Conversation on Religion, Atheism and Morality (1:17) watch
The Four Horseman – Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennet, Harris (1:57)watch
Christopher Hitchens – Last Public Appearance – Dawkins Award watch (29m)
Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel (23m)
watch
Christopher Hitchens on the CIA, Ayn Rand, Atheism, Drug Decriminalization (1996) (55m)watch
Was Henry Kissinger a War Criminal? Christopher Hitchens on the Controversy (2001) (1:29)watch
Christopher Hitchens on Nelson Mandela (1985) (55m)watch
Christopher Hitchens on Barack Obama (53m)watch
‘The Hitch’ A Christopher Hitchens Documentary (1:15)watch
Richard Dawkins: The Rational Revolutionary (1:33)watch
Sam Harris & Neil deGrasse Tyson On Race (17m)watch
Idiot Proofing Veganism (7m) – Sam Harriswatch
Sam Harris Answers Why Trump Won – Nailed It (7m)watch
Vegan lifestyle is morally superior – Richard Dawkins (3m)watch
Jerry DeWitt: Hope After Faith (48m)watc
Jennifer Hancock has 4 videos at Amazonwatch