Dan Barker
Dan Barker
Daniel Edwin "Dan" Barkeris an American atheist activist who served as a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984. Barker, along with his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor, is the current co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. He has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper. He is the author of several books including Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist...
atheist two people
People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, “Well, are you a Republican or an American?” The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, “I don't have a knowledge that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don't have a belief that God exists.” You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.
religion needs respectable
Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized.
running religious common-threads
Even if it is true that all cultures share a common morality, why does this prove a supreme intelligence? After all, don't we humanists sometimes claim that there is a common thread of humanistic values running through history across cultural and religious lines?
believe differences atheism
Basic atheism is not a belief. It is the lack of belief. There is a difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god - both are atheistic, though popular usage has ignored the latter.
atheist character suffering
Atheists are suffering from bad PR. What if Sesame Street had an atheist character?
christian atheist thinking
Most Christians are afraid that people will think for themselves; most atheists are afraid that they won’t.
theology subjects objects
Theology is a subject without an object
blood law vanity
Without "The Law of Moses" would we all be wandering around like little gods, stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended?
christian atheist religion
The longer I have been an atheist, the more amazed I am that I ever believed Christian notions.
religion atheism admitting
If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true 'by faith,' and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits.
people religion stubborn
In any open question, we should argue from what we do know to what we do not know. We do know that fervent legends and stubborn myths arise easily and naturally. We do not know that dead people rise from the grave.
faith believe intelligent
It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown.
joy doubt mind
There is joy in rationality, happiness in clarity of mind. Freethought is thrilling and fulfilling - absolutely essential to mental health and happiness.
faith thinking causes
Faith is not the result of fuzy thinking. It is the cause of it.