ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 23

I felt God left me

Born of agnostic parents, I became a born-again Christian at age 19 and remained totally committed to my faith for 40 years. At 59, I felt God left me – it was terrifying. At first I was desperate to reconnect with God but eventually I realised that God just wasn’t there and that all I …

The End of Scotland’s Blasphemy Law

Scotland has repealed its centuries-old law against blasphemy, but the road to getting to the repeal has been rather bumpy and twisted. We celebrated the news that a repeal of the law had been proposed, but it soon became apparent that the bill that would quash the blasphemy law was problematic in itself. The Hate …

Lots of Prayers, Nothing to Show for It

If prayer has any effect on the real world, surely the most likely to benefit from its power would be the men who lead congregations of believers in prayer every Sunday. In a new study, the results of which were published in the Journal of Religion and Health, researchers in Poland assessed the efficacy of …

How DARE they use religion as a tool for pedophilia

You changed my life for the better in many ways, I was raised a Roman Catholic and recently de-converted because of your content. Whilst growing up in the church I was raped, abused, tormented and gas lighted. This was normal to me and as a child I thought it was just what you had to …

Discovering Professor Dawkins was like finding a beacon for your beliefs and ideals

A Muslim by birth in India, I became an atheist quite early when I turned 16 because I found no logic in some of the rituals and hardcore beliefs we were made to follow. Questions like “If God is so compassionate, why does He/She derive happiness from the hunger and thirst of a child like …

No one knows why we are doing certain rituals

I’m an Indian born in an orthodox hindu family. We have a lot of traditions and ceremonies which have been going on for ages by time no one knows what was the purpose or why we are doing certain rituals. In time it has all became nonsense and still people keep following it. The worst …

Possess Paranormal Powers? Prove It.

Some people believe they can read your thoughts, communicate with the dead, or even move objects with their minds. A precious few are so certain of their extraordinary abilities that they are willing to have them tested by independent investigators. The possibility of pocketing a quarter-million dollars probably helps. The Center for Inquiry’s Investigations Group offers …

Hassan’s Dangerous Road: A Secular Rescue Story

While science thrives on asking questions and challenging dogmas, this is kryptonite to religion; and the more fundamentalist and oppressive the religion, the more it is threatened by free inquiry. The Center for Inquiry’s Secular Rescue program exists to help those secular writers and activists who find themselves in peril because of their dissent. Matthew Cravatta, director …

Dawkins on the Gold Standard for Truth

Science gives us hope, but the danger of science-denial has been made startlingly clear during the coronavirus era of this larger post-truth epoch. So we turn once again to Richard Dawkins to mount a spirited defense of science as the best means we have of arriving at the truth. “What is profoundly troubling … is …

The Flattened Earth Society

Planet Earth is not flat, despite what you may have heard on the internet. But maps of Earth are flat, and it turns out it’s very difficult to accurately represent all the features on the surface of a sphere on a two-dimensional plane. Many novel approaches have been taken to make sure, for example, Greenland …