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Tag: Conflict Thesis

History for Atheists on the Non Sequitur Show – Part 1

History for Atheists on the Non Sequitur Show – Part 1

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Yesterday I had a great conversation with Steve McRae and Kyle Curtis of the Non Sequitur Show about History for Atheists, atheist bad history and why non-believers need to get history right if they want to be taken seriously. This was the first of what we plan to be several conversations and this time around we discussed the myth of the Medieval flat earth, touched on Jesus Mythicism and talked a little about the myth of Pius XII as “Hitler’s…

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An Islamic “Reformation”? – Pseudo History meets Politics

An Islamic “Reformation”? – Pseudo History meets Politics

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New Atheists generally acknowledge that it was the 9/11 attacks that gave their anti-theistic movement its initial impetus. Not surprisingly, several of their leading lights, led by Dawkins, Harris and comedian Bill Maher, have become trenchant critics of Islam as a key example of the toxicity of unfettered religion. These critics therefore lionise the ex-Muslim atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and support her calls for an Islamic equivalent to the Protestant Reformation. But is this based on good history? Ayaan Hirsi…

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The Archimedes Palimpsest

The Archimedes Palimpsest

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New Atheist discussions of the history of science are almost always based on some form of the Conflict Thesis. Despite the fact this conception of an eternal “warfare between science and religion” has long since been rejected by historians of science, anti-theists have an emotional commitment to this dusty nineteenth century idea, with most naively accepting it without question while a few struggle to prop it up in the face of the consensus of modern historians that it is simplistic,…

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