Skepticon III Video

Video of my presentation at Skepticon III last year is now available. I like this one. This is my best and most entertaining talk yet. Informative and fun. I definitely recommend it. To watch it on YouTube click here. Filmed and edited by Rob Lehr of Hambone Productions, I recall there was a loss of data at the event but he restored it best he could (so you'll see a fade at one point), and I'm pretty sure no significant content was lost. The accompanying slideshow is also available for private viewing here (warning: it's a large PDF file).

There is also a video of the panel I was on (on a different day), Confrontation vs. Accommodation. Me and P.Z. Myers on one side, Debbie Goddard, David Fitzgerald, and John Corvino on the other (although we were all pretty much on the same side when it came to the issue discussed), moderated by D.J. Grothe (who made a valiant effort at playing Devil's Advocate). The panel is interesting but some will consider it a bit dull and frustrating in many respects (not only because of audio problems). Often thoughts couldn't be completed or revisited as a viewer would want, e.g. at one point I briefly approve of politicians lying, though I meant in regard to the religious and diplomatic palliatives politicians must deploy to get things done, not, of course, breaking the law or perpetrating a major deception. I thought that was clear in context, but on reviewing it, it's not. And if that was true for me, you can expect it may have been for the other panelists as well. So it should be viewed charitably.

The Infidel Delusion!

Ever since The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (TCD) came out we've been expecting deluded and irrational attacks. One such going the rounds now is the laboriously long treatment by the Christian crackpots at Triablogue, which they have amusingly titled The Infidel Delusion (I say amusingly because the "I know you are but what am I" tactic only reinforces the stereotype that many Christians are emotionally stunted children--who also have no grasp of irony).

I shall publish responses to their ill-conceived rebuttals to my own chapters in TCD eventually (since I love dispelling misinformation in my fields of expertise), but I wanted to start with a more general illustration of how irrational and deluded they are (and thus of what it means to be irrational and deluded). More replies are being developed by other contributors to TCD (see link provided on the Official TCD Website). 

The Christian Delusion

Two years in the making, controversial even before its launch, and perhaps the most definitive refutation of Christianity yet in print, The Christian Delusion (Why Faith Fails) is now available at Amazon and your local bookseller. Edited by John Loftus, TCD contains fifteen chapters by nine authors, including numerous experts with doctorates in their respective fields. Myself included.

It's a fantastic book. I loved it as I was reading it even in earlier drafts, and I have been anticipating its publication for a long time. You'll all want a copy, trust me. Buy it and read it. And if you like it, give it a customer review on Amazon, critical or laudatory. We'll need honest Amazon reviews to counter the inevitable Christian tactic of low-starring it and lying about it to dissuade fellow Christians from reading it. I'd rather have valid criticisms in there if any.

Following is a summary of the book, then at the bottom a link to a companion website for the book that actually has new additional articles by me and others (check it out!).