indoctrination :: The Tentative Apologist

Post tagged with indoctrination

Has Stephen Law been sucked into an intellectual black hole? A Review of Law’s “Believing Bulls**t”

August 02nd, 201111:04 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

Stephen Law. Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole. Prometheus, 2011, 271 pp. ISBN: 978-1-61614-411-1. In the vein of Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World (Ballantine, 1997) and Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things (Holt, 2002), comes this new book by Stephen Law, senior lecturer in philosophy ...
Do Atheists discriminate?

May 25th, 201112:25 PM ET

By Randal Rauser

Of course. More exactly, some do and some don't. Just like some Christians discriminate and some don't. (I chronicle both types of discrimination in You're not as Crazy as I Think.) The real question for the present moment is this: how do atheists commonly discriminate? In the last couple weeks I've been focusing on some key examples of discrimi...
Indoctrinated: Why you should not use Focus on the Family’s “The Truth Project”

May 02nd, 201108:27 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

"The Truth Project" is one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by Focus on teh Family. They spent over two million dollars developing and producing this video series of thirteen one hour sessions and they have spent lots more promoting it in churches throughout North America and around the world. It is thus with much regret that I have b...
“The Unanimous Consensus of Rational People”: On “The Christian Delusion” (Part 7)

June 13th, 201008:58 PM ET

By Randal Rauser

Jason Long, "The Malleability of the Human Mind," 65-80. All right my clear thinking little skeptics, gather close now. Today we are going to hear about those crazy religious people who are indoctrinated. You need to be careful of them my darling little skeptics! "Tell us more teacher!" Oh yes little Johnny, I will. As our trusted authority...
Atheists are smart and theists are stoopid, right?

February 15th, 201011:31 AM ET

By Randal Rauser

In my last post I made the point that atheists can evince indoctrinational elements in their thinking as surely as anybody else. Indeed, the myth of the "free thinking" atheist can sometimes make them more liable to this danger. The primary evidence of indoctrination is found in dependence upon untenable binary oppositions between good and bad, rig...
How to spot a brainwashed atheist

February 14th, 201008:13 PM ET

By Randal Rauser

What is it to be brainwashed? Unfortunately, the popular images that this term invokes often center on stereotyped images of a naïve Midwestern farm girl who has been sucked into a miniscule California cult and is now convinced her dear leader is the messiah. If you are one of today's brand of new atheist, that image gets widened substantially...