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Recently, Stephan has discussed atheism and its correlation with statism and leftist ideals. While atheism is just one position about the existence of god(s), Stephan's position is that people without religion lack the moral directives of the religious. For example, Atheists must derive things like work ethic and family values from their personal experience rather than religious literature. Skepticism requires fair application to maximize enlightenment (atheism is only one line of dominoes, to borrow Steph's analogy). Where is the first line of dominoes, then? What first principles must a person acquire so that they don't narrow their scope of skeptical inquiry?

I have a couple new videos published. Please subscribe to my channel, Unraise, if you are enjoying the content. I welcome your feedback. Thnx! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvLXA_ejAuA

Hi, I'm Adrian from Cluj, Romania and I'm a software developer. I think I stumbled over FDR videos while immersing myself in the libertarian ideology a few months ago. I'm looking to take a break from the forever presence of statist ideology that literally infects my country and look for answers and alternatives to violence, which is immensely popular and normalized by my peers (especially in child-raising). Stephan brings up a fascinating aspect to philosophy, forever changing my previous interpretation of it as a boring, non-practical domain (interpretation inherited from my government schooling period - go figure). I must say I'm a highly skeptical person when it comes to any kind of argument and I think this is what made me to subscribe. While looking up information about Stephan I did encounter some strong (and sometimes valid) criticism about his arguments (for ex: his view of physicists as "lazy & pasty bastards" or some of the RTR concepts) and I'm excited to know what the community's rebuttal is towards some of them. I recognize the intelligence of this community and looking to learn from people smarter than me and, whilst I realize I will not be the most proactive person that joins the forum, I do want to join in conversations and learn as much as I can. Thanks and will be seeing you out there!

Over the past few years, I have formulated my philosophy of life, a 13-page document that may be found at either of the following links:https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Byh6JnTg3RMecHhxV0pYeklqV0U/edit?usp=sharinghttp://www.scribd.com/doc/183418623/My-Philosophy-of-LifeIn the first half of the document, I present and defend the following positions: atheism, afterlife skepticism, free will impossibilism, moral skepticism, existential skepticism and negative hedonism. The second half of the document is devoted to ways to achieve and maintain peace of mind.I have found the entire exercise to be very beneficial personally, and I hope that you will benefit from reading the document.I am posting my philosophy to solicit feedback so that it may be improved. I welcome any constructive criticism that you may have.Enjoy!

curse of thomas 001.MOVHey, I'm new here on the boards.I've been processing a lot of my shit through tons of conversations with close friends and a couple of siblings as well as in song (I've been songwriting for about 10 years) and this is a recent development.Here's the (not-very-high-quality) video I did the other night for this song which is entitled "The Curse of Thomas". It displays a pattern of skepticism, anger, sadness, etc. that's been coming out in my recent songs. I'd say that I've been learning to be kind to myself and I've been trying to listen to my emotions. This is an expression of that.If anybody watches this, let me know what you think.Again, I'm new to the boards and this has long been my way of reaching out, but I don't know exactly where to start on here.-John

Skeptics are naive ? Affirmative scepticism is the opposite of unconscious naiveness. The oriental phrase as large the face as large the back, is a general rule of how an extreme or evident position has a proportional and reversed one that is also part of the personality. In the case of an individual, usually member of a declared organization promoting skepticism we usually see that this person is a blind believer of a main stream belief system, usually called science. We can see, with open minds, that what some pretends being science is the use of a technology out of control by some humans whose brains and knowledge are to big for them to control. Like offering a real gun to a kid and telling him to go out and play. Recent catastrophe are clearly showing the image of the mad scientist unaware of the effects or in a hypnotic trance pushing him to go ahead with his crazy projects even if all is collapsing around. This belief system based on spectacular realizations, most of the time with short term and localized positive effects, giving the impression to those naive individuals their religion is the true one so they build temples called schools and universities to educate other naive persons. The usual answer to the actual and evident failure of their projects is that they will eventually, in a close future, bring great benefits to humanity. We saw and see they, and their financiers, got and get their profits while saying, ad nauseam, that it will bring something to others in a near future. Like a donkey running after a carrot on a stick, the future is never attained and the donkey keeps on running. We have there all the ingredients of religions, paradise that will come if you obediently follow the recipe of life the so called science promotes. You work like a slave for years in an insane middle in an unhealthy job with the promise of a golden retreat with a huge pension. The mythic Eldorado, their religious magazines and films shows as some sort of Venus project where robots will take care of everything while you’ll enjoy a life of leisure filled of joys, including sexy young nurses to change your diapers. We see that, here and now, reality is far from being a paradise, cuts in pensions, cost of life raising, chronic illness increasing and so on. It seems obvious the most ardent skeptics are naive fanatics... what do you think ?

Hi All! I have done a lot of exploring, thinking, reading resources on both sides, and testing, and I have been convinced that atheism is true. This is where I got my start. Perhaps this isn't surprising to a community of skeptics (and indeed, things seem so much clearer now), but I was in pretty deep.If you compare religion to drugs, when I hear most former believers' stories compared to mine, it is like I was snorting cocaine and heroin every day in amounts that would give someone who didn't have a tolerance an OD, and gone off that hearing people talk about how they tried marijuana a few times and managed to quit. Yes, both were addictions, and it's a good idea to get off both, but the degree doesn't even compare when you're talking about serious believers compared to nominal Christians. I lead worship frequently, prophecied, spoke in tongues, heard "words from God", prayed for miraculous healing, read the bible and prayed every day. I was completely surrounded by faithful believers. I still am for the most part, though I am changing that bit by bit. I have even felt a few withdrawal syndromes. But I am staying strong. I plan on putting together a huge "coming out" letter as soon as I am up to it. I just wanted to provide you with two resources that were incredibly helpful to me in making my decision. 1. One book I read on the Christian side is "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist". It is probably the best, clearest laid out arguments for a creator God in general and the Christian God in specific, such as they are. There is a genius review, just posted by some guy on the internet that goes through it point by point, and devastates it: http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p98.htm2. Another one, if you have charismatic believers who believe in healing like I did, is this documentary, which explains many of the techniques of such healings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JGUFmY9gIE Those and a good amount of more skeptical reading of the Bible were probably the most helpful things in changing my mind.Both of these are I think more effective in that they approach the topic respectfully and with what Christians can see as an "open mind". People listen much better if they feel respected and heard. The God Delusion is a great book, but good luck getting a Christian to read that objectively, unless they've already got their foot in the door like me. This may not work for everyone, but I thought I would share what worked for me in case it helps anyone else out there. Thanks for reading, Stefan (not that one) P.S. I am still looking into secular morality, and I find it to be fascinating. Any recommendations for good works there (aside from UPB)?

Can humans learn one of the important lessons from Hiroshima and Nagasaki? http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/opinion/fear-vs-radiation-the-mismatch.html

Here's an interesting article on the not-so-perfect, current state of scientific research. http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble This links to a brief video touching on the same issues. http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/10/science-wrong