Blog | Cellar Door Skeptics

Feb 2, 2016
1 min

#17: DEBATE “Is There Sufficient Evidence For The Christian God”

Listen Here: http://www.spreaker.com/user/cellardoorskeptics/17-debate-presup This week is a first us here at Cellar Door Skeptics, a formal debate on the topic “Is There Sufficient Evidence For The Christian God?” Chris Hanna will be taking the moderator position in an effort to quell the fire and the flames between his co-host Christopher Tanner and our guest, Aaron Furlong. Aaron will be taking the positive with a strong background in presuppositional Christian apologetics

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Christopher Tanner

Jan 11, 2016
1 min

#13: Not Another New Year

#13: Not Another New Year Ring in the new year with Cellar Door Skeptics. In our 2016 inaugural episode, we tackle fracking, gerrymandering and vote manipulation, and whether we should vote only vote two party in a close election year. We also are joined by our friends in the podcast community, Jen and Keith from Not Another Atheist Podcast as help weigh in on these important topics. They will stick around for the full show to provide their expert and sometimes vulgar yet hon

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Cursed are the Meek, for They Dream of Being Enslaved

Christopher Tanner

Jun 9, 2015
4 min

Cursed are the Meek, for They Dream of Being Enslaved

I’m going to keep this entry short ‘n’ sweet and get you thinking about something. (If you end up coming to the same conclusions I have under your own steam, the insight will be more truly yours than if I simply serve it up fully-cooked.) I want to spill just a little metaphorical ink over the most important verse in the Bible. I’m not talking about John 3:16. I have in mind a different saying attributed to Jesus, one that can be found in that compendium of aphorisms and apot

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Why I Hate the Phrase: “True Christians Don’t Do That!”

Christopher Tanner

Jun 3, 2015
2 min

Why I Hate the Phrase: “True Christians Don’t Do That!”

It never fails. Any time a situation arises where a Christian, or group of Christians, is in the wrong Christians come out of the woodwork to distance themselves. “A True Christian wouldn’t do that!” “As a True Christian, I’m appalled and I wish you wouldn’t call these people Christians.” Listen, folks. There are over 40,000 different denominations of Christianity. Each one values certain verses from the Bible more than others. Some denominations are more progressive and valu

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Christopher Tanner

May 18, 2015
7 min

About that God-Shaped Hole

This piece is a contribution from our good friend David Goza who can also be watched here. Throughout most of my life, I’ve regularly heard one version or another of a shopworn claim made by pulpiteers, Sunday school teachers, Christian bloggers and authors, participants in Christian Facebook groups, and so forth. It goes like this: There’s a “God-shaped hole” inside each of us, and unless we fill it with God we’ll never be happy. Since nature abhors a vacuum, we’ll try to fi

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A response to “Religion and science can we talk?”

Christopher Tanner

Apr 29, 2015
9 min

A response to “Religion and science can we talk?”

We here at Atheist Analysis don’t usually create formal response letters to blogs or news stories unless they are of immense social and humanistic consequence, but recently a link was given to me that lead to a progressive christian blog. This more compromising version of faith is, to me, less harmful and overall a step in the right general direction, while still providing enough material for all of us here on the blog team to continue picking apart the hypocrisy; it’s the c

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Moving the Values of Myth: A Reflection on Easter

Christopher Tanner

Apr 7, 2015
5 min

Moving the Values of Myth: A Reflection on Easter

© David Teachout From moment to moment, our lives can embody any of the multiplicity of purposes that we can identify with. The stories we tell, from socially created myths to benign exaggerations expressed to friends and colleagues, project the particular purpose we want to make front and center. This can be due to a desire to express an idea to another or to make sure we’re on the same track we first set out upon. Whatever that purpose is, the values that come along for the

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“God is just Ego, Misspelled….My Ego has Better Credentials than your Ego.”

Christopher Tanner

Mar 4, 2015
3 min

“God is just Ego, Misspelled….My Ego has Better Credentials than your Ego.”

My Anti-theist Friend, Marchal: “God is just Ego, Misspelled….My Ego has Better Credentials than your Ego.” One of my favorite people to converse with about religion is my good buddy, Marchal. I met Marchal in college, and like me, he was getting a bachelors degree in psychology. We lost touch after Heidelberg, but we recently rekindled our friendship. He contacted me after he read a couple blog posts, he was excited to share with me that he too, is an atheist. Marchal has an

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Sometimes, For All to Live, Something Must Die

Christopher Tanner

Mar 2, 2015
4 min

Sometimes, For All to Live, Something Must Die

Christianity’s most outrageous and ruinous conceptual coup has also been its most brilliant, and has positioned the church for success in perpetuity by poisoning the well of humankind until the end of time. In a single stroke, this odious religion has enslaved a large portion of the human species by implanting the following malignant, two-headed brainworm into a hundred generations of potentially reasonable people: a) Instead of being an integral and necessary part of the way

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Hiding Behind a Mask Of Religious Persecution: Deny a Michigan Gay Couple’s Child Medical Treatment

Christopher Tanner

Feb 19, 2015
5 min

Hiding Behind a Mask Of Religious Persecution: Deny a Michigan Gay Couple’s Child Medical Treatment

By now most of you reading this have probably already heard about the Michigan Doctor who refused to treat a Lesbian couples young child for medical service. Now lets make one thing clear, she This story hits c The story starts with a couple coming in to see a doctor whom they had made an appointment with for their newborn child. When the couple reached the clinic not only was their child’s doctor not in the building, the doctor also had left them a message that she had praye

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Faces in the Crowd: A Darwinian Family Affair

Christopher Tanner

Feb 18, 2015
5 min

Faces in the Crowd: A Darwinian Family Affair

Imagine a small crowd of people – a hundred or so – in a public place. A few minutes earlier they were all in transit to various other destinations, but a momentary spectacle has drawn them together. They do not, for the most part, know each other and in most cases they’ll never see each other again once they go their separate ways. They include representatives of every age group from infancy to dotage; there are people of various ethnic backgrounds, political and religious p

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How do you view the future? (Jehovah’s Witness Leaflet)

Christopher Tanner

Jan 30, 2015
5 min

How do you view the future? (Jehovah’s Witness Leaflet)

Everything from the leaflet will be typed in italics. How do you view the future? Will our world… stay the same? get worse? get better? Well already we don’t have much of a choice do we? My first reaction, if this had been spoken at the door, or I mean to say if they were unlucky enough to have me greet them at my door, would be “why is it any of your concern what my view of the future is?” Regardless of my rudeness, I can see why they point towards the future to get follower

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Christianity is a Religion, Deal with It!

Christopher Tanner

Jan 23, 2015
7 min

Christianity is a Religion, Deal with It!

Recently one of my favorite atheist bloggers Hemant Mehta (The Friendly Atheist) posted a video blog discussing the question “Can you hate religion but love Christ?”. My experiences with people who claim to follow Jesus but not be religious differ slightly from Mr. Mehta’s in an interesting way- while he seems to have encountered people who reject religion and also the label of ‘Christian’, all the non-religious Christians I have known are still happy and proud to refer to th

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On Barricades and the Stifling of Divergent Opinion

Christopher Tanner

Jan 19, 2015
7 min

On Barricades and the Stifling of Divergent Opinion

I’m going to use some ugly words in this essay. It makes me squirm whenever I have to do that, but in this case it’s necessary in order to make my point. During the formative years of my life I spent every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening at the Missionary Baptist Church in which my parents (well, mostly my mother) raised me. I got to know that church’s teachings very well: I was one of those kids who took everything very seriously and listened carefully t

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Christopher Tanner

Dec 31, 2014
3 min

8 Tips to Choosing a New Year’s Resolution Right for You

Well another year has passed. A new year offers time for reflection and the feeling of a fresh start. We enjoy the idea of starting from scratch and improving ourselves in the upcoming year. Many of us have goals we’d like to get started on, but how do you choose a path that’s right for you? I’ve given this some thought and have a few tips I’m hoping will get you off to a good start for a successful year. So while I think you’re fine just the way you are… 8 Tips to Choosing

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This Court is Now in Session: Christianity Does Daytime Court TV

Christopher Tanner

Nov 18, 2014
3 min

This Court is Now in Session: Christianity Does Daytime Court TV

Case Number 6.6-6: Christianity vs. Objective Reasoning Plaintiff – Christianity Defendant – Objective Reasoning Presiding Judge – Judge Sye Entific Methud This is a non-jury trial Plaintiff is required to prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The defendant will defend against this supernatural claim. Judge: Plaintiff, you may proceed. Christianity: Your honor, we claim that the biblical Jesus was crucified, died, and then rose from the dead 3 days later as stated in the bi

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Christopher Tanner

Nov 13, 2014
8 min

What the *&%^!@ is a Christian Atheist

The label ‘Christian Atheist’ is not popular among either of the parties the term forces together. Many people reject the very existence of Christian atheism due to an (understandable) inability to look past the stand-alone definitions of both of these words and find cogency in using them together. But there is logic and also usefulness to be found. The first and most simple definition for the term sees it used simply as an identifier of someone’s religious background. It’s a

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On Being an Atheistic Christian: Fighting the Internal Paradox

Christopher Tanner

Sep 12, 2014
5 min

On Being an Atheistic Christian: Fighting the Internal Paradox

I began entertaining doubts – flirting with atheism – when I was 18 years old, a freshman near the end of my second semester at Arkansas State University. It was then that I finally (reluctantly, tentatively) admitted to myself that everything I had been taught at First Landmark Missionary Baptist Church – and reinforced at home – might well be a pack of fantasies and fabrications. It was anything but a heady, exhilarating breakthrough into freedom: it felt like the keenest o

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Science ‘Proves’ Jack the Ripper, Next God?

Christopher Tanner

Sep 8, 2014
4 min

Science ‘Proves’ Jack the Ripper, Next God?

I know this is a stretch, but please follow me down the rabbit hole. As we know, it would have been absurd to believe that humans had evolved or had any connection on a molecular level to many species around us one hundred years before Darwins day; that is exactly why no one believed it (mostly). Before Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was discovered by Watson & Crick, it would have been almost impossible to truly know who had committed a serious crime without catching the perpetr

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Hunting with The Godless Aspie: Rob Beasley and His Two Wolves

Christopher Tanner

Aug 25, 2014
3 min

Hunting with The Godless Aspie: Rob Beasley and His Two Wolves

Rob Beasley, author of “WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED GO(O)D?” and a regular on the Atheist Analysis, pointed me towards the “Two Wolves” story that he likes to use to support his arguments. After claiming I have not done much research into the life of Jesus, I conducted an investigation into his favorite “Native American” parable. From a comment made after watching a video on Atheist Republic called “What has God done for mankind?”, Rob Beasley had this as part of his reply: <qu

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