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Saturday, July 6, 2024

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Jim Downard

Jim Downard is a Spokane native (with a sojourn in Southern California back in the early 1960s) who was raised in a secular family, so says had no personal faith to lose. He's always been a history and science buff (getting a bachelor's in the former area at what was then Eastern Washington University in the early 1970s).
Beliefs

Ask An Atheist: What is your philosophy of mind?

Us humans do indeed have minds, and they are the result of what our little meat computers do day to day. The current neurobiological and behavioral evidence establishes that much of what we do in our mindful activity involves natural processes that are shared deeply in our non-human evolutionary cousins, most especially among the higher primates
Beliefs

An atheist’s take on the recent John Crossan lecture

I had the pleasure of attending the John Crossan talk at Gonzaga University last week, which I learned about first from one of my young atheist friends at the Eastern Washington University Atheists (who drew on the SpokaneFAVS announcement for information on it, by the way).
Beliefs

Ask An Atheist: How do you approach a valid but unsound argument?

The problem with philosophical arguments in the god department is that they involve historical subjects for which no direct evidence is available and/or involve intrinsically undecidable propositions.
Beliefs

BRIEF: Humanists, skeptics and Ask an Atheist to gather at Tacoma summit

This month humanists and skeptics from around the Pacific Northwest will gather in Tacoma to discuss evolution and climate change, activism, the unconscious mind and much more. Jim Downard, author of Spokane Faith & Values' Ask an Atheist, will be attending the Center For Inquiry Summit and wants to know what information you want him to bring back.
Beliefs

Ask An Atheist: Does it take faith to be an atheist?

I heard several religious visitors to the booth our Inland Northwest Freethought Society and Spokane Secular Society hosted at the recent Spokane Country Fair toss off a similar trope: "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," they would say, and then walk off without engaging any further.
Commentary

Ask An Atheist: Is there an afterlife?

Is there an afterlife?

As someone who is a practical materialist, who does not believe we possess any supernatural spirit apart from the self-awareness generated in our brains, and who furthermore does not believe in any supernatural deities, my answer is a general no.

Commentary

Ask An Atheist: What is the meaning of life?

First, if the question assuming that "ultimate meaning" can only exist in a context of some kind of afterlife (eternal or otherwise), then the deck is stacked, and no answer apart from that would be conceivable. The issue ultimately relates not to the afterlife at all, but to what meaning and purpose people come to think about their own lives and the lives of others.

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