Speaking and debates Convention 2011 Dillahunty has said "I am absolutely convinced from my experience and the evidence that I've gathered over the years of doing this that [debates] are incredibly valuable." At the 2014
American Atheists convention in Salt Lake City, he gave a workshop that outlined some key ideas in effective debating: "Take the opponent seriously: 'The audience has to sense that I can perfectly understand their views, and have rejected them.' Use logic: 'I tell them that I can write a better book than the Bible. Simple: I copy it word for word, except the parts about slavery.' And don't forget emotion: 'It is theater. That is my advantage with a Baptist background over someone like Richard Dawkins, although he knows more about science.'" He has also stated that he is willing to say "I don't know" in a debate, a "scary concept" to some of his audience. Alongside fellow activists
Seth Andrews and
Aron Ra, he traveled to Australia in March 2015 as a member of the Unholy Trinity Tour. In April 2015 he was an invited speaker at the
Merseyside Skeptics Society QEDCon in
Manchester, United Kingdom. In 2018, Dillahunty participated in a discussion with Canadian psychology professor
Jordan Peterson in which they encountered areas of disagreement about religion, specifically its relationship with values and culture.
Views on morality One of Dillahunty's recurring themes has been the superiority of
secular morality over
religious morality. His key contentions on the issue are that secular moral systems are inclusive, dynamic, encourage change, and serve the interests of the participants, whereas religious moral systems are merely unjustified pronouncements. He touched on the subject again at a lecture at the 2013 American Atheists Convention in Austin: "They say we're immoral, when we're the only ones who understand that morality is derived from
empathy, fairness, cooperation, and the physical facts about interacting in this universe. They've broken their moral compass and sacrificed their humanity on the altar of religion. They say we're lost and broken and in need of salvation, when we're the ones who are free." Dillahunty holds the view that advocating infinite reward or punishment for finite deeds is "morally inferior".
Advocacy of abortion rights Dillahunty has advocated for
abortion rights. After hearing that
Secular Pro-Life set up a table at the 2012
American Atheists convention, Dillahunty challenged a representative of the organization to a public debate on the issue. The debate took place at the 2012 Texas Freethought Convention, with Dillahunty debating Kristine Kruszelnicki. Dillahunty used
bodily autonomy as his primary argument for abortion rights. In March 2014, Dillahunty debated Clinton Wilcox, who is not a member of Secular Pro-Life, though the debate was advertised on their blog. The aftermath led to a falling out with the organization, and Dillahunty announced in a Facebook post that he would not debate them in public again. He and Beth Presswood later appeared on
Amanda Marcotte's podcast
RH Reality Check to explain the events of the preceding years, and said that "the optics of a
cis male without a womb" debating women's rights is not what he wanted to advocate, and would let others take the lead in public on the issue.
Skepticism in
Manchester Advocacy of the primacy of
skepticism is another of Dillahunty's recurring themes. He said at the American Atheists convention in Austin in 2013 that the closest thing he has to a motto is "to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible," taking his inspiration from
David Hume. In the same lecture, he said that being a skeptic is the most important identifier of who he is. In addition, Dillahunty said that skepticism has something to say about untested religious claims, and that philosophical skepticism will lead to atheism.
Gumball analogy Dillahunty's explanation of the
philosophical burden of proof is often illustrated through the 'gumball' analogy, conceived by then co-host Tracie Harris: if a hypothetical jar is filled with an unknown quantity of gumballs, any positive claim regarding there being an odd, or even, number of gumballs has to be logically regarded as highly suspect in the absence of supporting evidence. Following this, if one does not believe the unsubstantiated claim that "the number of gumballs is even", it does not automatically mean (or even imply) that one 'must' believe that the number is odd. Similarly, unbelief in the unsupported claim "There is a god" does not automatically mean that one 'must' believe that there is no god. This line of reasoning is intended to demonstrate that there is a neutral position. The common retort, "What is your proof that there is no god?" therefore is a strawman fallacy when applied to those who have the neutral position (as well as potentially being a fallacious
shifting of the burden of proof). ==Awards==