A lot was going on this past weekend. Americans celebrated our independence from England, American Atheists flew banners over half the nation, and atheists celebrated our independence from gods. Yet despite all of this, most of the e-mails I got this weekend were asking me my opinion on Rebecca Watson’s 4am elevator encounter. Let me […]
Filed under: atheism, Offensiveness, People of Reason, Personal, Skepticism | 9 Comments »
Atheists often joke about how Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses go door to door pushing their religion. Yes, it is incredibly annoying and no one likes it. But even though it annoys people, it also gets their message out there. People don’t even have to listen to what they say, the fact that they are there […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, Jehovah's Witness | 3 Comments »
My fellow atheist blogger over at Atheist Revolution recently posted a blog entry on why he chose the name he did for his blog. So today I thought I would do the same with mine. Why is my blog called Dangerous Talk? In 1995, my friend Jeff brought me on the air during his disco […]
Filed under: atheism, Media, Personal | No Comments »
I am tired of churches lobbying to pass laws that force schools to teach their religion in science classes. Sure we can fight their efforts again and again, but it is time we go on the offense. It is time we start pushing laws that force churches to teach the science at least once a […]
Filed under: atheism, Church, church/state, culture war, education, evolution, global climate change, science | No Comments »
Sam Singleton, Atheist Evangelist is Coming to DVD… with your help. If you are not familiar with Brother Sam, he is a character played by Roger Scott Jackson. Rosco travels around the country performing a one man comedy show. His main show is called Patriarchs and Penises. I have seen the show twice and it […]
Filed under: atheism, Blasphemy, culture war, free speech, People of Reason, Personal, Preaching | No Comments »
So this weekend, I went to Wizard World. Wizard World is a comic book/sci-fi/fantasy convention. Before I went there, I was thinking about how most atheists are fans of this type of thing. Don’t get me wrong, theists tend to be fans of fantasy too. The difference is that they don’t realize it is fantasy. […]
Filed under: atheism, humanism, People of Reason, Star wars | 2 Comments »
It really bothers me that we can’t come together to form a strong voter block. I keep hearing excuses why we can’t do it and that just seems silly and lazy to me. Atheists are a very diverse group and we are fiercely independent. Yeah, I get that and yes, the only thing we have […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 4 Comments »
While being an atheist is still a minority in America, it is surprisingly a larger group of people then Jews and Mormons. There is of course a big difference however. Jews and Mormons have a belief system in common and a common culture. So they have little to no problem voting for and donating money […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Election, humanism, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 10 Comments »
So there is a new Pew Research Poll that once again shows that people don’t want to elect atheists to public office. This is nothing new. We already know that we are the most distrusted minority. However, I am still going to call BULLSHIT! Look, there is no doubt that there is discrimination against atheists. […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, discrimination, Election, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 14 Comments »
Every once in a while, when I criticize the ridiculous beliefs of religious believers, some atheist comes along to complain that I am not respecting these ridiculous beliefs and I am being intolerant. They blame me for the reason Christians hate atheists. Occasionally, I even get someone who self-righteously proclaims that everyone is entitled to […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, humanism, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
I seem to run into this kind of thing a lot. Atheists can’t seem to put minor differences behind them and concentrate on the spreading reason and fighting against the tyranny of the religious. We have to put our differences aside and work together. I know that the only think atheists really have in common […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, People of Reason | 7 Comments »
When I was an undergraduate in Philosophy, I had a strong interest in Psychology as well. In fact Psychology was one of the fields on my short list for majors. When I started the Dangerous Talk radio show, one of the formats I toyed around with was a call-in advice show; sort of a Dr. […]
Filed under: atheism, Coexist, discussion, Parenting, People of Reason, Personal, Self-Help | 2 Comments »
Religious fundamentalists tend to be a politically conservative which is actually pretty funny considering that political conservatives whine about big government all the time and religious fundamentalist love to use big government to push their religion every chance they get. For the last 60 years, they have used the power of big government to declare […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, church/state, culture war, Current Events, People of Reason, prayer, Religion | 2 Comments »
As the Coordinator for PhillyCoR, I have had this great idea for a new billboard campaign for awhile. Despite my horrible photoshop skills, I created a mockup with a stock photo to show around and see what people thought. My initial plan was for it to be a modification of UnitedCoR’s standard billboard. I showed […]
Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war, Media, Personal | 8 Comments »
Currently 80% of America considers themselves to be Christian. Almost all the politicians are theists and religious believers hold a lot of influence in our society. Worldwide, religious belief is still very strong and the Pope still acts as king over a billion people. Life is short, so we really have to ask ourselves, why […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, Decline of Religion, Religion | 3 Comments »
Many times when I am discussing religion with the religious, I talk about how the Bible does not support critical thinking and instead praises faith over reason. This to me is one of the biggest problems with religion. Every once in a while however a Christian will tell me that the Bible supports reason and […]
Filed under: atheism, Authority, conversation, discussion, logic, Religion | 2 Comments »
Generally speaking, I tend to get quite a few demands from fundamentalist religious believers to engage in some sort of debate. I imagine that some of the more famous atheists get hundreds a day. There simply is no time to debate every fundy wishing to make a name for themselves so obviously atheists need to […]
Filed under: atheism, debate, Religion | 2 Comments »
I keep hearing this thing where atheists pose the question, “what if all the atheists left America,” and then they point out particular atheists who would leave and how that would make the country worse. I guess that might convince someone that atheists aren’t evil baby eaters, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. I have […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, Coexist, culture war, Political Activism | 7 Comments »
Last night, I attended the Freethought Society’s monthly meeting. Our special guest was Jill McDevitt, who is a Sexologist and the owner of a “sex shop.” In other words, her store, Feminique Boutique sells lingerie, vibrators, and has sex positive lectures. I was working in West Chester, PA (where her store is located) when her […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, family values, Religion, sex | 3 Comments »
Although my Twitter profile photo is always the Dangerous Talk “A,” my facebook profile photo is usually me. This week, atheists are asked to change our facebook photos to the uniform scarlet A, this year in grey, for the week. The reason for this is so that people on facebook and see that there are […]
Filed under: atheism, facebook, humanism, Neighbor, People of Reason | 2 Comments »
Once again we come to the conversation about how critical atheists should be when criticizing religion with the religious. It seems that some atheists think I should be more respectful of the religious and realize that they sometimes feel personally attacked when their beliefs are criticized. I realize this, but that doesn’t mean that I […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, Criticism, Offensiveness, Religion | 6 Comments »
I occurred to me that when atheists message our billboard campaigns and other messaging, we always criticize things that religious people consider to be positive. For example, “Religion is a MYTH.” Many of our twitter messaging is the similar. We talk about how God is imaginary, the Bible is fiction, etc. There is nothing wrong […]
Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war, hell, Hope, Media, Religion, twitter | 2 Comments »
What do Christians hope to accomplish when they start an argument with an atheist? Do they think they are going to convince us with no evidence that some ridiculous ancient story is obviously true? They know that we know a lot about religion and we have probably heard all their arguments before they even come […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, debate, discussion, ignorance, Religion | 9 Comments »
For the last few weeks, there have been some pretty big protests going on in the Middle East. Governments have fallen as a result. Twitter and Facebook were key weapons for the rebel groups. I think it is type that some kind of protest starts here in America. I think it is time we demand […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Election, facebook, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics, Progressive Christians, Religion | 9 Comments »
While a lot of atheists run from anything that is even remotely reminiscent of religion, many others still go to church. Usually, if an atheist goes to church it is a Quaker or Unitarian Church. There is nothing wrong with avoiding religious trappings. Many atheists have had extremely bad experiences with churches and other religious […]
Filed under: atheism, Church, culture war, family values, humanism, Neighbor, Parenting, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
There is this philosophy within a small segment of fundamentalist Christianity called the “Quiverfull Movement.” The idea is that people are weapons for God and as such, each Christian within the movement needs to focus on creating more “arrows” for God’s quiver by breeding mass amounts of Christians. By contrast, most atheists I know either […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, family values, Parenting, Religion | 3 Comments »
Christians sometimes argue that everyone “knows” there is a God. I always find this line of argument comical for so many reasons. First, it is sort of childish. I could just as easily declare that the Christian knows there isn’t a God. It is an assertion which needs no justification. The argument can’t go anyway. […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, Lord-Liar-Lunatic, Projection | 3 Comments »
My fellow atheists have often stated that you can’t prove a negative. While atheists shouldn’t have to prove a negative, I do think we can actually prove a negative. Today I am going to do exactly that. Just as Anselm tried to use an Ontological argument to prove there is a god, I will use […]
Filed under: atheism, Disproving God, god, Ontological Argument, Religion | 10 Comments »
Lately the American Atheist billboard campaign has gotten a lot of criticism… from atheists. Rebecca Watson from SkepChick and PZ Myers from Pharyngula have both criticized the ad campaign (among others). So it occurred to me that maybe American Atheists might need some help in coming up with their next billboard. What atheist billboard would […]
Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war | 2 Comments »
Surprisingly, there are many religious believers (some even ardent fundamentalists) who have never actually thought about what they believe and why. Last night, I read an article from one such believer… I think. In any case, I think it is important to reach out to these religious believers and to get them to actually think […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, culture war, discussion, Personal, Religion | 2 Comments »
