Posted on May 31st, 2012 by Staks
Today’s blog post follows from yesterday’s blog post. In the comments section of the Think Christian article, one Christian is ready to address the Christian problem with gays. He explains that he isn’t hateful toward gays at all and that Christians just need to communicate better. That’s all this is, a communication problem. Well, in […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, Gay Issues, Progressive Christians, the bible | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 30th, 2012 by Staks
Nathan Albert over at “Think Christian” wrote an interesting article in which he advocates for liberal and progressive Christians to apologize to gay people on behalf of the wacko fundies. Nathan’s heart is in the right place, but he just isn’t thinking clearly about this issue. I guess he is thinking too much like a […]
Filed under: Coexist, Evils of Christianity, Gay Issues, Progressive Christians, the bible | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 29th, 2012 by Staks
I don’t go to atheist conventions or conferences and I have three reasons for that. Two are practical and one is much less so. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad these conferences exist and I don’t want to discourage anyone from going to them. But I won’t be attending. One reason why I don’t […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Coexist, Offensiveness, People of Reason | 17 Comments »
Posted on May 23rd, 2012 by Staks
I was having a conversation with my wife the other day about how atheists tend to be less outspoken about our views than religious believers… even very outspoken atheists like me. We both agreed that atheists usually have an internal governor which helps us to determine when it is appropriate to talk about our lack […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, culture war, morality, Preaching | No Comments »
Posted on May 8th, 2012 by Staks
In my experience, there really are two goals that people argue for when they argue about issues and depending on which one of these goals or reasons people use will shape the argument dramatically. Sometimes an argument is just not worth having or is not worth having with the person one is having it with. […]
Filed under: argument, Coexist, conversation, Criticism, discussion, Projection | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 20th, 2012 by Staks
We almost made it, but nope. Less than a week before the Reason Rally, drama has now ensued. It seems that atheists are better at sabotaging ourselves than even the Democrats… and that is really hard to do. So instead of dealing with our common problem (i.e. the theocrats) some people in our community have […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Coexist, People of Reason | 4 Comments »
Posted on March 19th, 2012 by Staks
As we all know, the Reason Rally is next weekend and it seems that some people are upset because the purity of the atheist race will be tainted with some video speeches by people who are unreasonable about something in their lives. We all know that every speech must not only be 100% pure, but […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Coexist, People of Reason | 8 Comments »
Posted on March 14th, 2012 by Staks
The Westboro Baptist Church is coming to the Reason Rally. Don’t worry; they were invited… sort of. The National Atheist Party sent them a tongue-and-cheek invitation and the WBC tweeted that they will accept that invitation. I like this idea. First, it should be pointed out that the WBC go where the attention is. So […]
Filed under: Coexist, culture war, Current Events, Media, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 6th, 2012 by Staks
I recently visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art and while there, I saw my favorite sculpture, “The Thinker.” After looking at it for a few minutes, I noticed some of the other works around it. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words: What does this photo speak to you? Related articles Thinkering: […]
Filed under: Coexist, culture war, Personal | No Comments »
Posted on March 5th, 2012 by Staks
The audience of Dangerous Talk is almost always my fellow atheists with the occasional Christian or other fundamentalist believer. My Examiner articles get a more diverse mix of people. Religious believers often read and comment on my articles there. But I want to reach out to more religious believers than I get through Examiner. For […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, Coexist, conversation, culture war, humanism, journalism, People of Reason, Personal, Progressive Christians | No Comments »
Posted on February 14th, 2012 by Staks
It being Valentine’s Day and all, I thought I would take the opportunity to do a quick walk through on how far we as a society have gone when it comes to linking love and marriage. Today, we take it for granted that the reason you marry is because you love someone, but that wasn’t […]
Filed under: Coexist, Love, Religion, Valentines Day | No Comments »
Posted on February 7th, 2012 by Staks
Over the last few years, atheists have been putting up billboards, bus ads, and even aerial banners. Most of these have been pretty tame by any standard and if you compare them to the billboards of the religious, they are extremely tame. Yet, despite this obvious fact, we get criticism for “pushing our beliefs…” or […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, billboards, Coexist, culture war, free speech, Media, Preaching, Religion | 6 Comments »
Posted on January 3rd, 2012 by Staks
I’ve taken this post down because it was poorly thought out and I agree with some of the criticisms made about it. It doesn’t help the community and I have never been a fan of the drama. Having caused it was not my intent and I apologize. I think the whole award thing was probably […]
Filed under: atheism, Coexist, Feminism | 28 Comments »
Posted on October 26th, 2011 by Staks
I was reading a friend’s blog yesterday and one of the things she experiences seemed similar to what I recently experienced in relation to my friend’s funeral. We were both bullied into silence and forced to hide our lack of belief in the ridiculous. As it turns out, most people in the greater community of […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Authority, Car Bomb Argument, Coexist, culture war, discrimination, Evils of Christianity, morality, Offensiveness, People of Reason, Personal, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Posted on October 24th, 2011 by Staks
A friend of mine died recently. When I first met him, he was a Christian. However, he also had a strong analytic mind and so it didn’t take long for him to research the questions I posed to him. As a result, he de-converted. He told me once or twice about his really religious family. […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, culture war, death, Evils of Christianity, God-Shaped Hole, humanism, Religious Manipulation | 6 Comments »
Posted on October 7th, 2011 by Staks
Sometimes I get into conversations with New Age religious believers. Interestingly enough, they often start the conversation with three interesting words. Christians sometimes use these same three words in conversations too, but they usually don’t start the conversation with them. Those three words are, “In my reality…” The problem is that I think these people […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Belief, Coexist, New Age, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 20th, 2011 by Staks
It was just a few weeks ago that a Christian commented to me that, “The internet has actually worsened god’s world because science is spread quicker than the truth.” And now Christian apologist Josh McDowell has pretty much come out and said the same thing… to an audience of Christians no less. I love these […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, conversation, culture war, Decline of Religion, education, People of Reason, Skepticism | 2 Comments »
Posted on July 8th, 2011 by Staks
I know, we are all sick of this topic but it seems that the elevatorgate situation is a symptom of a larger issue. As a point of fact, there are more men in atheist groups, meetups, conferences, etc. then there are women. So how can we as a community get more women engaged in the […]
Filed under: atheism, Coexist, humanism, People of Reason, Self-Help | 4 Comments »
Posted on June 21st, 2011 by Staks
Yesterday, I attended my third gay marriage. While it wasn’t legal, no police came in to break up the festivities either. But since the couple have a baby daughter, it would be nice if they had the legal protection that straight couples have for our children. Currently, gay marriage isn’t legal in the state of […]
Filed under: Coexist, culture war, Gay Issues, Law, morality, Political Activism, Politics | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 15th, 2011 by Staks
A few days ago, seven Republican candidates debated in New Hampshire (You know, the state where the first shots of the Revolution were fired and Paul Revere had his famous ride to warn the British). While I was only able to catch the middle of the debate, I saw a few clips and read a […]
Filed under: church/state, Coexist, culture war, Politics | No Comments »
Posted on May 6th, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on March 31st, 2011 by Staks
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 »
Posted on February 22nd, 2011 by Staks
Sometimes Christians really do amaze me with their ridiculous claims. But it is when they may ridiculous claims about other Christians that I have to laugh the most. There is an old expression, “Is the Pope Catholic?” The expression is meant to show that the answer to a question is obviously yes. But if you […]
Filed under: Catholics, Coexist, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 21st, 2011 by Staks
Over the weekend, I had a little problem with a particular Christian. A few weeks ago, a Christian e-mailed me asking for a collaborative project where we each ask each other 5 questions on our Examiner pages and then we each answer them. The way it was pitched to me, we would refrain from personal […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Coexist, conversation, debate, Personal, Religion | 4 Comments »
Posted on January 17th, 2011 by Staks
Today is the day we celebrate the birth and life of Martin Luther King Jr. To start off, I am a fan, I think Dr. King’s “I had a dream” speech was a great. Aside from the spattering of references to God, which one would expect to find in any political speech, this speech expresses […]
Filed under: church/state, Coexist, culture war, humanism, Martin Luther King Jr., People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Posted on September 8th, 2010 by Staks
One thing that I love to point out to proponents of the “One True Religion,” (whichever religion that might be) is that no one has yet disproven past religions. The fact is that even though no sane person still believes in the God Zeus, no one has actually disproven Zeus’s existence. Why is it that […]
Filed under: Coexist, conversation, Decline of Religion, Religion, Zeus | 9 Comments »
Posted on April 30th, 2010 by Staks
You may have seen them on cars or t-shirts, the coexist message has become fairly popular with liberal Christians and other liberal religious people. On the surface, it sounds like a pretty cool movement, but I do have a few issues with it. Have you seen this Bumper Sticker: Each letter represents a different religion […]
Filed under: atheism, billboards, Coexist, conversation, culture war, Decline of Religion, free speech, Progressive Christians, Religion | 12 Comments »
