Many religious believers believe that we not only have an immortal soul, but that this soul is our true self. When we die, we live on as our soul. They often ask in a serious manner, “Where will we be in 1000 years?” Of course the reality is that in 1000 years we will be […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, End of Days, Hope, humanism, Sci-fi, The Future | 3 Comments »
The community of reason has lost a great activist and leader over the weekend. Joe Fox worked and led various Humanist groups in the Philadelphia/Lehigh Valley area. He was a hands-on kind of guy and was one of the hardest workers I knew. The reports I have heard are that he probably died sometime on […]
Filed under: death, humanism, People of Reason, Personal | No Comments »
I recently watched an interesting debate on the question, “Is the world better off without religion.” The debate featured two sides with two people representing each side. The atheist side was represented by A.C. Grayling and Matthew Chapman. Both of these men are very intelligent, but don’t have a whole lot of debating experience. The […]
Filed under: argument, culture war, debate, Dinesh D'Souza, Evils of Christianity, humanism, Religion | No Comments »
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to officiate my first wedding. Two of my friends over at PolySkeptic got married and had asked me to conduct the wedding. While there was serious talk about me officiating wearing Jedi robes, we all thought better of that. Sure it would have been fun and funny, but […]
Filed under: humanism, Love, Personal, Personal Experience | No Comments »
I’m going to the Reason Rally and if you are reading this blog, you should be too. My plan is to drive down with my brother on Saturday and stay pretty late to party with fellow atheists. Celebrate with us. I plan on wearing my signature Dangerous Talk shirt and if I can remember, a […]
Filed under: atheism, humanism, People of Reason | No Comments »
I don’t believe in original sin. As a result, I don’t treat people as if they are evil sinners right from the start. Instead, I am a Humanist and so I treat people as if they are trying to be the hero in their own story. I generally give people the benefit of the doubt […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, anti-intellectualism, atheism, humanism, morality | 2 Comments »
I’m excited about the Reason Rally on March 24th at 10am. I’m so excited that I posted my second HuffPost article on it and really pushed to get it through. I am excited to see all the guests… and not just the speakers either. However, I want more. There are several famous atheists who should […]
Filed under: atheism, humanism, People of Reason | 2 Comments »
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 »
This is a topic I have talked about often, but recently two advocates have come forward in support of two competing visions for the future. These two views represent a stark contrast from each other and we really need to think about this now. The future of humanity is being written right now and we […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, education, humanism, People of Reason, science, The Future | No Comments »
I’m guilty of this too, but atheists show too much restraint and respect for other people’s beliefs even the ridiculous literal beliefs of fundamentalist believers. Over the weekend, I was at a party that a fellow atheist was hosting. Knowing that my friend has some very religious family members, I pulled him over and asked […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, conversation, delusion, discrimination, humanism, People of Reason, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
Many times when I get into a conversation with a fundamentalist believer, they do more than strawman atheism; they tell me what I MUST believe because of my lack of belief in their deity. Well, that is very kind of them to tell me what I MUST think, but they are almost always wrong. Not […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Belief, conversation, humanism, ignorance, logic, prophecies, ten commandments | 8 Comments »
Yesterday, I wrote an Examiner article about how religious institutions are always seeking exemptions from the law. Why can’t atheists play this game too? One person commented on my article asking why we can’t have an atheist exemption from the gay marriage bans in some states. I think this is a great idea. I think […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, church/state, culture war, discrimination, Gay Issues, Government, humanism, morality, Political Activism | 1 Comment »
I rarely ever say anything negative about other atheists. The way I see it is that we are all in this fight together and we each have our own approaches to the problem. With that said, Alain de Botton’s “Atheism 2.0” is stupid. Alain de Botton is basically the British equivalent to Greg Epstein, but […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Church, culture war, humanism, Religion | 2 Comments »
I was talking with a liberal Christian recently and she was talking about how human beings aren’t perfect and how we God loves us anyway. As our conversation continued, I asked why it matters that we aren’t perfect and what that even means. What does “perfect” mean in relation to sentient beings… God included? When […]
Filed under: conversation, Glory to God, god, humanism, Love | No Comments »
Former Star Trek actor, gay activist, and Humanist George Takei has been on fire lately. When a bill was on the table in one of the southern states (I forget which one) that attempted to restrict teachers from using the word, “gay” in the classroom, George Takei stepped up with his, “It’s okay to be […]
Filed under: culture war, facebook, Gay Issues, humanism, People of Reason, Personal, twitter | 1 Comment »
I recently watched Greta Christina’s presentation at Skepticon IV about why atheists are angry. It is well worth the watching. In it, she mentioned that Christians often give atheists advice on how we should run our movement. This particularly caught my attention because I hear this all the time and even heard it shortly before […]
Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war, humanism, People of Reason, Religion | No Comments »
Often times when I get into a discussion about religion with a Christian they will abruptly stop the discussion and ask me a particular question. Sometimes they even ask this question after I have shown the ridiculousness of the story pointing out plot hole after plot hole. “What if it is true?” Sure I can […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Belief, conversation, delusion, hell, humanism, morality, Religion | 1 Comment »
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 »
The public relations arm of the Christianity long ago realized that they can get more converts with honey. So they came up with this idea of going to under developed nations and helping them out. While they are at it, they can push their religion on those who are physically and emotionally not in a […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, Decline of Religion, humanism, missionaries, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Last week Sam Harris gave his tip on how to lose blog readers. What the hell, I’ll give it a shot. He said that the best way to lose blog reader is to advocate for higher taxes on the rich (which actually seems like a pretty reasonable and obvious idea). Today, I want to talk […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Capitalism, communism, culture war, Government, humanism, morality | 3 Comments »
It started with some punk Christian asserting that without God there can be no moral grounding. We have all heard that one before and so I responded with my Atheism 101 article on the subject (which is now out of date, but still useful). Then the Christian responded with this: “As far as your argument […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, debate, discussion, humanism, morality | 7 Comments »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
May is a holy month for us Jedi, every Star Wars film premiered during the month of May with the original film premiering on May 25th (the official Star Wars Day). However, May 4th is also a day of celebration. May 4th is a play on the Star Wars greeting of “May the Force be […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, humanism, Star wars | 1 Comment »
“Atheists have no moral grounding. There morals are grounded in egoism.” While logically these two statements are contradictory, that never seems to bother the ignorant religious believers that make statements to this affect. Why is it that religious believers seem to think that without a moral grounding egoism must be the moral philosophy? Let’s say […]
Filed under: humanism, morality, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
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 »
