I am someone who has hope for the future of humanity. I believe that human knowledge and technology are progressing at an ever increasing rate. Just a little over a hundred years ago, the Wright Brothers flew for the first time. Now we can fly around the globe with relative ease. It was only 43 […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Decline of Religion, The Future | 1 Comment »
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 »
I follow a liberal Christian woman on YouTube named MJ and she recently posted a video about a blog post she wrote that got a lot of attention. I didn’t really know she had a blog, but now I do. The post was her criticism of what has been dubbed, “Mommy Porn” (totally not what […]
Filed under: Blasphemy, culture war, Progressive Christians, sex, sin | 1 Comment »
I love the interwebs. Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and Reddit are great for spreading reason to those who are already atheists. Yeah, that’s right; when you post a cool Hitchens quote on you social media the people who see it and ‘like,’ ‘plus,’ and ‘retweet’ it are probably all (or mostly) atheists. Christians hand out […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war | 24 Comments »
Last night, my friend Dusty Smith made a great point on his Facebook status. But before I get into that, I want to talk about what demographic Romney needs to satisfy in order for him to get the support of his base. The fact is that like McCain, Romney needs to pick someone who is […]
Filed under: culture war, family values, Gay Issues, Political Activism, Politics | 1 Comment »
Not long ago, I published an article on Examiner about how atheist support for the President has dropped significantly. In the article, I point out what a strong voting bloc atheists are and how our vote really can sway the election. This got me thinking about Rick Warren’s Faith and Values Forum in 2008. He […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, Election, Politics | No Comments »
Every few years and now, every few months I see an article being passed around with the breaking news that Chick-Fil-A donated money to an anti-gay group. Then I see the stream of comments from people who are shocked by this. Really? Are these the same people that were shocked by Elton John came out […]
Filed under: culture war, Evils of Christianity, Gay Issues, ignorance | 1 Comment »
I live in Pennsylvania and apparently around there, the right wing “think tank” Freedom Works has put up signs all over the place saying, “School Choice is the Right Choice.” Every time I see these signs, my blood boils. The problem with these signs is that it frames the issue as a choice issue rather […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, education, Politics | 1 Comment »
Yesterday was Independence Day and I have some mixed feelings about that. For most of my life, this was my second favorite holiday. But as I have gotten older, I have gained a little more perspective and perhaps become a little bit more jaded. Independence Day just seems like a way to beat our chests […]
Filed under: culture war, Government, Nationalism, Politics | 1 Comment »
Yesterday, Jessica over at the FriendlyAtheist wrote about how there is a crazy website promoting a write-in campaign for Jesus. I thought it would be fun to talk about all the reasons why Jesus can’t be President. For starters, it is unlikely that Jesus was even a real person. Despite even Bart Ehrman’s claim that […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Jesus, Politics, wwjd | 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 »
There have been a bunch of zombie stories in the news lately as a result of bath salts. I really haven’t been following it much so I don’t know all the details. But what I do know is that it gave me an idea. A few weeks ago, I wrote an examiner article about a […]
Filed under: culture war, End of Days, End of the World, Religion, satan, The Rapture | 1 Comment »
Atheists have a problem that we need to address. We need to communicate our ideas better. Religious believers don’t tend to have that problem. You ask them a question and the answer is either a Bible verse or God did it. If you ask why God did something that answer is that God works in […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, culture war | 1 Comment »
This week, the Secular Coalition for America is starting their 50 state push to create local branches. Today, Pennsylvania is up and I will try to get in on that call. This is a pretty ambitious plan on the part of the SCA and there are a lot of atheists who don’t think it will […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Current Events | 1 Comment »
One of the most prominent themes in Christianity is that everyone is an evil sinner. One Christian I talked to recently put it this way, “We are all wicked, evil doers. ‘There is no one who does good, not even one,’ Romans 3:12.” Through the lens of Christianity, the glass is completely empty. Through the […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Evils of Christianity, morality, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
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 »
Religious believers often try to defend the ridiculousness of God’s commands in the Bible by asking me, “Who are you to question God?” Who am I indeed? I think the question I would like them to answer is, “If we don’t question God, who will?” Now of course God is fictional and so it really […]
Filed under: Authority, culture war, god, Judge God, Religion, responsibility, wwjd | 3 Comments »
We atheists think of celebrities, the names that come to mind are people like Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and other prominent scientists. To us, science is cool and scientists are awesome! Unfortunately, the mainstream doesn’t share our view and that is very unfortunate. That being the case, I want to […]
Filed under: culture war, science | No Comments »
I am willing to admit that I was wrong. People told me that President Obama was just waiting until his second term before he openly supports same-gender marriage and I laughed. I didn’t think he would support it until after he was out of office when there wasn’t anything he could actually do about it. […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Gay Issues, Obama, Political Activism, Politics | 3 Comments »
The Secular Coalition for America hired a new Executive Director who is a Republican. That means that she voted for Republicans and she worked for Republicans. Yet for some reason people are shocked that she gave money to Rick Perry and worked for Trent Lott. Atheism is not a religion and yet even the religious […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, church/state, culture war, People of Reason | No Comments »
There are two ways I can go with this blog. First, religious believers often tell me that they know that nothing they say will convert me to their religion of choice and that they know that I have already made up my mind. Second, it bothers me when people take something I said years ago […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Certainty, conversation, culture war, forgiveness, People of Reason | 2 Comments »
Whenever I get into a discussion about religion with a progressive Christian the first thing I like to bring up is Hell. It is easy for progressive Christians to speak out against Dick Cheney’s torture program here on Earth, but for some strange reason they are much more hesitant to speak out against God’s eternal […]
Filed under: culture war, hell, Progressive Christians, Religion, torture | 10 Comments »
Sam Harris recently wrote a blog post defending profiling. I, like most other people in the greater community of reason disagree with Harris on this point. There are two main issues that I have with profiling. First is the moral issue. People are more than their profile and it isn’t fair to single people out […]
Filed under: culture war, islam, Profiling | No Comments »
Yesterday Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist took issue with comments made by physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in relation to atheism. In a video by BigThink, Tyson attempts to distance himself from atheism. Here’s the video: While I wouldn’t call myself a “militant atheist” because I don’t own any guns or advocate violence (the way […]
Filed under: Agnostism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, People of Reason | 1 Comment »
On Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill Maher mentioned that despite the fact that Mitt Romney has a large unfavorable rating (even among Republicans) the race for President is pretty close. Maher took the news as vindication of his decision to donate one million dollars to the Obama campaign. But perhaps that […]
Filed under: culture war, Politics | 3 Comments »
Democrats used to talk about the two Americas, one for the rich and one for the poor. This is certainty true, but there is another set of two Americas developing. With relation to the rule of law, there is one set of laws for the religious and another set for everyone else. Religious groups have […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Evils of Christianity, Law | No Comments »
You know someone is full of shit when they use the word, “Truth” instead of laying out the evidence for why something is true. Also, you know they are full of shit when they use the word, “Truth” instead of saying that something is “true.” For example, “God is the Truth.” Religious believers also like […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Reason Rally, Religious Manipulation, truth | 2 Comments »
Hemant Mehta over at the Friendly Atheist is running a contest on twitter and facebook asking people to make atheist versions of Christian phrases. I actually think this is pretty brilliant and even though atheists have done this type of thing on their own in the past, I think it is good to do it […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, conversation, culture war, People of Reason, twitter | 3 Comments »
Over the weekend, I finally got to watch the film “The Hunger Games.” Don’t worry I don’t think I will say anything that would be considered a spoiler. There was one part early in the movie that I thought Christians might claim as proof that the film has Christian themes in it. After watching the […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, blood sacrifice, culture war, The Hunger Games | 2 Comments »
If you ever go into a Christian bookstore or read a Christian newspaper (yes, they do exist), it is generally filled with testimonial stories about how great their God is. But don’t Christians already know how great their God is? If they didn’t, they probably wouldn’t be Christians, right? So what’s the point of these […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
