I have been watching this situation pretty carefully. The killer, James Holmes, does not have much of an online presence so it is difficult to learn much about him. A few details have surfaced however and they make his religious affiliation uncertain. His parents are Christian and he at one point went to church fairly […]
Filed under: Atheism NOT Religion | 1 Comment »
Friday was “Hug An Atheist Day.” It was the 4th year for this event. But this year there is a problem. Apparently the reaction to the event this year has been more mixed and instead of atheists having fun and reaching out to religious believers who far too often demonize us, there are atheists who […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Feminism | 4 Comments »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Yesterday, I talked about one of Aaron Tabor’s favorite arguments. Today, I want to talk about his other favorite argument. Aaron claims that Richard Dawkins believes that aliens seeded the Earth with life and since Dawkins is the Pope of atheism, all atheists are wrong and therefore Jesus. Aaron has presented this type of argument […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, Authority, Creationism, god of the gaps, Religious Manipulation, science | 4 Comments »
I was watching American Atheists president, Dave Silverman on Fox News yesterday and toward the end of the segment, his opponent made the remark that atheists believe in nothing. In fact, yesterday after I posted a comment on an article at Huffington Post, a Christian made the same remark. But yesterday wasn’t the first time […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, ignorance, Nothing, Religion | 1 Comment »
When we talk about atheism, we are talking about a lack of belief in a god or gods. But not all atheists are the same. Duh, right. Not all Christians are the same, so why would anyone expect all atheists to be the same. All the term “atheism” tells you about someone is that they […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Certainty, culture war | No Comments »
You know religious believers are living in a delusional world when they actively try to convince atheists that atheism is a religion, but that Christianity isn’t. As ridiculous as such a belief sounds, we hear such nonsense from religious believers all the time, but rarely at the same time. First, there is the claim that […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Belief, delusion, god the father, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 6 Comments »
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 »
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about words that particular minorities find offensive and asked what label atheists might consider offensive. Over the weekend, I discovered the answer. I guess it has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, but I just didn’t think of it at the time I […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Authority, Creationism, culture war, evolution, language, Offensiveness | 2 Comments »
One thing I hate is when Christians attempt to redefine my position and then argue against their newly created position as if that is actually the position that I hold. In philosophy this is called a “strawman” argument. So I thought it might be fun to do the same thing to Christians. Yeah, this is […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war | No Comments »
The other day I was discussing religion with a Christian and he commented that in order for me to be an atheist, I have to prove that life can come from chemicals. This is an attempt to switch the burden of proof while invoking the God of the Gaps argument. For starters, atheists don’t have […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, god of the gaps, Religious Manipulation | 7 Comments »
Over the weekend, I was in my car and turned on the radio. I started listening to a re-broadcast of the Tom Hartmann program from earlier in the week. Apparently atheists have been calling in and rightfully giving him a hard time over his interview with Rick Wingrove. Hartmann continued to assert that atheism is […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, ignorance, Religion | 5 Comments »
Once again a particular Christian has tried to equate organized atheism with religion in an attempt to dirty atheism by lowering it to the level of religion. We must be doing something right when religion practically admits to being dirty. In this case it is liberal radio host, Thom Hartmann. I don’t think Rick Wingrove […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, ignorance, Progressive Christians, Religion | 2 Comments »
Continuing from yesterday’s analysis of my debate on the Bob Enyart radio show (first half-hour now on yesterday’s blog), I wanted to point out a particular trick that Bob used in our debate. Perhaps it is because he believes in authoritative doctrine, that he assumes that science is authoritative too. So his style of attack […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, Authority, Creationism, culture war, debate, evolution, science | 3 Comments »
Over the weekend, everyone was asking for prayers for those injured and killed in the Arizona shootings. As a person of reason, I cannot give any prayers because I don’t believe there is anyone to answer them. But I do wish to share my thoughts and hopes. As a progressive Democrat, I don’t always agree […]
Filed under: Atheism NOT Religion, Current Events, healthcare, humanism, New World Order, palin, Politics, responsibility | No Comments »
For too long, Christians have claimed the monopoly on the winter season. While they have allowed Jews into the club despite the fact that Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday. A few years ago many in the atheist community made our claim for inclusion in the winter season with the holiday of Human Light and […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Christmas, church/state, culture war, Current Events, free speech, humanism, Neighbor, People of Reason, Personal, Tree of Knowledge | 4 Comments »
Over the weekend at my 9/11 Birthday Barbecue, a Christian friend claimed that I never have anything positive to say about religion. I told him that there are actually a few things that I do admire about Christianity and I think atheists can learn a few things from Christianity… without of course believing in ridiculous […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, humanism, People of Reason | 2 Comments »
It used to be that only fundamentalists would tell me that science was a religion, but these days even some moderate religious people are using this type of poor reasoning. Their view is that science claims to have the only method for understanding the world. In other words, science claims to have a monopoly on […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, Religion, science, truth | 3 Comments »
In a recent discussion with a fundamentalist, the question was asked to me as to whether or not I wished that God existed or whether atheism was my desire. I thought this was an interesting question for a few reasons. To start off with, the obvious fact that ones desire for something to be true […]
Filed under: Atheism NOT Religion, blood sacrifice, conversation, delusion, image of god, Ontological Argument, Religion | No Comments »
Atheism is on the rise in America and the world and as such we have become a bigger target for religionists. Many religious people attempt to make it seem like being a vocal atheist is something new and militant but the fact is that there is nothing new, mean, or hateful about criticizing ridiculous ideas. […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, censorship, culture war, Decline of Religion, People of Reason, Religion | 5 Comments »
A University of Texas San Antonio student group called The Atheist Agenda has created a program on their campus called “Smut for Smut.” The atheist group is giving away pornography in exchange for Bibles. This apparently has caused quite a stir both among Christians and surprisingly among other atheists. I get why Christians are up […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, billboards, culture war, discussion, free speech | 22 Comments »
Recently, a Christian commented to me that the fundamentalist worldview makes more sense than the atheist worldview. The idea is that either people see the world with a fundamentalist worldview or they see it with the alternative atheist worldview. The interesting thing about this is that there is no atheist worldview. I think this stems […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, Religion, science | 4 Comments »
Since the only thing that all atheists must have in common due to their atheism is a lack of belief in deities, it is only natural that atheists will argue with other atheists over other issues. That makes sense and I don’t have any problems with that. However, there are too few atheists and far […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, culture war, People of Reason | 5 Comments »
Last week, I got a nasty e-mail from a fellow atheist about one of my blogs. This atheist didn’t agree with my approach to religion and thinks that we ought not to offend the religious in any way. He claimed that my view of atheism reflects negatively on all atheists. I wonder, does that mean […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Religion | 7 Comments »
Yesterday, the Friendly Atheist posted a story about a new bus campaign going up soon in Washington State. Here is what the ad will look like: Hemant thinks that this is an “inaccurate” ad and that religious people will use it “against us.” I take issue with this. First, it is not inaccurate. As a […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, billboards, culture war, People of Reason, Religion | 7 Comments »
I have strongly advocated in favor of building a positive atheist community. I think a community of reason is very important. For starters, such a community would strongly help in lobbying politicians to vote against the religious fundamentalists and would help to establish more reasonable public policies. However, many times I meet atheists who tell […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, People of Reason, Religion | 8 Comments »
If someone owed you a hundred dollars and handed you 10 cents insisting that it was a hundred dollars, what would you do? Would it be considered proselytizing to inform them of reality? Would you claim that they are entitled to their belief? What if someone told you that they sincerely believed Elvis was still […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, delusion, Religion | 20 Comments »
