Thanksgiving can be a difficult time of year for many in the greater atheist community who have to sit and interact with our usually more religious family members. In such settings, the topic of religion is almost certainly going to come up. Every atheist is in a different situation on this holiday. Some have pretty […]
Filed under: conversation, People of Reason, Religion, thanksgiving | 4 Comments »
Yesterday I talked about a double standard between religious and non-religious. Today, I have another double standard that goes beyond claims of belief or lack of belief in deities and is more about general disagreements. Nevertheless, since people tend to disagree about religion a lot, this double standard comes up a lot in religious conversations. […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Hasty Generalization, logic, Religion | No Comments »
Why is it that religious people feel the need to insert their religious views into seemingly every conversation? If an atheist inserting his or her lack of belief into seemingly every conversation we are criticized by the religious for “pushing our atheism.” Yesterday, I was out with my 8 mouth old son and a woman […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, miracles, People of Reason, Religion | 8 Comments »
It has become ridiculously obvious to me that every time it becomes apparent that I am not a religious believer one of the very first things that happens is that some believer (usually a Christian) will insult me. When this happened over the weekend, I called the particular person out on the insult and proceeded […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Projection, Religion | 14 Comments »
Theists always ask me why I don’t believe in God. I usually rattle off any number of reasons why I think that the whole idea of God is ridiculous, silly, and illogical. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to convince them since they tend to ask me the same question again at a later time. I guess […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, god, missionaries, Religion | 14 Comments »
Just like all cults, fundamentalist Christianity seems to have its own vocabulary. There are certain terms that seem to have pretty standard meanings, but when used in the fundamentalist Christian context they tend to mean almost the exact opposite. The most overused term I hear is “Truth” with a capital “T.” To most people, something […]
Filed under: 1984, conversation, discussion, Religion | 3 Comments »
I get asked a lot by both Christians and atheists alike, what is the book that I would most recommend to people in order to de-convert them away from god-belief. The answer I always give surprises a lot of people. While some people would expect me to say, Richard Dawkin’s book, The God Delusion, I […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion, the bible | 7 Comments »
We live in a world that is dominated by religious belief. Often times, well meaning people insert their religious belief into casual conversation. This is socially acceptable behavior in our society. When this happens, an atheist is put in an awkward position. We don’t want to send the message that it is acceptable for religious […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Preaching, Religion | 11 Comments »
Many times when I am in a discussion with religious and/or atheistic moderates, they tell me that, “some people need religion.” They also often tell me that, “you can’t reason with a fundamentalist.” These are interesting opinions and many of my readers may even agree with them. I however do not. I think people are […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion | 5 Comments »
Recently I have gotten into conversations with multiple Christians who claim to be liberal and progressive. These are the Christians who mistakenly think that Jesus was this peace and love hippy. These are the Christian who are always telling me that the fundamentalists are not real Christians, but are “misusing” the Bible (despite no solid […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, Religion | 13 Comments »
I was talking with an atheist friend of mine last week and he asked a fantasy question. What I mean by a fantasy question is that the questioner is reasonably certain that the question will never come up in reality. It is like asking who you would pick for your all star football team or […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, discussion, god, god the father, Religion | 24 Comments »
Jonathan Swift famously stated that, “You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.” Many of my fellow freethinkers would agree with Mr. Swift on this. People get into religion for many reasons and yet almost none of which has to do with reason. I […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion | 22 Comments »
Over the weekend, I attended my cousin’s wedding. My cousin describes himself as a, “Hardcore Insane Jew.” He belongs to some sort of Orthodox offshoot. In fact he and I had recently started conversing on the topic of religion and he expressed a strong interest in continually those discussions. While there were many aspects of […]
Filed under: conversation, Orthodox Judaism, Religion | 8 Comments »
There is an old saying that dates back to ancient Tibet, “If you repeat a lie long enough than maybe Richard Gere really does like to stick a gerbils up his ass.” It really does seem that many religious people think this saying is true.
Filed under: atheism, conversation, death, evolution, morality, Religion | 7 Comments »
For some reason, because I am a pretty outspoken atheist, religious people (even not so religious people) seem to go out of their way to start a religious conversation with me. That’s fine, I have no problem with that and always enjoy a good conversation about religion. The problem comes in sometimes when those people, […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Preaching, Religion | 14 Comments »
