Within the gay community there is a taboo around outing other gays although some gay rights activists do it anyway. While there is certainly some gray areas about this especially if the person being outed is anti-gay. My question for the day is whether or not there should be such a taboo in the atheist […]
Filed under: Argument by Popularity, atheism, culture war, People of Reason | 17 Comments »
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 »
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 »
It seems that the drama around Skepchick Rebecca Watson’s elevator encounter has escalated and people are starting to leave the greater community of reason over this. If you don’t know what I am talking about, Rebecca summarizes it HERE. On the plus side, this drama is getting a lot of attention and since all publicity […]
Filed under: atheism, People of Reason, Personal | 22 Comments »
A lot was going on this past weekend. Americans celebrated our independence from England, American Atheists flew banners over half the nation, and atheists celebrated our independence from gods. Yet despite all of this, most of the e-mails I got this weekend were asking me my opinion on Rebecca Watson’s 4am elevator encounter. Let me […]
Filed under: atheism, Offensiveness, People of Reason, Personal, Skepticism | 9 Comments »
Sam Singleton, Atheist Evangelist is Coming to DVD… with your help. If you are not familiar with Brother Sam, he is a character played by Roger Scott Jackson. Rosco travels around the country performing a one man comedy show. His main show is called Patriarchs and Penises. I have seen the show twice and it […]
Filed under: atheism, Blasphemy, culture war, free speech, People of Reason, Personal, Preaching | No 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 »
It really bothers me that we can’t come together to form a strong voter block. I keep hearing excuses why we can’t do it and that just seems silly and lazy to me. Atheists are a very diverse group and we are fiercely independent. Yeah, I get that and yes, the only thing we have […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 4 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 »
I was listening to a video yesterday in which a Christian preacher was talking about forgiveness. It always fascinates me when religious believers talk on this subject. This video was no exception. So I thought today I would compare religious forgiveness with my view of secular forgiveness. The context of the video was Reverend Creflo […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, blood sacrifice, forgiveness, Judge God, People of Reason, responsibility | 1 Comment »
So there is a new Pew Research Poll that once again shows that people don’t want to elect atheists to public office. This is nothing new. We already know that we are the most distrusted minority. However, I am still going to call BULLSHIT! Look, there is no doubt that there is discrimination against atheists. […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, discrimination, Election, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 14 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 »
For me, Harold Camping is a gift that keeps on giving. I really don’t think Christians understand this. I read a few articles over the weekend in which Christians talked about how Harold Camping was an extremist and how his belief that the Rapture would occur on May 21st 2011 was ridiculous. I even got […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, End of Days, Mainstream Christians, People of Reason, Projection, The Rapture | 7 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 »
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 »
Religious fundamentalists tend to be a politically conservative which is actually pretty funny considering that political conservatives whine about big government all the time and religious fundamentalist love to use big government to push their religion every chance they get. For the last 60 years, they have used the power of big government to declare […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, church/state, culture war, Current Events, People of Reason, prayer, Religion | 2 Comments »
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 »
For the last few weeks, there have been some pretty big protests going on in the Middle East. Governments have fallen as a result. Twitter and Facebook were key weapons for the rebel groups. I think it is type that some kind of protest starts here in America. I think it is time we demand […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Election, facebook, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics, Progressive Christians, Religion | 9 Comments »
While a lot of atheists run from anything that is even remotely reminiscent of religion, many others still go to church. Usually, if an atheist goes to church it is a Quaker or Unitarian Church. There is nothing wrong with avoiding religious trappings. Many atheists have had extremely bad experiences with churches and other religious […]
Filed under: atheism, Church, culture war, family values, humanism, Neighbor, Parenting, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
I have often said that if there is anything in me that could be considered faith, it would be faith in people. But the fact is that that is really a misuse of the term. Generally speaking, we have trust in people based on past experience which serves as evidence for trusting them further. Faith […]
Filed under: faith, Hope, morality, People of Reason, Religion | 3 Comments »
Something that really annoys me about many religious people is that they are so eager to give credit to their God when humans do all the work. While this is obviously noticeable during football games and other sporting events, it happens in relation to science even more often. For example, science has proven that God […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, People of Reason, Religion, science | 1 Comment »
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 »
I have often written about the psychological reasoning for the born again experience and the path in which many religious people take towards losing their religion. But today I want to talk more about the trends involved in the exodus from religion. There are two pretty interesting trends that I have noticed in regard to […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, People of Reason, Personal, Religion | 3 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 »
Unlike Christians, atheists have no support network. If an atheist is suffering emotional, financial, or even physical distress, they have no one to turn to. Christians on the other hand can go to any church and get help. We need to start building an atheist support network. Earlier this week, the President of the Freethought […]
Filed under: atheism, humanism, People of Reason, Personal | 1 Comment »
Every year for at least three years now, the Freethought Society (of Greater Philadelphia) has put up a Tree of Knowledge outside the Chester County Courthouse in West Chester, PA. The tree is a large evergreen decorated with the laminated book covers of various atheist, scientific, philosophical, and even religious books. Every year there is […]
Filed under: atheism, censorship, church/state, free speech, People of Reason, Tree of Knowledge | 8 Comments »
Yesterday the American Humanist Association launched their big multimedia campaign. I think it is a great time to talk briefly about their campaign and about where the focus of these groups should be going. If you haven’t heard about this campaign please check out my Examiner article on it. For starters, I have been critical […]
Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war, humanism, Media, People of Reason | 1 Comment »
Over the weekend, Jon Stewart held the Rally to Restore Sanity and tomorrow is Election Day so I thought I would talk about this myth that both political parties are equally extreme. Toward the end of the rally, Stewart gave his closing speech in which he talked about how people from both sides of the […]
Filed under: church/state, conversation, culture war, Current Events, Election, End of Days, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 2 Comments »
While the forces of sanity and fear square off in our nation’s capital, the forces of reason are also converging. For those going to the Comedy Central rallies hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, atheists are gathering together at the event. I just posted an Examiner article with all the details. Unfortunately I will […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, humanism, People of Reason, Personal, Political Activism, Politics | 1 Comment »
A lot of people get tripped up on labels and people in the greater atheistic community are no exception. Two of the main labels that tend to confuse a lot of freethinkers are atheism and agnosticism. Of course many religious people have learned to exploit this confusion. I have written quite a bit about the […]
Filed under: Agnostism, atheism, language, People of Reason | 1 Comment »
