While there are many really important people and great voices within the greater atheistic community, there are two people in particular that I consider my atheist heroes (currently living). Over the weekend, I got to hang out with one of them. The so called “Four Horsemen of Atheism” are all great people and worthy of […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Last night I attended the monthly meeting of the Freethought Society. This month’s guest speaker was former American Atheist President Ellen Johnson. Johnson was promoting her new organization called “Enlighten the Vote” and she said a lot of very interesting things. First, I want to point out that while I think what Ellen Johnson said […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, humanism, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 1 Comment »
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 »
We all know that nine years ago Islamic terrorists flew planes into buildings and changed the world forever. What most people don’t know is that 36 years ago on that very same day a dangerous talker was born. I often joke about how former President Bush decided to turn my birthday into a national holiday. […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, People of Reason, Personal | 4 Comments »
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from someone who works at a state agency in the Bible Belt. The head of the agency often uses working lunches and meetings to conduct a short prayer session. According to the e-mail, this happens often and most people just go along with it rather than risk their jobs. Most […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Of course atheists are charitable. That is a pretty silly question. We can point to the fact that atheist billionaires have donated half their fortunes to charity and have encouraged other billionaires to do the same. The fact is that most atheists don’t donate in the name of atheism. We just donate to organizations on […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, People of Reason | No Comments »
I have been a vocal atheist for almost twenty years now and have been an active member of the greater atheistic community for about half that time. Over the years, I have discussed and argued with people from many different religions and many different sects of the varying religions. A few years back, I even […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, discussion, humanism, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
It’s official; I am now the coordinator of the Philadelphia Coalition of Reason. Basically, this means that it is my job to help the seven atheistic organizations in the Philadelphia area to work together to promote reason and humanistic values. The problem with coordinating atheists is that we are frequently described as herded cats. We […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, People of Reason | 7 Comments »
It has been a busy weekend and I will take a few days to talk about everything. Today, I want to talk about the Lehigh Valley Humanist picnic featuring Sam Singleton atheist evangelist… sort of. I think it is really important for people or reason to have summer picnics. It gives us a chance to […]
Filed under: atheism, humanism, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Social media is a big thing these days. Facebook and Twitter have become missive hubs of global communication. Not surprisingly, atheists tend to have a larger than proportional presence on these mediums. Atheists dominate the internet. Now there is a new social network that atheists need to take over. I recently joined a website called […]
Filed under: atheism, facebook, People of Reason, twitter | 1 Comment »
I am pretty well established vocal atheist. On the scale of atheism, I am often lumped in with Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris as a “New Atheist” or “militant atheist.” I prefer to see myself more as a “bad cop” of atheism. So imagine my surprise when I found out that on at least one issue […]
Filed under: atheism, Current Events, de-conversion, People of Reason | 4 Comments »
Last weekend was the Philadelphia Coalition of Reason’s annual Unity Picnic. This year however, when I was putting together the Examiner article to promote the event I learned a few things. I learned that the local Humanist group was pretty much doing all the work and that the rest of the coalition was really doing […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, People of Reason, Personal | 5 Comments »
Yesterday, I received an interesting e-mail from an atheist in Pakistan. He is in a day to day struggle to keep his mouth shut out of a very real and legitimate fear that should a hint of his disbelief get out, he will probably be killed. Such a serious situation prompted me to turn to […]
Filed under: culture war, free speech, humanism, islam, People of Reason | 1 Comment »
I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July weekend. I celebrated my independence from gods by taking the family on vacation to Carl Sagan’s old stomping groups in Ithaca New York. There we took the Sagan Planet Walk and Paced the Space. We walked from the Sun marker to the marker of the Earth […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, Disproving God, education, god, humanism, People of Reason, science | 3 Comments »
I have often talked about how we choose what offends us and how we could just as easily choose not to be offended. However, some things have a reasonable expectation of being offensive. The Crucifix should have a reasonable expectation of being offensive and it offends me. When I say that something has a reasonable […]
Filed under: culture war, morality, Offensiveness, People of Reason, Religion | 1 Comment »
I am a pretty outspoken atheist and I criticize religion often and in some cases extremely harshly. I generally argue against particular religious ideas and lines of “reasoning” rather than arguing behavior (although I do argue against some behavior of particular religious people or groups of people from time to time). Often when I present […]
Filed under: church/state, conversation, culture war, People of Reason, Personal, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
One of the big advantages that religion has over the greater atheist/Humanist community is money. Christians are used to supporting and funding the propagation of their message. Many Christians even donate “their last dollar” to further “God’s Work.” In this world, money talks and so we need to start tithing for reason. In the free […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, Decline of Religion, humanism, People of Reason, Preaching | 3 Comments »
One of the issues that I have with the Christian system of belief is that it is very pessimistic. The attitude that it encourages is an attitude of distrust and fear. While none of this speaks to the truth value of the claims, I really don’t think it is a useful system either. At the […]
Filed under: humanism, People of Reason, Preaching, Projection, Religion, sin | 1 Comment »
Last night, Obama made his pick for the replacement of Supreme Court Justice Paul Stevens. His pick is Elena Kagan, the current Solicitor General. Is it a good pick? Should we as atheists be supporting her? Earlier today I wrote an article of the Examiner page talking about Elena Kagan’s record on church/state issues. It […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Current Events, Law, Obama, People of Reason, Politics, Religion | 18 Comments »
Today is the day that the followers of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy decided to designate as the National Day of Prayer. Recently of course this federal endorsement of religion has been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. But no one appears to have told the federal government or the religious right about this. […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, faith, Law, Obama, People of Reason, Political Activism, prayer, Religion | 2 Comments »
During the 2008 primary, I strongly opposed Barack Obama as the candidate. I didn’t buy into his message of Change and Hope. While I voted for him in the general election, I still think that he was full of shit. As a point of fact, he hasn’t changed the healthcare system or any other policy […]
Filed under: atheism, Current Events, education, Hope, Obama, People of Reason, Politics, science, The Future | 17 Comments »
Due to the recent string of scandals plaguing the Catholic Church, Vatican Biblical scholars have been studying the Bible carefully to find out God’s opinion on rape. They can’t seem to find any passage which states or infers that child rape is a sin. Earlier this morning, the Pope met in a closed door session […]
Filed under: atheism, morality, People of Reason, Religion, science, sin | 9 Comments »
Project Reason has officially launched their video contest. The goal of the contest is to have people make videos which help to spread scientific thinking and secular values. Nine videos have been nominated, but only one is really any good. When you go to the voting page, all the videos are randomized and every time […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, Current Events, People of Reason, science | 2 Comments »
Society has been so dominated by Judeo-Christian beliefs that even people who don’t believe in a god are still brainwashed into using God language. How many times have you said, “God bless you” after someone sneezes? “God Bless you” is just one example and many non-religious people have started to use other phrases instead of […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, language, People of Reason, Religious Manipulation | 14 Comments »
We live in a religion dominated world. Over the last few years atheists have been more public with our lack of belief in imaginary deities. The OutCampaign has helped that a lot, but how “out” are you? How “out” should we be? When I go out to a store or a mall, it is not […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, People of Reason | 13 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 »
Despite President Obama’s rhetoric about transparency in government, the White House has made the delegates from the Secular Coalition of America (SCA) take an oath of secrecy. I have talked about this more in my Examiner article which I hope everyone will check out. But I want to say a bit more about this issue. […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, Current Events, Obama, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 12 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 »
Today is the President’s first official State of the Union Address. But what is the state of our union with respect to atheism? According to the ARIS Poll done at the end of 2008 non-belief has been up not just all across the nation but in every single state. Obama has reversed Bush’s policy on […]
Filed under: atheism, People of Reason | 21 Comments »
Many well reasoned atheists disagree on issues of taxation, foreign policy, states rights, etc. So I can understand why not all atheists are politically active and that all the atheists that are politically active may not all be Democrats. But what I can’t understand is how any well reasoned atheist could possibly be a Republican. […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, evolution, free speech, Gay Issues, global climate change, palin, People of Reason, Politics, Religion, science | 22 Comments »
