Posted on January 6th, 2010 by Staks
Yesterday, two of my favorite authors verbally attacked each other on the interweb pages of foreignpolicy.com. Sam Harris and Karen Armstrong have both written outstanding books. As an atheist, I frequently recommend Armstrong’s The History of God and The Bible: A Biography to Christians. I also recommend Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation. Armstrong asserts […]
Filed under: atheism, education, People of Reason, Religion, Vague Higher Power | 5 Comments »
Posted on January 5th, 2010 by Staks
Apparently, this weekend there will be a meeting of atheist leaders. I didn’t even know there were atheist leaders, but I digress. I’m sure my invitation must have been lost in the mail. In any case, one of the topics on the agenda is whether or not to have one huge massive atheist unity convention […]
Filed under: atheism, Current Events, People of Reason | 6 Comments »
Posted on December 18th, 2009 by Staks
Whenever someone is in a difficult time in life or is dealing with difficult circumstances, religious people are quick to push their religious beliefs. They often say something like, “God only gives us what we can handle.” While I understand that the believer has the best of intentions and I understand that the message they […]
Filed under: discussion, god, People of Reason, Religion, responsibility, Self-Help | 2 Comments »
Posted on December 7th, 2009 by Staks
First and foremost, I think that it is important for atheists to build a strong local community. There are freethought, humanist, and skeptic groups all over the nation and the world and we should all take part in those local groups. The new Coalitions of Reason (COR) are also helping to bring atheists together locally. […]
Filed under: atheism, facebook, People of Reason, Tree of Knowledge, twitter | 11 Comments »
Posted on December 2nd, 2009 by Staks
There have been quite a few people who have told me that valued friends and family members have defriended them on one of the many social networking sites like facebook or myspace because they posted atheistic opinions. While I am pretty open about my lack of belief in ancient superstitions, I do have some theistic […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, facebook, People of Reason, Religion, responsibility | 16 Comments »
Posted on December 1st, 2009 by Staks
It seems that right after Thanksgiving, the winter holiday season officially begins. These days, the holiday season usually starts before Halloween is even over. The thing is that it seems that fundamentalist Christians and even a growing number of mainstream Christians seem to think that this season is the Christmas only season. For the last […]
Filed under: Christmas, culture war, People of Reason, Religion, Tree of Knowledge | 4 Comments »
Posted on November 25th, 2009 by Staks
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 »
Posted on November 4th, 2009 by Staks
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 »
Posted on October 29th, 2009 by Staks
While there is a large atheist community on the internet and some of us have atheist friends and see fellow atheists at local group meetings and meet-ups, we tend to think that everyone in the general public are god-believers. For the most part they are, however that is starting to change. Earlier in the week […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, People of Reason, Religion | 14 Comments »
Posted on October 27th, 2009 by Staks
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 »
Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Staks
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 »
Posted on October 22nd, 2009 by Staks
Yesterday, I discovered a great 7 part de-conversion story on YouTube. I don’t even think that the guy is finished with it yet, but I really like the way he has done this series so far. So today I am going to be lazy and just post the playlist for this series. When one video […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, People of Reason, Religion | 8 Comments »
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by Staks
After 9-11, some people started to realize that the terrorist attacks were faith based initiatives. Many of those same people then realized that America responded with faith rather than reason. As a result, atheists started to speak up and many became much more vocal about their lack of belief and their criticism of belief. The […]
Filed under: atheism, People of Reason, Religion | 15 Comments »
Posted on October 19th, 2009 by Staks
If you take a look at the blogs on MySpace, it is clear that there is a very large atheist presence on that social networking site. According to Penn Jillette, atheists, agnostics, Humanists, and nones are the number three response to the question of religion on Facebook. That isn’t even counting Pastafarians, Jedi, or those […]
Filed under: atheism, People of Reason, twitter | 3 Comments »
Posted on October 6th, 2009 by Staks
James Dobson and Chris Hedges have very little in common, but when it comes to the non-believers, they are on the same page. In fact, they constantly play off each other. Dobson talks fire and brimstone and Hedges talks of peace on Earth. Yet we never see the two of them debate each other or […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, People of Reason, Religion | 24 Comments »
Posted on October 1st, 2009 by Staks
Yesterday was Blasphemy Day and some atheists have been critical of the holiday. I don’t really have a problem with that. Not all atheists have to agree on this or anything else for that matter except of course the lack of belief in deities. But I would like to address some of the criticisms. One […]
Filed under: atheism, Blasphemy, free speech, People of Reason, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on September 29th, 2009 by Staks
I’m a little disappointed in the greater atheist community. Atheists are notorious for not uniting together and for not supporting fellow atheists. We really need to fix this problem. While not all atheists agree with each other on anything necessarily except for the lack of belief in a god or gods that is no excuse. […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, People of Reason, Political Activism, Religion, Tree of Knowledge | 13 Comments »
Posted on September 25th, 2009 by Staks
Last year, the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia put up a winter display outside the Chester County Courthouse in West Chester, PA. As a member of that organization, I was part of the effort. While we were putting up our Tree of Knowledge, a film maker named Greg Walsh took some video that he was […]
Filed under: atheism, People of Reason, Religion, Tree of Knowledge | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 23rd, 2009 by Staks
During the Bush years I heard a lot of people telling me that America was getting so bad under religiously wacko Republican rule that they were seriously considering leaving the country. Even today, I hear some of my more progressive friends tell me that with Health Care the way it is and the Religious Right […]
Filed under: culture war, Most Dangerous Religion, People of Reason, Religion | 9 Comments »
Posted on September 17th, 2009 by Staks
A few months ago, I saw the Academy Award nominated film, Milk about gay activist, politician, Harvey Milk. One of the things that I noticed about as I saw the movie was that the main character was able to gain political power because he formed a strong gay community to elect him. I remember wondering […]
Filed under: atheism, People of Reason, Religion | 14 Comments »
Posted on August 20th, 2009 by Staks
Why is it that so many Christians assume incorrectly that Christianity has the monopoly on family values? We live in a pluralistic society, and as such, people’s values will clash. Fundamental Christianity in particular has to learn that they cannot censor someone else’s values or culture because those values offend the rigid fundamentalist Christian value […]
Filed under: atheism, discussion, education, morality, Parenting, People of Reason, Religion | 48 Comments »
Posted on August 11th, 2009 by Staks
Often times when I am discussing religion with “people of faith,” they take a few seconds to make multiple assertions about the implications or consequences of non-belief in the same breath. Each assertion of course takes more time to address than the believer takes to assert. For example, it is not unusual to hear an […]
Filed under: atheism, discussion, People of Reason, Religion | 6 Comments »
Posted on July 27th, 2009 by Staks
Yesterday I attended the 2nd annual Philadelphia Coalition of Reason (PhillyCoR) Picnic. PhillyCoR is an umbrella organization which unites several freethought, Humanist, atheist, and secular organizations together. The picnic was a great way to mix all of our respective groups together and to engage in intellectual dialog, brainstorming, and just some pleasant conversation. One of […]
Filed under: atheism, People of Reason, Religion | 28 Comments »
