Religious people often claim to be the servants, slaves, pawns, etc. of God and make claims such as “God is my co-pilot.” What they mean by co-pilot isn’t that God helps them drive through life, but that God does the driving while they just sit in the passenger seat with a glazed look on their […]
Filed under: image of god, Religion | 11 Comments »
Recently the internet and media have been abuzz because yet another young hot Hollywood celebrity had naked photos leaked on the internets. Ashley Greene is best know for playing vampire Alice Cullen in the film Twilight and is set to reprise the role for the rest of the film franchise. While Miss Greene seems to […]
Filed under: Religion, sex | 9 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 »
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 »
Let me start off by defining what exactly I mean by prayer and what I do not mean. Some people use prayer as sort of a “good luck” sentiment to others that the care about. I don’t have an issue with knowing that you can’t help someone, but wishing them good luck or wishing them […]
Filed under: prayer, Religion | 25 Comments »
A long time ago in my studies of Hebrew (which I really can’t read any more), I remembered hearing that the term “neighbor” in Bible didn’t mean the universal neighbor we think of as all humanity as most people interpret it today. The context that it is used by most Christians and Jews today is […]
Filed under: context, Neighbor, Religion, the bible | 7 Comments »
Apparently, the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) has decided to pull ads from 20 buses, which were bought and paid for by an atheist group called, “Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.” So how offensive were these evil atheist ads? See for yourself. As it turns out, I actually agree with DART’s reasoning. People weren’t […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, Current Events, free speech, Religion | 16 Comments »
On occasion, some Christians will inform me that America is a Christian Nation. In the sense that the majority of Americans are Christian that maybe true, but in the sense that Christianity is the national religion, it is obviously false. These particular Christians who claim that America is a Christian Nation really mean to say […]
Filed under: church/state, Politics, Religion | 30 Comments »
Many times when I am in a conversation with a Christian, they will end the conversation with the Biblical claim that “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” –Psalms 14:1. The Christian concludes that if someone lacks the belief in a god therefore they must be a fool. This is one […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Psalm 14, Religion | 24 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 »
Fundamentalist Christians love to talk about how homosexual behavior is an “abomination.” They are always talking about how God loves everyone, but hates that gay people engage in gayness. It is the whole “love the sinner, hate the sin” thing which just seems to look a lot like hating the sinner in most of these […]
Filed under: Gay Issues, Religion, sex, the bible | 15 Comments »
A surprising number of people (some of whom are even educators by profession) don’t seem to understand the difference between education and indoctrination. While at times indoctrination may be used to educate, the fact is that they are two very different things. Education is a process of teaching people things. Indoctrination is something which may […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, education, Religion | 5 Comments »
The greatest piece of evidence against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect God is and always will be the imperfect world around us. This is why theists have to create elaborate schemes to explain this obvious evidence away. All of their schemes inevitably put the blame for the imperfection of this world onto us […]
Filed under: god, Religion | 5 Comments »
There is an off shoot of the Argument by Design that a surprisingly large number of Christians still use. The claim is that the Earth is perfectly placed by God to support life. Those who espouse this argument state that if the Earth was just one degree closer to or further away from the Sun, […]
Filed under: Argument by Design, Religion | 15 Comments »
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 »
While yesterday’s blog asked about whether God has the same kind of body parts we humans have since we were made in his image, today’s blog deals with the part of god which actually does look like us, Jesus. Jesus was a man. Men have penises. Therefore, Jesus had a penis. So here is the […]
Filed under: circumcision, image of god, Religion | 7 Comments »
I never really understood the whole “image of God” thing Christians always talk about. I look in the mirror every day and I have to tell you that I really don’t think I look a thing like God. For starters, I can actually see myself. That aside, does God have two legs, two arms, two […]
Filed under: god, image of god, Religion | 21 Comments »
America has a real prison problem and I have the perfect solution. You might even say that it was divinely inspired… because I got the idea from the Bible. I think we should let everyone in the prisons go and I’ll take their place. I will serve a trillion year sentence so that everyone else […]
Filed under: blood sacrifice, Judge God, Religion, sin | 9 Comments »
Why did Jesus have to die? I can image a young kid asking this question in Sunday school. The answer most commonly given is that Jesus died for our sins. He gave his life so that we can all go to Heaven… for those who believe of course. But that doesn’t really answer the question. […]
Filed under: blood sacrifice, Religion, sin | 9 Comments »
In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman. The court ruled that public school money could not fund private religious school text books and salaries. But more importantly than that, this case created what has been called the “Lemon Test.” The Lemon Test was supposed to have settled the issue […]
Filed under: church/state, Current Events, Religion | 10 Comments »
Yesterday I talked about how the world is going to come to and end… soon. Well, religion isn’t the only source of superstition in this regard. For some reason many Americans are actually living in fear of the year 2012 (and not just because Sarah Palin might run from President). Yes, Hollywood is coming out […]
Filed under: End of Days, prophecies, Religion | 13 Comments »
I first became aware of this worlds impending doom from my friend Greg in college. It was through him that I learned that the world was going to end on September 23rd 1994. He heard it through preacher and radio mogul Harold Camping. Of course that day has now passed and we are all still […]
Filed under: death, End of Days, Preaching, prophecies, Religion | 15 Comments »
So yesterday, I was talking about the importance of actor Daniel Radcliffe coming out as an atheist on my Examiner blog. I mentioned that Radcliffe’s admission may have been a career risk in come out as an atheist. One comment that a Christian made on the story was that it was more of a career […]
Filed under: atheism, faith, Real Christians, Religion | 9 Comments »
The thing is that the label of “New Atheist” implies that there are “Old Atheists.” The distraction between “New Atheists” and “Old Atheists” seems to be that those who step out of the closet and simply make it public that they are skeptical of the claims of theistic religions are now branded as “New Atheists.”
Filed under: atheism, Religion | 20 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 »
The other day, I got an e-mail from a Christian claiming that I should believe in God even though I can’t see him. After all, I can’t see the wind either and yet I surely believe in the wind, right? As absurd as this argument is, it is not the first time I have heard […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, faith, god of the gaps, Religion, science | 19 Comments »
Recently, someone made a comment about the book, “The Secret” on my friend’s facebook page. The claim was that “The Secret” really works, and that everyone should try it. When people make claims about reality, they really need to be able to back up those claims with some sort of evidence. As a point of […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, prayer, Religion, The Secret | 5 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 »
Today’s Daily Blog is in recognition of Independence Day. One argument that I get from some particularly stupid fundamentalist Christians surprisingly a lot is that Christianity must be true because we use Christ’s alleged birth as the basis for our dating system; BC meaning “Before Christ” and AD meaning “Anno Domini” (in the year or […]
Filed under: AD/BC, Politics, Religion | 40 Comments »
Over the weekend, I wrote two articles for the Examiner on the Ark of the Covenant. The first dealt with the possibility that the Ark was found and the second dealt with it staying hidden. I don’t want to revisit those articles here, but I have linked to them if anyone wants to read them. […]
Filed under: Current Events, Religion | 5 Comments »
