Over the weekend, United States Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy was laid to rest next to the graves of his two legendary brothers. While I admit that I didn’t watch much of the news coverage I heard that a great many Democrats and even a few Republicans gave speeches about how great Ted Kennedy was both […]
Filed under: Current Events, healthcare, Politics | 17 Comments »
A recent conversation I had reminded me of one of my favorite YouTube videos by God Is Imaginary. But before I post that video, I want to talk about these bubbles a little bit. I find that most Christians think that they have the only correct answer to the religion question. Not only do most […]
Filed under: delusion, Real Christians, Religion | 11 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 »
Last night, the Lion of the Senate Ted Kennedy died. This was all over the news and he was in poor health for the last few months. Ted was the last of the 3 great Kennedy brothers. Being in the Senate for over 40 years, Kennedy had a hand in many of the great progressive […]
Filed under: Current Events, death, Politics | 1 Comment »
I was having a discussion yesterday with a gay Christian. He assured me that he was a liberal, progressive, person and that he too opposes the “misuse” of Christianity by politicians. The problem is that politicians aren’t “misusing” Christianity any more than he is. Here again we have liberal Christians who claim the monopoly on […]
Filed under: Gay Issues, Real Christians, Religion, the bible | 19 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 »
The other day, a Christian sent me a two part video series that he made about how his 4 month study of Cosmology proves that God exists. Like most fundamentalist Christians and many mainstream religious believers, he starts off with his dogmatic conclusion that God exists and then works his way into finding evidence to […]
Filed under: First Cause Argument, god of the gaps, Religion, science | 21 Comments »
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 »
Are religious believers stupid? I get this question all the time ironically enough I get it the most from religious believers. My answer to this question is almost always the same. “Smart people can believe stupid things.” There is no doubt that the belief in the all-powerful god as described in the Torah/Bible/Koran based off […]
Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, god of the gaps, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 28 Comments »
After failing to be allowed to teach Creationism in public classrooms across America, Creationists moved to the idea of Intelligent Design. Now that watered down version of Creationism has also been thrown out of public schools for being a ridiculously poor attempt to indoctrinate children about Creationism. But Creationists aren’t giving up. They have now […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, church/state, Current Events, education, Politics, Religion | 12 Comments »
When we hear about Islamic suicide bombers, the first thing we generally think of is the promise of 72 virgins. While most Americans laugh at this and think to themselves about how ridiculous it is that some people believe that God will give them 72 virgins if they die correctly, I look at this and […]
Filed under: death, morality, Religion | 7 Comments »
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 »
