DangerousTalk

Tomorrow is Halloween and I have to say that it is one of my favorite holidays.

Filed under: Halloween | 4 Comments »

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 »

Yesterday I talked about a double standard between religious and non-religious. Today, I have another double standard that goes beyond claims of belief or lack of belief in deities and is more about general disagreements. Nevertheless, since people tend to disagree about religion a lot, this double standard comes up a lot in religious conversations. […]

Filed under: conversation, discussion, Hasty Generalization, logic, Religion | No Comments »

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 »

It has become ridiculously obvious to me that every time it becomes apparent that I am not a religious believer one of the very first things that happens is that some believer (usually a Christian) will insult me. When this happened over the weekend, I called the particular person out on the insult and proceeded […]

Filed under: conversation, discussion, Projection, Religion | 14 Comments »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Yesterday, I posted an article on Examiner about near-death experiences. As it turns out, science can explain the experiences that many people have in this regard which tends to lead many people to believe in an afterlife and God. This article got a conversation going with a few people who wrote to me telling me […]

Filed under: death, god of the gaps, Religion | 8 Comments »

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 »

During the first week of my freshman year at college, I noticed a newspaper of campus called “The Rampage.” My university’s mascot was the Ram, so I figured that it must be the campus newspaper. It certainly looked like the campus newspaper. The front page had a typical story which one would expect to find […]

Filed under: discussion, Preaching, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 10 Comments »

Theists always ask me why I don’t believe in God. I usually rattle off any number of reasons why I think that the whole idea of God is ridiculous, silly, and illogical. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to convince them since they tend to ask me the same question again at a later time. I guess […]

Filed under: conversation, discussion, god, missionaries, Religion | 14 Comments »

Just like all cults, fundamentalist Christianity seems to have its own vocabulary. There are certain terms that seem to have pretty standard meanings, but when used in the fundamentalist Christian context they tend to mean almost the exact opposite. The most overused term I hear is “Truth” with a capital “T.” To most people, something […]

Filed under: 1984, conversation, discussion, Religion | 3 Comments »

Many theists complain to me that I shouldn’t criticize religion because it makes them happy. They accuse me of “trying to take away their happiness.” I find this accusation to be a sad attempt at a conversation stopper. For starters, I don’t think I am trying to take anyone’s happiness away any more than drug […]

Filed under: atheism, de-conversion, Evils of Christianity, god, morality, Religion, the bible | 7 Comments »

I get asked a lot by both Christians and atheists alike, what is the book that I would most recommend to people in order to de-convert them away from god-belief. The answer I always give surprises a lot of people. While some people would expect me to say, Richard Dawkin’s book, The God Delusion, I […]

Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, Religion, the bible | 7 Comments »

This wasn’t the topic I was planning on writing about today, but I think I would be remiss if I didn’t. President Barack Obama has already joked about being born on Krypton and talked about ridding the world of all nuclear weapons and now we has become a symbol of peace for the entire world. […]

Filed under: Current Events, global climate change, Obama, Politics | 6 Comments »

When theists talk about Biblical scholarship, I can’t help but laugh. I can study the books of the Harry Potter series for years and years, but that doesn’t make the belief that Hogwarts is a real place filled with magic any less fictional. It seems to me that the entire basis for the field (if […]

Filed under: Biblical Scholarship, Religion, the bible | 8 Comments »

If someone owed you a hundred dollars and handed you 10 cents insisting that it was a hundred dollars, what would you do? Would it be considered proselytizing to inform them of reality? Would you claim that they are entitled to their belief? What if someone told you that they sincerely believed Elvis was still […]

Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, delusion, Religion | 20 Comments »

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 »

In George Orwell’s book 1984, there is a very interesting and often overlooked conversation. In this conversation, O’Brian informs Winston that he (O’Brian) can float on a bubble. O’Brian then contends that if Winston and he both believe this to be true and no one is around to disagree than it is in fact true […]

Filed under: 1984, delusion, Evils of Christianity, missionaries, Preaching, Religion | 6 Comments »

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 »