Posted on May 31st, 2012 by Staks
Today’s blog post follows from yesterday’s blog post. In the comments section of the Think Christian article, one Christian is ready to address the Christian problem with gays. He explains that he isn’t hateful toward gays at all and that Christians just need to communicate better. That’s all this is, a communication problem. Well, in […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, Gay Issues, Progressive Christians, the bible | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 30th, 2012 by Staks
Nathan Albert over at “Think Christian” wrote an interesting article in which he advocates for liberal and progressive Christians to apologize to gay people on behalf of the wacko fundies. Nathan’s heart is in the right place, but he just isn’t thinking clearly about this issue. I guess he is thinking too much like a […]
Filed under: Coexist, Evils of Christianity, Gay Issues, Progressive Christians, the bible | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 29th, 2012 by Staks
I don’t go to atheist conventions or conferences and I have three reasons for that. Two are practical and one is much less so. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad these conferences exist and I don’t want to discourage anyone from going to them. But I won’t be attending. One reason why I don’t […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Coexist, Offensiveness, People of Reason | 17 Comments »
Posted on May 25th, 2012 by Staks
One of the most prominent themes in Christianity is that everyone is an evil sinner. One Christian I talked to recently put it this way, “We are all wicked, evil doers. ‘There is no one who does good, not even one,’ Romans 3:12.” Through the lens of Christianity, the glass is completely empty. Through the […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Evils of Christianity, morality, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 24th, 2012 by Staks
One of the ways religious believers try to sidestep criticism of their ridiculous beliefs is to claim that anyone who has any criticism must “hate God.” The conversation usually goes down like this, “You must hate God and therefore your argument is invalid.” There is actually a logical fallacy for that. When religious believers claim […]
Filed under: Ad Hominem, argument, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 23rd, 2012 by Staks
I was having a conversation with my wife the other day about how atheists tend to be less outspoken about our views than religious believers… even very outspoken atheists like me. We both agreed that atheists usually have an internal governor which helps us to determine when it is appropriate to talk about our lack […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, culture war, morality, Preaching | No Comments »
Posted on May 22nd, 2012 by Staks
For me, have to admit that it is a guilty pleasure to argue with fundamentalist religious believers in situations when I probably shouldn’t. I try to be good and not to start the discussion, but I admit that sometimes I will passive/aggressively get them to start the discussion. Sometimes however, I try to be good […]
Filed under: argument, atheism, conversation, Personal | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 21st, 2012 by Staks
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to officiate my first wedding. Two of my friends over at PolySkeptic got married and had asked me to conduct the wedding. While there was serious talk about me officiating wearing Jedi robes, we all thought better of that. Sure it would have been fun and funny, but […]
Filed under: humanism, Love, Personal, Personal Experience | No Comments »
Posted on May 16th, 2012 by Staks
I had a pretty interesting conversation at Arby’s yesterday. I was waiting for my food next to an old guy who was probably around 80. He had ordered a couple of shakes to take home for him and his wife. He was telling me that his wife likes the Jamocha shake, but he likes the […]
Filed under: conversation, Gay Issues, Personal | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 15th, 2012 by Staks
Religious believers often try to defend the ridiculousness of God’s commands in the Bible by asking me, “Who are you to question God?” Who am I indeed? I think the question I would like them to answer is, “If we don’t question God, who will?” Now of course God is fictional and so it really […]
Filed under: Authority, culture war, god, Judge God, Religion, responsibility, wwjd | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 11th, 2012 by Staks
We atheists think of celebrities, the names that come to mind are people like Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and other prominent scientists. To us, science is cool and scientists are awesome! Unfortunately, the mainstream doesn’t share our view and that is very unfortunate. That being the case, I want to […]
Filed under: culture war, science | No Comments »
Posted on May 10th, 2012 by Staks
I am willing to admit that I was wrong. People told me that President Obama was just waiting until his second term before he openly supports same-gender marriage and I laughed. I didn’t think he would support it until after he was out of office when there wasn’t anything he could actually do about it. […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Gay Issues, Obama, Political Activism, Politics | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 9th, 2012 by Staks
The Secular Coalition for America hired a new Executive Director who is a Republican. That means that she voted for Republicans and she worked for Republicans. Yet for some reason people are shocked that she gave money to Rick Perry and worked for Trent Lott. Atheism is not a religion and yet even the religious […]
Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, church/state, culture war, People of Reason | No Comments »
Posted on May 8th, 2012 by Staks
In my experience, there really are two goals that people argue for when they argue about issues and depending on which one of these goals or reasons people use will shape the argument dramatically. Sometimes an argument is just not worth having or is not worth having with the person one is having it with. […]
Filed under: argument, Coexist, conversation, Criticism, discussion, Projection | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 7th, 2012 by Staks
If you are a geek like me, then you went to see Marvel’s The Avengers this weekend. It was a fucking awesome film. But what does it tell us about religion and what interesting things should atheists take away from the film? On the surface, there are two references to gods. The first was when […]
Filed under: atheism | 5 Comments »
Posted on May 4th, 2012 by Staks
There are two ways I can go with this blog. First, religious believers often tell me that they know that nothing they say will convert me to their religion of choice and that they know that I have already made up my mind. Second, it bothers me when people take something I said years ago […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Certainty, conversation, culture war, forgiveness, People of Reason | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 3rd, 2012 by Staks
Let me get this straight, today is the National Day of Prayer and all Americans are encouraged to ask some magical sky daddy to save the country because our politicians are not up to the task? Okay, where are the adults. I have a better idea; let’s fire those politicians and start coming up with […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, god, miracles, prayer | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 2nd, 2012 by Staks
Whenever I get into a discussion about religion with a progressive Christian the first thing I like to bring up is Hell. It is easy for progressive Christians to speak out against Dick Cheney’s torture program here on Earth, but for some strange reason they are much more hesitant to speak out against God’s eternal […]
Filed under: culture war, hell, Progressive Christians, Religion, torture | 10 Comments »
Posted on May 1st, 2012 by Staks
Sam Harris recently wrote a blog post defending profiling. I, like most other people in the greater community of reason disagree with Harris on this point. There are two main issues that I have with profiling. First is the moral issue. People are more than their profile and it isn’t fair to single people out […]
Filed under: culture war, islam, Profiling | No Comments »
