DangerousTalk

Christians often tell me that Jesus conquered death. They tell me that this is what makes him the real deal. But if this is the definitive “proof” that Jesus is the real deal, then where is he? If he really conquered death in the manner that Christians claim, then he should be walking around the world. Where is he?

You can’t just claim that some person who lived 2000 years ago is still alive and not be able to show him off. Anyone can make claim, but being able to back up that claim is the trick. I can say that Aristotle conquered death and then make up some excuse for why you can’t meet him. Maybe if built a spaceship is left the planet or something, but he came back from the dead and is still alive… I swear. Some how I doubt that would satisfy my Christian friends.

So when I ask Christians about where Jesus is, they tell me that he is sitting at the right hand of God. Well, isn’t that convenient. This is when Christians drag out the Bible as evidence to this fact. To me that is no different that my assertion that Qui-Gon Jinn has conquered death too. My evidence for this is the Star Wars Saga of course.

The fact is that the claim that someone conquered death is not new nor is it convincing without actual evidence. Personally, I don’t even think it is desirable. Who really wants to live forever, anyway?

Filed under: death, miracles, Religion, Star wars | 5 Comments »

Ladies and gentlemen, we got him! Lately I have been pretty hard on our President, but I have to say that he deserves a good deal of credit for this and for other huge victories in the “war on terror.”

Still, it would have been much better had we captured Osama bin Laden alive and put him on trial in New York City. That would show not just the power of the American military and the American Intelligence capabilities, but also the power of the American justice system. It would show that we are a nation of laws and a country of justice. As it is, we just killed him. There was revenge, but no justice.

To be fair, I don’t think Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan had much to do with yesterday’s victory. Bin Laden had already left Afghanistan and the fighting in that nation did not produce the intelligence that led to his death. Escalating the war in Afghanistan was a mistake.

However, President Obama should get credit for a great many things in relation to our “war on terror” and the death of bin Laden. His Cairo speech was instrumental in inspiring people to hunger for freedom and democracy. It incited revolutions throughout the Middle East and continues to incite more revolutions. Just last week, we helped Libya move one step closer to democracy by once again dropping a bomb down Gaddafi’s chimney.

President Obama also pushed for greater Intelligence in the search for terrorists and for bin Laden. Instead of sending a shit load of troops where there were few terrorists, he sent a shit load of CIA agents into the field and tracked down bin Laden, acted slowly and carefully and then sent a small team of Navy Seals in there to get him.

Also, when Obama announced that we killed Osama bin Laden, he talked about how bin Laden was an enemy to Muslim people and how all peace loving people should be happy about this victory. He used this as a moment to win the hearts and minds of those who with a nudge in the wrong direction could become our enemy. In effect, he nudged them toward our side.

Personally, I think we should make this a war against Islam… and Christianity and attack the theological underpinnings of religion. The way I see it, this might be a harder fight in the short term, but an extremely valuable one in the long term. Of course we can’t do that because 80% of our own nation would be “offended.” Note just how many times President Obama mentioned “God” in his short speech last night. The days of acknowledging non-believers are long over.

Related articles

• Morning Read: Osama Bin Laden (observer.com)
• White House: Osama Bin Laden is Dead (benzinga.com)
• BREAKING: Osama bin Laden is Dead (tedfreeway.wordpress.com)
• Bin Laden compound on fire (wdsi.wordpress.com)

Filed under: death, Obama, Politics | 3 Comments »

My friend Greg is former Harold Camping follower and still one of the most fundamentalist Christian I know. He is the type of person who doesn’t really listen to what you are saying and just regurgitates the standard arguments as if they are brand new. Yesterday, he e-mailed me a “challenge.”

The catch of the challenge was that he didn’t actually tell me what the challenge was. He wanted me to listen to a 70 minute sermon by some guy I never heard of. Knowing that Greg either isn’t aware or doesn’t care about standard Christian arguments and the standard atheist counter-arguments, I didn’t really give it any consideration. However, Greg is very persistent so I told him that I would listen to the sermon if he read Karen Armstrong’s book A History of God.

Greg agreed and has e-mailed me that he has read the book. Personally, I think he is lying, but I gave the sermon a listen anyway. For starters, it was a pretty boring sermon that didn’t really make any direct challenges. Although, at one point Dr. Alan Cairns asked, “Does your religion give you a provable and certain hope of life beyond the grave?” I take that to be “the challenge” Greg was referring to. The interesting thing was that Dr. Cairns said that Christians should take that challenge too.

During the entire sermon, Cairns gives no evidence for anything in the Bible. He simply asserts it as fact. That being the case, I don’t think Christianity has given a provable and certain hope of life beyond the grave. So this challenge falls equally to Greg. Where is the proof? Where is the certainty?

As for me, something can give people hope that they can fly, but it doesn’t make it so. This is where the proof comes in. Does atheism give people hope of life beyond the grave? No, but Humanism and science do give that hope. You see, I am reasonably certain that when I die, life on Earth will continue without me. I will live on beyond the grave in the lives that I touch and the work that I do by living my life fully as if it were my only life to live (because it is). I live on in other people and in what I leave behind.

I actually have proof of this with reasonable certainty. Aristotle lived 2500 years ago and yet he has conquered death. Every time someone reads one of his works or thinks about one of his ideas, he lives on beyond the grave. Ben Franklin once said, “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” Apparently, he too has conquered death.

Related articles

• Why Do Christians Start Conversations With Atheists? (dangeroustalk.net)
• Christians Don’t Really Believe in God (dangeroustalk.net)
• This Atheist has more spiritual balls than most Christians (hustleknockin.com)
• What’s a nice Atheist boy supposed to do… (lennymaysay.wordpress.com)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, death, Religion | No Comments »

Okay, so the big news yesterday is that Obama released his long-form birth certificate to shut “The Donald” up. Before I go into why this was a terrible idea on Obama’s part, let’s talk about the facts.

In 2000, the Bush campaign claimed that John McCain was not a naturally born United States citizen and as such is restricted from holding the office of President of the United States under the Constitution. You see, McCain was born on a US Military base overseas. Military bases are considered part of the United States no matter where in the world they are and so McCain was born in the US. The Bush campaign alleged that he was actually born off base and his birth certificate was faked. Guess what, McCain hired those same people who came up with the “McCain faked his birth certificate campaign” to be part of his campaign in 2008.

So right on the surface, we know this is bullshit. We know that this whole thing was imagined as a campaign tactic. Still, shortly after the rise of the current “birther movement” Obama released his official certificate of live birth from the state of Hawaii because he thought people would care. They didn’t. If Obama really wasn’t born in the US, Hilary Clinton would have been the first to jump on that. But the fact is that this whole thing is ridiculously absurd and anyone who continues to claim that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii is retarded.

Now that we got that out of the way, it was politically stupid for Obama to release his long-form birth certificate. For starters, it doesn’t change anything. He had already released his official certificate of live birth and the birther movement didn’t even notice or care. These people are as stated above, retarded! The long-form isn’t going to change that nor is it going to convince them that he was really born in Hawaii. Michelle Bachmann was recently confronted with his official certificate of live birth during an interview and she said that she takes Obama at his word that he was born in the US. But that fact is that is just her way of saying that she is a birther. She doesn’t need to take him at his word she had just been presented with actual evidence.

Next, Obama should want the crazier Republicans to push this issue because it forces all the Republican 2012 candidates to play lip service to it in order to win the Primary. The crazier candidates would have a better chance of winning the Primary, but a far worse chance winning the general election. After the Primary, Obama could then bring out the long form and really destroy the Republican candidate with moderates and independents.

Bringing out the long-form changes nothing except that it forces the Republicans to find some new wacky allegation, that may not be as easy to refute. The devil you know and can defeat at any time is better than the devil you don’t know any day.

In any case, this is a great time for me to pimp out my old Examiner article demanding the birth certificate of Jesus. Check it out and pimp it out.

Related articles

• Obama’s birth certificate: The issue will last as long as his presidency. (slate.com)
• Obama Tells Story Behind Birth Certificate … to Oprah (politics.blogs.foxnews.com)
• CNN investigation: Obama ‘birther’ claims have no merit (cnn.com)

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Current Events, Obama, Politics | 12 Comments »

As the Coordinator for PhillyCoR, I have had this great idea for a new billboard campaign for awhile. Despite my horrible photoshop skills, I created a mockup with a stock photo to show around and see what people thought. My initial plan was for it to be a modification of UnitedCoR’s standard billboard.

I showed my mockup to Fred Edwords the head of UnitedCoR. He is someone I greatly respect (although that is sort of an understatement considering I am probably his biggest fan). He liked the idea but thought that it might need some tweaking. Here is what that mockup looks like:

While I haven’t given up on that billboard campaign, the FFRF has also been putting up billboards all over the nation. As a member of the Freethought Society, a Philly affiliate of FFRF, I heard that they are planning to put up billboards in the Philly area.

I was told that the campaign would be their “Coming out of the closet” campaign and that the Freethought Society was looking for local atheists to put themselves on the billboards with their own message. So I came up with a message and did my poor photoshop mockup of the billboard and passed in on to the Freethought Society president in a bid to get it on an actual billboard.

My mockup was used in the group’s newsletter to help generate much needed funds for the project. However, shortly after the newsletter came out (like ten minutes) I discovered that FFRF has their own mockup generator so that any atheist can make a mockup with their own message and photo. Here is mine:

Now, here is the deal. My mockup might actually make it on a real billboard. But the Freethought Society needs donations earmarked for the Billboard Campaign. I don’t really know how much these things cost, but I have heard that they are usually around $5000. So I am asking the Dangerous Talker Army to donate a few dollars to the Freethought Society earmarked for this project. Even a few dollars will help. Lots of small donations can really do the job.

Why spend the money on this? Polls have shown that when atheists make ourselves more visible in a community, our approval rating goes up and atheists face less discrimination. This campaign in particular puts real local faces to atheism. It encourages people to come out of the closet and to become part of the greater community of reason.

Related articles

• Make Your Own Atheist Billboard! (friendlyatheist.com)
• Raleigh nontheists come ‘Out of the Closet’ in myth-dispelling FFRF billboard campaign (secularnewsdaily.com)
• Atheists Billboards Go Up in Orlando! (friendlyatheist.com)
• American Atheists Puts Up Rapture Billboards (friendlyatheist.com)

Filed under: atheism, billboards, culture war, Media, Personal | 8 Comments »

If it were just one Christian, I would say that he or she was just ignorant of the use of the philosophical term, but it seems that many Christians who I get in online discussions/debates with seem to misuse to term “ad hominem.” So I thought I would take the time to explain it in a blog so that I and other atheists can refer Christians to it whenever they misuse the term.

First, let’s talk about what an ad hominem isn’t. It isn’t a fancy way of saying that you have insulted me or my position. This is how many of the offenders seem to think it means. If I were to say, “You are ugly,” that alone does not qualify as an ad hominem attack. It is just an insult.

However, if I were to say that you are ugly therefore your argument is invalid, that would be an ad hominem attack. You see, an ad hominem attack is an insult which is used to discredit the argument. Still, sometimes ad hominem attacks are not fallacious. For example, if someone has a history of lying and I were to say, “You’re a liar, so your argument is invalid,” that might have merit depending on the argument and the degree that the person making it is known for his or her lying.

The irony is that when Christians claim I am making an ad hominem attack on them and that my arguments are invalid because I have insulted them in some way, they are in fact guilty of making an ad hominem attack.

Filed under: Ad Hominem, discussion, logic, Offensiveness | No Comments »

So I was on the Huffington Post’s religion page over the weekend and saw a ton of articles that just seemed silly to me. Here are a few examples:

Who Killed Jesus? An Examination of the Evidence
Pontius Pilate v. Jesus: Was It a Fair Trial?
Re-Enacting The Trial Of Jesus
The Mysteries Of The Last Supper And Jesus’ Final Days
Why Did Judas Betray Jesus?

This is of course all nonsense. I know Christians hate to hear that, but it is true. It truly saddens me that people take this crap so seriously that they pepper the media with such nonsense. For Christians, let me put it another way. What if they went to a popular media outlet and saw articles with titles such as:

Did Voldemort Really Kill Harry Potter’s Parents? An Examination of the Evidence
Jor El v. Zod: Was It a Fair Trial?
Re-Enacting The Trial Of Goldielocks
The Mysteries of the last lunch and Yoda’s Final Days
Why Did Darth Vader Betray the Emperor?

No one would take such a media outlet seriously; nor should they. It is all fiction and while such article might be fun to read at a party, no one ought to waste actual time and money researching such absurdities. Jesus is a fictional character and the story about him is fiction. People should stop wasting time with such ridiculousness and get on with their lives.

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Biblical Scholarship, journalism, Religion | 8 Comments »

First things first, Easter’s NOT a Christian holiday. I know Christians hate to hear this, but there is no reference to the Easter Bunny, chocolate eggs, colored eggs, egg hunts, etc. in the Bible. All this nonsense about Jesus coming back from the dead or whatever has nothing to do with Easter. Christians should call their holiday Zombie Sunday or something, but it is not Easter.

It really isn’t in dispute that Easter is named after a Pagan Goddess. While there are multiple stories in relation to said Goddess, Jesus appears to be absent from them all. Regardless of which Pagan myth you want to go by, the whole idea of Easter is that winter ends and spring begins. That is the main point of the holiday… that and you idea that now you should get your grove on, get jiggy with it, fuck like rabbits, etc.

So that is what I celebrate when I celebrate Easter, spring and fucking. I still celebrate Easter even though I know that the Easter Bunny isn’t real. I also know that Mickey Mouse isn’t real, but I still like the occasional Disney movie. BTW, Star Wars… totally real.

Seriously though, we can’t let Christians have this one. They have no right to steal pagan holidays and demand that only they are allowed to celebrate them. The fact is that Christians have stolen almost all of their holidays. They are terribly unimaginative. Take Easter for example, they didn’t even both to change the name of the holiday. It is still named after a Pagan Goddess. How fucking lazy is that?

Have fun this weekend, paint Easter Eggs and go to Easter Egg hunts with the kids, eat lots of chocolate, fuck like rabbits, and welcome the spring season.

Related articles

• Two Birds with One Stone (dangeroustalk.net)

Filed under: culture war, Easter, Religion | 9 Comments »

Today is April 21st, 2011. It is the day SkyNet goes online and everyone on earth is going to have a “very bad day.” The machines are going to start killing everyone and some kid named John Connor, is going to become the leader of the human resistance. Judgment Day is here!

This is of course the prediction made by the fictional Terminator film series. No one with half a brain takes it seriously at all. But why don’t we take it seriously? We take other apocalyptic predictions made in works of fiction seriously. There are two main predictions being popularized these days based on the Bible. May 21st 2011 and December 22nd 2012 are both believed by some to be the start of Judgment Day. So why do we laugh about today’s Judgment Day prediction?

The difference here is that everyone knows that the Terminator movies are fictional. But what if there were people who believed it seriously? Would that mean that the rest of us would be required to take them seriously? Does the fact that people believe something ridiculous make it any less ridiculous? I don’t think it does. This is why I continue to laugh at Jews, Christians, and Muslims when they go on about their ridiculous beliefs.

To me, the Abrahamic religions are about as plausible as the Terminator films. Scratch that, the Terminator films are actually more plausible… and far more entertaining too. Why should I feel compelled to respect the beliefs of someone who believes that SkyNet will really come online today and start the war in which the Machines try to destroy all humanity? Give me one compelling reason here. If you can’t then you must admit that there is no reason why I should respect the beliefs of God-believers, which is a much less plausible belief system.

With that said, I am going to pull the plug on my computer now… just in case I’m wrong and SkyNet really does go online; sort of a Pascal’s Wager kind of thing. 😉

PS – – Remember that the Machines don’t use money, so please feel free to Contribute to Dangerous Talk.

Related articles

• Judgment Day is Tomorrow (news.dice.com)
• Hasta la vista, Terminator fans – Skynet’s Judgment Day is here (guardian.co.uk)
• Skynet Becomes Aware, Launches Nuclear Attack On Humanity (singularityhub.com)
• Skynet Becomes Self-Aware: Five Ways To Survive The ‘Terminator’ Apocalypse (moviesblog.mtv.com)
• Skynet Becomes Self-Aware: How to Welcome Our AI Overlords (wired.com)
• Skynet is about to attack. Maybe | Adam Boult (guardian.co.uk)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, delusion, End of the World, prophecies, Religion, The Rapture | 2 Comments »

Currently 80% of America considers themselves to be Christian. Almost all the politicians are theists and religious believers hold a lot of influence in our society. Worldwide, religious belief is still very strong and the Pope still acts as king over a billion people. Life is short, so we really have to ask ourselves, why fight it?

Well, I can’t speak for every atheist, but for me I will continue to fight it and here is why. There is an old saying… I think it is Chinese, but I could be wrong, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, we make the times interesting and within the last decade or so, religious belief and religious influence has been decreasing… a lot.

In America, atheist groups are far more visible than they have ever been before and studies have shown that the more visible we are the more religious people accept us. Non-belief is up in every state in the nation and is continuing to rise. Churches are starting to close and mainstream religious believers are starting to polarize to either non-belief or fundamentalism.

Around the world, Scandinavian countries are almost entirely atheistic and England has now become a majority non-religious nation. Catholic priests have been sexually abusing children from decades and probably even centuries, but only recently has the public declared it a scandal. This is because the Vatican’s influence is waning and while they are still above the law, they no longer hold the sway over public opinion.

These are interesting times and we are making them interesting. We are quickly approaching the tipping point in which religious influence crumbles. The Information Age will soon be moving us into a new Age of Reason. It may not happen in my lifetime (although it may), but I am hopeful that it will happen in my children’s lifetime.

Part of the thing about not believing in an afterlife is that I get to enjoy this life. But part of that enjoyment is the responsibility to make this world a better place so that the next generation can enjoy this life more than I did. So I will continue to fight this fight and I hope you will join me.

Related articles

• Why Bother Being Atheist? (anythingbuttheist.blogspot.com)
• When Mockery is Effective (atheistrev.com)
• How we move forward as atheists in the 21st century. (thegreengeeks.wordpress.com)

Filed under: atheism, culture war, Decline of Religion, Religion | 3 Comments »

A lot of fundamentalist religious believers are fond of telling me that life has no means to me when they don’t even know anything about me except for my lack of belief in their deity of choice. Aside from the arrogance of such a claim, it is also completely false. Theists should be careful with this line of argument however, because this same claim can just as easily be leveled against them.

For starters, I want to dispel this myth that fundamental religious believers assert. I address the whole “purpose of life” question in my Atheism 101 section. But I don’t think we should have the burden to keep pointing this out to ignorant people. Instead, it might be more helpful to turn the question around on the fundamentalist religious believer.

Thiest, life must have no meaning for you. After all, religious believers believe that when they die, they will be resurrected and go to Heaven to spend all eternity. Why would this crappy finite life mean anything to them at all when they have been given (by grace) eternal paradise for the low, low price of faith based belief?

It seems to me that living for today must be foolish for anyone who is promised eternal paradise tomorrow. Life’s only purpose for the believer should be just to get to the next life without risk of eternal damnation. So they can’t kill themselves, but there certainly in no penalty for being careless. Why do they lock their doors at night? Wouldn’t it be great if a killer broke in and killed them? They would get the last laugh hanging out in eternal paradise. Why look both ways when they cross the street? The worst that could happen is that they get hit by a car and go to paradise. What is the point to living at all for the theist? Life has no meaning. 😉

Related articles

• Why Atheists Should Not Give Up Challenging Theism And Theists (camelswithhammers.com)
• Atheist Response To A Theist Question (spaninquis.wordpress.com)
• Intellectual Honesty (dangeroustalk.net)
• The Name Calling Begins (dangeroustalk.net)

Filed under: conversation, death, ignorance, Projection, Religion | 1 Comment »

I really love this time of year; I get to easily destroy two of the three Abrahamic religions without trying all that hard at all. First is Passover. Yesterday, I published an Examiner article which talks about the fact that the Jewish Exodus never happened. This is the widely accepted view of pretty much every Biblical scholar with any semblance of credibility or a brain. It really isn’t a disputable issue. What this means of course is that the Jewish religion is a built on a lie… and that the Christian religion is also built on that same lie. So much for the biblical inerrancy fundamentalists like to claim.

Next comes Easter. I was reminded of my fondness for this holiday yesterday when my sister posted a photo on facebook of my son at an Easter Egg Hunt and one of her Catholic friends asked what the deal was with the Easter Bunny. Her friend knows hat my sister is fairly religiously Jewish and was implying that I shouldn’t have taken my son (who she presumed was also Jewish) to what she later claimed to be a Catholic holiday.

I however took her question of, “What’s the deal with the Easter Bunny?” literally and recounted for her the tale of the Goddess Ostara turning a bird into the Easter Bunny. My sister’s friend was not amused. The thing I love about Easter is that no part of it is actually in the Bible and that even the name of the holiday is that of a Pagan Goddess. I think I even asked my sister’s friend where in the Bible it talks about the Easter Bunny. If she pushes further, I will ask her where she thinks that name “Easter” comes from. But I think she is done.

Filed under: Biblical Scholarship, Easter, jews, Personal, Religion | 2 Comments »

Many times when I am discussing religion with the religious, I talk about how the Bible does not support critical thinking and instead praises faith over reason. This to me is one of the biggest problems with religion. Every once in a while however a Christian will tell me that the Bible supports reason and critical thinking and will quote part of Isaiah 1:18 in which God says, “Come now, and let us reason together.”

First and foremost, I want to point out that the Bible from start to finish is an authoritarian series of books. God’s the boss and you do what he says or else. God allows certain privileged few to be authoritarian as well from kings, prophets, to the “son of man.” On a smaller level, 1 Corinthians 11:3 gives man authority over the household… among other verses.

The whole idea of the Bible seems to be designed to oppose reason at almost every turn and yet some religious believers will quote Isaiah to defend their view of an intellectual religion in which reason and critical thinking is central even when the Bible is stacked full of unreasonable claims and unreasonable punishments for questioning hose claims.

But I digress… if religious believers want to bring out the old “let us reason together” bullshit, we should take advantage of that opportunity. It is the proverbial foot in the door. Do these religious believers really want to “reason together” or do they just want to argue. If they really want to reason together, then they must be willing to follow their reasoning to its logical and reasonable conclusions. Are they prepared to do that? I think it is important to ask this question point blank and to make them aware of what they are committing to.

This is where the fun begins. Now we can talk to these religious believers and hold them to the standards of reason and logic of the secular world. If they are going to make an absurd claim, they need to have some pretty solid evidence to back it up. “God works in mysterious ways” isn’t going to cut the mustard any more. They promised to reason together and to follow that reasoning to its conclusion. They may need to be reminded of this several times in the conversation, but I think it is important.

Related articles

• An Atheist in a Theist World (dangeroustalk.net)
• “If You Believe In God, You Have To Believe In The Devil” (camelswithhammers.com)
• Building your mental immune system (atheistexperience.blogspot.com)

Filed under: atheism, Authority, conversation, discussion, logic, Religion | 2 Comments »

Image by theothermattm via Flickr

The other day, I received a “Prayer Carpet” in the mail. This church out in Oklahoma sent out a letter with writing all over the envelope addressed to “Current Resident.” The envelope was pretty think too. Inside, it contained a piece of paper folded several times. It had the printed image of a carpet on it. The design was a face of Jesus wish his eyes closed and it said “Prayer carpet” on it.

The letter inside talked about generic stories of people who have prayed on similar prayer carpets and have had their prayers come true. I was told that I should send the prayer carpet back to the church with a sizable donation of course so that other people could use my prayer carpet (as if they didn’t print out thousands of them).

Here comes the interesting part. The letter states that some people have reported a seeing a miracle after praying on the prayer carpet. Apparently, while staring at the face of Jesus, his eyes miraculously opened. This was a sign from God that the prayer had been received.

Of course after careful inspection of the “prayer carpet” you can see that there is actually a hidden image of eye balls in the closed eyes of Jesus. This was part of the printing design sort of like a magic eye optical illusion. In other words, the people who made this prayer carpet are consciously trying to deceive people. Shocker, I know.

I bet a lot of people fall for this shit too. Well, the jokes on them, because I’m keeping my prayer carpet, lol.

Filed under: delusion, image of god, Personal, prayer, Religious Manipulation | 3 Comments »

There seems to be a pattern to many of the conversations I have with religious believers. It doesn’t even matter if the believer is a fundamentalist or a mainstream believer; the conversation is usually the same in this regard.

First, the religious believer will make some ridiculous claim based on their fictional book. Then I will use logic, reason, and evidence to criticize the claim and show how the claim is false and sometimes even silly. This is where the believer feigns being horribly insulted and tries to make me appear to be attacking them personally rather than the argument they presented. After this, I usually defend my character and again turn back to criticizing the original claim.

Finally, the conversation turns threatening. After all the feigning of peace and love, the religious believer turns to threats. Sometimes those threats are toward physical violence and other times they are directed to my eternal fate but the threats tend to come nonetheless and they don’t come from me.

Religious believers love to talk about how they are all about peace and love, but as soon as you criticize their ideas they often turn violent very quickly.

Related articles

• Religious Kid Gloves (dangeroustalk.net)
• Moral Grounding and Egoism (dangeroustalk.net)
• College and Religious Belief (unreasonablefaith.com)

Filed under: conversation, discussion, Religion | No Comments »

Generally speaking, I tend to get quite a few demands from fundamentalist religious believers to engage in some sort of debate. I imagine that some of the more famous atheists get hundreds a day. There simply is no time to debate every fundy wishing to make a name for themselves so obviously atheists need to choose who to debate. Those who already have experience and can show some sort of familiarity with the issues take priority.

Of course this is true on the other side too. I would love to debate Ray Comfort and his boy toy. But I don’t demand it because I know that I am not in his fame class. My experience is not as extensive as his and if I could debate him, it would significantly raise my debating stature. William Lane Craig is an in a much higher debating weight class than that. This isn’t to say he knows more or is more correct, but simply that he has more experience debating and has a higher fame stature within his community.

The point is that the market decides our debating class, not necessarily knowledge and skill. Although knowledge and skill do have some place in the imaginary rankings. Especially in my level on the debate scale, knowledge and skill have more to do with the issue than fame and audience size. Still, I can’t debate every theist with a Bible.

Related articles

• Review: Sam Harris vs William Lane Craig (1godfather.wordpress.com)
• Yet another reason debates suck (scienceblogs.com)
• Morality Debate: Craig vs. Harris (biblescienceguy.wordpress.com)

Filed under: atheism, debate, Religion | 2 Comments »

Over the weekend, I read a story about a cross made out of the steal girders from 911. You see, when all the dust cleared, two girders shaped as a cross was miraculously found in the wreckage. Now Christians are worshiping the miracle.

The thing that bothers me is that some Christians are claiming that the cross left in the wreckage is a divine sign. This is so laughable to me. It would be different if some complex symbol was left in the wreckage. For example, if the Christian symbol was a pentagram and after the girders were found in that shape, it might more divine sign and less coincidence. But a cross?

A cross is a pretty common shape. With out half trying you can find a cross in almost anything. So it is hardly miraculous to find a cross made out of two girders (both linear in shape) in a construction or destruction site.

This is why I think the new atheist symbol should be a line. Then we can claim all kinds of miraculous events must be evidence of atheism.

Related articles

• Ground Zero Cross Headed Back To WTC Site (huffingtonpost.com)

Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Current Events, delusion, miracles, Religion | 4 Comments »

So yesterday I talked about how the Republicans are holding the country hostage and Obama is willing to do whatever they like. Obama is holding our votes hostage and most Democrats have told him that they are willing to do whatever he wants. Today I am going to suggest a way out.

First, let me just remind everyone of what is going on here. The Republicans say they want X and the President says that he is willing to compromise and give them 80% of what they want. They say no so he comes back and offers 100% of what they want. They say no and tell him they want 110%. Obama says that doesn’t even make sense, but they don’t care so Obama agrees. Then the Republicans tell the people, “look what Obama just did, he is an evil socialist Nazi out to get you.” Obama says, “Hey, you wanted me to do those things, they were your ideas.” The Republicans laugh and say, “yeah and you get the blame for it when our ridiculously bad ideas fail because they were… well… ridiculously bad. Ha ha!”

Then Obama comes back to you and says, you have to vote for me because you can’t let those crazies near the White House. The Democratic voters say, “Yeah, we think you are doing a horrible job, but you get our vote anyway because those guys are really crazy!” Then Obama goes to the Republicans and says, “Hey, I want your votes, so I will do whatever you ask.” They say great, do X. Obama says how about 80% of X… well, you get the idea.

So what can we do? First, we can tell people that we will NOT vote for Obama if he doesn’t stop trying to appease the Republicans and start doing progressive things. Use your vote as a threat. Tell people that we need to stand strong and send a message. Make people believe that you are not making an idol threat. Personally, I couldn’t give a shit if it is idol or not. But you need to convince Obama that it is not an idol threat.

Next, go to Democratic websites and let them know that you are not going to vote for Obama unless he stops trying to appease Republicans and starts doing progressive things. Make them believe it! When the DNC sends you surveys, let them know too. Spread this message as much as you can. Let any Democratic leader in you area know that you will not support Obama unless he changes. Do this NOW!

By the time 2012 roles around I promise you, Obama will cave, because in the end it is all about the numbers. There is no way Obama has swayed a single Republican who didn’t support him in 2008 to support him now despite all the appeasing. If Obama feels that he is going to lose a significant amount of his base he will realize that he will lose the election. So what will he have to do? He will have to do at least a few things to appease us. Then we can decide if he has done enough or has to work harder. This will be about the time that the campaign really heats up so there will be lots of polling. How we answer those polls will determine how much Obama will try to appease us over how much he will try to appease the Republicans.

If you can count on one thing in 2012, it is that Obama will be out there trying to appease someone. He is an appeaser from start to finish. Use your vote to leverage change. Go to the websites of progressive think tanks and action groups and let them know you are standing strong and will not give your vote to Obama without getting something in exchange.

In the next few days I am hoping to make a video with our list of demands. Give me some suggestions. What are the strong progressive things that you wish Obama had done? Let’s use our vote to hold Obama hostage to our demands.

When people ask, “What if the election is between Obama and [fill in a crazy Republican] who are you going to vote for?” the answer should be, “That depends on Obama.” Election Day is still a long time away, don’t give away your only leverage this early.

Related articles

• Why I Am Probably NOT Voting For Obama (dangeroustalk.net)
• Democrats Are Bad Negotiators (dangeroustalk.net)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Election, Obama, Political Activism, Politics | 3 Comments »

This week, I have been talking a lot about politics since the President has announced (to no one’s surprise) that he is running for President. I am critical of President Obama and I will probably not vote for him. Among the many massages I have gotten on this subject has been from people who tell me that my vote doesn’t matter anyway.

Whenever I get those messages from people that my vote doesn’t matter, I am always curious as to what exactly they mean. On the one hand, they could mean that both candidates are so similar that we would be in the same place regardless of who won. While I can understand this position, it can be shown that this is in fact not the case. There are extremely different agendas and interests between the two parties and the two party candidates. As much as I have issue with Obama, he is different than Bush. These two Presidents are different. So it cannot be said factually that both parties are the same.

On the other hand, what most of those who claim that my vote doesn’t matter seem to mean is that the elections are fixed and that my vote literally doesn’t matter. This view is basically claiming that there is some vast conspiracy of super rich people who control the outcome of the election and that we as voters are mere pawns. Our vote only serves to make us feel like we have control when we don’t.

This is of course absurd. It is New World Order/Illuminati crap. Rich people don’t gather at Bohemian Grove to discuss how they are going to take over the world and who should be President this time around. They meet there to network and talk to people they can relate to.

The fact is that voting matters. The same system that is in place to count the votes for school board is in place to count the votes for President. So unless someone is suggesting that the school board races are fixed too, it is obvious that the vote is not fixed.

Not only does voting matter, but votes matter. Votes are valuable and it bothers me when people try to devalue the vote in some form or another. This is why I take issue with the idea of “runoff voting.” This is the idea that you vote for a first choice candidate and a second choice candidate, etc. and as each one becomes less viable, your vote switches automatically to your next choice. No, votes matter. You vote for one candidate that you like and that is your candidate. I don’t support diluting the vote.

Also, candidates don’t own your vote; you do! They have to earn your vote. Your vote is valuable and if you pledge to give it away to just about anyone, then you are diluting the value of your own vote. Right now, the 2012 election is still a long time away. You can go ahead and give your vote away for practically nothing or you can use the value of your vote as leverage to force a politician to support your causes. Many Democrats have pledged the former and I am firmly demanding that we do the latter.

Your vote matters. Your vote is valuable. Don’t give it away for nothing in return. Don’t sell your vote short!

Related articles

• Democrats Are Bad Negotiators (dangeroustalk.net)
• Why I Am Probably NOT Voting For Obama (dangeroustalk.net)

Filed under: New World Order, Obama, Politics | 2 Comments »

Yesterday’s blog entry has generated a lot of responses through twitter, facebook, e-mail, etc. My position is that I probably will not vote for President Obama in his re-election. Part of my reasoning for this is that Obama is a bad negotiator. As it turns out Democrats in general are bad negotiators too.

A lot of people have come forward to tell me that they disagree with Obama on a lot of issues, but that they are going to support him anyway. Well shit, I hope none of these people have to negotiate with anyone for anything ever. Right now, I am in a negotiation process with the President and every voter should be too.

If we tell the President that he has our vote no matter what then guess what? He isn’t going to do anything we want him to do. We have given him no incentive to be a better President and to listen to anything we have to say. In short, such a tactic is bad negotiating.

If enough of his former supporters tell him that he is losing our support because he hasn’t paid attention to our issues, then we are giving him an incentive to pay attention to our issues. However, if the President considers that an ideal threat then he may call your bluff. This means that we have to make him believe that we are serious and that we are not bluffing.

With that said, what you do in the voting booth is between you and Debold. But if you want a President who will fight for your issues, you have to stay strong and make it clear that you will not support him if he does not support the issues you care about.

Instead, a lot of Democrats have called their own bluff and basically said what the President has said. If someone has hostages, you should do whatever they want because they might hurt the hostages. I remember when the President said that, and my jaw dropped.

Right now, the Republicans are holding the country hostage and the President is willing to give them whatever they want. As a result, the President is holding your vote hostage and you are willing to do whatever he wants. Whatever happened to the idea that you don’t negotiate with hostage takers? If we open up that door even once, it can never be closed again.

Don’t let the President hold your vote hostage! Tell him that you will not vote for him if he continues to try to appease the Republicans. Be strong!

Related articles

• Why I Am Probably NOT Voting For Obama (dangeroustalk.net)
• Lessons in how NOT to negotiate, courtesy of your President. Lesson 1: Don’t accept the other guy’s opening offer. (americablog.com)

Filed under: Election, Obama, Political Activism, Politics | 4 Comments »

Right before the 2008 Primary, I was going inside the local public library when an elderly man asked me if I would consider voting for Barack Obama during the primary election. When he saw that I was not that interested, he told me that he thought Obama would be the next Robert Kennedy and he was not alone. Robert Kennedy’s own brother Teddy also claimed to see Bobby in Barack Obama. I did not.

In 2012, I do not expect to see that elderly man outside the library and if he is there, he certainly won’t be comparing Obama to a Kennedy. In fact, it would be easier to compare Obama to a Bush or even to the godfather of Republicanism Ronald Reagan than it would be to compare him to a Kennedy.

Back then, I remember warning everyone what Obama was an appeaser. My view was that Obama just wanted everyone to like him… especially the Republicans. I also thought that Obama would bend over backwards to please the Religious Right in particular. Still, I had been wrong before. In 2004, I remember thinking that John Kerry despite letting the Republicans walk all over him, would easily win the Presidency because Bush was so far out there no one would be stupid enough to vote for that guy again.

So let’s get too it. I was wrong in 2004 and right in 2008. In 2012, the Republicans have become batshit crazy. Sure Palin, Bachmann, and Huckabee are nuts, but Gingrich, isn’t far behind and now even Trump has taken a turn toward Crazyville. Romney hasn’t even made a peep yet and few people have heard of the other probable candidates… none of which are much saner than this crowd.

The Republicans have become more racist and over played their hand with the unions. Now they are losing the support of police, firefighters, and any teachers who might have been on their side. Even some teabaggers are losing their hard-on for the right wing since Republicans really haven’t done much at all the help the economy and haven’t made the deep cuts where it actually counts.

I am not someone who only votes for a perfect match to my ideals. That has never happened and will never happen. I do however want to vote for someone and not just against the other guy. I didn’t like John Kerry, but I still voted for him and strongly supported him and campaigned for him. On the other hand, I didn’t like Al Gore and I couldn’t stomach voting for or supporting him, so I didn’t. There is a line somewhere in which I was able to vote for Kerry, but not Gore. I voted for and supported Obama in 2008 and thought he was a better candidate than Kerry, but I still didn’t like him and thought he was an appeaser.

On Health Insurance Reform, Obama caved in to the insurance lobby and despite his great speech in which he claimed that we would never have to address this issue again because we were going to do it right the first time, he did it completely wrong. The Insurance companies have already found loopholes for laws that don’t even go into effect until 2014. Obama said that he wanted to change the game and not just play the game better, but instead of changing the game he played us all. Everyone is required to buy insurance, but insurance companies aren’t required to actually provide service. They are just required to take our money.

Fiscal reform was a little better, but not by much. The tax payers bailed out the banks and the banks took our money as bonuses and invested the rest overseas instead of lending it out to small businesses.

On the issue of the gay rights movement, Obama finally did get Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repealed (after progressives badgered him about it constantly and pretty much force the issue without Obama lifting a finger). But even though Dick Cheney, Cindy and Megan McCain, and one of the Bush twins (Barbara I think) have all come out in favor of gay marriage, Obama still opposes it for religious reasons.

We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guantanamo is still open. Bush’s warrentless wiretapping of US citizens is still going on under Obama. The Bush torture programs are still in full swing. The office of faith based initiatives is still operating against the Constitution.

So why should I vote for Obama’s re-election? Some Democrats tell me that I better because a Supreme Court Justice might retire and we need Obama to appoint the next judge. This has been the frequent argument of the status quo Democratic appeasers for a long time. It no longer works. Obama had his chance twice and both times he picked moderates on a Supreme Court stacked with Hard Line Republicans. When Bush appointed those hard line Republicans, Democratic appeasers accepted it with little fight. Meanwhile, Obama had to fight for his moderate appointees. The job of protecting the Supreme Court from lunatics should be the job of the Senate. Obama should have picked real progressives when he had the chance. He didn’t and I want someone who will. When it really counted, Obama didn’t do the right thing. So yeah, if a Republican wins because Obama is an appeaser and couldn’t earn Democratic votes, then the Republican might pick a wacky candidate, but it will be the job of the Senate to oppose that appointment.

The bottom line is that progressives have sent a message to the President that he can expect us to vote for him no matter how much he caves into the Right Wing. As a result, the President takes our vote for granted and instead of trying to appease progressives, he tries to appease right wing Republicans who just don’t like him. So, if we want the President to stop letting the Republicans walk all over him, then we need to stop letting the President walk all over us. It’s time for some tough love. I can’t let the President take my vote for granted. I have to make a stand. If he wants my vote, he will have to earn it. He has a year and a half to do it and pretty speeches aren’t going to be enough. He is the fucking President now. Instead of telling me what he would do, he needs to just go and actually do it.

Instead of strong arming progressive Democrats to vote his way, he needs to start strong arming blue dog Democrats and even Republicans in moderate districts. For the blue dogs, all it takes is letting them know that he will not campaign for them if they don’t tow the line and that he might even find a primary challenger to back in their district if they aren’t on is side. For the Republicans in moderate districts, they need to play ball or the President will campaign for their opponent extra hard and use his bully pulpit to put extra attention on that race. They already are on the fine line being in a moderate area.

Finally, Obama needs to stop negotiating away the nation. Don’t make deals with the Republicans unless you actually get something out of it. No more of this tax cuts for the rich so that the Republicans will allow the extension of unemployment benefits. Let them try selling that to the voters. If they want to make a stupid political tactic, let them and take it to the people! Now the President has to defend the Republican tax cuts while he struggles to pay for Head Start Education.

Done! End of this! I am putting my foot down. Don’t blame me if the President can’t earn my vote and then loses. It isn’t my fault he is a terrible President. Don’t blame his probable defeat on any third party candidate either. The President can earn my vote. There is still time for him to actually start doing stuff and fight back against the Republicans. If he doesn’t and loses the election, it is his own damn fault!

Related articles

• Obama declares himself candidate for re-election – Reuters (news.google.com)
• Obama announces his candidacy for 2012 ()
• How good are Obama’s re-election chances? (cbsnews.com)
• Iowa called vital component of Obama re-election strategy – DesMoinesRegister.com (news.google.com)

Filed under: church/state, Obama, Politics | 9 Comments »

Some of you may not know this, but I am a loving father. I have a two year-old son at home with me and like all loving parents I only want the best for my son. So over the weekend, I demanded that he kneel before me and worship me.

I really want him to love me back, so I gave him the choice. If he kneels before me and worships me, I will give him cookies and cake for every meal forever. But if he disobeys me even in the slightest, he will be beaten continuously for every day of his life.

Even though I know my son very well, I was shocked that when I commanded him to go to bed, he rebelled against me. He knew the consequences and he still rebelled. But since I love him, I gave him a way to be forgiven. I could put his nine year-old cousin in harms way and allow her to be tortured and killed and then I can have my son worship her as well as me from here on out.

If he doesn’t accept my sacrifice of his cousin, I will have to go ahead and beat him. I am after all a just father and those are the rules. If I let my son get away with rebelling against me and not worshipping me and his cousin, then I wouldn’t be a very just and loving father, right?

This is of course a ridiculous scenario and because I actually do love my son, I would never beat him nor would I give him cookies and cake for every meal. I still love my son even though he doesn’t like to go to bed on time and sometimes disobeys and rebels against me. He is a typical two year-old. But this situation mirrors the situation that Christianity has set up.

This is in fact the core of the Christian religion. A so called “loving” God demands that we worship and obey him. He created us and can do with us as he pleases. When we don’t obey him, he threatens to torture us for all eternity in Hell. Then he changes his mind out of “love” and puts another being in harms way (Jesus). He allows Jesus to get tortured and to die (but only for three days) and then we are told that we must accept his sacrifice and now worship him too or else the threat of eternal torture in Hell is still on because after all, God is a “just” God.

I don’t know how Christians define “love” and “justice,” but I have a very different view of those virtues. This is one of the many reasons why I consider the Christian religion to be immoral and wrong. Of course, I also consider the Christian religion to be bullshit too; so there is that. Not only is it immoral, and illogical, it is also fiction.

Related articles

• Kneel for Truth (1twentyone.wordpress.com)
• Worshipful Experience Of God? Been There, Done That. (camelswithhammers.com)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Authority, Belief, blood sacrifice, delusion, Every Knee, Evils of Christianity, family values, free will, god, God Fearing, god the father, hell, Judge God, Love, morality, Parenting, Religion | 3 Comments »

This is just as observation, but it seems to me that the more religious someone is the less likely they are to have a sense of humor. Now there are exceptions to this of course. My cousin for example group up moderately religious like I did and he was always a funny guy. When he became a fundamentalist Jew (yes they do exist), he kept his sense of humor in tact.

Exceptions aside, it does seem that my observation has some merit. Fundamentalists tend to be more likely to get offended by a joke than they are to laugh at a joke. This is why April Fools Day is important. It exposes the lack of a sense of humor on the part of the religious.

It is also important to note that April Fools jokes usually involve tricking someone temporarily. Trickery is considered a sin by some religious extremists. It does after all involve bearing false witness. So if a religious person does play an April Fools joke on you today, inform them that they just committed a sin and that they need to repent immediately or they will be tortured for all eternity in Hellfire. Don’t forget to wait a few moments before you tell them, “April Fools, Hell is imaginary!”

Related articles

• Your April Fools’ Day Reminder (atheistrev.com)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, April Fools, censorship | 2 Comments »

I keep hearing this thing where atheists pose the question, “what if all the atheists left America,” and then they point out particular atheists who would leave and how that would make the country worse. I guess that might convince someone that atheists aren’t evil baby eaters, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I have a better question in mind. What if all the atheists left Europe… and came to the United States? Well, we could run atheists or public office and win. Then we could force religious believers to keep their ridiculous beliefs out of politics all together.

Challenges to the Separation of Church and State would be so easily defeated that Republicans wouldn’t even bother to bring them up. Science education would quickly improve. Medical research on stem cells could be funded adequately and diseases would become eradicated.

Schools would have no problem offering a comprehensive sex education class to teens who need to know that information. This would lower the teen pregnancy rate and lower the poverty rate. President Obama would pass a real Health Care bill. Foreign policy would be totally different too.

The point here is that America is the last battle ground. It is the last real holdout for religion and it is a powerful holdout. If atheists from all over the world came here and voted for rational people instead of the religious wackos like Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and the rest not only would America change for the better, but the whole world would change.

I understand the appeal of other non-religious wacko nations. My wife and I even talked about moving to Canada or the Netherlands to get away from the wackos in America so that we can live more rational lives. But the fact is that would just make the world worse. Like it or not, America has the bombs (as Dennis Leary puts it). Do you really think a President Palin wouldn’t try to invade atheist nations if she the rest of the country was as religious as she is?

Related articles

• Oh Yeah, It’s A-Week (dangeroustalk.net)
• Newt Gingrich fears religious atheists will take over America (dailykos.com)
• Why Are There Atheists? (godlessgirl.com)
• Quote of the Moment: Radical Secular Muslim Atheists (unreasonablefaith.com)

Filed under: atheism, church/state, Coexist, culture war, Political Activism | 7 Comments »

Recently President Obama decided to take military action in Libya. We are already involved in military action in Iraq (still) and Afghanistan. We are fighting as if this was still the 20th century. The problem is that we are now in the information age and we ought to be conducting our wars accordingly.

Missiles, bombs, guns, and soldiers aren’t going to work in the Middle-East. We have been in Iraq for a decade and not much has changed over there. The speech Obama gave in Egypt awhile back did more to advance freedom and democracy in the region than all the soldiers and military operations in the last decade. Twitter and Facebook have started revolutions.

These nations are mostly ruled by religion and so the way we should fight against them is with information, education, and getting people to think critically. Instead of sending in the military, we should be sending in information and education. While we should be willing to send troops to help out those who are revolting, we also need to help educate them about science and reality.

That’s the problem with Afghanistan. We took over the country and we control the cities most of the time. But the fact is that the Taliban are still running the show because they aren’t an army, they are an idea. More specifically, they are an extreme religious idea and you can’t kill ideas (even bad ones) with guns. What we should have done there is to start educating the people of Afghanistan about critical thinking so that they can see for themselves that the ideas of the Taliban are ridiculous. Then they will not stand for the Taliban and will start to revolt. Then we could support such a revolution with troops. But troops alone will not and has not worked.

Related articles

• US Strikes Killing Civilians in Afghanistan (jafrianews.com)
• Taliban fighters seize district in Afghanistan’s remote east (reuters.com)
• Suicide bomber kills 20 in Afghanistan’s southeast (theglobeandmail.com)
• Afghan Governor Expelled as Taliban Seize District (news.antiwar.com)

Filed under: education, facebook, islam, Obama, Politics, twitter | 1 Comment »

Last night, I attended the Freethought Society’s monthly meeting. Our special guest was Jill McDevitt, who is a Sexologist and the owner of a “sex shop.” In other words, her store, Feminique Boutique sells lingerie, vibrators, and has sex positive lectures.

I was working in West Chester, PA (where her store is located) when her store first opened and it created quite the controversy. This was what her lecture was about. She talked about the taboo against sex at every level of trying to open and run her store.

The way I see it, the taboo against sex is mainly a religious one. It is perhaps one of the greatest evils that the Abrahamic religions have left on our society. It has become so pervasive that even atheists sometimes hold on to these taboos.

In my examiner Atheism 101 series, I have an article which talks about why Christianity demonizes nudity, sex and sexuality. The thing is that we have to start to speak out more on this topic as a community of reason. Sexuality should not be repressed. Just as the greater atheist community often speaks out on gay rights issues, we also have to speak out more on the repression of sexuality in general.

There is no reason why nudity should be censored. People should not be ashamed of the human body and when we see this type of thing, we should question it. We should fight back against the systematic crusade against sexuality.

Related articles

• Atheism, Sex, and Sexuality – Greta Interviewed by Gay Calgary Magazine (gretachristina.typepad.com)
• More Sex, Please! (suggestivetongue.com)
• How a Sexologist Can Help Spice Up Your Sex Life (socyberty.com)

Filed under: atheism, culture war, family values, Religion, sex | 3 Comments »

“Atheists have no moral grounding. There morals are grounded in egoism.” While logically these two statements are contradictory, that never seems to bother the ignorant religious believers that make statements to this affect.

Why is it that religious believers seem to think that without a moral grounding egoism must be the moral philosophy? Let’s say for the sake of argument that there is no moral grounding. How does a lack of moral grounding default to egoism? If my morals were not grounded, then anything could be moral to me. I could choose any morals I like because my morals aren’t grounded. So if my morals aren’t grounded, then maybe I’ll choose Humanism as my morals for choice.

As it turns out, morals are grounded in empathy, compassion, and wellbeing so it is a moot point. But this that is not really the topic for this discussion. The point today is that religious people make contradictory statements when they claim that atheists have no moral grounding and then ascribe egoism as our default moral grounding which they stated we don’t have.

When an atheist calls them out the contradiction, the religious will often fall back to their twisted view of Evolution; “Survival of the fittest, right?” Wrong, evolution is not about survival of the fittest, it is about the survival of the best able to adapt. Besides, evolution describes what happens in biology it is not a philosophy about what ought to happen in ethics.

For example, gravity is a description of what happens in physic and it too is not a philosophy about what ought to happen in ethics. Do you believe in gravity? They you must believe that people should drop babies out of windows. That is the logical consequence of the theory, right? Such a view is obviously absurd.

Related articles

• Ignorance of Ethics (dangeroustalk.net)
• Another rabbi embarrasses me (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)

Filed under: humanism, morality, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »

So everyone is talking about this new study that religion is becoming extinct in nine countries. I wish I had the link to the actual study, but I don’t at the moment. Do wonder however, which of our modern religions will die first.

We know that religion is trending down world-wide. It is also probable that we will never be rid of religion completely. There are still those who believe that Elvis is still alive and Same Harris often tells the tale that he actually gets nasty e-mails from Poseidon believers. Still, for all practical purposes the Greek religions of the past are dead.

So do people think that the larger religions of today will be the first to go or perhaps the smaller religions like Scientology and Mormonism? Out of the Abrahamic religions, I think Judaism will be the first to go. There are a lot of Jews who are secular and I think this trend will continue to increase exponentially. While there will always be people who identify as Jewish, they will be less and less religious as time goes by. I think the religious aspect of Judaism will be the first of the Abrahamic religions to go.

When it comes to Christianity and Islam, I think it is a toss up. Islam is growing and Christianity is shrinking, so that might be a sign of things to come. But it might not if Islam can’t adapt the way Christianity has adapted.

This conversation is purely speculative and because there is no real way to know for sure (without a time machine) I am just hoping for people’s opinions here. This isn’t really a matter to argue over since there really are no facts to be argued. So what do you think and why?

Related articles

• Study: Religion Going Extinct in Most Western Countries — Why Does It Still Dominate Our Politics? (alternet.org)
• -Is Organized Religion Destined to Die Out in 9 Western Countries? (answersforthefaith.com)
• BBC – Religion to become extinct in 9 nations (politics.ie)

Filed under: culture war, Decline of Religion, Religion | 2 Comments »

Most Christians will attempt to argue their position using some semblance of reason, logic, and evidence. There are however a small but special few who will not even bother. These few, proud, believers will admit that all the evidence, logic, and reason in the world will not convince them of anything… god related of course.

The “special few,” as I call them, have decided that the Bible is the only source of real knowledge and so it is always right even if the evidence says otherwise. They aren’t saying that the evidence is on their side, they are saying that the Bible supersedes the evidence. Everything is a lie except the Bible.

Of course these “special few” will still attempt to argue their position because that is what people do. But they are immune to argument on a fundamental level. In fact, they rarely even listen to your argument(s). Instead they use it as an excuse to get their foot in the door, so to speak.

So what can we do about these special few? Arguing with them is a waste of time and asking them to read anything falls on deaf ears (even when asking them to read the Bible). Mockery seems to be the only thing left and even it seems inadequate. Personally, I am leaning toward the strategy of ignoring these very special few. Thoughts?

Related articles

• Science Can’t Prove It Doesn’t Exist (dangeroustalk.net)
• Hey Atheists, Look Around You! (dangeroustalk.net)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, conversation, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 5 Comments »

Although my Twitter profile photo is always the Dangerous Talk “A,” my facebook profile photo is usually me. This week, atheists are asked to change our facebook photos to the uniform scarlet A, this year in grey, for the week.

The reason for this is so that people on facebook and see that there are a lot of atheists as their friends and family. It is a way to encourage others to come out of the atheist closet and as a way to humanize atheists to those believers who might not realize that they know an atheist.

What I don’t like about A-Week is that we are asked to have the same uniform symbol. Atheists aren’t generally a fan of uniformity and I am no different. Last year, it was fun to see various atheists put their individual take on the A-symbol. Many incorporated it into their photo. I usually use the Dangerous Talk A that was designed by a friend of mine.

One of the down sides on A-week is that when I post of religious pages, my comments are ignored before they are read. Also, since many other websites use facebook as a login, any comments I make on other websites might also be ignored without being read.

Still, I think A-week is a good idea, but I do wish that atheists would do as they did last year and put some creativity and individuality into their profile-A. I think this is more interesting than the standard A-Week image we are told to use and it still gets our message across. So go and be creative like everyone else!

Related articles

• Happy “A” Week Everybody! (camelswithhammers.com)
• An Atheist in a Theist World (dangeroustalk.net)
• Myth: Atheists Believe in Nothing (godlessgirl.com)
• Quiverfull Atheists (dangeroustalk.net)

Filed under: atheism, facebook, humanism, Neighbor, People of Reason | 2 Comments »