DangerousTalk

If I had a penny for every time a Christian has told me that I would one day stand before God and have to account for my sins, I would be a rich person. Even after I inform the Christian that I don’t believe in God, the question is still asked as a “what if.”

So what if God does exist and when I die, he stops me at the gate and demands that I account for my sins. First, we have the issue of defining sin. If sin is simply a synonym for wrong-doing, than I don’t have much of an issue. As a person who tried his best to live a moral life, I am not all that worried about justifying my moral and immoral action. I try to do the best I can given the knowledge that I have at the time.

However, if sin is defined in a more fundamentalist way such as a transgression against God or as an action which separates us from God, than I couldn’t care less about it. I don’t recognize the existence of God or in the hypothetical, God’s authority.

If any account of the Bible is to be believed, then it is clear that God is not a moral being. His character as portrayed in the Bible is that of an all-powerful dictator. I do not think that such a character is praise-worthy. I don’t concern myself with the threats (however real they may or may not be) of dictators… even all powerful ones. If not obeying God means a one way trip to be tortured for all eternity in Hell without any opportunity for parole or reprieve, then so be it.

Plato talked about this in his book the Crito. In the book, Socrates has been sentenced to death by poison for the crime of corrupting the minds of young people. Socrates professed his innocence, but was found guilty anyway. His student Crito had bribed the guards so that Socrates could escape his unjust punishment. But Socrates refused to leave his cell. Instead, he told Crito that it was always better to receive an injustice than it is to do an injustice.

This concept from Plato has always resonated with me. If some all powerful deity wants to punish me unjustly, then it is better to take that punishment than to act in a way which I believe to be unjust even if such an action were to spare my immortal soul from eternal torture and guarantee my immortal soul a place in blissful paradise for all eternity. The fate of my immortal soul (a concept I don’t even believe in) amounts to a threat and bribe. It would be immoral to let such things dictate my moral actions.

If a god really does exist and this god really wanted me to follow him, then he would have written a more moral Bible. He would not demand worship and praise. Such a deity would have to earn respect not use threats and bribes to coerce obedience. I don’t care how all-powerful such a deity is. The fact is that with power comes responsibility and based on the Bible God has not taken on that responsibility.

Filed under: god, Judge God, morality, Religion, sin | 3 Comments »

Today I have heard probably the single worst argument for the existence of God that I have ever heard. This argument is so stupid that it amazes me what lengths people go with mental gymnastics in order to justify their imaginary friend.

If people are indoctrinated into belief in God and people are manipulated by others who believe in God then who first taught people to believe in God? Clearly, God must have taught people Himself.

That is what this Christian is arguing. God must exist because someone needed to teach people to believe and that someone is God. This Christian obviously has not thought that through. The implication of this argument is that anything that is imagined must have some basis in reality and must in fact be real. This would mean that Unicorns are real because only a unicorn could teach the concept of a unicorn to people.

What this Christian fails to realize is that while everything imagined does have some basis in reality, it does not follow that everything imagined is real. A unicorn is a horse with a horn. Both things are real and are based in reality, but it is the human imagination which has put them together.

When a baby’s parent leaves the room, a baby thinks that his or her parent has left existence. The baby learns that some times when people leave their view, they still exist. People needed to know how the world worked and so they made up gods to explain the causes of the effects that they saw. They thought that perhaps the gods had left the room much like a parent. Now of course we have better explanations for how the world works. Rain is no longer the gods crying. Thunder is no longer a bowling game of the gods. The wind is no longer God breathing heavy. A drought no longer means that God is angry.

People imagined gods based on real problems and real questions. The fact is that gods are based in reality. They strangely resemble us! Humans weren’t created in God’s image, but rather God was created in our image. There is an old saying that says that if a triangle had a god, he would have three sides.

God is a father, humans have fathers. God has a son, humans have sons. God has human emotions like jealousy, wrath, anger, etc. God is a projection of ourselves. That is why some people see God as a peace loving hippy and other people see God as an authoritarian dictator. God is a supercharged mirror. So if you are a god-believer ask yourself, “What is God like to you? What does that say about you?”

Filed under: god, image of god, Ontological Argument, Projection, Religion | 9 Comments »

One of the issues that I have always had with Christianity is that belief that human beings are inherently evil. This means that every time they speak to another human being, they think they are talking to an evil person.

Now, I know that some people will claim that not all Christians see other people in this light and that may or may not be the case, but the belief system does push that worldview. Christians in general do believe in a God and in Jesus and yes, in general they do believe that all people are evil.

This type of worldview is not healthy for humanity. When someone changes their mind on an issue or makes a mistake, believers in this worldview are quick to yell, “Liar” rather than to give someone the benefit of the doubt. It promotes paranoia and distrust. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing harmful about a little healthy skepticism, but when you see everyone you meet as an evil sinner, that healthy skepticism quickly becomes unhealthy very quickly.

The Christian worldview is that God made humans good, but then Eve made Adam eat from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and people became evil sinners ever-after.

Personally, I think that people are neither good nor evil inherently. I think most people want to do the right thing and try hard to be moral people. Sometimes however, evil is all we know or we make poor choices in life and then get desperate to dig ourselves out of our situations. Most of the time, I think people try to be the hero in their own story and sometimes get sidetracked along the way.

I think this is a more accurate picture of the human condition and by far a healthier model for humanity. It leads atheists like me to give people the benefit of the doubt and to want to help other good people (who really wants to help out evil people, right?).

So Christians can keep their “evil sinner” bullshit, that’s not how I roll. I don’t even blame Christians for pushing this evil worldview. It really isn’t their fault. They were misled down this path. They are good people, they just don’t know it.

Filed under: Evils of Christianity, morality, Religion, satan, sex | 7 Comments »

First and foremost, I think that it is important for atheists to build a strong local community. There are freethought, humanist, and skeptic groups all over the nation and the world and we should all take part in those local groups. The new Coalitions of Reason (COR) are also helping to bring atheists together locally. In addition, we also need to continue to build strong online communities too.

It is actually easier for atheists to build online communities than local ones, but make no mistake both are very important. Atheists have created a strong presence on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and that is really great. I think it is important for us to be on those sites but I also think we need a safe places to network together.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. When a Christians finds something offensive (which is pretty much all the time) they go on one of their networking sites or Churches and get the work out. Then a large number of Christians write letters, make phone calls, etc. Atheists don’t have that.

Also, many Christians promote their religious and secular endeavors within their social networks. Churches and Christian websites promote businesses of other Christians. The atheist community needs to start doing this type of thing too.

Now over the weekend, two issues came up which reminded me of the importance of building these social networks. The first has to do with a local issue. The Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia put up a Tree of Knowledge display in West Chester, PA. You can read more about this on my Examiner article. Friday, I found out that Christian groups had organized to call the county commissioners to demand that our tree be taken down. As a result, over the weekend, it very nearly was taken down. Lawyers are currently involved and I don’t want to discuss the details more at the moment because I don’t want to hurt our case.

The point is that we needed to organize a similar call bank in support of the Tree. But our social network isn’t as strong or as organized. We need to fix that.

The other issue related to social networking came about when I got into a rather heated argument with some of the moderators of one of the atheist online social networking sites. Think Atheist and I don’t seem to see eye-to-eye on what the purpose of a social network actually is. As a result, I will be using their site less and want to focus on building the Dangerous Talk page on Atheist Nexus more.

With that said, I want to encourage my fellow atheists to create a page on Atheist Nexus if you haven’t done so already. It goes without saying that you should add Dangerous Talk as a friend. I also want to encourage you to be active on that site. I have not been as active there as I should be, but I intend to change that.

I want to also encourage my fellow atheists to support other atheists and their endeavors whenever possible. This means re-posting links to articles, blogs, or websites that you enjoy (including this one), donating to sites and groups when you can, clicking on ads on atheist websites, posting comments, and generally being part of the greater atheist community both online and off.

Filed under: atheism, facebook, People of Reason, Tree of Knowledge, twitter | 11 Comments »

Even though it has become pretty much common knowledge and has been accepted by just about every scholar including most Biblical scholars (if they even count), I still get e-mails from people telling me that Christmas was not stolen from the pagans and that Jesus is the reason for the season.

One need look no further then one’s own Bible to see that God is not a fan of Christmas. Jeremiah 10:2-4 talks about how these are heathen customs. As for the Christmas Wreath, it was a pagan symbol of fertility and any fundamentalist Christian will tell you that God wants guys to keep it in their pants and women ought to be chase until marriage with no birth-control. God is no fan of fertility either (just ask his brother the fertility god Ba’al Zabul).

The fact is that people from very different religious backgrounds celebrate the start of the winter season. The world gets cold and the days get shorter. During this time of year, people have a tendency to get depressed and as a result the need arose to lift people’s spirits and celebrate. The evergreen tree was seen as a symbol of life since it was one of the few trees which stayed green in the winter (hence the name evergreen).

People of varying religions created myths surrounding this time of year. Most of which had to deal with the birth of a deity. Some pagans celebrated the winter solstice at this time of year while others celebrated the festival of Yule. The Romans celebrated their god Saturn with a holiday called Saturnalia. This feast started on the 17th and grew longer as time went on.

As the Romans conquered the lands of other people, they soon realized that other cultures also had festivals celebrating the birth of their gods at this time of year. So the Romans decided to merge all these holidays in one and called it Sol Invictus which means “unconquered sun.”

During the 4th century when Constantine decided to Christianize the Roman Empire, attempts were made to get rid of pagan holidays. But as the old saying goes, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” the Catholic Church decided to create a holiday to celebrate during this time so that they could win converts who were reluctant to stop celebrating winter festivals.

And Christmas was born!

In other words, Christians stole Christmas just like they stole almost all of their other holidays from other religious traditions before their own.

Filed under: Christmas, Religion | 19 Comments »

Believe it or not, one vote can win an election. Every vote does count. I know this first hand. I am pretty sure that I won the election by exactly one vote.

Yesterday, I received a letter in the mail from the County’s Department of Elections and they told me that I received more write-in votes then any other candidate for the office of Minority Inspector of Elections.

On November 3rd, I went to the polls to vote for my local elected officials and in my Republican controlled town there were no Democrats running for any of the town offices. All the Republicans were running unopposed. So I wrote in my name for all the offices that didn’t have a Democratic candidate. Now I am pretty sure no one else wrote my name in.

For the position of Inspector of Elections, there needs to be an inspector for each political party. Since there were no Democratic candidates, I was the winner for the Minority Inspector with my one write-in vote. I didn’t even think about that when I wrote my name in. I just thought that my write-ins wouldn’t really count and that one vote doesn’t actually make a difference.

So for all of you out there, don’t forget to vote and to write in your name when you don’t like any of the candidates. One vote can make a difference. Dreams can come true. I’m living proof… BEEFCAKE!!!!

Filed under: Political Activism, Politics | 4 Comments »

There have been quite a few people who have told me that valued friends and family members have defriended them on one of the many social networking sites like facebook or myspace because they posted atheistic opinions.

While I am pretty open about my lack of belief in ancient superstitions, I do have some theistic friends and family particularly on facebook. I don’t really want to offend them by telling them that their deeply held superstitious beliefs are bronze-aged fiction that is holding the entire human race back and threatening the freedoms, happiness, and very survival of all of humankind. However, I post a link to my blog entries on my facebook anyway. Sometimes when an old friend or family member adds me as a friend on facebook, I have to think about whether or not they will be offended by the things that I post.

When I stop to think about it, it really does seem ridiculous to me that I spend time considering whether I should or should not express my opinion on such an important subject matter out of fear that someone I care about will be offended. This especially seems ridiculous to me in light of the fact that many of these religious people who I care deeply about have zero problem posting overly religious stuff and I doubt very much that they stop for half a second at all to even consider that they might be offending me or someone else on their friend list who doesn’t share their ridiculous beliefs.

Not to worry religious friends, I am not so easily offended but the point is that in general, I doubt that they even consider my sensibilities into their religious posting. It seems that atheists are much more aware, thoughtful, and considerate when we self-censor ourselves for the benefit of our religious friends and family members.

Still, even though I think we ought not to self-censor ourselves and that we should express our opinions, thoughts, and criticisms openly I too struggle with this issue. Do I add my religious cousin as a friend? Do I accept the add of an uncle who may or may not be religious? How about that old college friend?

The fact is that not all atheists are as open as I am and even I struggle with these issues. It really comes down to a personal judgment call. But for the most part, I add who I want to add and if someone adds me, I generally accept them. If they get offended by the stuff that I post, then they will either start a conversation about it or they will defriend me.

I welcome the conversation and do my best to keep these discussions civil, polite, and friendly. If they defriend me on facebook, that doesn’t mean that we can’t still be friends in the real world. And relatives will always be relatives regardless of whether we are facebook friends or not.

Filed under: conversation, discussion, facebook, People of Reason, Religion, responsibility | 16 Comments »

It seems that right after Thanksgiving, the winter holiday season officially begins. These days, the holiday season usually starts before Halloween is even over. The thing is that it seems that fundamentalist Christians and even a growing number of mainstream Christians seem to think that this season is the Christmas only season.

For the last three years, the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia has put up a winter display next to the Crèche and the Menorah in front of the Chester County Courthouse in Pennsylvania. Last year some people on the street were interviewed about the winter display and some claimed that we should have put up our display at another time of year because December is the month of Christmas. Fox News commentator, Father Morris claimed that we were trying to “steal Christmas.”

And just last week, the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith’ section asked if this is another front in the “War on Christmas.” As if there actually is a war on Christmas and as if there was already other fronts in such a war. How ridiculous. The fact is that every time an atheist wants to celebrate the winter season, we are told that December belongs to Christians. The irony is that Christians stole Christmas from the pagans to begin with.

Are Christians really that insecure and arrogant that they feel the need to take over an entire month and to claim that only celebrations of their God are allowed during that month? More importantly, are we going to let them?

Author’s Note: I posted a response to the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith’ question on the Examiner.

Filed under: Christmas, culture war, People of Reason, Religion, Tree of Knowledge | 4 Comments »

One of my issues with the Abrahamic religions is that it doesn’t just focus on the ridiculous belief in an all-powerful supernatural being, but that they demand that we worship this imaginary being (often times in some strange and interesting ways).

A popular argument that some fundamentalist believers use is that humans were created (by their God) for the sole purpose of worshipping our alleged creator, God. Personally, I think this seems pretty vain of a deity to create beings for the sole purpose of worshipping him. In fact, to me it is a very unpraise-worthy trait. While I have lots of issues with this line of thinking (if you could call it that), that is not the issue that I want to discuss today.

Some of these fundamentalists will claim that if we don’t worship their God in their way, then we must then worship something else in an attempt to fill our “God-shaped hole in our hearts.” I have often told Christians who have made this argument that while I admire a lot of different people, I don’t worship anyone. No pope or priest or rabbi fills my “God-shaped hole.”

That doesn’t satisfy them. Instead, they then insist that I must then worship drugs, alcohol, money, or some other type of material thing. Well, I have never done any illegal drugs nor do I drink in any excess. In fact, I tell them that I have never even been drunk. I am not really about money either since I tend to live a pretty frugal life (although if people donated to DangerousTalk more that could change, lol).

That too doesn’t satisfy their need for my God-shaped hole. So next they often tell me that I try to fill my God-shaped hole with sex. I love this one because these prudish people set themselves up to be offended as the jokes about filling holes begin. They usually try to change the subject pretty quickly.

Finally they find the answer. Surprisingly this is usually their last effort:
Believer: “You fill your God-shape hole in your ‘heart’ with science!”
Me: “Yup, and oddly enough it really seems to plug it up nicely.”

Science isn’t a thing that can be worshipped; it is a tool that we use to understand the world around us. The scientific method is way of thinking which has given us all the technology that most people take for granted. We use the scientific method because it works. It is the best tool we have for understanding the world around us.

Interestingly enough, it seems that when science hasn’t yet figured someone out about the world, it is God which fills in the gaps. It is kind of funny when you think about it, God fills the science-shaped hole and that back when we couldn’t travel to the stars, believers filled that science-shaped gap with Heaven. Now that we have been to the stars, God lives in another dimension or something. Maybe God-believers need to start re-thinking this God-shaped hole bit, because it really seems like it is the theists using God to fill the gaps.

Filed under: god of the gaps, God-Shaped Hole, Religion, responsibility | 8 Comments »

Thanksgiving can be a difficult time of year for many in the greater atheist community who have to sit and interact with our usually more religious family members. In such settings, the topic of religion is almost certainly going to come up.

Every atheist is in a different situation on this holiday. Some have pretty secular family members while others have to spend the evening and perhaps the long weekend with fundamentalist family members. Some of us are open about our lack of belief while others are in the atheistic closet.

Regardless of our differing situations, I don’t think we need to thank any gods on this holiday. I think there is a way to deflect religious talk as well as a way to engage religious family members if that is something you are comfortable with.

Thanksgiving is a Humanist Holiday. I wrote about it in my Examiner article and I think it can help refocus the conversation away from any gods and more on to people and the brighter future which we are trying to build. Please feel free to post any interesting conversations on this topic here and also feel free to vent any frustrations in relation to these issues if you feel so moved.

I am thankful to have readers, commenters, tweeters, supporters, and I am also very thankful to the few donators. Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Dangerous Talkers.

Filed under: conversation, People of Reason, Religion, thanksgiving | 4 Comments »

Think about it for a moment. Let’s say you are God. You have always existed and then suddenly even though nothing has changed or can change you decided to poof create the Universe. Why?

If nothing had changed why wouldn’t God just keep doing what God was doing? What caused God to decide to one day (before there were days) to create the Universe? Now some theists will cop-out and say that the Universe was all part of his divine plan, but when did he make this divine plan? More importantly, why did he make his divine plan? God has been around (according to believers) forever. So at some point during forever, he decided for no reason to create a divine plan. What was God doing before his divine plan? Intelligent humans want to know.

Then I have some more questions for believers. So forever is going by and then for no reason God just decides to have a divine plan. For no reason at all, after doing whatever it is that God does, God decides to create the Universe. According to believers, God created the Universe special just for us human beings. But the problem is that the Universe is really, really big and we are just tiny little specks. Now can understand if believers thought that humans would someday be smart enough to explore the entire Universe that their God created for us, but that isn’t what believers believe.

Jews believe that the Messiah is coming to save them from more Earthly concerns. Christians believe that Jesus is coming to save them soon and take all who believe to Heaven soon. Muslims don’t even like modernity at all so they have no desire to explore the Universe. Besides, if they die now, they can get 72 virgins for the price on one.

The point is that none of the Abrahamic religions have any intention of exploring this great big Universe on religious grounds. So why would their God create such a vast Universe which had absolutely nothing to do with human beings?

Finally, if all things have a cause and all things come to an end, what will God do for the rest of eternity once the Universe has come to an end? God spent eternity before the Universe and will spend eternity after the Universe. So why would his spent a short period on non-eternity with a Universe? Why did God bother with a Universe at all?

Of course the obvious answer is that he didn’t. God is fiction and has absolutely nothing to do with the Universe. God was just a literary tool used by bronze-aged people to explain what they could not explain and were too afraid to admit their ignorance about.

Filed under: First Cause Argument, god, Religion | 22 Comments »

It seems that Sarah Palin’s 15 minutes of fame is not up just yet. It is pretty well established that she was picked to be the 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential candidate largely due to her strong fundamentalist views. The McCain campaign had hoped to get the Religious Right energized about his campaign through her. While McCain may have lost the election he succeeded on this point.

One of Palin’s wackier moments was made public when a YouTube clip surfaced of her at church getting protection from a witch doctor in the name of Jesus. But don’t think for a moment that she doesn’t really believe this stuff. In a recent interview with Barbara Walters, Palin gave a very interesting answer to a question about Israeli settlements on what the Palestinians consider their territory. She said, “I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that… um… the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon. Because that population of Israel is is going to grow more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days, weeks, and months ahead and um… I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell um Israel that uh Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

Now let me ask a follow-up question that Walters did not even consider. “Sarah, why do you think that Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days, weeks, and months ahead?” I wonder if Palin believes that the End of Days is approaching and that Jews will be flocking to Israel just before that happens.

Some people may claim that I am reading into her comments too much, but I really think Palin believes that there will be a reason for Jews to “flock” to the Holy Land in the “days, weeks, and months ahead.” I really think she is serious about that. I also think that she is being genuine here and not just trying to speak in religious code like Bush did. As dumb as Bush was, Palin is even dumber. She doesn’t have Rove to tell her to hide messages in her interviews to get the Religious Right to like her more. They already love her.

Sarah Palin is the real deal here. She really does believe that the world is going to come to an end… soon. She really believes that the Jews are going to flock to Israel and that the Middle East is going to be the site for Armageddon. And you thought that the Witch Doctor was scary…

Filed under: Current Events, End of Days, palin, prophecies, Religion | 8 Comments »

A lot of times I talk about the immorality of Christianity. Most of the time, Christians and even a few atheists jump to defend Christianity by talking about various good deeds particular Christians have done and continue to do. But I wasn’t talking about Christians being immoral; I was talking about Christianity being immoral. What can be more immoral then the vicarious redemption of sin?

The whole idea that I can go and murder someone or work on Saturday and have my sins forgiven vicariously by someone else is a license for crime. Christians often use the analogy of some small offense like a drunk driving charge (which for the record isn’t really a small offense) and they talk about how Judge God lets the offender off the hook because Jesus paid his or her fine. But that isn’t how the world works.

If someone went and murdered someone else and was found guilty, no one would be able to pay the fine of prison time except that person who was found guilty. There is an old expression, “If you do the crime, you will do the time.”

But that isn’t the worst part of the Christian redemption system. The way Jesus allegedly pays for your sins is through blood sacrifice. It is funny that when most Americans hear about some cult sacrificing an animal to the Gods they laugh and think such a ritual is absurd and yet 80% or more believe the same thing.

The whole Christian belief system centers around the idea of blood sacrifice. Back before Jesus allegedly came, the Abrahamic God wanted people to sacrifice goats to him so that he could forgive them for their sins. This is where the term scapegoat comes from. Everyone in the village puts all their sins on to the goat and kills the goat as a sacrifice to God. But God wanted more than just a goat.

Lambs were more desirable to God apparently, because he wanted the people to sacrifice an innocent lamb to show how much they care instead. Let me repeat that last part. God wanted people to sacrifice an Innocent Lamb.

Now of course there is no need to sacrifice an Innocent Lamb or any other lamb for that matter because Jesus is the “Lamb of God.” In other words, he is the innocent blood sacrifice that God needs for the redemption of sin.

Some people will say that not all Christians believe this and that I am generalizing. But the fact is that this whole blood sacrifice thing is a pretty central point the Christian belief system. I really don’t think one could seriously be considered a Christian if they don’t buy into the idea that the death of Jesus was a necessary sacrifice to God for their sins. That is pretty much the whole grounding of the religion. God forgives those who have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus for payment of their sins.

In reality, there is no vicarious redemption for sin. God can’t forgive you for your wrongs. Only those who you have wronged can forgive you. Next time you lie to a friend or family member about something, instead of asking Jesus for forgiveness, try slaughtering an innocent lamb instead. Let me know if that works out for ya.

Filed under: blood sacrifice, Evils of Christianity, Judge God, morality, Religion, responsibility, sin | 10 Comments »

Today is the day that Christian evangelist Ray Comfort and his same-sex heterosexual partner Kirk Cameron were supposed to give out copies of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. The Comfort Edition of the book contains a 54 page introduction written by Comfort which basically Glenn Becks Darwin.

The funny thing is that part of Ray Comfort’s evangelical act is to go around asking people if they ever lied and then telling them that they are going to Hell because they have broken “God’s Law.” Comfort also claims that without God people can lie without consequence. And yet, Comfort and his friends went around and told people that they would be giving out the Comfort-Edition today and instead, they gave it out yesterday. Comfort not only wrote his 54 page introduction which is filled with lies and distortion, but he also lied about when he was handing them out.

But don’t worry about Comfort’s immortal soul; even though he broke God’s law, he has Jesus. Ray Comfort can lie, steal, murder, work on Saturday’s, and even covet his neighbor’s goat without having to worry about consequences at all. Jesus forgives Ray Comfort for all his sins. There is no reason for Comfort to be honest because he has the golden ticket to Heaven.

It seems that with God there are no consequences for one’s actions and that with God there is no reason to be moral or ethical. Jesus has your back and you can do whatever you want and still end up in Heaven.

The fact is that without God, we are forced to acknowledge that morality comes from humans beings or the purpose of human society. We are accountable not to gods but to ourselves and our fellow human beings. We are moral because we feel empathy for our fellow human beings and so we strive to be compassionate toward them. We do this not because of some reward of eternal bliss in Heaven or out of eternal fear of Hell, but out of a common decency to the rest of humanity.

Filed under: culture war, morality, ray comfort, Religion | 9 Comments »

Yesterday, I got the H1N1 vaccine. But for weeks now, I have been hearing about all the conspiracies and concerns in relation to this vaccine. Some seem perfectly rational and understandable while others are as ridiculous as the Abrahamic God.

The more ridiculous concerns about this particular vaccine deal with the evil Illuminati. Apparently, they created the decease and the vaccine so that they can infect everyone with something evil that will allow them to some how control the world in a way that all vast money and power doesn’t allow. People who believe that kind of crap need straitjackets.

Then there are those who believe that all vaccines have Thermisol in them and that Thermisol causes autism. These people are victims of misinformation and ignorance. The fact is that not all of the H1N1 vaccines have Thermisol in them. Some do and some don’t. All vaccines made for children below age 6 are required to be Thermisol-free just because the CDC has better things to do that present the actual science to hysterical parents. The fact is the Thermisol does not cause autism. This has been shown over and over again through numerous studies and even in court cases.

Bill Maher and many others are concern that the H1N1 vaccine is a symptom of larger problems. They think that our medical industry has been taken over by large corporations who only care about profit and as such, have manipulated the media into thinking that H1N1 is more dangerous then it is. They also think that the human body is better without all the drugs and unnatural chemicals that people pump into their bodies on a regular basis. And finally, they think that modern medicine tends to treat the symptoms of illness rather then the actual decease itself.

Maher’s concerns are valid concerns to some extent. The medical industry has been taken over by large corporations who care more about profit than healing people. But it is still a leap to claim that the medical industry no longer cares about healing people at all. The fact is that they make profit by healing people… for a while. More funding probably does go to treating symptoms rather than curing deceases. The media doesn’t need any manipulation to make people think that H1N1 is more deadly than it actually is. They do that on their own. But that isn’t to say that H1N1 isn’t deadly at all. It is deadly, but it is not a plague of Biblical proportions that will wipe out all life on Earth.

Maher is also correct in that most people pump themselves full of crap. The fact is that the food most people eat is not healthy. I should know; I eat the worst of it. Even our fruits and vegetables have pesticides on them. There is pollution in our air and pollution in our water. These things probably do contribute a lot to the health problems in America. But natural doesn’t always equal healthy and many times the chemicals that are put into foods can make us healthier.

But people can sometimes go in the complete opposite direction too. There are people who think that everyone needs to get every vaccine. This goes too far. While it is true that with some vaccines everyone ought to get because society needs a herd immunization so that we can kill the decease completely (like with small pox), other vaccines don’t require a herd immunity. The Chicken Pox for example is not that deadly a decease and if children get the decease while they are young they are in a sense vaccinated for life.

The seasonal flu isn’t going to go away anytime soon and it isn’t a deadly decease to most people either. Most people really don’t need the seasonal flu shot. Nor do most people need the H1N1 vaccine. But there are certain people who are recommended to get those vaccines. Children should get these vaccines because their immune systems aren’t fully developed yet and because viruses like the flu spread quickly in places like schools. Pregnant women and people over 50 should get it as well. Some people who have certain chronic medical conditions are also in the “at risk” category and should get the flu shot and the H1N1 shot. And finally, people to care for those who are in the “at risk” category should get these vaccines. That last one was the reason why I got vaccinated this year. Most years, I don’t even bother with the flu shot, but now I take care of my 8 month old son who needs to be protected.

I think people shouldn’t get every vaccine that the drug companies create and that we shouldn’t allow the media to get us terrified of the latest decease. We also shouldn’t avoid all vaccines ether. We ought to think and be judicious about the vaccines we get and the medicines we take. Not all medicines are helpful to all people. We should realize that the drug companies aren’t out to get us nor are they benevolent deities in their own right. They are people who want to help other people and who want to make a profit. Sometimes they put helping people over making a profit. Sometimes they put profits above people. Most of the time, they try to find a way to help people and make a profit at the same time.

Filed under: Current Events, education, healthcare, New World Order, Vaccines | 20 Comments »

Last week, I got a nasty e-mail from a fellow atheist about one of my blogs. This atheist didn’t agree with my approach to religion and thinks that we ought not to offend the religious in any way. He claimed that my view of atheism reflects negatively on all atheists.

I wonder, does that mean that the greater atheist community can claim that certain Christians reflect negatively on all Christians? Hitler was a Christian, so therefore all Christians must be Hitler, right?

Seriously though, I don’t see why the actions and attitudes of some atheists have any reflection on the actions and attitudes of other atheists. We don’t even claim that the actions of some religious people reflect on the actions of others and yet atheism is not even a religion. This line of thinking is akin to claiming that a non-brown-eyed person’s actions and attitudes reflect negatively on all non-brown-eyed people.

At least with religious people, there is a common belief system that can be criticized. This common belief system can reflect on all those who subscribe to that common belief system. However, different people have different interpretations of that common belief system and follow different parts of that common belief system. In this way, we get radically different Christians.

So while I can’t say that all Christians are like James Dobson, I can say that all Christians claim to follow the Bible… in general (I do actually know a few Christians who claim that they don’t follow the Bible). My point here is that atheists don’t have a common belief system. While it is true that most atheists today in America tend to be Humanists, not all atheists are Humanists.

I don’t agree with all atheists on every issue nor would I expect all atheists to agree with me. I don’t think one person’s lack of belief reflects negatively on me or my lack of belief.

Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, Religion | 7 Comments »

Fundamentalist Christians constantly say that God has been banned from public school.  That is a lie. God has not been “banned” from public schools at all.

If a child wants to pray to God, Jesus, Allah, Xenu, or Ringo Star before, during, or even after a test, they are absolutely free to do so. While I am reasonably certain that such prayers would have absolutely no baring on their grade, they are free to pray to whatever deity they choose in a non-disruptive manner.

That’s the key word here, “non-disruptive.” They can’t sacrifice virgins or prostrate the floor in every direction. Nor can they wave their hands in the air and sing Jesus’s praises. In fact, they will need to pray silently because they need to be non-disruptive.

During homeroom, study hall, in the halls or before class starts, people are free to take out their Bibles, Korans, Satanic Versus, Dianetics, or the Loax if they so choose, but when the teacher says that it is time for class to start, all those things have to go away.

If students want to meet before or after school to read the Bible and discuss it, they are all free to do that. However, school clubs usually need a faculty advisor and public school faculty members are considered government employees. Government employees cannot use their position to push one religion over another. In their role of government employee, they must be neutral toward religion. So I don’t think they could advise an official Bible Club. If students want to organize on their own and read the Bible, they are free to do so.

Because faculty members are government employees and government employees must be neutral with regard to religion, teachers, coaches, and other faculty members cannot promote any religion. They cannot lead prayers before class or before a game. They cannot abuse their power as a faculty member to preach their religious beliefs.

In short, no faculty member or student has the right to turn their school into a church. While individual freedom is protected as best as possible, the purpose of school is to learn. Could you imagine if this restriction was removed and teachers and students could disruptively pray and preach whatever religion they wanted at any time and in any way? The schools would no longer be a place of learning and would become a battleground for religious war.

Filed under: culture war, education, free speech, prayer, Preaching, Religion | 28 Comments »

Christian evangelist Ray Comfort is known for his use of fear as a tool to gain converts. While he is not the only one by a long shot who uses this tool, he is one of the more notable culprits.

Comfort and his completely straight heterosexual partner Kirk Cameron (aka Mike Seaver from Growing Pains) like to go around to spring break hotspots and harass (in a non-sexual manner) young, drunk, and attractive college students with the Ten Commandments.

Once they find people young enough to have never watched Growing Pains and have no idea who Mike Seaver was, they start the interrogation. The questions are moral questions which coincide with some of the Ten Commandments. For example, their first question is usually, “Have you ever lied?” To this most college aged people confess that they have on some occasion of another.

This is where Comfort starts getting really excited. He whips out his Bible and points to the Ten Commandments with his erect finger and asks, “You are a self-confessed liar and the Bible says, ‘Thou shall not bear false witness.’”

Most drunk college students are left without protection. They have no idea what to say while Comfort and Cameron shoot their loud all over the young student, “The Bible is Gods law and you broke that law and God is the judge. You’re guilty. You’re a criminal. You belong in Hell, but 2000 years ago Jesus paid your fine. So God can dismiss your case legally because Jesus suffered, died, and rose from the dead on the third day. Now you need to accept the sacrifice or burn in everlasting Hell.” The choice is clear, either be a Christian or Burn in Hell for all eternity, no pressure.

What’s wrong with this line of rhetoric? The list is a long one. First, Comfort and his boy-toy Cameron are preying on those who they believe can’t defend themselves adequately. They seem to enjoy harassing drunken college students who are not expecting to be bombarded with these types of questions. They are exploiting these people and preying on the vulnerable.

Second, when they bring out the Ten Commandments, they rarely talk about the Commandments that are obviously ridiculous. They don’t go around and ask college students if they have ever worked on a Saturday or coveted their neighbor’s ox.

Third, they have presented zero evidence that these commandments are “God’s Laws” or even that this God of theirs exists. There is no evidence for Hell and no evidence that someone will spend eternity there for breaking any of these Commandments.

Fourth, they are creating a problem that doesn’t exist and then presenting the only way out which conveniently is to join their cult.

Fifth, they are using fear to terrorize their victim into doing what they want them to do. There is a word for that… I wonder what that word might be? Umm…

Sixth, they introduce the flawed concept of vicarious redemption of wrongdoing. This last one is a dozy and will be the subject of an upcoming blog. It is an issue which concerns all of Christianity.

Filed under: Judge God, Preaching, ray comfort, Religion, Religious Manipulation, ten commandments | 6 Comments »

A very popular 11th grade English teacher was suspended last week because he handed out a short story by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. The story was called “Guts” and is a cautionary tale about teens experimenting with masturbation techniques.

The story is pretty graphic and is full of strong imagery. Aside from the obvious literary value of the story, there is also strong social value. The story is from the point of view of a young teen who hears rumors of various bizarre masturbation techniques from his older brother. He talks about two of them in graphic detail and the disastrous effects that these two people who tried them experienced. Then he goes on and talks about the one that he tried and the disastrous consequences it had on his life.

The Bronx High School teacher collected the copies of the story from his students at the end of class. Nevertheless, word of the story got out and the principal transferred the teacher to administrative duties while an investigation began. He was suspended last week. 30 year old, Greg Van Voorhis has taught at the school for 7 years and has had a reputation for “pushing the envelope.”

Now why was he suspended? The story discusses masturbation. So what? These are 11th graders from the Bronx. Statistically speaking, most of them have already had sex. If masturbation were discussed in a health class, would that be a problem? Well, according to some people, yes. But again the issue is why?

It is not that this teacher had his students read this story so that he could get his jollies. There is a clear literary component to the story and even if there wasn’t, the story is a cautionary tale about a teen and about teen issues. Is it graphic? You bet. Is it educational? Absolutely.

Students and teachers of the school have set up a facebook page in support of Mr. V. as his students call him. You can also read the story “Guts” by Chuck Palahniuk, here.

Filed under: education, Religion, sex | 8 Comments »

No doubt everyone is aware that today is Veterans Day. Today is the day that we are all supposed to thank those who serve in the military and those who have served in the military. I ask why? Why do we honor those people?

The reason that we are given is that we honor their sacrifice and their courage. But I have met quite a few people in the military and I have to tell you that a lot of them aren’t very praise worthy. Don’t get me wrong, many of them are praise worthy and do sacrifice and believe in defending the ideals of America. But a good number are what the Army aptly describes as “jarheads.” Many in the military are drawn to the violence rather than the defense of the ideals.

Still, I do genuinely honor those who have served and who serve in the defense of America’s ideals. I do honor many of the veterans of America’s past wars and I am genuinely grateful for their service and sacrifice. But I do think it is important to not just praise and thank veterans thoughtlessly. We ought to really be genuine about it and to think about the praise and thanks we are bestowing.

I also think that it would be great if we could live in a world without a Veterans Day. What I mean by that is that I think humanity should strive for a world in which war is no longer a reality. In an ideal world, there would be no veterans. While that may sound impossible to us today, it is a dream worth living for and I believe that they best veterans would also like to see such a world. It is this reason why I am surprised that America does not have a Diplomats Day.

While there is certainly a time for war, I wish we lived in a world where that time was infrequent and/or none existent. A world in which there was no reason to fight. You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I am not the only one.

Filed under: Politics | 14 Comments »

Recently, I watched the new DVD film, “Collision: Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson.” The film follows the book tour of atheist Hitchens and fundamentalist Christian Wilson as they debate each other on the question, “is Christianity good for the world?”

Hitchens describes himself as an anti-theist in the film and makes the argument that morality came before Christianity and that morality is innate in human beings through the evolutionary process. Most of the time however, Hitchens talks about how great he thinks Wilson is for being such an unapologetic fundamentalist.

On the other side, Wilson spends much of the screen time talking about how atheists use Christian morality to criticize Christianity and how atheists have no moral grounding. He uses John Lennon’s famous song Imagine to argue that without belief in the Christian God, atheists should just do whatever they like. In fact, Wilson sets up the strawman that all atheists ought to be Stalin.

I found this film to be pretty one-sided and that Hitchens never really addresses any of Wilson’s attacks. I think that it is important to address those attacks and to criticize the Christian world view as immoral. Hitchens does spend a little bit of time on the later by criticizing the central Christian concept of vicarious redemption of sin, but he doesn’t really drive the point home nor does it stand out as the harsh criticism that it actually is. It seems a bit underplayed.

Wilson repeatedly attacks Hitchens for not having any moral grounding and then talks about how God is his moral grounding. Hitchens just sort of smirks, but doesn’t really discuss this in any detail. The fact of the matter is that Christians have no moral grounding either.

The fact is that God doesn’t ground morality at all and that all of us human beings have to continue in a long and hard intellectual struggle to understand how right and wrong relate to other human beings. Hitchens never states that there is no morality in a vacuum and that morality only exists because human beings have to interact with other human beings and the world around us. The fact that we as a species can think and reason is the very reason why we developed a moral sense.

Wilson does have a brilliant line of attack at one point in which he defends (against no one in particular) against the charge of circular reasoning. He states that his authority is the Bible and when asked why, he quotes a Biblical passage. Then he says that if we were to ask an atheist what his (or her) authority is, the atheist would say reason. Wilson then counters (to no one in particular) that he would ask why and the atheist would give his reasons which would amount to him quoting his Bible.

In other words, Wilson defends against the charge of circular reasoning by accusing atheists of using circular reasoning too. There are a few problems with this. The first is claiming that atheist use circular reasoning doesn’t make it logically valid for Christians to use circular reasoning. The second problem is that it sets up a false premise. The idea that everyone must have a singular authority or foundation for their world view is just a false assumption that limits our options. Third, reason isn’t an authority, it is a process. Wilson confuses the two when in fact it is apples and oranges.

In any case, I can see young fundamentalist Christians on college campuses using this argument and Hitchens never even addresses it in the film. I love Hitchens in debates and on Christian talk shows because he isn’t afraid to interrupt or cut off his opponent when they are trying to railroad him, but in this film, he didn’t do that at all. In fact, he was railroaded. I am shocked that he would continue to support this film in light of the editing.

Filed under: atheism, morality, Religion | 7 Comments »

Almost anyone who reads the Bible cover-to-cover from an objective perspective will be able to notice that the story is ridiculous. It is almost certain that the character of God as portrayed in the Bible is as fictional as the evil Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series. And yet there are still billions (with a b) of people who claim to be believers in the Abrahamic religions.

The thing is that most mainstream believers have no idea what the character of God in the Bible is like. Instead, in order to keep the character of God believable, many believers have stripped the character of almost all of his characteristics and have left him as a one-dimensional vague higher power rather than the fully developed three-dimensional character that is described in the Bible.

I don’t really blame them, the God of the Bible is a real asshole and it would take a really cold-hearted person to worship such a tyrannical prick. Instead, most believers have created their own vague idea of what God ought to be like and then they worship that false ideal. It really isn’t hard to do. Just imagine a being to which no greater being can be imagined and according to Anselm that is God.

However, Anselm’s God is a lot different that the character of God as portrayed in the Bible. I can imagine a character quite a bit greater that that deity. In fact, I would have a much harder time imagining a being more despicable then the God of the Bible.

So when some atheists (like myself), claim that the character of God as portrayed in the Bible is an evil tyrant, many believers get all angry. Surprisingly, it is the mainstream believers who especially get angry for some strange reason. But I think that is because they believe that atheists are calling their vague higher power concept an evil tyrant.

The fact is that I just think that mainstream believers made-up the vague higher power and that such a make-believe character is little different then Santa Claus. But that character is not the one that I am calling evil. That character is just imaginary, but the character that is portrayed in the Bible is both evil and imaginary… like Voldemort.

Filed under: god, image of god, Ontological Argument, Religion, the bible, Vague Higher Power | 3 Comments »

All the big news stations have been talking about the White House’s war on Fox News, but that is only one battle. Obviously Fox News is a Republican tool used to spread propaganda in the name of news, but few realize that CNN is also a Republican tool used to spread propaganda in the name of news.

Yesterday, CNN spent a lot of time covering the teabagger rally in DC (before the Texas shooting took over the news), however CNN spent zero time covering the three rallies in favor of the Public Option which were held right outside there NY, Atlanta, and LA studios. Maybe if we had brought a balloon with no little boys inside, we could have gotten some coverage.

The rallies outside of the various CNN headquarter were organized by The Young Turks radio/YouTube show. There message was simple, CNN should actually report the news. The news in particular that we want reported is that a majority of Americans want the Public Option. Time and time again, Republicans will go on CNN and say that most Americans don’t want the Public Option and CNN never calls them out on it. The fact is that poll after poll has shown that most Americans do favor the Public Option. Here are some of those polls:

61% (CNN/ORC 10/18/09)
77% (SurveyUSA 8/20/09)
65% (NY Times/CBS News 9/25/09)
55% (Washington Post/ABC News 9/12/09)
61% (Quinnipiac 10/08/09)
55% (Time 7/29/09)
72% (NY Times/CBS News 6/20/09)
56% (Washington Post/ABC News 10/20/09)
59% (Kaiser Family Foundation 8/20/2009)

Despite the facts, CNN still does not bring these numbers to the public’s attention and has contributed to misleading the public into thinking that most Americans are against the Public Option. The fact that CNN spent more time covering the Townhall Protests and the Teabagger rallies then they did covering the Gay Rights March and the Public Option Rallies yesterday right outside their door shows that they are biased in the same way that Fox News is biased. The only difference is that CNN isn’t as obvious about it.

People can argue for or against the Public Option, but that is not really what this blog post is about. It really doesn’t matter what the issue is, the fact is that CNN can no longer be trusted to investigate or report the news.

At the teabagger rally yesterday, Republican Congressman John Boehner told the crowd that he was going to read from the US Constitution and then he mistakenly read from the Declaration of Independence. How embarrassing for a US Congressman to not know the difference between these two great American documents. I will bet that CNN doesn’t mention it at all. However, if a Democratic Congress person were to have made the same mistake it would surely be a major scandal.

At least three Republican Congress people have made statements on the floor of the House saying that the Democratic Health Care Bill would kill people (without any facts). No one questioned it and it was not a scandal at all. But when Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson stated on the floor of the House that the Republican Health Care plan was to not get sick and if you do get sick to die quickly, all hell broke loose and CNN repeatedly tried to pressure him to apologize. Grayson for the record did have actual facts and evidence to support his opinion.

I no longer trust CNN to deliver the news. These days, I watch the Daily Show and The Colbert Report for a lot of my news. I also watch internet shows like The Young Turks and others. Even NPR is starting to loose their credibility. We really need more news outlets that will ask the tough questions and not just swallow talking points. Walter Cronkite is surely turning over in his grave.

Dangerous Talk represents at CNN Headquarters in New York

Filed under: healthcare, journalism, Political Activism, Politics | 8 Comments »

Remember, remember the fifth of November. Today is of course the anniversary of the day when the Catholic plot to blow up the Protestant controlled Parliament went astray.

This year, I think we need to take this holiday a little more seriously than we normally would. First, it is of course a reminder that Christians can’t even play nice with other Christians, so it really is silly to expect them to play nice with atheists. Don’t believe me, check out this article. This day highlights that fact that religion is dangerous and that at the end of the day religion is just as much about bronze-aged tribalism as it is about ridiculous beliefs.

Second, just as fundamentalist religious loons like Glenn Beck have tried to use the ideas of Thomas Paine to fire up his base against the Obama Administration; we should also expect him and others to attempt to use Guy Fawkes for the same purpose.

Even though Beck is a Mormon and not a Catholic, I still think that he will attempt to Guy Fawkes Day since he has a habit of using things he knows little about. It has annoyed me that Beck had stolen the title of a pamphlet of one of my favorite authors and used it for his craziness. I remember not long ago I was in a secondhand bookstore and someone asked the guy at the counter if they had Glenn Beck’s Common Sense. I told the guy he was better off reading the original Common Sense by Paine and also maybe reading Paine’s other works like The Age of Reason.

Would it really surprise people if Beck told his paranoid band of teabaggers about the 1605 gunpowder plot? I can even imagine him telling his supporters that he doesn’t think they should plot such a thing… but… if they did, he would consider them patriots.

Filed under: Catholics, Current Events, Obama, Politics, Religion | 2 Comments »

Yesterday, the Friendly Atheist posted a story about a new bus campaign going up soon in Washington State. Here is what the ad will look like:

Hemant thinks that this is an “inaccurate” ad and that religious people will use it “against us.” I take issue with this. First, it is not inaccurate. As a point in fact, there is no god. Unless someone can show some credible evidence to the contrary, there is no god. Is it possible that there could be a god? Sure. It is possible. Almost anything is possible. Pigs could fly out of my ass too, but I am reasonably certain that they won’t. I don’t have to say that gods probably don’t exist. I can simply say that gods don’t exist. The “probably” is implied; just as it is implied in the statement about Santa Claus’s existence. I mean really, how can anyone “know” with 100% certainty that Santa doesn’t exist? Someone would need to know everything in the universe and then see that Santa is not part of that set to claim to “know” that Santa doesn’t exist, right? This is of course bullshit.

The fact is that many Christians will be critical of any atheist ad, no matter what it says. This has been demonstrated time and time again. Sure I wish that the Freedom From Religion Foundation would have gone with the message that UnitedCOR and FreethoughtAction have been using, but they didn’t.

The fact is that atheism isn’t a religion. All atheists don’t have to hold the same dogmatic line. In fact, even Christians don’t all hold the same dogmatic line and they are a religion. So why do atheists think that all atheists have to hold the same line with all other atheists? This goes back to my blogs about the media manufactured war between atheists. It’s bullshit.

If Hemant doesn’t want to defend these ads, then he shouldn’t. He could just say that he “disagrees with those ads, but FFRF are free to promote their organization and their ideas in their own way. We all don’t have to agree, atheism is not a religion.”

But the smarter strategy in my opinion is to defend these ads by calling attention to some Christian ads which are much much more offensive. We have all seen them and I have created the Billboard Wars Project as a way to highlight the difference between atheist and Christian ads. So again, I will ask all of the Dangerous Talkers out there to take a photo of any particularly offensive Christian Billboard or bus ads they see and send it to me with the city and state that it was posted.

Filed under: atheism, Atheism NOT Religion, billboards, culture war, People of Reason, Religion | 7 Comments »

Bill Maher said it best when he pointed out that the Democratic Party has moved more to the right and the Republican Party has moved to the nut house. This is evident in this off year election.

There are three races around the nation that people are looking at today. The first is the New Jersey Governor race. In this race, we have the unpopular incumbent Democratic governor being challenged by a right wing Republican. But New Jersey isn’t a right wing kind of state, so a moderate Republican is running as a third party and has been polling at about 12%. This race is currently in a statistical dead heat. The right wing candidate might just take the liberal state of New Jersey.

In neighboring New York, the 23 congressional district has been Republican for over a hundred years. The Republican candidate was seen as too liberal by Sarah Palin (who lives as far away from NY as one could possibly live while still being in America). So she endorsed the crazy right wing third party candidate and pretty much started a bandwagon of Republican support. As a result, the Republican candidate dropped out and endorsed the Democrat because even she knows that the third party candidate will move the Republicans Party nationwide much further into the nut house.

In the state of Maine, gay marriage faces the California scenario. If Proposition 1 is successful, then the Religious Right will have a huge victory. On the other hand, if the “No on 1” campaign wins and Proposition 1 is defeated, Maine will keep gay marriage and the Religious Right will be out of options.

Elsewhere around the nation are smaller battles. School Boards, Judges, town councils, and county offices are all fighting it out. These smaller fights are important fights. These people are the next generation of national politicians and in their smaller offices they have a surprisingly large impact on everyday Americans.

Most Americans don’t vote on these off year elections. But these are important elections. So please vote.

Filed under: Political Activism, Politics | 10 Comments »

It seems that every few months someone sends me a link to a YouTube video (or ten) with important information that I “have” to see. As it turns out, there is a group of rich and powerful people who have been plotting or hundreds of years to take over the world and turn the rest of society into slaves. And guess what? They have very nearly succeeded, but fortunately for us there is a small group of YouTubers fighting back by sitting on their asses and making videos.

You don’t believe me? It’s all true. The Illuminati meet at Bohemian Grove and have been doing so for hundreds of years. They are some of the richest men (no women) in the world and yet for some strange reason they just can’t seem to take over the world. I wonder what they are planning to do once they do take over the world though. After all, they are rich and powerful men, so they already have money and they already have power. What else do they want? I don’t know.

The people who send me this crap are sincere and many of them are atheists who should fucking know better. At the end of the day, the evil Illuminati amount to the same as the Devil or the Boogieman. They are just an innocuous evil force which needs to be fought against by the few who special people needing to find meaning in their lives.

This whole New World Order shit is dangerous. In fact, it is just as dangerous as theistic religion in the sense that it is a delusion which promotes a world divided instead of a humanity united. As technology has advanced, the world has gotten smaller (not literally smaller). The European nations have formed a union and there is greater cooperation between many other nations. As time goes one, the world will eventually unite to form a single government. This is the evolution of humanity as we learn more about good government and how best to allocate resources.

This is a good thing. We will have fewer conflicts over resources and fewer wars. We will have a greater ability to work together for common interests of science, medicine, and space exploration and less of a need to spend exorbitant amounts of money preparing to fight each other. The League of Nations was the start of this process and today we have the United Nations.

The United Nations is not perfect but it serves as a stepping stone for the next step in the evolutionary chain of government. The problem is that these paranoid people are afraid of any kind of world government. They hate the United Nations and continually “warn” that the evil Illuminati are behind this New World Order. And of course the Bible comes into it too despite that fact that at least some of these people are atheists.

This type of delusional thinking impedes the progress of humanity. These people are going around telling people that world peace is not a good idea because it plays right into the hands of the Illuminati. When there is a new medical break through like the H1N1 vaccine, these people shout, “conspiracy!” Vaccines are just another way that the Illuminati will control people. When new technology is developed, the Illuminati will use it to track your every move.

Really, the richest and most powerful men in the world want to know how I spend my day? I find that impossible to believe. I must be brainwashed by the Illuminati’s subliminal messages hidden in television shows like the Simpsons. Don’t believe me? There’s a YouTube video for that:

Filed under: delusion, New World Order, Religion | 27 Comments »

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

Later today, I will hopefully be posting an Examiner article on the topic. But right now, I want to talk about some of the more fun aspects of the coming weekend.

For starters, I love seeing people dressed up in sexy, creative, and/or offensive costumes. That is part of the reason why I started the Halloween Forever Project. I haven’t really kept up with the project very well, but this year I would really like to get more photos posted on there. So if you are dressing up for Halloween, please take a few minutes to take part in my little project. It will be fun. If you go to a party with lots of atheists, bring a print out of one or more of the logos an pass it around.

I also love that Halloween is all about the free candy. What’s not to like about that? But more then that, it is also about going around to your neighbors and saying hello. I have lived at my current residence for almost four years now and I barely know my neighbors at all. I am looking forward to taking my son trick-or-treating and getting to say hello to people and in some cases, meeting them for the first time.

Also, fundamentalists hate Halloween. I love that about this holiday. I remember I once had a co-worker who told me that he didn’t allow his kids to go trick-or-treating because Halloween was the “Devil’s Holiday.” His house was probably the only one on the block with the lights out. And when his sons hit puberty and start to notice the girls in sexy Halloween costumes, I bet they start questioning that whole “Devil’s Holiday” thing.

One year, I seriously considered dressing up as a fundamentalist Christian. I think that would be fun going around to real fundamentalist Christians and showing them how annoying they are. Sort of like roleplaying therapy.

Have you ever dressed up in a costume which encouraged discussion? Have you ever dressed up in a controversial costume for Halloween? Share your stories (and photos if you got them). And don’t forget to take part in the Halloween Forever Project.

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 I talked about wearing my American Atheist necklace in public. I think it is important for us to literally and figuratively wear our atheism on our sleeves. Yesterday, I was out at the store and a woman came over to me and told me that she liked my atheist bumper sticker.

We are not alone, there are atheists in the general public and we need be more visible when we are in the general public. We should also go over to those atheists in public that we see and let them know that they are not alone.

How many times have you been out in public and seen some Christian wearing their Church shirt in public? How many Christians do you see wearing crosses on their necks? Why shouldn’t we be put our atheism out there in the same way? Maybe if more atheists are visible in the public sphere, Christians wouldn’t assume that everyone is a Christian anymore.

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.

If a Christian were to say, “atheists are angry people,” most other religious people and the secular religious general public wouldn’t think anything of it. This particular Christian is clearly talking about atheists in general and not making a claim necessarily about every single atheist. No one would claim that this Christian has to personally meet every atheist before he or she could conclude that “atheists are angry people.” That would be absurd.

On the other hand, if an atheist were to say, “Christians seem to be angry people,” most religious people and the secular religious general public would jump at the atheist for making the logical fallacy of a “Hasty Generalization” even if the word “seem” is used or some other modifier. Regardless however, a hasty generalization is only a logical fallacy if the small sample of subjects is claimed to represent all of the subjects. In other words, unless someone says that after meeting a few Christians we can safely conclude that “all” Christians are exactly like the few we have met, it isn’t a hasty generalization fallacy. Remember that an important aspect of the fallacy is the size of the sample of subjects.

There are also aspects of the statement which might be true by definition and therefore doesn’t need to have any sample size at all. Like the statement that atheists don’t believe in god. No Christian would have to personally meet every atheist to make such a conclusion since it is true by definition.

But my point here is that when Christians make a subjective statement about atheists without any modifiers it is assumed that they are talking about atheists in general and not all atheists necessarily. Yet when an atheist makes similar statements about a religious believer without any modifiers it is perceived as a claim about all religious believers rather than a general generalization.

Religious people including the secular religious tend to give themselves the benefit of the doubt, but they usually don’t extend that benefit to the non-religious. With that said, I wonder how many religious people will say that I am making a hasty generalization about all religious people with this blog?

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