Posted on June 23rd, 2011 by Staks
Sam Singleton, Atheist Evangelist is Coming to DVD… with your help. If you are not familiar with Brother Sam, he is a character played by Roger Scott Jackson. Rosco travels around the country performing a one man comedy show. His main show is called Patriarchs and Penises. I have seen the show twice and it […]
Filed under: atheism, Blasphemy, culture war, free speech, People of Reason, Personal, Preaching | No Comments »
Posted on June 20th, 2011 by Staks
So this weekend, I went to Wizard World. Wizard World is a comic book/sci-fi/fantasy convention. Before I went there, I was thinking about how most atheists are fans of this type of thing. Don’t get me wrong, theists tend to be fans of fantasy too. The difference is that they don’t realize it is fantasy. […]
Filed under: atheism, humanism, People of Reason, Star wars | 2 Comments »
Posted on June 16th, 2011 by Staks
It really bothers me that we can’t come together to form a strong voter block. I keep hearing excuses why we can’t do it and that just seems silly and lazy to me. Atheists are a very diverse group and we are fiercely independent. Yeah, I get that and yes, the only thing we have […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 4 Comments »
Posted on June 13th, 2011 by Staks
Over the weekend, I was having a conversation with a Christian over twitter. Nothing beats twitter for intellectual conversations in which you have to simplify your points down to 140 characters. The Christian in question told me that he considers himself to be a reasonably intelligent person. Toward the end of the conversation he asked […]
Filed under: conversation, culture war, Religious Manipulation, Self-Help | 7 Comments »
Posted on June 9th, 2011 by Staks
So there is a new Pew Research Poll that once again shows that people don’t want to elect atheists to public office. This is nothing new. We already know that we are the most distrusted minority. However, I am still going to call BULLSHIT! Look, there is no doubt that there is discrimination against atheists. […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, culture war, discrimination, Election, People of Reason, Political Activism, Politics | 14 Comments »
Posted on June 7th, 2011 by Staks
Many religious leaders have educated themselves a good deal in the history of their religion. I find that the more people learn about religion the less literal they take their holy books. However, there is a divide between the intellectual religious leaders and the common practitioners. What I mean here is that many religious leaders […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Authority, conversation, ignorance, Preaching, Religious Manipulation, responsibility | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 27th, 2011 by Staks
Every once in a while, when I criticize the ridiculous beliefs of religious believers, some atheist comes along to complain that I am not respecting these ridiculous beliefs and I am being intolerant. They blame me for the reason Christians hate atheists. Occasionally, I even get someone who self-righteously proclaims that everyone is entitled to […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, humanism, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 19th, 2011 by Staks
On Primary Day, there was another conversation I had with a Catholic Republican that I forgot to talk about yesterday that I think is worth discussing. It’s in odd because I couldn’t figure out at first if his attitude could be attributed to his religious faith and to his political affiliation. After some thought I […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Catholics, culture war, discussion, faith, Politics | No Comments »
Posted on May 12th, 2011 by Staks
One tactic that I often run into when discussing religion with the religious is a variation of the old sports strategy called, “running the clock.” The idea is to load the atheist up with stuff and waste our time. Here are a few examples: The most common example is when religious believers simply make multiple […]
Filed under: context, conversation, debate, discussion, Religion | No Comments »
Posted on May 9th, 2011 by Staks
I seem to run into this kind of thing a lot. Atheists can’t seem to put minor differences behind them and concentrate on the spreading reason and fighting against the tyranny of the religious. We have to put our differences aside and work together. I know that the only think atheists really have in common […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, humanism, People of Reason | 7 Comments »
Posted on May 4th, 2011 by Staks
May is a holy month for us Jedi, every Star Wars film premiered during the month of May with the original film premiering on May 25th (the official Star Wars Day). However, May 4th is also a day of celebration. May 4th is a play on the Star Wars greeting of “May the Force be […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, humanism, Star wars | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 20th, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, Decline of Religion, Religion | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 19th, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: conversation, death, ignorance, Projection, Religion | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 15th, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: atheism, Authority, conversation, discussion, logic, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 13th, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: conversation, discussion, Religion | No Comments »
Posted on April 1st, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, April Fools, censorship | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 31st, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: atheism, church/state, Coexist, culture war, Political Activism | 7 Comments »
Posted on March 29th, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, family values, Religion, sex | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 28th, 2011 by Staks
“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 […]
Filed under: humanism, morality, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 25th, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: culture war, Decline of Religion, Religion | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 22nd, 2011 by Staks
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 […]
Filed under: atheism, facebook, humanism, Neighbor, People of Reason | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 18th, 2011 by Staks
I once heard it said that being an atheist in a theist world is like being the only sober person at a party. I think this is pretty accurate sometimes. I also think that it seems like I’m one of the few sane people in a world gone mad. The way I see it, religion […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, delusion, Evils of Christianity, Religion | 5 Comments »
Posted on March 15th, 2011 by Staks
This really gets old, but once again religious groups are putting lots of money toward using the earthquakes in Japan as a public relations stunt. Sure, there are helping the people there too, but they are doing it mainly out of a need to promote their ridiculous beliefs. I remember seeing the commercials on television […]
Filed under: Current Events, Evils of Christianity, missionaries, Preaching, Religious Manipulation | 7 Comments »
Posted on March 14th, 2011 by Staks
One of the things I notice a lot when discussing religion with theists is that they tend to be quick to start with the name calling. When this happens, I like to call attention to it and then move on with the discussion. I don’t think it is productive to name call back but they […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, language, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
Posted on March 11th, 2011 by Staks
Once again we come to the conversation about how critical atheists should be when criticizing religion with the religious. It seems that some atheists think I should be more respectful of the religious and realize that they sometimes feel personally attacked when their beliefs are criticized. I realize this, but that doesn’t mean that I […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, Criticism, Offensiveness, Religion | 6 Comments »
Posted on March 10th, 2011 by Staks
Last night I was pretty surprised to get an e-mail from the executives at Examiner.com. I write for Examiner as the Philly Atheist Examiner to help fund Dangerous Talk. Apparently, they received a complaint about one of my articles and determined that a statement I made might be libelous. The article was the one I […]
Filed under: Blasphemy, censorship, Offensiveness, Personal, Raelians, Religion, scientology | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 2nd, 2011 by Staks
What do Christians hope to accomplish when they start an argument with an atheist? Do they think they are going to convince us with no evidence that some ridiculous ancient story is obviously true? They know that we know a lot about religion and we have probably heard all their arguments before they even come […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, de-conversion, debate, discussion, ignorance, Religion | 9 Comments »
Posted on February 15th, 2011 by Staks
I am tired of being intellectually honest when religious apologists don’t even bother. Recently, I read an article by a theist which was quite frankly, extremely intellectually dishonest. Should we play that game too? The article started out being friendly and the author made a point to say that he had many atheist friends and […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, culture war, discussion, god of the gaps, ignorance, Projection, Religious Manipulation | 7 Comments »
Posted on February 8th, 2011 by Staks
While a lot of atheists run from anything that is even remotely reminiscent of religion, many others still go to church. Usually, if an atheist goes to church it is a Quaker or Unitarian Church. There is nothing wrong with avoiding religious trappings. Many atheists have had extremely bad experiences with churches and other religious […]
Filed under: atheism, Church, culture war, family values, humanism, Neighbor, Parenting, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Posted on January 27th, 2011 by Staks
There is this philosophy within a small segment of fundamentalist Christianity called the “Quiverfull Movement.” The idea is that people are weapons for God and as such, each Christian within the movement needs to focus on creating more “arrows” for God’s quiver by breeding mass amounts of Christians. By contrast, most atheists I know either […]
Filed under: atheism, culture war, family values, Parenting, Religion | 3 Comments »
