Over the weekend, I friend of mine sent me an article by a Christian missionary to Japan. I love articles like this one because they just throw out a bunch of bullshit and see what sticks. What they don’t realize is that when they do this, they lose any credibility that a reader might have […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, missionaries, Religious Manipulation | 1 Comment »
I get into discussions with a lot of religious believers and after a while I tend to hear the same arguments and the same “conversion” stories over and over again. This can often give the appearance that all Christians are the same. But they aren’t. When I address an audience usually through writing, I use […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, conversation, discussion, Personal Experience, Religion | 1 Comment »
Every once in a while my Christian friend Greg sends me an e-mail. It usually is just one question that someone at his church convinced him would stump an atheist. Greg isn’t looking for a debate or discussion though; he just wants to push his point and be done. The other day, I got this […]
Filed under: argument, Evils of Christianity, hell, morality, torture | 1 Comment »
Earlier this week, Gore Videl died. For those who don’t know, he was a giant intellectual and a vocal atheist. I wrote about his death on Examiner and some Christian had to chime in on it in the comments section. She writes: “It’s so sad to me to realize the genius of Gore Vidal yet […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Certainty, death | 2 Comments »
I was out at lunch today and while I was trying to order my food at a chicken restaurant that was not Chick-Fil-A, I heard the most annoying church bells ever. Do these fuckers really need to announce their presence to the world? We all know that 80% of Americans are Christians; do we need […]
Filed under: Church | 2 Comments »
Over the weekend, I had a pretty long conversation with an old friend of mine who up until recently was a Christian. In fact in the ten or so years that I have known him, this was the first conversation we had together in which we were both atheists and he is still having difficulty […]
Filed under: de-conversion | 6 Comments »
One of the minor claims that ex-atheist Leah Libresco made was that Catholicism was a consistent system. This is a claim most religious believers hold but rarely mention. I am glad Leah mentioned it, because it gives me the opportunity to criticize that claim. “I’m a big Harry Potter nerd and I can see how […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Biblical Scholarship, Religion | 1 Comment »
Yesterday, Jessica over at the FriendlyAtheist wrote about how there is a crazy website promoting a write-in campaign for Jesus. I thought it would be fun to talk about all the reasons why Jesus can’t be President. For starters, it is unlikely that Jesus was even a real person. Despite even Bart Ehrman’s claim that […]
Filed under: church/state, culture war, Jesus, Politics, wwjd | No Comments »
I have to admit that I am still fascinated by the recent conversion of former atheist blogger, Leah Libresco. Unlike the re-conversion of Patrick Greene, Libresco was a blogger and so I assume that she knew the standard arguments and was presumably knowledgeable about the plot holes, ridiculousness, and just factually incorrect aspects of Christianity. […]
Filed under: Catholics, conversation, ignorance, morality, People of Reason, Religious Manipulation | 8 Comments »
I recently watched an interesting debate on the question, “Is the world better off without religion.” The debate featured two sides with two people representing each side. The atheist side was represented by A.C. Grayling and Matthew Chapman. Both of these men are very intelligent, but don’t have a whole lot of debating experience. The […]
Filed under: argument, culture war, debate, Dinesh D'Souza, Evils of Christianity, humanism, Religion | No Comments »
It’s true, as an atheist I happen to think reason is better than faith, knowledge is better than ignorance, and evidence is better than assertions. I, like most atheists, am in intellectual snob… and proud of it. And why shouldn’t I be? Why would anyone take pride in not being intellectual? I look down on […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, atheism, education, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
When talking to fundamentalist believers, the two traits I run into the most are pride and ignorance. Interestingly enough, I find that these believers take pride in not being prideful and that they are generally ignorant of their ignorance. Still, I think that if we can get these believers to stop being prideful and ignorant, […]
Filed under: atheism, Religion | 2 Comments »
Atheists have a problem that we need to address. We need to communicate our ideas better. Religious believers don’t tend to have that problem. You ask them a question and the answer is either a Bible verse or God did it. If you ask why God did something that answer is that God works in […]
Filed under: atheism, conversation, culture war | 1 Comment »
My conversation from over the last two days at “Think Christian” has been cut short due to censorship. You see, I talked about how Progressive Christians had to acknowledge that the Bible is wrong on homosexuality in order to be absolved of being labeled hateful toward gays. A Christian responded by claiming that the free […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Authority, censorship, conversation, free speech, Offensiveness, Progressive Christians, Religion | 1 Comment »
Today’s blog post follows from yesterday’s blog post. In the comments section of the Think Christian article, one Christian is ready to address the Christian problem with gays. He explains that he isn’t hateful toward gays at all and that Christians just need to communicate better. That’s all this is, a communication problem. Well, in […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Coexist, Gay Issues, Progressive Christians, the bible | 3 Comments »
Nathan Albert over at “Think Christian” wrote an interesting article in which he advocates for liberal and progressive Christians to apologize to gay people on behalf of the wacko fundies. Nathan’s heart is in the right place, but he just isn’t thinking clearly about this issue. I guess he is thinking too much like a […]
Filed under: Coexist, Evils of Christianity, Gay Issues, Progressive Christians, the bible | 3 Comments »
One of the most prominent themes in Christianity is that everyone is an evil sinner. One Christian I talked to recently put it this way, “We are all wicked, evil doers. ‘There is no one who does good, not even one,’ Romans 3:12.” Through the lens of Christianity, the glass is completely empty. Through the […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Evils of Christianity, morality, Religious Manipulation | 2 Comments »
Whenever I get into a discussion about religion with a progressive Christian the first thing I like to bring up is Hell. It is easy for progressive Christians to speak out against Dick Cheney’s torture program here on Earth, but for some strange reason they are much more hesitant to speak out against God’s eternal […]
Filed under: culture war, hell, Progressive Christians, Religion, torture | 10 Comments »
Last week, I was visited by two Jehovah’s Witnesses and I actually ended up having a nice long conversation with them (usually they try to run away). In any case, they tried to use all the standard arguments and I was able to easily refute them. But that wasn’t my goal. One of the guys […]
Filed under: conversation, de-conversion, discussion, Jehovah's Witness, Religion | 3 Comments »
Many Christians talk about non-believers being tortured for all eternity in Hell by their all-loving deity. This is when I like to ask them if non-believing children go to Hell to be tortured for all eternity. I get a variety of answers on this one and they are all comically funny for atheists. First I […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, hell, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 3 Comments »
I was reading an article this morning about the mother of one of the Virginia Tech victims five years after the shooting. The mother was extremely religious and when her daughter died, she said that she stopped talking to God for a while but she recently started to talk to God again because God told […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Belief, death, delusion, free will, Parenting, Religious Manipulation | No Comments »
Yesterday on the Friendly Atheist blog, Hemant posted a a clip from an upcoming Christian film called, “Blue Like Jazz.” The clip posted shows a debate between a Christian and an atheist with an audience member asking a question, “Where do we find meaning?” Here is the clip: Now I have a lot of issues […]
Filed under: atheism, debate, Purpose | 1 Comment »
Every time I get an e-mail or a message from a Christian and almost every time I get into a religious conversation with a Christian, they almost always have the same old arguments which a quick google search can easily refute. So, I have a challenge for Christians. Don’t worry I’m not going to ask […]
Filed under: debate, god | No Comments »
Over the weekend, I finally got to watch the film “The Hunger Games.” Don’t worry I don’t think I will say anything that would be considered a spoiler. There was one part early in the movie that I thought Christians might claim as proof that the film has Christian themes in it. After watching the […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, blood sacrifice, culture war, The Hunger Games | 2 Comments »
So the big news of the week is that some atheist few have ever heard of has converted to Christianity. While researching my Examiner article on the topic, I decided to go right to the source. I e-mailed Patrick Greene and asked him, what’s up? I read quite a few articles about Greene’s conversion and […]
Filed under: anti-intellectualism, Belief, conversation, ignorance, logic, Religious Manipulation | 9 Comments »
If you ever go into a Christian bookstore or read a Christian newspaper (yes, they do exist), it is generally filled with testimonial stories about how great their God is. But don’t Christians already know how great their God is? If they didn’t, they probably wouldn’t be Christians, right? So what’s the point of these […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, culture war, Religion, Religious Manipulation | 4 Comments »
My wife and I have been watching an old short lived sci-fi show called “Jeremiah.” The show is about a post-apocalyptic world. One of the main characters in the second season claims to talk for God. He has proven himself to be a trust worthy character in all other avenues, but most people think he […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Sci-fi | 4 Comments »
The Westboro Baptist Church is coming to the Reason Rally. Don’t worry; they were invited… sort of. The National Atheist Party sent them a tongue-and-cheek invitation and the WBC tweeted that they will accept that invitation. I like this idea. First, it should be pointed out that the WBC go where the attention is. So […]
Filed under: Coexist, culture war, Current Events, Media, People of Reason | 3 Comments »
Every once in a while, I find a fundamentalist pretending to be an atheist or at the very least they are trying to fool atheists into coming to their website. The one that comes to mind most is Mariano Grinbank. His website is called, “TrueFreethinker.com” Grinbank also writes for Examiner as the “Christian Apologetics Examiner.” […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Authority, culture war, forgiveness, Preaching, Religious Manipulation, sin | 1 Comment »
Over the weekend, I got into another conversation with Aaron Tabor. You don’t know who he is? He has more friends on facebook than anyone! He runs the “Jesus Daily” page with 12 million fans. Every once in a while, I’ll post an article on the page and to my surprise Aaron always responds. But […]
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, Argument by Design, Creationism, evolution, ignorance, science | 2 Comments »
