What Exactly Are We Supposed To Be Doing?

You’re Not Helping responds to my defense of the Freedom From Religion Foundation: Camels with Hammers has posted a bit of commentary on the Do Nothings. First and foremost, they cry foul on us for unjustly misrepresenting the goals of the FFRF Wait, no, first and foremost, I agreed with You’re Not Helping that it is unfair to accuse […]

Rate this:

The Gulf Disaster: Prayer And Priorities

Some atheists online have mocked calls for prayer made by Obama and legislators.  You’re Not Helping argues that while there is clearly something awful about treating prayer as a substitute for practical action (such as when true believers in “faith healing” forgo actual medical treatment for prayer) not all those who turn to prayer are […]

Rate this:

“Dawkins Is Not A Priest”: A Heated Facebook Exchange

Last spring a friend asked me to come over to her Facebook wall where she had posted a Sam Harris video (on his views on science’s ability to answer moral questions, which I will get around to analyzing here some day).  Though not an outspoken atheist herself, she had received a lot of anti-atheist fervor from […]

Rate this:

A Quick, Belated Post For Yesterday’s “Atheist Solidarity Day”

Yesterday was the first annual “Atheist Solidarity Day” but since I was too busy to blog I never got around to doing anything special for it here. So, now I hereby affirm, in honor of “Atheist Solidarity Day”, that I’ve got your back, fellow atheists. Your Solidarity?

Rate this:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali At The Ottowa International Writer’s Festival

An interview from June 10 with the author of Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations: Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

How Genesis Is Not Only Literally False, But Metaphorically False

Mary Midgley argues that only the views of fundamentalist literalists are refuted by the fact of evolution: Appeals to evolution are only damaging to biblical literalism. Certainly the events described inGenesis 1 are not literally compatible with what science (from long before Darwin’s day) tells us about the antiquity of the Earth. But this is not […]

Rate this:

Daily Hilarity: The Death Of Lying

Bill Maher in top form last week, covering all the ways you can get caught in a lie in the information age: Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

22 Comments From Christopher Hitchens

In an effort to hype Hitch-22: A Memoir, they’ve put together a short video recapping classic Hitchens quips: Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

Thank God For The New Atheists?

Reverend Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World thinks that the New Atheists are really the new prophets.  The Infidel Guy Show interviewed him a couple weeks ago for an hour. In the audio, he argues that God is not […]

Rate this:

Bertrand Russell’s “Why I Am Not A Christian”

Russell reads his classic, Why I Am Not A Christian.  I find his reading and his rhetoric riveting. Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

Disambiguating Faith: How A Lack Of Belief In God May Differ From Various Kinds Of Beliefs That Gods Do Not Exist

Yesterday on Friendly Atheist there was a vigorous debate in the comments section about whether there is a real and important difference between claiming one lacks belief in God (or gods) and outright claiming that there is no God (or gods).  Here is a nice formulation of the argument that the distinction is an irrelevant […]

Rate this:

Angry Atheist Debate About A Mosque Near Ground Zerosts

Saturday I put together a large post highlighting a spectrum of thoughtful and/or provocative opinions on the recently approved plan to build a mosque a couple of blocks away from the former site of the World Trade Center in New York.  That day, for the sake of balance, I wanted to find someone who could […]

Rate this:

Hitchens On His Gay Side, His “Conservative Marxism”, And His Money Motive

Promoting his new book,Hitch-22: A Memoir, last weekend Christopher Hitchens provided frequently witty replies to frequently dimwitted questions from the New York Times’s Deborah Solomon. Here are a few provocative highlights: What did you mean to suggest by including the detail about your long-ago flings with two men who became part of Margaret Thatcher’s administration? […]

Rate this:

Bill Maher Teases Andrew Sullivan Over His Sarah Palin Fixation

As a huge Daily Dish fan, I loved this: Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

A Mosque At Ground Zero?

New York City has approved a plan to build a 13 story mosque and community center near the site of the former World Trade Center as part of the area’s proposed revitalization. I decided to group all the most interesting and relevant videos and editorials I could find into one large post in order to […]

Rate this:

“I Prefer John Locke To Jesus Christ, I Prefer John Stuart Mill To Jesus Christ…I Prefer Jon Stewart To Jesus Christ”

If you missed Ayaan Hirsi Ali on The Colbert Report last night, make time to see the interview here. And in either case I also recommend her first interview with Colbert, from March 15, 2007, in which he hardly knows what do with her. Ayaan’s books are Infidel, The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women […]

Rate this:

The Church’s Blatant Contradictions, Past And Present

Christopher Hitchens is concerned that the majority Catholic and secularist-free Supreme Court may have a conflict of interests when it answers the question of whether the Vatican should have sovereign immunity protections to shield it from lawsuits over the sexual abuse carried out within American parishes.  He also is suspicious of Elena Kagan for her […]

Rate this:

God Would Understand

What if, against all odds, there really is this omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, and all-loving God the Christians claim and I were to meet it on a Judgment Day?  The YouTuber “Theoretical Bullshit” expresses, and even advances a bit, own thoughts on the matter: Thanks to Mary and Shay for the find. Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

Are Noble Lies “Blasphemous”?

Renegade Roman Catholic Andrew Sullivan is harsh with his condemnation of those who think we should “insincerely support religious faith because it is good for others or for society is”, calling this a “profound blasphemy” and cynical, and saying he respects us atheists and agnostics who outright reject faith more than both those noble lie […]

Rate this:

Bill Maher Defends Contemporary Western Religion?

Compared to the alternative… Some thoughts of my own on the pros and cons of religious moderates. Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

Would Aliens Realize We Were Intelligent?

Greg Mayer, as part of a charming larger piece, relates a back and forth he had with some students a few days ago on whether or to what extent we and alien intelligent life forms would be able to identify each other as intelligent life forms: I mentioned to the students that I’d seen a great […]

Rate this:

If You Know The Bible, You Know It Is Riddled With Clear Contradictions

NonStampCollector provides a hilariously fun, rapid-paced, guide to biblical contradictions through a cartoon quiz show.  This video is, in short, a great resource which every Christian should take to heart and every atheist should memorize and have available for making the case against biblical credibility as in any way divinely guaranteed: Here’s a handy list […]

Rate this:

Cartoon Version Of Dawkins’s Classic Reply To The Question “What If You’re Wrong?”

Based on this clip of Richard Dawkins replying to a Liberty University student who asks him, “What if you’re wrong?” comes this great South Park style cartoon version of Dawkins pwning the student: Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

Christian Justice

DarkMatter2525 offers a terrific pair of demonstrations of the absurdity of the New Testament’s logic on matters related to justice: Your Thoughts?

Rate this:

Heaven As Weapon

Johann Hari details some of the pernicious ways religions exploit the desire for heaven: Even some atheists regard heaven as one of the least-harmful religious ideas: a soothing blanket to press onto the brow of the bereaved. But its primary function for centuries was as a tool of control and intimidation. The Vatican, for example, […]

Rate this: