As crazy as one deranged young man acted, and as crazy as the response may be from select individuals, lets not forget these are isolated incidents that don’t necessarily represent a larger community. It also wouldn’t be such a bad thing to wait to get more information before making unfounded accusations. As I was sitting in a high school yesterday without much Internet access, I made the mistake of reading my Twitter feed several hours after the shooting occurred –… Read more
Dan Barker, the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists, is one of the few notable atheists who actually lived his life under the spell of religion. He knows first-hand what it’s like to come out as an atheist and lose people you thought were friends in the process, and he spends a lot of time traveling around the country, telling his story. Now, get ready… Read more
Reader Andrew sent along this picture from a church in Phoenix that’s just begging for a punchline: I’ll get you started with a couple suggestions, courtesy of Twitter: But he gets mad if we unwrap them outside of marriage. (via @Robguy) Agreed. I’ve enjoy many a people’s package. (via @dalestaines) @CarlyShea also pointed me to this lovely intepretation 🙂 Read more
I have so many questions about The Prayer Station store in Hickory Ridge Mall in Memphis, TN: Wouldn’t it be better business for a retail store to use that space? Whose shopping agenda consists of visiting Macy’s, Build-a-Bear, and The Prayer Store? If Groupon were to offer a deal on this place, what would that deal be…? What if someone who’s not Christian wants to be prayed for? Do any prayer requests get rejected? Does the store offer warranties? What… Read more
Joe Alaimo of the Western Colorado Atheists & Freethinkers gave the first-ever invocation by an atheist at the Grand Junction City Council (Colorado) recently. You can always try to beat them at the game and have invocation prayers stop altogether, but if that’s not a likely option for you, then it’s not a bad idea to get your voice included in the mix. Joe’s speech was fantastic — a transcript is below: Public services are those that are soles essentials… Read more
Just the other night, Dave Silverman of American Atheists was talking about his group’s new billboard with Bill O’Reilly: O’Reilly: I’ll tell you why [religion’s] not a scam. In my opinion, all right? Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can explain why the tide goes in… Silverman: Tide goes in, tide goes out…? O’Reilly: Yeah, see, the water — the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always goes… Read more
Bill Zeller, a blogger and computer programmer, killed himself a couple days ago. He was sexually abused as a child and it clearly affected him the rest of his life. After living with the depression for so long, he just didn’t want to keep going. He left a heartbreaking suicide note before he died. Joel Johnson at Gizmodo prefaced his posting of the letter with these thoughts: I think a person has the right to live or end their life… Read more
I’m compiling a list… for those of you who visit the site, what would you like to see fixed? If someone mentions it in the comments already, rest assured you don’t need to say it again. I’ll see it. Heck, I’m sure our lists overlap. Hopefully, the problems will be fixed soon. ***Update***: I should’ve mentioned: I’m hoping for feedback on things outside of content. Like if the site isn’t working properly for you (“I can’t Like a post on… Read more
Marc Alan Di Martino drew this cartoon. It’s crudely drawn, yes, but it made me laugh: Well, the man does love his wine… Not to take anything away from Marc, but you could draw the Pope saying just about anything and it could be funny… Forget the Pope. All you need is a religious leader telling the truth (the *real* truth, not their Biblical version of it) and it’d be humorous (at least if it wasn’t so damn depressing): Why… Read more
Mainstream newspapers aren’t always friendly to atheists, but college newspaper and campus activists tend to have healthy relationships. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, three atheists have been writing an “Ask the Atheist” column for the Daily Nexus: Atheism is often maligned and misunderstood. In the spirit of openness, this column will attempt to respond to the many questions (and allegations) we, as atheists, receive. No two atheists are the same, and we attempt to represent no one but… Read more
