People become atheists because of hurt, then seek intellectual arguments to validate their desire to live without God. That’s what esteemed pastor Rick Warren wrote on his Twitter account last night. Ah, yes, I remember when I became an atheist. It was the night daddy beat me… Of course, Warren is full of shit. He doesn’t understand atheists but he knows he can say whatever he wants and his followers will simply smile and nod (and retweet). We become atheists… Read more
The mayor of Vallejo, California is Osby Davis and he’s a conservative Christian. That’s an issue only because he’s bringing his church teachings into the political sphere. A couple weeks ago, he was quoted in the New York Times: … Mr. Cloutier was defeated — by only two votes — by Osby Davis, a devout Assemblies of God follower. “I don’t know what the fear is about considering Vallejo as a city of God,” Mayor Davis said. If believed, he… Read more
If you’re in the Columbus area, I’ll be the keynote speaker at the Humanist Community of Central Ohio’s annual Winter Solstice Banquet. It takes place Saturday, December 19th at 6:00 p.m. and there should plenty of wonderfully edible food and people. (I thought about rewriting that last phrase… but decided against it.) All the information is on HCCO’s website. … My close Ohio friends all seem to have cats, and I recently found out that cats and I don’t get… Read more
I hadn’t seen this Diet Dr. Pepper commercial before, but I’ll bet you can guess what I was thinking the entire time… (Thanks to Stacy for the link!) Read more
by Jesse Galef Is atheism a choice? I ask because the issue kept coming up not only in an earlier post’s comment thread, but also independently on my facebook wall. It’s clearly a question that provokes some thought. I’ve been wrestling with the idea of choice for a long time. The word is used in different ways by different people, but a recurring theme seems to be the importance of conscious thought controlling the decision. (One of the reasons I… Read more
This February, the Secular Student Alliance will be hosting a Regional Leadership Summit at Stanford University in Northern California. This weekend session is a great opportunity for student leaders to fine-tune their group-running skills, meet other leaders from the area, network with local off-campus organizations, and have a great time! We have some fantastic events planned and perhaps even a few very notable speakers. I’m really excited about this. If you can’t make it, we’re also planning a similar regional… Read more
I was watching Meet the Press over the weekend (because I’m a party animal like that) and heard Pastor Rick Warren says things that would make anyone’s head spin. Take this exchange: MR. GREGORY: Just sticking with that topic for just a moment. If the issue of legalizing gay marriage comes up again… MR. WARREN: Mm-hmm. MR. GREGORY: …on the ballot in California… MR. WARREN: Mm-hmm. MR. GREGORY: …would you work to fight that? MR. WARREN: You know, my position… Read more
This will make some of you happy. To others, it will just sound like gibberish. Jesse Galef was nice enough to create a FriendlyAtheist Facebook Fan Page, which is now public! My usual Twitter feed, @hemantmehta, is now devoid of all updates from this site. Those were getting in the way of all the tweets about my personal life (because you all care about that). Feel free to follow me 🙂 I’ve created a new feed, @hemantsblog, which will just… Read more
Last year, the Illinois Capitol building in Springfield played host to an atheist sign, courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation: This year, the sign will be going back up 🙂 We don’t think religion, or irreligion, belongs in state capitols,” noted Dan Barker, Foundation co-president and author of the book, “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists.” “But if a state is going to permit a nativity display and create a public forum, then we… Read more
Thanksgiving is a perfect time for relatives who don’t see each other very often to get together. That also means there’s a lot of potential for discussions about religion — more specifically, your atheism versus the faith of your family. Reader Paul experienced it firsthand. He mentioned to his aunt that he disagreed with some of President Obama’s policies, and she took that to mean he didn’t like the President at all. She assumed Paul shared her dislike of the… Read more
