San Diego is the latest city to put up an atheist billboard, courtesy of the United Coalition of Reason: They’re already getting some great publicity for it and local CoR coordinator Debbie Allen Skomer is doing a terrific job of explaining the group’s reason for putting up the sign. You can see her in this CNN video. Also in that video is a guy who says he doesn’t like the ad because it’s “attacking somebody’s belief.” One of the wonderful… Read more
It might be blasphemous for some, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t getting hungry… That was created by Rev. C.S. Rowan at the forums of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Thanks to Ubi Dubium for the link!) Read more
Recently, Fred Phelps and the other nuts at Westboro Baptist Church protested near a midwest high school for no good reason (other than, perhaps, the existence of liberal faculty members…?). I’ve blurred out the school’s identifying information in the pic below, but you can see that several of the high school students staged a counter protest, which I think is just great. It’s hard to see, but a few students are holding up a poster which says “Come Hug Me.”… Read more
Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron will soon be distributing copies of Darwin’s masterpiece (along with a Creationist introduction) at campuses across the country. I don’t think that’ll go over so well… many college students (though not all) are capable of thinking for themselves and that’s not good for Cameron or Comfort, who need you to follow them where the evidence doesn’t lead. Many affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance are planning events around the misinformation campaign. Maybe Comfort and Cameron… Read more
There are a lot of ways you can come out as an atheist. Many of them result in someone getting very upset. Sometimes, it results in a fight over faith — maybe a debate you don’t want to get into. What do you do if you want to come out publicly as an atheist but not draw all the negative attention that sometimes comes with it? Is that possible? Reader Keith is having that dilemma and he’s thinking about the… Read more
If you read science or atheist blogs, odds are you’ve seen the video of “A Glorious Dawn,” which featured remixed versions of Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. The autotuned song was created by John Boswell. Now, Third Man Records is putting out a limited edition 7″ vinyl record release of the song: Third Man Records, in conjunction with United Record Pressing, fabricated a special “Cosmos Colored Vinyl” of which 150 copies will be available…50 randomly inserted into mail orders for… Read more
I got an email from a friend of mine about an upcoming birthday party she’s throwing. She’s about to turn a very special age: 66.6 years old. That’s cause for a celebration, right? 🙂 She thinks so, and she’s humorously making the best of it, using it as a fundraiser for a favorite cause: We will further tempt the beast by asking each adult to contribute $16.66, $6.66 for kids. This will go to the Atheists United general fund. If… Read more
In the Philippines, the LGBT community is treated even worse than in America. Not coincidentally, church and state are closely intertwined. Recent case in point: The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday rejected Ang Ladlad for party-list accreditation on the grounds that the party advocates “sexual immorality” and “immoral doctrines.” Ang Ladlad is an organization of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT). In a ruling dated November 11, the Comelec said that although the party presented proper documents and evidence… Read more
I don’t even understand this recent vandalism of a Boston Coalition of Reason advertisement. They crossed out the “out” in “without” — that’s been done before — but why bother putting the words “Are you” in front? That’s just redundant. (Anyway, the answer is no.) And nice job crossing out the group’s website. Now, no one will know where to go… Who wrote “kill for” in the bottom background? That doesn’t even make sense. Seriously, vandals. This is weak. You… Read more
Note: To add another layer of anonymity for the letter writer, I have changed his name, as I do for all the writers who sign their letters with their name. I have also altered a few incidental details of his story to make him less identifiable. I’m interested in your opinion on this matter. I consider myself a radical Atheist, as Douglas Adams was known to say, he preferred to put the term “radical” there because it conveys the fact… Read more