Atheist Kim is setting a few goals for herself, but she needs some motivation. That means rewarding herself if she succeeds and punishing herself if she fails. The reward part is easy: I offer up my loins. The punishment part is more complicated. One suggestion is to give money to a charity she doesn’t like. That didn’t seem like a punishment (can there be a bad charity?) until Kim realized there are several conservative, Christian, anti-choice, anti-gay organizations she would… Read more
A TV producer is looking for video of just about anything happening on a college campus dealing with atheism. He needs high quality video, though — in other words, better than YouTube. He also needs to be able to secure the rights for whatever he might use. If you have video that might be useful for him, please let me know and I’ll pass along more information. Read more
According to Professor Randal Rauser writing at The Christian Post, you are an atheist for the following reasons: You don’t have to get up on Sundays You don’t have to give to the poor You want a new Samsung LED TV You want to play tennis and ride bikes (apparently Christians do not do that) If that doesn’t make sense, the rest of the article won’t either. He goes on to overanalyze Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived among bears… Read more
Satire works when it exaggerates some truth — you see it in The Onion all the time. But there’s no truth in this article, so I don’t understand the humor. Based on initial behavior, it was clear that the professors and students in attendance expected and wanted Dr. Welland to annihilate Dr. Ham with the scientific evidence. Unfortunately for Dr. Welland, that is not what happened. The audio transcript makes it clear that while Dr. Welland answered questions by generally… Read more
A local news station in Columbia, South Carolina, did a report on the recent ARIS results that more people are claiming to hold no religious affiliation. The Pastafarians at the University of South Carolina were featured in the report. They’re on a press roll lately, having been featured in The New York Times just a couple weeks ago! Also featured in the WLTX piece — annoying shots of the sea, sky, and sun every single damn time God is mentioned…. Read more
This post is by Jesse Galef, who works for the American Humanist Association … Via William Lobdell’s blog, I found Dinesh D’Souzu’s vapid piece in Christianity Today entitled “Why We Need Earthquakes.” In it, he explains why earthquakes cause suffering but are really just another sign that God loves us. I couldn’t help but notice some eerie parallels. “If he’s hurting me, it must be for my own good. I know he loves me.” “It’s my fault. I should have… Read more
You’ve been doing them wrong this whole time: That tidbit is courtesy of the Spiritual Research Foundation — an oxymoronic name akin to Creation Science. There are plenty more images where that one came from… they become funnier (or scarier) when you realize some people take them seriously: There’s an entire page devoted to “Spiritual Facts” which includes statistics like this one: “Negative destiny”? You’re shitting me. For some reason, they left the citations for the numbers off the page…… Read more
There is legislation in flux in the Illinois General Assembly that would extend equal rights to GLBT people. It’s HB2234 — the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act: [HB2234] [d]efines “civil union” as a legal relationship between 2 persons, of either the same or opposite sex, established in accordance with the Act. Provides that a party to a civil union shall be entitled to the same legal obligations, responsibilities, protections, and benefits afforded or recognized by the law… Read more
Reader Jesika is an atheist who will be starting college next year. She has a question about courses that some of you may be able to help with: … My question is that I am about to go to college and I was just wondering if any universities offered courses for atheists. I want my major to be in gay and lesbian studies and I have found schools that specialize in that particular subject, but I haven’t been able to… Read more
Phase 1 of the Atheist Bus Campaign was letting the world know we’re here (and we have impressive numbers!). Phase 2 could be considered letting the world know we can be good without a god — and it’s courtesy of the Freethought Association of Canada: The Freethought Association of Canada will be looking for donations from anyone interested in helping spread the word that atheists are able and willing to do good deeds. Our outlook is global, and includes such… Read more
