Last week, I mentioned Joel Grus and his talk “Your Religion is False” at the recent BIL (Benevolence. Illuminating. Logic.) conference in Long Beach, CA. The video I showed was shaky and needed some professionalizing. I’m happy to say the cleaned-up video is now available and you can now see the hilarious talk without having to strain. Enjoy! (Thanks again to Lexi, the speaker wrangler for BIL, for the link!) Read more
Demetri Martin presents one sneaky way to get rid of rats… Important Things with Demetri MartinWed 10:30pm / 9:30cPower – CreedocideJoke of the DayStand-Up ComedyGet Funny RingtonesMore Funny Videos (via Religion is Man-Made) Read more
Editor-in-Chief of The Onion Scott Dikkers spoke at last year’s Freedom From Religion Foundation conference. While he gave this talk back in October, it wasn’t online until now. It’s one of the funniest speeches about the public image of atheists you’ll ever read. Here’s one excerpt: So, I saw this U. of Minn. survey that came out a while back. Perhaps you saw it as well. It asked Americans, who do you trust? And they broke it down into categories:… Read more
Tell me this birthday wish to Charles Darwin isn’t the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life: I’m going to adopt Alex now. (Can you tell he has already picked up the New England accent?) You can see other messages and several pictures from Darwin’s 200th Birthday Bash at Charlie’s Playhouse on Flickr. Read more
Friendly Atheist contributor Trina Hoaks is the Atheism Examiner at the Examiner website. Looks like she now has some sibling rivalry. Ray Comfort has signed on as the Anti-Atheism Examiner. [UPDATE: His title has changed. He is now the Creationism Examiner.] He’s no longer writing on his old website. Same old tripe. New location. He ends his inaugural posting with this: Evolution certainly is a fairytale for grown-ups. He gets paid by the pageview, so there’s no need to click… Read more
The last time you heard about atheist Michael Newdow’s Inauguration lawsuit was when it was rejected by a judge days before Barack Obama took the oath of office. That, however, was simply a preliminary injunction. A small setback. Not a big deal, really. The Inauguration issue hasn’t gone away. It is likely this case could reach the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit within a couple years. For the sake of convincing future judges that this is not some… Read more
What Troy Brisport did to this woman sounds pretty bad. He was: … accused of kidnapping, handcuffing and holding captive in an adult diaper a 22-year-old woman he picked up off the streets in Detroit… But wait. It’s ok. He was just trying to save her. For three days Brisport held her captive. During that time, he gave her nothing to eat and very little to drink. He kept her gagged. Brisport tried several times to suffocate her, using a… Read more
If I ask you to think of a Religious Right organization, which groups come to mind? Focus on the Family? American Family Association? Another group called Exodus Mandate puts them to shame. EM says those other groups are not religious-right enough. They want every Christian to home-school their children and trash public schooling. Nine organizations were rated, many of which have actively engaged in the cultural war in the US for the past several decades. [Chaplain E. Ray] Moore said,… Read more
Last time, I ran this contest: Barack Obama has taken a presidential oath without a Bible. He mentioned non-believers in his Inaugural Address. In what way will President Obama reach out to atheists next? Here are the Top 3 answers (with submitters): 3| In an effort to balance faith-based initiatives, FriendlyAtheist.com becomes eligible for federal grants. (postsimian) 2| His administration’s position towards “faith-based initiatives” will be “abstinence only”. (Wes) 1| I’m afraid it won’t be quite as rosy as many… Read more
The latest issue of The Humanist has an incredible article by Karen Frantz about army specialist Agustin Aguayo. Aguayo is an “agnostic who believe[s] in a higher power.” During his army training, he realized he could not kill someone even in the case of war: During his training in arms and military operations he began to feel a “crystallization” of belief — and this belief was causing him anguish and guilt. He knew he couldn’t use a bayonet against anyone…. Read more