Guess who is promoting his book Ghosts Among Us near Chicago tomorrow (Friday) night…? James Van Praagh. Clairvoyant. Cold reading specialist. Liar. Fraud. The event is at 7:30 p.m. at the Borders in Oak Brook. I can’t go, but it would be a shame if his methods went unchallenged during a Q&A session… Better yet, someone could conjure up a fake dead relative, have Praagh admit he “spoke” to the person, record the entire thing, and send it to me…. Read more
While I sit in the fetal position writing this, contemplating Thursday night’s finale of Lost while grading my students’ final projects, here’s something that might be amusing to find out: What’s the worst job you ever had? Have any of you worked in a world completely outside the one you currently inhabit? (i.e. an atheist who worked at a church?) My list: A miniature golf course/batting cage. You know the golf balls that go into the mini-ponds? I scooped them… Read more
This new podcast should also win an award for most creative title. ApostAZ is put together by some Arizona atheists. I haven’t listened to it yet, but here’s hoping it’s a good one. (via The Lippard Blog) [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
The new Carnival of the Godless is at Jyunri Kankei. Go check it out! The next CotG is at Disillusioned Words in two weeks. Submit your entries here! [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
Last week, I ran this contest: Imagine you’re running for president… of American Atheists. What are your campaign promises? Here are the Top 3 not-so-serious responses (with submitters)! 3| That’s easy: All-you-can-eat baby buffet, Satanic Ritual Sundays, Communist ping-pong, Bible-burning class, a better Darwin shrine, and a bubble-gum machine in the lobby. (Milena) 2| More Atheist holidays so you can get a day off work. (Isaah) 1| The Jews have Israel, the Catholics have the Vatican, the Mormons have Utah… Read more
At the upcoming joint conference between the AHA, SSA, and IHEU, I have the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion on a topic that’s important to a lot of us in the atheist blogosphere: Making the Case for the New Enlightenment: What are the best ways to get people to value scientific and critical inquiry, naturalism, democracy, secularism, and human based ethics? In other words, what are the best methods to get people to respect who we are (as non-religious… Read more
This one’s from Reddit — the comment thread there has some good responses. Here’s the (edited) query: What questions were you asked when you first said, “I’m an atheist”? I don’t recall being asked many questions when I came out. However, I did get the following: “Huh.” “But you have to believe in something.” “You may want to keep that to yourself…” “But you believe in God, right?” “Me too.” [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
Today is the first birthday of… the Creation Museum! (Which, by Creationist math, makes it approximately 1/6000th the age of the universe…) It was only a year ago today when atheists and theists joined forces to denounce the museum as utterly void of science. Our hope was that people would recognize that this museum was purely religious and not-at-all based on fact. We still have ways to go. For creationists, the heart of the issue is defending their faith in… Read more
It is the end of the school year, but high school students wishing to start an atheist group next year may want to start thinking about it this summer. Stephanie Kirmer, who ran a high school freethought group in Kansas (Kansas!), offers some advice to these activist students: Another problem you may run into is member turnover. In college, some people are around forever – they just stay in the area, whether they graduate or not, and they form the… Read more
Jews versus Muslims. Who wins? How about Hindus against Buddhists? We will soon find out… Faith Off, the working title of a series on the Islam Channel, will attempt to promote good relations and mutual respect between Britain’s religious communities. Two teams of four will go head to head in each episode, answering quick-fire and general knowledge questions in the eight-part series hosted by the Muslim comedian Jeff Mirza. There will be a multiple choice current affairs segment in addition… Read more
