In light of the Ted Haggard situation, the question sometimes comes up from the Religious Right: Can a gay person become straight? For some reason, some people think degayification is possible. Tanya Erzen, author of Straight to Jesus, spent time with the people at New Hope Ministry, a San Francisco-based ministry that helps Christian men who are “struggling with homosexuality.” According to this article from Salon, Erzen “made every effort to listen to and understand everyone at New Hope Ministry,… Read more
1st Lt. Wayne Adkins (196th MPAD) has resigned from the Ohio Army National Guard. His reason is not that he refuses to fight. It’s because he’s tired of the discrimination he has to face as an atheist. You can read his open resignation letter here. Some excerpts follow: On July 18th, 2006 Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, lumped atheists and agnostics together with bigots and in a paraphrase of an old untrue negative stereotype… Read more
Daniel Morgan, the president of the University of Florida Atheist, Agnostic and Freethinking Student Association (which is a Secular Student Alliance affiliate), appeared on Hannity & Colmes last night to provide the atheist perspective on yet another Ten Commandments issue. (A monument was placed outside a courthouse by citizens in Dixie County, Florida) A video of the appearance, as well as Daniel’s take on it all, is at his website. To recap: FoxNews needed two sides for this story. They… Read more
If you’re ever bored, here’s the game for you to play. Via The Atheist Experience, Left Behind: Eternal Forces (based on the bestselling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins) has been released and the reviews are in. GameSpot says: Don’t mock Left Behind: Eternal Forces because it’s a Christian game. Mock it because it’s a very bad game … Nobody has enough faith to endure a game with such a hokey story, terrible mission design, serious problems with the… Read more
The Atheist is the name of a play opening in New York City. The story is about a guy named Augustine, who is “a man on a mission to become famous even if it kills him.” What does the title have to do with anything? It’s kind of inspirational, really. According to one review: Augustine tells us that he “knew from a young age I was going to be famous. More famous than anybody I ever knew. But I didn’t… Read more
Daley Plaza in Chicago has played host for the past 10 years to “Christkindlmarket,” a festival that has German roots. It’s less a Christian festival and more a place to sell goods, provide entertainment, and help the tourism industry (for some reason, Chicago isn’t the hottest destination during the winter…). It brings in more than 1,000,000 visitors a year. The vendors all pay taxes to the city, unlike any churches. This is a holiday festival, not a festival to celebrate… Read more
After that last post, here’s a blog that’s much better. (Via the eBay Atheist site), A Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right is the blog for the book of the same name. The focus is on stories dealing with the pastors and Christian leaders who are the ones most often seen in the media. It also has every link you’ll ever need to get to Christian Right websites, see a tally of the largest megachurches, and read the Wikipedia links… Read more
You know, if there weren’t over 300 blogs linking to this site, I probably wouldn’t care. But man, this is ignorant. Apparently, I hate God. (I did not know this.) Also, I’m bitter about God’s creation (Stupid planet Earth… trying to sustain life…). I am afraid, though. He found out about our conspiracy with the Islamofascists, the Homosexuals, and the Satanists. (Why would atheists want to ally themselves with Islamofascists…? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?) Sadly, I don’t think this… Read more
I’m trying to think through some of my newfound beliefs and am pondering some of the “hows” and “whys” behind the Christian story of how God revealed himself to man. Sometimes I think it makes a lot of sense, other times it seems implausible. That’s from Jennifer. She used to be an atheist. Now, she’s on the way to becoming a Catholic. Before the rips on Catholicism begin, and people start saying, “It’s implausible,” let’s get this straight: That’s not… Read more
I’m watching The Bachelor (don’t ask). The bachelor (a prince) has two girls left to choose from. He introduced them to his parents. During some one-on-one time, the mom decided to read each girls’ palms… At this point, the correct reaction should be, “I don’t want your family’s genes.” And then the girl should leave the show. Instead, each girl became very excited. Not fake/I’m-on-the-Bachelor-so-I-must-play-it-cool excitement. It was real excitement. As in, “This is incredible!” excitement. The mom’s conclusion after… Read more