December 2011
108 posts
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Reading, Writing And Rebellion? 50 Years Later,...
The New York Times ran an interesting piece recently about religion in public schools, making it clear that even though the U.S. Supreme Court struck down mandatory, school-sponsored prayer nearly 50 years ago, many problems remain.
In some parts of the country, especially in areas where there isn’t a lot of religious diversity, some public education officials demonstrate great resistance to...
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Above Us Only Sky →
I may be wrong about this, but I think there is a theological issue that, when we consider the whole sweep of human history, troubled a far higher proportion of the human population from far earlier and for far longer than any single other question. It’s not a question we ask today.
It’s not ‘does God exist?’ – there have always been people who haven’t believed in the gods, but until extremely...
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Latest revelations about Catholic child abuse...
The missing chapter of the Cloyne Report into Catholic child abuse inIreland, and its subsequent cover up by the Catholic hierarchy, has now been published. The chapter was withheld from the original report so as not to prejudice a trial that was ongoing at the time.
Once more a catalogue of cover-up and lies is revealed at the very highest echelons of the Church. Its publication has prompted...
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“Atheists are routinely asked how people will know not to rape and murder without...”
– 10 Myths Many Religious People Hold About Atheists, Debunked (via lavender-labia)
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seltaire asked: Seeing people talk about war on Christianity in America makes me wonder if I will live to see a day of someone crying about heterophobia.
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'Why it’s hard to be Christian at Christmas' →
Oh cry me a fucking river, mate. Seriously.
~Mooglets
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A couple days ago I asked if anyone would like to...
- on Christmas or how they celebrate it, or if they don’t and so on.
We got a mixed-bag of responses, just as I expected! :D
I’ve collected them all together into a post to share.
Enjoy :)
—-
firstrock1503 I don’t acknowledge “Christmas” it is a joke and one of the most harmful to both the economy and the environment.
likeclefairy As my mom has become more religious, it’s...
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“The right-wing loves religion, not because it teaches people right from wrong,...”
– Howard Thorpe, capitalism creates poverty blog
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im-being-sarcastic-of-course asked: Haha my school (Which is an english grammar school, not even private) has a ridiculous policy about homosexuality: 'There is no place for teaching which advocates homosexual behaviour, which presents it as the ‘norm’, or which encourages homosexual experimentation by pupils.' Myself and some friends are fighting to get it changed at the moment because it's just so...
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Tennessee private school bans homosexuality
A Christian school in America has updated its policies to ban gays and any mention of homosexuality.
News Channel 3 of Memphis, Tennessee, reports that a letter was sent home to parents of the 300 children at Rossville Christian Academy outlining the ban.
The policy reads: “Homosexuality is forbidden in scripture (Romans 1:27, Leviticus 18:22). A staff member or student who promotes, engages...
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Chicago cardinal compares gay rights to Ku Klux...
A Chicago cardinal is under fire from gay rights groups following a comment that compared the gay rights movement to the Ku Klux Klan.
During an interview with Fox Chicago on Wednesday, Cardinal Francis George was asked for his opinion on a local pastor complaining that the annual gay pride parade would force his church to cancel their morning mass.
George said he supported the pastor and told...
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lovelyaddict asked: Is there such a thing as an 'extremist atheist'? What came to mind for me while thinking was an atheist who murdered theists, or perhaps an atheist who vandalized religious property or something. Those both seemed pretty nuts to me. What about you? Have you ever heard of an extremist atheist?
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Tim Minchin's new Christmas song about Jesus cut...
Comedy superstar (and rationalist) Tim Minchin was supposed to be on The Jonathan Ross Show this week. He’d even written a brand new song for it, as he explains on his blog: “Being Christmas, I thought it would be fun to do a song about Jesus, but being TV, I knew it would have to be gentle. The idea was to compare him to Woody Allen (short, Jewish, philosophical, a bit hesitant),...
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I’ve been on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TheBible) fighting these ignorant Christians who deletes your comments when they can’t defend themselves.
So in order to fight back, I would like for most Atheist with a Facebook account to flood the website at a certain time and attack or debate with them about anything you know about the religion.
If everyone can go at the same time at around...
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House of Representatives Continues to Fuel the...
This month, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) introduced H. Res. 489, “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected for use by those who celebrate Christmas.” Personally I was unaware that Christmas was in a position in need of protection, but of course it is that time of year when the Religious Right launches an endless stream of...
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Honest question for atheists: are you offended by...
good-monsters:
I truly don’t mean to be rude or spiteful, but I’m truly, genuinely, ridiculously curious, and this has been weighing on my mind since Advent began. There has been a lot of anti-Christmas hate going on by atheists [not all atheists, of course, just a publicized handful] and I was wondering why. To use an analogy, being a Christian, I don’t celebrate Hanukkah - and I have...
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Christmas celebrations?
atheismfuckyeah:
I wonder, as there are so many of you now - would anyone like to submit what they get up to for Christmas, or Giftmas, or Hanukka, or whatever you personally call it? Whether you actually celebrate the season or not, of course?
Anyone who’s seen my personal blog, will know that I myself, despite being a stringent anti-theism atheist, celebrate Christmas with as much fun and...
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Some tips for theists:
religiousragings:
1) We don’t believe in Hell, so you can nix the threats. 2) Saying “God Bless” doesn’t make you compassionate, especially after #1. 3) We’ve read your bible. Amateur work with serious continuity problems. 4) Don’t tell atheists we’re immoral when we comprise 0.4% of U.S. prisons. 5) We think its cute when you point at other faiths and say, “That’s so dumb!” 6) Frightening kids...
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God save us from the crazy religious privileges in... →
The Daily Mail show’s itself for what it is again, a pile of bigoted nonsense.
As the sun rises tomorrow, 400 inmates in British prisons will be celebrating a day off — some of them with a sip of wine and a ceremony involving Tarot cards and rune stones.
For December 22 is the winter solstice, one of eight pagan festivals that prisons must now recognise. Pagan prisoners are allowed to...
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An Atheist Sign at an Air Force Base Has Already...
A sign reading “Have a safe holiday season,” donated by American Atheists and sponsored by Travis M*A*S*H (an atheist group), can now be seen at the Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California: (see above.)
Staff Sergeant Dan Rawlings had to fight to get that sign up there, despite there already being a Nativity Scene and a Jewish Menorah on the premises. And a day hadn’t even gone by...
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Christmas celebrations?
I wonder, as there are so many of you now - would anyone like to submit what they get up to for Christmas, or Giftmas, or Hanukka, or whatever you personally call it? Whether you actually celebrate the season or not, of course?
Anyone who’s seen my personal blog, will know that I myself, despite being a stringent anti-theism atheist, celebrate Christmas with as much fun and merry-making...
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'I've got a surprise for you': Husband blindfolds...
A jealous husband is facing life in prison after chopping off his wife’s fingers because she began studying for a degree without his permission.
Rafiqul Islam, 30, blindfolded his wife Hawa Akhter, 21, and taped her mouth, telling her he was going to give her a surprise present.
Instead he made her hold out her hand and cut off all five fingers. One of his relatives then threw Ms...
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Jesus Never Existed →
It is intuitively satisfying to think that someone was behind the towering legend. Yet like the worship of Horus or Mithras a human life was neither necessary nor helpful. As it happens, we have an excellent witness to events in Judaea in the first half of the first century AD: Philo of Alexandria (c25 BC-47 AD). Yet Philo says not a word about Jesus or Christianity!
Nothing in the...
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Anonymous asked: Ugh I hate that my name is Theresa. People are always like "Oh, so you like Mother Teresa?" And I wanna say "No, I said my fucking name was Theresa! I was named after my aunt who was named by my insanely catholic grandmother..."
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Hitchens’ Last Laugh
This morning I woke up to the terrible (although not completely unexpected) news that Christopher Hitchens had died. The rational community has, of course, lost one of its most erudite and interesting members. But it seems that Christopher had one last trick up his sleeve.
As with most breaking news these days, I found out about his death from Twitter. I checked my Twitter feed as I got up at...
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“The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for...”
– Christopher Hitchens
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In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.
“Cancer...
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“[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She...”
– Christopher Hitchens
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walls-closing-in asked: Hitchens has been one of my biggest inspirations and undoubtedly my favorite author for the last few years. I think his death marks a very tragic loss to those of us who identify as free thinkers and atheists, as well as to the human species as a whole. I appreciate you guys making some posts for him. He'll be missed.
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“Do bear in mind that the cynics have a point, of a sort, when they speak of the...”
– Christopher Hitchens