Every once in awhile I check under the old WordPress dashboard to see what I’ve been doing. This here post is number 475, and falls a bit shy of the end of my fifth year of blogging. By the time I get to that particular anniversary (April 18), I hope to have received about 450,000 visits to the blog. I think that’s a lot, but in comparison to others, maybe not so much. Considering that about 425,000 are probably visits from Gideon, maybe I shouldn’t be so proud. 😉
Sometimes I run into some really lucid, spot-on comments and posts while
wandering through the Atheosphere, that I feel the need to share. Over at Freethought Blogs, there are so many thoughtful, interesting posts that it’s hard to keep up with them. I like the idea of congregating much of the Atheosphere in one place, but on the other hand, it can be overwhelming, with much of the forest lost for the trees. Continue reading
If you like Tim Minchin, you’ll love this – and it’s Banned in Britain! Well, not really, but it was cut from the TV show it was recorded for, which is sorta like being banned.
But, he has a good attitude about it. I wish Americans had this kind of response.
It’s 2011. The appropriate reaction to people who think Jesus is a supernatural being is mild embarrassment, sighing tolerance and patient education.
And anger when they’re being bigots.
Oh, and satire. There’s always satire.
A friend of mine, J.D.Rhoades, a lawyer, columnist and hard-boiled crime writer, also writes a blog titled, appropriately, What Fresh Hell Is This? (I love that blog title, by the way, so I stole it for this post.) I always enjoy his column at The Pilot, a newspaper from his home state of North Carolina. His opinions are somewhat in the minority in that red state, but he keeps plugging away, and I admire him for it. I’d hate to get the hate mail he probably gets from the people in that state, though knowing him, I’m sure it provides a good chuckle. I seem to find myself nodding my head regularly at his political columns, the most recent of which he also posted on his blog.
Here’s a taste, then head over there to read the rest.
<rant> We all know that Religion and Hypocrisy go hand in hand. Religion has no choice. It is impossible to be religious and consistent at the same time, because any religious claim is usually self-contradictory, requiring a pull in two directions. Against abortion? Sure, every life is sacred (except those on death row, service men fighting in war, innocent civilians in Iran and Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc.). Voila’! Instant Hypocrisy.
Within a few hundred views, I’m going to hit a small milestone. Small in comparison, to say Daily Kos, or even Pharyngula. But for this humble blogger, it’s a lot more that I ever anticipated when I started this blog.
When the moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, that’s when this atheist, skeptic, critical thinker and, yes, humanist loses it, thinking it would be a good idea to present the eighteenth version of the Humanist Symposium with a zodiacal theme. It’s downright silly but where does it say that humans have to be so serious all the time? No-one with a brain (or at least one that is switched on) gives much credence to astrology, but sometimes it can be fun. So in the spirit of frivolity that comes with spring, let’s peruse the most recent submissions (and a few that were not submitted) to the Symposium from an astrological perspective.
I love science. I have no science background, but I’ve always been fascinated with it. I regularly love to peruse some of the Science Blogs, and I have a few of them down there in my blogroll. Here’s a few posts and other tidbits that I recently found interesting. Perhaps you will too.
Well, it is that time again. The time when some of the recent rantings and ravings of the recalcitrant godless bloggers are collected in a central location for those who like their rants all in one place. I do a disservice to this fine bunch of writings by denigrating them as rants (actually, one of them, mine, was just that, but let’s not nitpick) because they are clearly more than that.Â
You can make up your own minds on that issue, by checking them out over at Greta Christina’s Blog. She has two versions – the Haunted House version and the Simple List version, the latter without the Halloween themed graphics for those of you still using 300 baud modems, I presume (haha, sucks to be you. I use the faster 2400 baud one).
Check it out.
Exterminator feels that we atheists don’t need a symbol, or a badge, or some graphic designation of our lack of belief. I agree. So do other bloggers. What is atheism but a negative position that is contrary to popular beliefs? But we live in a shorthand, graphic intensive world. Everything is built for speed, quick communication, and quick consumption. Religion is the only institution still lumbering along on 2000 year old thinking, but one thing it does well, it knows how to symbolize. You don’t need to read St. Augustine, or any other arcane theology, to understand what you’re dealing with when you see this. So I don’t think it’s inappropriate to have a shorthand designation for atheism, even though we don’t really need one. Continue reading
SPANISH INQUISITOR 