Conservapedia said so! And it must be true, right, because Conservapedia is the trustworthy encyclopedia! I’m also deliberately denying the self-evident existence of god, and have a poor relationship with my father. Is it just me, or does that last reason sound a little bit Freudian? All men secretly want to fuck their mother, and all atheists secretly hate their father (because they want to fuck their mother?).

Via No More Mr. Nice Guy!

All the cool kids are doing it, or should be.

My Godless Code: MET->(17)A+ : TR(FSM, SAT, UNI, WIC) : r(B%100) : ex(Fam(.10),Wk(0.0),Fr(1.0)) : SO(A+) : FG(RD,RI+,PJ) : M(Blg) : [gc-0.2]

Via evtujo by way of nullifidian.

Oh, heavens! I’ve been tagged! I… oh… the world is fading… I’m comin’ to join ya, Elizabeth!

Uh… ahem.

I’ve been tagged by the very splendid Splendid Elles for a meme that’s been going around the atheist blogosphere.

Q1. How would you define “atheism”?

I define “atheism” as the condition of not being able to honestly answer “yes” to the question, “do you believe in one or more gods?”

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

I was raised United Methodist. My experience with them is quite a bit more conservative than their advertising (”Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors”) would lead you to believe. There’s still a lot of opposition toward gay people (or there was as of the last time I went to church) and there were people in my congregation who believed in a literal “lake of fire” hell and thought Wiccans were actual “brides of Satan” witches.

Q3. How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

Moronitude.

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?

I’ll have to go with Elles’ answer and say space travel. Star Trek says we’re supposed to meet the Vulcans in my lifetime!

Q5. If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?

This really doesn’t apply so much to the Planet Atheism community, but I wish IIDB and its spin-off boards weren’t full of assholes and bullies.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

“Well, I (hopefully) raised you right, so at least you’ll be One Of The Good Ones.”

Q7. What’s your favourite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

I don’t think I really have a favorite theistic argument, but I do have a favorite refutation. Whenever people argue some variant of “Well, there has to be a god because the universe is too complicated to exist without a creator!” I like to counter with, “Okay. Then what created god? If it’s complicated enough to create the universe then it must also have been created, according to your own reasoning. And then whatever created it must also have been created, and then whatever created that entity must have been created, and…”

Apparently I made someone cry by doing this once.

Q8. What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

I dunno. Maybe my insistence that all agnostics (that is, all people who use the word “agnostic” to describe themselves, because practically everyone is technically an agnostic, including theists) are, in fact, atheists because an atheist is someone who can’t answer “yes” to the question “do you believe in one or more gods?”. “I don’t know” is definitely not “yes”. And who really “doesn’t know” whether they believe in a god, anyway?

But I don’t know whether that’s all that controversial.

Q9. Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

I likes me some Dawkins. I want to be Dawkins when I grow up.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

Hmm. How about the Pope?

Now name three other atheist blogs that you’d like to see take up the Atheist Thirteen gauntlet:

*CG aims the Blogger Tagging Gun and fires at…*

1. Silent Dave
2. The Barefoot Bum
3. NYC-Atheists Blog

Eat me, Christians.

Via Bligbi.

Sorry, Obama, just because you’re cool doesn’t mean I’m not going to tell you when you’re wrong.

The comments in this thread on Pharyngula linked to a video of Barack Obama talking about gay marriage, prompting this from me, which I am also sending to him via his website:

I was dismayed to hear about the comments you made on the topic of gay marriage in New Hampshire in January. You mentioned your parents’ interracial marriage and the fact that couples like them had to fight for their marriages to be recognized, but the rest of your comments undermined everything that they fought for in the ’60s and that gay people are fighting for now.

“Separate but equal” is not okay. You may consider marriage a religious phenomenon, but the fact that the government is involved in it means that it *can’t* be defined or restricted on religious grounds. We do not have an established state religion in America, and with good reason. Christianity does not have nor deserve the authority to make these determinations.

Trying to stick the gays in a “civil union” ghetto is *not* okay. They deserve nothing less than entry to the same institution and access to all the same rights and privileges as straight people have.

In honor of the recent victory for gay rights in California, and in extreme consternation that people like this still exist, I am going to eviscerate another Chick tract. Today’s victim is The Gay Blade.

How is this Chick tract royally fucked up? Let me count the ways…

1. The proper response to “Wilt thou…” is “I will”, not “I do”. No self-respecting educated gay couple would make this mistake.

2. Groom #1 had better watch out, the Reverend looks like he’s about to suck out his soul or something.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry to link to such distasteful sources, but I was reading some political news today and found a couple of right-wing sites discussing a flyer Obama recently released to court Kentucky voters.

CBN: Obama and the Cross
Race42008: Barack Obama’s pitch in Kentucky (contains images of the flyer in question)

CBN wonders if publicizing his Christianity like this will help Obama’s image by making him seem less “elitist”. The commenters at Race42008 are crying foul, and don’t seem willing to believe Obama is “really” religious, as if right-wing nutjobs have some kind of exclusive right to religion.

I haven’t heard what other atheists think about this, but I can see how it would make some people a bit nervous. It’s no secret that Obama is a Christian (or at least it shouldn’t be to anyone who’s been paying attention) and he is campaigning in a country that’s mostly Christian, so of course he was going to bring it up at some point. That in itself doesn’t bother me. What I wanted to know was, what does the flyer say? I’m happy to say that Obama didn’t disappoint me.

The front side of the flyer has Obama standing behind a pulpit, in front of a lighted cross. The top reads Faith. Hope. Change. Barack Obama for President. At the bottom right, we have a quote:

My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work.

–Barack Obama

In other words, “hands that help are better than lips that pray.” Well played!

On the other side, Obama establishes his Christian creds: A picture of him next to a stained-glass church window in full-on “hope mode“, a red banner down the side reading Committed Christian, and a story about how he was volunteering in the South Side after graduating from college and forged a profound connection with the people living there, who encouraged him to visit a local church (I think we all know which one! ), where he felt a beckoning of the spirit and became a Christian. Finally, the requisite picture of him with his wife and daughters, and voter information.

If this is the kind of religious posturing we can expect from him, I say posture away. It’ll be good for everybody to realize that the likes of Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps are not the only religious authorities in this country.

What is this a picture of?

1. A Virgin Mary sighting.
2. A Rolling Stones “lips” sighting.
3. A sighting that I could have done without. Put a bandage on that, for the love of god!

(Source)

What is this a picture of?

1. A bored ultrasound tech playing Hangman
2. The second coming of Christ
3. The second coming of Superman!
4. A random pattern on an ultrasound picture

The world may never know.

(source)