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Book Review Love from a Fellow FTBer

Al Stefanelli of A Voice of Reason says some flattering (and totally true) stuff about my book, Red Neck, Blue Collar, Atheist: Simple Thoughts About Reason, Gods & Faith.

Packed into twenty-five chapters is the wisdom of a lifetime and proves you do not have to be a great thinker to think great things. The foreword begins not with a treatise on astrophysics, molecular biology or archaeology. It starts with, “My dog died,” and flows into life in the Eastern Sierra’s of California, dealing with grief, loss and time it takes to understand the impact of life on mere humanity. It ends with a realization of enlightenment, then contentment and the lightness of no longer being afraid to live without the shackles of religion hindering ones self.

The best parts come at the beginning …

“Hank Fox wrote a book. You should read it” – Me

… and the end:

I strongly recommend you buy this book and read it from cover to cover.

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My Wonderful, Fabulous Life, or, Why You Should (Should Not) Envy Me

Atheism is not all I do. It’s sort of my curse that most things interest me. Used to be, EVERYTHING interested me, but I’ve gotten more conservative in my old age. The uncool part of the condition is that it’s been hard to focus on any one thing, and actually make a good living at it. The cool part is, it’s been (is being) a fun ride.

One of my things is adventuring. Doing stuff for the fun of it. I would actually like to make a living at it, and have been working, at a glacial pace, to develop a website — AdventYear — of “Outdoor Adventures for Fat Old People.” Continue reading “My Wonderful, Fabulous Life, or, Why You Should (Should Not) Envy Me”

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Kuwait Votes to Murder Blasphemers

This would qualify as a Monty Python skit if it wasn’t real. (Warning: Fairly shocking pic below the fold.)

Kuwait’s parliament approved a law that calls for the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, his wives and relatives, in a sign of the growing sway of Islamists who triumphed in elections this year.

Amnesty International describes the thing as “a massive step backwards” for Kuwait.  Jeez, you think?

Under the law, any Muslim who, through any form of expression, insults God, his prophets, messengers, Prophet Mohammad’s wives or the Qur’an will be subject to the death penalty unless the defendant repents. If he does, then the judge is to instead impose a sentence of at least 5 years in prison and a fine equivalent to $36,000 (US).  Continue reading “Kuwait Votes to Murder Blasphemers”

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Short Stack #13

[Apology in advance: Some of these may be repeats.]

Jesus praying to God is the same as masturbation.

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New Superstitions for the Modern Age: If your oatmeal has black specks in it, and if you eat the black specks, you will sicken and die. Eight-year-olds, take note.

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Why, yes, you’re right. It IS a “mute” point. Probably best to say no more about it. Continue reading “Short Stack #13”

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Fanboy Does ‘The Avengers’

Went to the midnight showing of The Avengers last night.

I’ve been saying for a couple of years that someone figured out something, about the time of the first Spider-Man movie. Something about how to do a REALLY GOOD superhero movie.

The whatever-it-was came to perfection by the time the second Spider-Man came out, the one with Doc Ock, making it the screaming best superhero movie ever-evarrrr.

But then the first Iron Man hit the screen. Blew. Me. The. Fuck. Away. Topped Spidey 2.

The Avengers is Iron Man times three. Continue reading “Fanboy Does ‘The Avengers’”

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God Without Spellcheck 2

Thanks to Barry Andrew for the heads-up on the following image:


From their website: “The North Georgia Falcons are a homeschool football team with high school and middle school players. We play football in the Glory For Christ football league, which is made up of Christian School teams and Homeschool teams.”

The lead post at the Glory for Christ Football League site — “Our purpose in life is to give glory to God!” — is at the moment a large ad for the concussion-preventing Guardian football helmet. That’s just slightly ironic, you have to admit (Wait, you say you want to give glory to God by playing football, but you’re not willing to risk everything for Him?), but I’m not going to make too much fun of it. At least they’re not attempting to pray away concussions.

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Doing a search for the origin of the photo, I found these comments on the New York Times website, a couple of letters to the Sports Editor:

Re ”Home Schooling, Home Teams,” June 26: Perhaps the home-schoolers need to rethink their Priority List, as ”3. Acedemics” and ”4. Atheletics” are misspelled on the sign in a photograph accompanying the article.

and

I prefer to think that it was an act of kindness rather than an oversight that compelled you not to notice the misspellings in the North Georgia Falcons Priority List. I commend you on your forbearance. As to the priorities listed on the sign, it is painfully clear that spelling ranks nowhere near the top.

However, the picture referred to does not at present appear with the article, leading me to believe it was scrubbed by a kindly editor, possibly after being contacted by certain embarrassed parties.

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In Case You Missed It …

This is the piece that appeared in the Albany Times Union newspaper this last Saturday, in the Voices of Faith column on the Faith & Values page. (Interestingly, it used to be the Religion page, and I suspect the change reflects some sort of sea change in understanding that “values” can come from someplace other than religion. Which is progress, and which I attribute directly to newly-vocal atheists making that very point.)

The two other main stories on the page were “Pope orders crackdown on nuns” and “Faith lost, then found, strengthens Troy mayor.” (Troy is a local city, a once-upon-a-time industrial giant located next to Albany.)

I titled my piece “Being Good Without God: The Option of Atheism” / the editor renamed it Atheists Aim for Goodness. Continue reading “In Case You Missed It …”