So, here I am blogging from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., one post every half hour, to benefit the Secular Student Alliance. It’s a sorry few hours, compared to some of my co-bloggers here at FtB, who blogged for 24 hours straight, but it’s all I can manage today. Continue reading “1: Blogathan for Secular Student Alliance!”
Tomorrow: Blogathon (more like a bloga-10K) for SSA Week
I’ll be blogging for the SSA tomorrow, Saturday, June 16, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. (eastern time zone) — following in the footsteps of FreethoughtBlogs lights such as Brianne Bilyeu, Ophelia Benson, Ian Cromwell, JT Eberhard and Michaelyn Everhart, Greta Christina, Greg Laden, Daniel Fincke, Al Stefanelli, Jason Thibeault, Jen McCreight, Natalie Reed, Ed Brayton and who knows who else. Continue reading “Tomorrow: Blogathon (more like a bloga-10K) for SSA Week”
Reason Rally: The Speech That Didn’t Happen
This is the speech I would have given, if I’d been asked to speak at the Reason Rally. No, there’s no reason anyone should have asked – I’m not well enough known just yet – but that didn’t stop me from wanting to be up on stage anyway. Saying this:
Hank’s Reason Rally Speech
Just as we still talk about the Enlightenment, or the discovery of fire, a thousand years from now, people will still be talking about this moment.
Because this is the moment when civilization left the launch pad. This is the moment when we broke free from the restraints of unreason, when the umbilical of religion finally fell away, the moment when the rocket of our true capabilities really began to thrust up into the sky.
There’s still that long, long journey ahead of us. But this is the moment when we made our final break from the insanities of the past, and people a thousand years from now will know it, and talk about it.
Or … they won’t. Continue reading “Reason Rally: The Speech That Didn’t Happen”
Doing My Part: Christopher
[ This is a response to Doing My Part for the Godless Future. If you’d like to submit one of your own — what you’re doing to help the world, or just yourself, get free of religion — email me via the link in that post. ]
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My very small part is to reply to xtians who use the “Love the sinner but hate the sin” in the same way I did to my sister when she stated that Jesus said, “Love the sinner but hate the sin.”
So I asked her, “When did you become Hindu?” “Whaa?” she said. Then I informed her that, no, Jesus didn’t say that, even though far-too-many xtians do, that is a quote from Gandhi. Makes a nice little wake-up punch, a real two-fer: plops them into a religion that many of them consider paganism, and shows they don’t even know what their bible says. Continue reading “Doing My Part: Christopher”
Doing My Part: Cory Brunson
[ This is a response to Doing My Part for the Godless Future . If you’d like to submit one of your own — what you’re doing to help the world, or just yourself, get free of religion — email me via the link in that post. ]
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I do a lot of the familiar stuff at the personal level: I sit at Ask An Atheist tables, i write letters to the editor, i regularly post religious commentary on Facebook. I cross out “In God We Trust” on dollar bills and write in “E pluribus unum”. These things matter. but they feel reactive, and marginal, like online comments on an op-ed.
Here’s something i wish more people would do: Continue reading “Doing My Part: Cory Brunson”
Doing My Part: Stephanie
[ This is a response to Doing My Part for the Godless Future. If you’d like to submit one of your own — what you’re doing to help the world, or just yourself, get free of religion — email me via the link in that post. ]
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I’m 25 years old and I’ve been calling myself an atheist officially since I was about 19. I stopped believing in God before that, but the word atheist was scary at first – so final. It’s understandable to me why people are afraid of atheism. I was at first, in my early teens when I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong and why everyone had told me God was real when more and more evidence was piling up in my head to the contrary. I feel like religious people clutch their religion to their chests like a child with security blanket. The blanket is all ratty and worn out and dirty. So an adult goes to them and says, Continue reading “Doing My Part: Stephanie”