Regarding ancestral slave owning (which accusation some complete and utter idiot has attempted to smear Richard Dawkins with — and no, I’m not linking to it, because I don’t link to complete and utter idiots):
Just in case the charge is ever leveled at me: Continue reading “On My Slaveholding Ancestors”
One of our human failings is that there are plenty of things we can know intellectually without feeling them viscerally.
You can go to a dozen funerals, and not be very deeply touched by it all, until someone you really love dies. You can read or hear about the Holocaust in high school history class, and even see pictures of death camp inmates, and not really have any least idea about what the whole thing means until you walk through the Holocaust Museum, holding the card of a little kid who was sucked into the horrible maw of it, touring through the nightmare exhibits and waiting to see whether YOUR child lived or died. Continue reading “A Magnitude of Horror, Inhumanly High”
The National Day of … huugh … (sorry, I just threw up a little bit in my mouth) Prayer is this May 3.
Wikipedia explains the event this way:
The National Day of Prayer (36 U.S.C. § 119) is an annual day of observance held on the first Thursday of May, designated by the United States Congress, when people are asked “to turn to God in prayer and meditation”.
Fortunately — man, talk about your happy coincidence! — there’s also a National Day of Reason on the same day. I say fortunate not only because a federal judge declared the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional … Continue reading “May 3: National Day of This and That”
I willing to bleed for my fellow man (and woman).
I used to donate blood fairly often, when I lived in Houston. I got my gallon pin and then donated a few more times before I moved to a little mountain town in California and it became much less convenient.
I’ve been thinking for years I should get back into it.
But the way I imagine it happening is through an atheist blood drive. I did a little research and found that freethought/atheist groups all over the U.S., possibly the world, have already had the idea and made it happen regionally. Continue reading “Reader Question: Atheist Blood Drive”
Note for new readers: I lost my Dad, Dan Farris, a few months back. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and what it’s doing to me. I keep a digital recorder with me all the time, and I record thoughts and impressions about the process and the milestones.
Here is one such thought. I relate it for the same reason I wrote my book, Red Neck, Blue Collar, Atheist — we have plenty of books and speakers to tell us about the WHY of atheism, but very few to tell us about the HOW. Yes, getting free of religion is about understanding the emptiness of religion, why it doesn’t work, why we shouldn’t accept it. But staying free of it, living your life day to day in the real world, is about figuring out the minute-to-minute HOW of thinking and living outside religion. Continue reading “Get Real: Losing the Love of God”
Generally, I’ve kept my mouth shut about Israel. Honestly, I haven’t taken the time to really delve into the country’s history, or its politics. My hands-off-ness grows out of that – I know I’m not well-enough informed to hold strong opinions about it all. I’m sure there are some larger issues I don’t understand.
Still, there have been news stories over the years that have sometimes made it difficult for me to feel friendly toward the country.
Mostly, I like the joke I heard years ago, that the world would be better off if we’d given the Jews a homeland in New Jersey rather than the middle East. Continue reading “Israeli Women: Accomplished … and Unclean”
Today Daniel Fincke of Camels With Hammers introduced me to Reap Paden, of ReapSowRadio and The Angry Atheist. With about 15 minutes advanced notice, I was suddenly on the air being interviewed.
If you listen past my uhs and y’knows, we have a fairly wide-ranging and — I think — interesting discussion. Reap’s a good interviewer, and someone I’m glad I’ve met at last. I enjoyed the experience so much, it felt like we talked for only about 15 minutes.
Worth a listen:
The Christian Coalition of America is
… conducting a nationwide survey of America’s politically active Christians so we can show the politicians and the media exactly where we stand on critical issues.
[ In case you have trouble connecting, the URL is http://cc.org/webform/2012_american_values_survey ]
[ Also, see Afternote 2/Warning at the end of this post. ]
And they want to make sure your voice is included.
I say we pitch in. After all, it doesn’t say only Christians, and nobody else.
And it’s not like the questions are politically loaded or anything. They’re all open, honest, think-your-own-well-informed-thoughts-and-answer-according-to-your-independent-conscience questions. No, really. Continue reading “Help Me Pharyngulate (wait, can I say that?) This Poll”
Oh, crap. I still had so much to do. But now Jesus is coming on May 27.
Ronald Weinland is “God’s Final Witness,” the one man, out of 7 billion of us, who knows that the 7th Seal was opened on Nov 14th, 2008 and that Jesus is to Return May 27th, 2012. Continue reading “The Last, Very Last, End of the World. Ever. No, Really. This One. Srsly.”
I found this on Facebook. It was worth a mere chuckle at first, but then I started to really think about it. The more I thought about it, the more telling and terrible it became.
Take two groups …
One with a nightmare vision of the future, a vision of screaming and pain and merciless death, a vision of the end of human life on Earth. A vision that they LOVE, that they ardently WANT TO HAVE HAPPEN …
And the other with a vision of good things, of diseases conquered and lives extended, a vision of human reason and creativity, exploration and prosperity, a vision of learning to live with nature …
Who would you pick to live and work with? Who would you pick to help design YOUR future? The future that stands the better chance of bringing about the most positive experience for everybody and everything? Continue reading “Puppies or Poison”
