Just kidding.
In fact, the Reason Rally does not even appear on the ABC News front page. Continue reading “ABCNews.com Gives Reason Rally Fantastic Coverage!”
Reason Rally Rocked!
Seriously. I couldn’t stop smiling. We laughed, we cheered, we clapped, we got wet and cold (standing in an off-and-on drizzle for 8 hours will do that to you) …
… and we did something legendary. Continue reading “Reason Rally Rocked!”
Greta Christina has a new book!
What Ed said.
And DarkSyde.
And Greg Laden.
And Greta herself!
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, by Greta Christina, is out on Kindle!
Greta will also be publishing the Nook and Smashmouth versions in the near-future (think hours). The physical edition will be out in April.
There is a very good reason why every time I go to type (fellow FtB blogger) Greta Christina’s name, my fingers first insist on typing, instead of “Greta,” “GREAT.”
I kid you not, this is something you’re gonna want to BUY and READ.
Oh, Kid, I Wish You The Best …
… I just wish your name was anything but “Palin.”
Because the spotlight that shines on you — because of your name — is the same one that shines on two-headed kittens, and Jessica Simpson. The spotlight that says “Oh, look, all you people sitting there with really nothing better to do, and no mind to figure out what you might be doing, here’s something SUUWEEET!!!!”
Bristol Palin is now a blogger.
Yes, THAT Bristol Palin. Continue reading “Oh, Kid, I Wish You The Best …”
A Study in Conflict Between Island Cultures
It doesn’t get much play in the publicly-available cultural anthropology literature, but there’s an island in the Pacific where an interesting conflict has played out over generations.
The island, which has an untranslatable name – generally rendered in English as “Ryeezahn” – is occupied by two tribes, the Kritsi and the Syenz, which have been at war for generations, a war temporarily restrained in an uneasy peace.
The root of the conflict, as visiting anthropologists have documented, is unequal resource distribution brought on by a drastic inequality in living space. The size of the Syenz territory is more than 20 times that of the Kritsi. Continue reading “A Study in Conflict Between Island Cultures”
Reason Rally Update
Reason Rally plane tickets in hand!
I live about 8 hours drive time from DC, so I was going to drive down on March 23, but I have to work fairly late that day, so I decided to fly down on Saturday morning, March 24.
Tentative plan is to meet up with a few other friends near the statue of Joseph Henry on the grassy quadrangle side of Smithsonian Castle (which is pretty close to the RR stage area), although I may end up getting there after the start of the Rally. Argh.
Originally, the time of the Rally was given as 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and I was expecting to show up at the after-event event at a nearby restaurant (Hemant Mehta has the details), but now Rally hours appear to be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The restaurant after-event meeting is receiving the first 150 people between 5:30 and 6 p.m., so if I stay till the end of the Rally, I can’t get to the restaurant thingie.
Besides which, I’m staying in Baltimore that night, and the last MARC commuter train leaves Union Station at 7-ish.
Well, crap. I guess I’m gonna be forced to just enjoy the Rally.
Short Stack #12
If your father has a stick in the closet that he’s used in the past to beat you with, you have to wonder at someone who’d tell you “What are you getting all worked up about? He’s not beating you with it NOW.” Just so with organized religion and what it’s done throughout history. As an atheist, I would rather empty out that closet.
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When a news story says someone “lost” a leg in an accident, I always hold out hope they’ll eventually find it again and be better for the brief separation. Continue reading “Short Stack #12”
Madison Avenue Jesus
Man, the ads we get here at FtB. My understanding is that the service that places these things gets progressively better at targeting them to the reader audience over time. I continue to hope that’s true. If the whole thing works on nothing but keywords, and if atheist bloggers frequently mention worship and God and Jesus – in the making of jokes if nothing else – then readers here will have to grin and bear a LOT of ads that should rightly be targeted at the goddy. We’re like a Jewish site that deals with Holocaust issues getting ads from skinhead clubs because the words “swastika” and “Hitler” come up frequently. Continue reading “Madison Avenue Jesus”
The Things Atheists Do
I picked up my very own Master of Christian Logic today at Unbelief as a Thought Experiment, and had a rousing set-to in comments over weighty matters such as science and the supernatural. I probably didn’t cover myself with glory — the thing seemed to end in that snippy back-and-forth stuff and I just got tired of it. I did beg him to Come to the Dark Side, offering the standard promise of freedom and joy, but he wasn’t having any of it, intoning (can you intone in a blog comment?): Continue reading “The Things Atheists Do”
Free Will … Maybe — Part 2.3
So: Most of you is not even you. It’s something else, something beastly. Beastly in physical nature, but also beastly in mind. Run by hormones, urges, biologically programmed mandates … just as every other animal is.
Where does that leave us in a quest for Free Will?
Well, it leaves us still looking, doesn’t it? And not a lot of hope in the search. If we’re 99 percent animals — fucking and fighting, eating and shitting, birthing our befurred primate infants and suckling them on beastly milk-faucets little different from those of cows (ladies and gentlemen, I’m exaggerating for effect here), living a little while and then dying dead — that doesn’t give much hope of finding within us this otherworldly and evolutionarily-sudden desirable trait, does it? Continue reading “Free Will … Maybe — Part 2.3”