On Saturday, I attended the Religion Newswriters Association Conference thanks in no small part to the generous donations from a…
Category Personal
The Religion Newswriters Association is having their annual conference in Philadelphia at the end of August. I’m a newswriter. I…
The world can be a pretty cruel place and people tend to be self-consumed at times. Random acts of kindness are rare and yet over the weekend, I was the recipient of two such acts. However, one was a little less random than the other and the kindness of one might have been more self-consumed than the other as well.
Catholic League President, Bill Donohue just came out with a new book called, “The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful.” In it, he references me by name and of course in typical Donohue form, plays rather loosely with the facts and with reality.
Religious believers often tell me that atheism is my religion and even some atheists claim that they would not want religion eliminated because atheism is their identity and without religion to argue against they would lose that identity. Is atheism my religion and my identity? Wouldn’t I want to stop the elimination of religion to preserve my identity?
As the year 2014 draws to a close, I want to talk a little bit about my plans for the coming year. First, I want to apologize for not getting as much content out as I usually do. This is for a variety of reason.
The day after Thanksgiving is when all the retail stores used to start their super sales. I used to love waking up at 3am (or just not going to sleep) and waiting in line for the latest deals. I didn’t really care about the deals themselves most of the time; I just liked the adventure of it all. But now the adventure is gone. Black Friday has been moved back to Black Thursday – also known as Thanksgiving.
Last night, I went to the Church to give my presentation. To start with, I asked the Pastor if I could tape a letter to the Church door as part of my presentation. He allowed it. My letter was a list of 10 things that all atheists agree about. Each numbered item was a particular deity that atheists lack a belief in. I tried to pick a mix of deities what were mostly pretty well known. Of course the last deity on the list was Yahweh.
As an atheist activist and blogger, I spend a lot of time thinking about religion, talking to the religious, and intercepting religious evangelists so others don’t have to be bothered. When it comes time to go on vacation, I decided to go to a place where I don’t have to do any of those things – Vermont.
Even though I am pretty open about my atheism to everyone except maybe the people at my part-time job, I still sometimes feel like I live two lives. I have one life with my wife, kids, family, and friends, and another life online. Well, real life is distracting me from my online life again.