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?
One of the most disturbing things about the Chapel Hill shooting is that the shooter, Craig Hicks, is an active atheist online. His Facebook page looks a lot like my Facebook page… minus the photo of the weight of his gun. We even have 77 Facebook friends in common.
Before the National Atheist Party imploded, they had a really great campaign in which they asked atheists to ask politicians how they would represent their atheist constituents. This was a brilliant campaign because it let politicians know that atheists exist and that we vote. Today, I want to call your attention to another opportunity to let your politicians know you exist.
Today is Groundhogs Day and everyone is trying to remember what it means if the groundhog sees his shadow. The answer of course is absolutely nothing! The visual perception of the blockage of the sun by a particular rodent on a particular morning has absolutely no clairvoyant power concerning the winter season.
In the future, the world’s environmental problems will get so bad that people will have a hard time breathing the air and drinking the water. Just imagine for a moment that you are living in this dystopian world.
The sad fact is that there really are “No-Go Zones” all over the world; even in America. But it is theists that are restricting freedom of non-theists. There are plenty of places in America and the rest of the world where being an open atheist invites violence from “peace-loving” religious believers.
I know that everyone is all in love with Pope Francis and everything, but he really isn’t that much different from his predecessor, Pope Palpatine. On Thursday during an airplane interview, the Pope let his real opinions slip out.
In the wake of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, I think it is a good time to discuss the relationship between religion and jokes. Purely from an observational standpoint, it very much appears to me that the more religious someone is, the less of a sense of humor they tend to have.
Fundamentalist religious believers went on a shooting rampage in Paris apparently over a cartoon poking fun at the Muslim prophet Mohammad — intolerance be upon him. While reading up on this breaking story, I saw a 2012 quote from Charlie Hebdo journalist Laurent Leger. The quote reads, “You don’t throw bombs, you discuss, you debate. But you don’t act violently. We have to stand and resist pressure from extremism.”
If you could be any superhero, you should always choose Batman. It is a basic law of comic book geekery. In a fight between Batman and pretty anyone, Batman always wins. Batman is a detective who researches his adversary, finds their weakness, and figures out how to exploit it. While he cannot fly, doesn’t have heat vision, can’t command the fish with telepathy, or have any other supernatural abilities, he does have the super power of logic.