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What I'm reading now:
The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture
God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible by CJ Werleman
Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life (this is excellent. Well written and fascinating. Highly recommended)
God Is Not Great (Hitchens is extremely erudite but I agree with him a lot here. Excellent so far)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Listening to the audio version. Excellent!)


What I just finished:
Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language
Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (Recommended. The first half is a great read. Thorough and detailed but easy to understand.)
Letting Go of God (I listened to the audio version. It was poignant and funny. Highly recommended!)
His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) (best trilogy I've ever read!)

Series

Happy Atheist Love

A Thought Experiment With Your Religious Friends

I am reading several books right now (I have them all listed in the left sidebar). One is called The God Virus and I just started it the other day. On page 18, Darrel W. Ray describes an experiment. I think I’ve heard of it before, but I thought I’d share it with you because it shows how religion attacks the critical thinking skills of the mind. As Mr. Ray says, it leaves the skill intact for other religions but disables critical thinking about one’s own religion. It really is like a virus of the mind.

Here’s the experiment as explained in the book:

You have a serious conversation with a deeply christian friend. Your friend is intelligent, well educated and knowledgeable. You agree to record the session. The topic is islam. During the session, you discuss that mohammed was a self-appointed prophet and that he claimed [...]

How To Talk To A True Believer About Atheism And Religion

OMG is fulla wordzAs you know, I have recently given up and gone back to Facebook (and Twitter). Twitter is not verbose enough. I see peoples’ tweets and links on my page and I don’t follow them because I have no idea what they are about. But I find that I like Facebook. I have found friends (a lot of you from here have befriended me, which I LOVE!), and those friends put up links and stories that I then look into, which is awesome.

Recently I decided to see about finding a few friends from high school. I found one, we’ll call him Pete. We have been chatting on Facebook and it was looking like maybe we could be friends again. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. Well, then I mentioned that I went to a group meeting this past Sunday. I [...]

Wow. It’s Over! And Other Goodness

First, let’s do the other goodness. The political bit follows. My friend has been busy lately and I want to share what he’s been doing.

  • Global Atheist is an aggregate site that refreshes every 15 minutes. It’s a great place to scan lots of awesome skeptical and atheist sites at once.

Now for the Rambling Political Bit:

After about 2 years of campaigning and general political nastiness, it’s over. We’ll have a new president soon! Change is in the air! President Barack Obama. I don’t know about you, but I’m so glad it’s done.

It seems that most of America is probably relieved and happy today, while some people (like my parents) are very angry and busy selling off their stocks so that they can leave the country. Maybe they can move to Canada. Oh wait, Canada really IS a socialist country. Just teasing.

Hopefully things will [...]

The Men In My Life

Hey everyone. How are you today? This post will be about the 2 guys in my life. Coincidentally, they both have done something recently that I wanted to share with you. So here you go:

First, my husband Butch, who happens to be awesomely smart (and pretty damned rogueishly handsome too! hee hee). He doesn’t blog often, but when he does, I just love to see what is bouncing around in his brain. Usually it’s a bit on the angry/ranting side of things. Ok, not usually, almost always. :P

The other day he wrote about Things Every American Needs To Know. It’s a bit on the “angry diatribe” kinda post, but it’s good stuff and I wanted to share it with you. Basically it’s the difference between rights and privileges. I hope you find it [...]

Some People Are Like Sparklers

You know the type, I’m sure. They’re all flashy and fun in the beginning. Mildly entertaining, shiny and interesting. Then they start to sputter. You see that you’re just dealing with flash signifying nothing, but it only happens for a brief moment. The flash and sparkly goodness comes back and you go on with your new friend.

But then the sputtering happens more frequently. And finally their spark and interest dies completely. And you are left with a flimsy little stick in your hand, wondering, why the hell was I even amused by such trivia in the first place?

You’re not necessarily mad at the person for being a “flash in the pan” but you’re kind of irritated with yourself for falling for the sparkle, the [...]

Karen 1958-2008

Friend and confidant

Admired, brilliant, loquacious

Bold, fiery [...]