 I can’t remember who twittered this yesterday, but I noticed this site: The Center for Atheist Research.
Want to help researchers learn about atheists, brights and humanists and how we think? I took the atheist survey yesterday and it was quite thorough. It took about 25 minutes at the most, and I felt like I was being counted, so to speak. As a housewife activist atheist, I really don’t fit what people think “nones” are, so it’s nice to share my worldview with people interested in looking at such things.
Oh, it’s completely confidential. They don’t take any personal information so if you’re in the closet don’t worry, you’re secret is safe with them.
Here’s what they say on their home page:
Atheists and other secularists who have a naturalistic worldview (a philosophy of life that does not involve a belief [...]
 I have all this information to share with you, but I haven’t had a chance to organize it properly. So I’ve decided to kind of throw it out to you with a few notes and let you process it at your leisure, instead of wait any longer. Last month the results of a survey were released. The survey was all about the godless and it was done by Professor Luke Galen.
Luke Galen does a podcast called Reasonable Doubts with two other awesome guys, Jeremy Beahan and David Fletcher. I love this podcast and have been listening to all the past episodes to try to catch up. Just recently I listened to episode 32, Profiles of the Godless where Dr. Galen addressed CFI Michigan with his results. This was recorded back in January of this year, before his paper was published. I highly [...]
The other day Mark over at Proud Atheists posted an article titled What If All Atheists Left America? What he wrote is based on the video that he had in the post. It’s very well done, in my opinion and I had to share it with you. It’s 2:18 minutes long:
What is even better is if you go to youtube’s page for it, in the description, the creator, ConversationWithA, lists all the sources used to put it together. Here is the list: (I’ve added a few notes where relevant. My notes are marked with an [...]
 Water is good for you. If you’re thirsty, it’s usually the best choice. But do you need 8 glasses a day? Does it count when you drink tea or juice or coffee? Do you need to force down another glass even if you aren’t thirsty?
According to Heinz Valtin, a retired professor of physiology from Dartmouth Medical School who specialized in kidney research and spent 45 years studying the biological system that keeps the water in our bodies in balance, the answer is no. If you have kidney stones or if you get urinary tract infections easily, then drinking lots of water can be beneficial.
But there is no scientific evidence to support the notion that healthy people need to drink 64 ounces of water a day.
Valtin found that the 8 x 8 guideline may have originated from a misunderstanding. In 1945 [...]
 I may be an atheist with a heart of gold, but I have a tendency to swear a lot. I tone it down for family events and around kids, but otherwise I love to swear. It enhances what I’m saying and it feels good. Plus, why not? They are simply words. I think it’s silly that some words are taboo. Letters strung together and given a special dirty meaning, verbalized or written, are somehow wrong and bad? That’s so ridiculous to me, such a stupid effect of religion.
Well, now I have a new reason to swear profusely if I get hurt. A study was released last week in the journal NeuroReport about Swearing Actually Increasing Pain Tolerance. Over 60 volunteers put their hands in ice cold water and kept it there as long as they could. They were to say either a neutral word or [...]
 As a typical person trying to watch my weight, I count calories. Not obsessively, but I try to keep an eye on how much I eat. Like a lot of people, even though I watch what I eat, I’m still always fighting to not gain weight, and getting more frustrated all the time.
New Scientist put together a 3 page article called The Calorie Delusion: Why food labels are wrong today and I wanted to share it with you. Here are the main points that I got out of it:
- Basically, it’s good to balance calories in and calories out to maintain your weight. Common sense, right?
- Some food labels over or underestimate how much energy your body will get from a food by as much as 25%
- Eat a meager 20 kcal a day more than you need and you’ll gain about a kilogram [...]
 You probably have to be American to get the joke in the title. Do other countries have Life cereal? I have no idea. That’s a phrase of my husband Butch’s anyway. I personally think the original Life cereal is the best, not the fancy versions that they also make, like cinnamon, chocolate oat crunch, etc.
Anyhoo, this is a roundup post in which I cover several topics that are tenuously connected at best. Here’s what I’m rambling on about:
- I’m a citizen scientist now! WOOT!
- Encyclopedia of Life!
- My Flickr
- Moving the body affects how we think – a study
- Prayer and meditation may reshape the brain – a study
First, I want to talk about a ScienceDaily report: Massive Online ‘Macroscopic Observatory’ Of Earth’s Biodiversity To Be Created. “Wanted (soon): observations from environment-minded citizens [...]
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I can’t remember who twittered this yesterday, but I noticed this site: The Center for Atheist Research.
