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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 Rational Chain E-mail

My friend Charles composed the following email as a response to a ridiculous christian forward he got call “Untimely Deaths”. He thought I might like to share it with you. So here it is, including the angry christian email reply he already got and his reply to that at the end. His version had the classical large fonts, underlines and bold text that inflammatory emails often have, but for the web, I had to strip most of the formatting. If you decide to send this on to your christian friends, feel free to make them more at ease by using insanely large font sizes, underlines, unreadable colors, etc. :P

Do you have the COURAGE to Read this whole E-Mail?????

The TRUTH about UNTIMELY DEATHS!

John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during an interview with an American Magazine, he said:
“Christianity will end, [...]

The Secret Divides Part 2

The other day I wrote about a woman named Ruth who emailed me asking for some advice. Ruth’s sister Esther (not their real names for their privacy) had been introduced to The Secret by her husband and now avoided Ruth because she said she is toxic. The first post is called The Secret Divides and I gave my initial opinion, then asked Ruth for some clarification, as well as asked you for your take on the situation.

Ruth said the following:

My sister and I are 5 years apart, she is in her late 30s I am in my early 30s. We live on opposite sides of the country.

[Esther and I] talked on Christmas – but only if I agreed to be play nice. We did exchange gifts. As long as I am willing to play along, she will speak to me – [...]

The Secret Divides

As you may know, I make no bones in saying books like The Secret and their ilk are complete bullshit. I wrote about it awhile ago – The Law of Attraction, and the Secret, are Bullshit.  Beyond the bullshit I have found them to be harmful if swallowed. If you believe what the book says, you will have a distorted worldview. This can be extremely detrimental to your own thought processes, and as you will see below, can also skew how you look at someone who is in an unfortunate situation.

For example, let’s say you believe that your thoughts dictate what will come to you. Then someone steals your wallet while you’re at the grocery store. According to The Secret, you brought that negative event to you by worrying and thinking negative thoughts. Because you were afraid of having your wallet stolen, you worried about it [...]

Dan Saves Us A Visit To The Creation Museum

Did you miss the Creation Museum Field Trip with PZ Myers last month? I did, and so did Dan, my friend from Rationality Now. But he and his friend decided to go to the museum not long after. He wrote up a 6 part tour that I found amazing, disturbing and depressing. His writing is excellent and thorough, quite interesting and fascinating.

So I wanted to share Dan’s investigative tour with you. He sums up my feelings about the place rather perfectly. He has lots of pictures to illustrate as well.

Take a deep breath and dive in:

  • Creation Museum Part 1 (which will lead you through to the other 5 parts)
  • The Creation Museum Series page, with all the parts listed [...]

The Resurrection Never Happened

JesusCatResurrectionNeece posted on the Codex Sinaiticus a few weeks ago. I’ve been digging around, reading it (a little) and about it, and was formulating a reply to add to her article. After a bit of writing, I decided I should just make it a separate article.

Let me start with a little background information. Many Christians mistakenly assume that the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John) are independent accounts of the life of Jesus. Thus they assume that four corroborated eyewitnesses prove his existence, and the validity of every story told of him. Several facts knock this premise on its ear; but somehow Christians hold fast to their belief still.

First, Luke starts his book by stating that he is drawing up accounts “as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses” (in case that is [...]

Separation of church and State Benefits Everyone

George WashingtonA friend of mine, DeletedSoul, emailed me today, asking for my two cents on a facebook debate regarding the separation of church and state. She just joined the Americans United for Separation of church and State cause there and someone she knows went for her jugular over it. That made me think. I don’t remember ever blogging about the issue. I guess it seems so black and white and simple I’ve never really felt the need. I mean, what more can I do than state the obvious? Yet the comments from the person were so full of propaganda, I thought it can’t hurt to weigh in and say a few things.

DeletedSoul also wrote an article about this issue called There is No War Against christianity. I have to agree with most of what she says there. For instance, I live in the upper [...]

Morals, Ethics and Pope Benedict Evil

pope ratz

Every week I look forward to cleaning up a bit on Monday. After my husband goes to work, I update my iPod and blast The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe while I tidy up. I love the Rogues. I learn an awful lot from them. They spark my interest in various topics and have helped me to learn to be skeptical.

So, the reason I’m sharing that is because I want to share part of the most recent podcast with you. It was Episode 191 and they talked about the Pope who was in Africa talking about Aids recently. Pope Benedict Ratz-en-evil said,

“(HIV/AIDS) is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”

Um, WTF? That is reprehensible. The pope, the spokesman for god, is basically telling people who [...]

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