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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

God Thinks Like You and He Personally Cares For You, Plus a Video To Cheer You Up

I have 2 studies to share with you then a video to cheer you up afterwards.

The first paper is titled ‘Believers’ estimates of God’s beliefs are more egocentric than estimates of other people’s beliefs’. It found through a series of 7 studies and surveys that people believe that god has the same beliefs that they have. Here is what they concluded:

The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God’s standards.  ”The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing,” they conclude. “This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.”

Isn’t that convenient? It certainly explains how god can hate all the same people they hate, and basically agree with them [...]

A Chart of Religiousness, IQ, Morality and More

My friend Gerald found this interesting chart chock full of information. Of course, remember correlation does not necessitate causation, but it is striking how the numbers fall.

Links on the full page [...]

A New Pew Religion Survey

There is a new Pew Survey about religion of people coming of age around the year 2000 (called the Millenials) out. It’s quite interesting. I’ve included some of the charts and tables for you.

What is interesting is how the Millenials are less affiliated, but they still believe in the afterlife, miracles, angels and demons to a high degree. I think that’s where atheism is lacking for a lot of people; that comfort that there’s more to life than just the natural, that life doesn’t just end when we take our last breath. Personally I find that it makes life much more precious.

Let’s see some charts and tables!

Note that in the Unaffiliated group are the Religious Unaffiliated, people who describe their faith as “nothing in particular” but say that religion is somewhat or very important in their lives. Whatever that means.

If you take [...]

Many Americans Are Religiously Mixed Up

Wha?The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life just released a new survey today. I’ve given it a quick persusal and I have to say, while some of it is interesting, most of it doesn’t surprise me. Apparently large numbers of Americans engage in multiple religious practices. Stuff you’d think would cancel each other out, but they handle the cognitive dissonance without hesitation.

For example, many blend christianity with Eastern or new age philosophies such as reincarnation, astrology and the belief in spiritual energy in physical objects. Sizeable minorities in all major U.S. religious groups say they have experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts.

A third of Americans attend different religious services. Personally I find this amazing. When I studied different religions, I lost my faith in all of them pretty quickly because they sort of canceled each [...]

Dark Chocolate and Other Tidbits of Goodness

dark-chocolateIf you’re like me, and you enjoy dark chocolate, then I have some studies to share with you! I think they’ll be helpful for the holidays as well as generally beneficial throughout the year. If you don’t like chocolate (WTF, just kidding), see below for swine flu info, and other linky goodness.

Dark Chocolate Helps Ease Emotional Stress: A new study found that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in people who felt highly stressed. The chocolate also partially corrected other stress-related biochemical imbalances. “The study provides strong evidence that a daily consumption of 40 grams [1.4 ounces] during a period of 2 weeks is sufficient to modify the metabolism of healthy human volunteers,” the scientists say.

That led me to a study from last December. It’s rather small and involves self-reporting, but it could [...]

Happy Atheists! Survey Finds We're As Happy As Nuns

funny-pictures-cat-is-so-happyI 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 [...]

Gallup: Most Religious States and Least Religious States

Religious Identity: States Differ Widely
August 7, 2009 – by Frank Newport

Click any picture to see it in its native size.

The states of the union differ remarkably from one another in terms of their residents’ religions. Non-Catholic Christians — the largest religious group in the country today — are heavily concentrated in the South and nearby states, while constituting only a minority of residents of Northeastern states, and of many Middle Atlantic and Western states.

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