Was Texas intelligently designed?

In Texas, just promoting a speaker that is critical of Intelligent Design can cost a person her job.
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My Condolences

Death is a curious tradition for humans. Not for the dead, of course, but for those left behind. Here in America, and in much of the Westernized world, we conduct funerals, vigils, wakes, and a handful of other ceremonies that do little to honor the dead - but are essential tools to help the grieving process of the survivors. Being such a momentous occasion, and the very moment at which all of the promises of religion are meant to be fulfilled, it is virtually always a heavily religious event.

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Is atheism a religion?

Is atheism a religion? It’s a question that has been bounced back and forth ever since modern atheism started gaining momentum in the mid-twentieth century. Most atheists agree that in no way can atheism be called a religion. Theists often prefer to call atheism a religion, perhaps because they fallaciously think that we would then be as susceptible to attack as they are. But are we really content to be “Other” in every religious context, or is there something to our belief?

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Plausible Deniability

It’s one of the classic scenes from Hollywood: the black-ops commandos are sent out on a secret mission. If they are discovered, then the government cannot acknowledge them, and will deny any connection with them. Even the President doesn’t know about the mission, so that if he is asked about it, then he will be able to plausibly deny it.

It’s not just a Mission: Impossible scenario, though. This happens every day - for every seemingly rational, seemingly normal Christian believer, there is a wacko somewhere claiming to be Jesus, claiming to know god’s plan, claiming that god told him to kill his children, and so on. And the Christian community at large has plausible deniability, so they will never take credit for the wackos. Instead, we hear the popular refrain: “Don’t lump us all together.” Read more

The Atheist Plan

Atheists have, so far in world history, been a minority, relegated to a statistical afterthought and a favored bogeyman of theists around the world. The problem is, we’re not “joiners.” The term atheist itself doesn’t do any more than connect us on one basic level, and other than that level, many of us don’t even have much in common. That has, so far, kept us in that third-class status. Let’s fix that.

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The Religious Wars of StumbleUpon

Every so often, an atheist like myself, who enjoys matching wits with creationists and Christians and religious men and women of all types and stripes, gets the chance to meet a truly unique individual. As some of the people here do, I maintain a blog on StumbleUpon (http://darque.stumbleupon.com) and I have ample opportunity to meet folks with many different religious tendencies. Some time ago, I received a challenge from a fellow Stumbler called Farlowd, who took my profile statement (”I am a devout atheist and an opponent to anyone who places faith over reason.”) as an invitation. He asked me to read his blog and tell him whether he should place reason over his own experience. Someone who thought their personal story transcends any possible logic, I thought, deserves a look. Read more