By Bob P It has become obvious that the ongoing debate over religion has little or nothing to do with religion. The dispute has degraded into citing references that may or may not be relevant to the issues at hand. Here is a list of some of the irrelevant issues: 1: The mental status of the debater. Sanity has certainly never been a prerequisite for religion. The same rules should hold for atheism. Any Sunday morning with a TV set can confirm this. 2: Was Hitler a Christian or an atheist? Christians claim Hitler was an atheist. Hitler was raised a Catholic and claimed to always be religious. But that issue is a moot point in whether a god exists or not. 3: Stalin, Pol Pot and Ho Chi Min are reported to be atheists. I believe they were... So what? Is their position of any more significance than Hitler's? 4: How many and which scientists are religious and how many and which ones are atheists? I believe this issue weighs highly in favor of the atheists, but again, it's simp...

By Patrick I was thinking back to my university days and specifically to the difficulties I had with physics. I chose a scientific discipline as my course of study and this required one to have a good foundation in mathematics, especially algebra and calculus. Not having ever been an "A" student in either, this made the mandatory courses in physics rather difficult. I began to wonder what physics would have been like at a fundie Evangelical university (Nazarene University in Syracuse, Oral Roberts etc) and I began to laugh. I designed a few questions for Introductory Fundie Physics. I would have achieved an A+ in this course in my Xtian days. 1. Bubba casts a 0.2 kg stone at the skull of a non believer. Bubba is 8 metres from the non believer and the stone is cast from Bubba' s hand at a distance of 1.71 metres above the ground, at a velocity of 16 m/s and at an angle of 51 degrees from the horizontal. At what velocity and with how much force does the stone contact the no...

By Gabe I remember several years back when news got out that a technology company was in the process of developing a tracking microchip to be implanted in animals. Not long after many preachers were claiming this new microchip would one day become "The Mark of the Beast." Such speculation is common in Christianity today. When the World Trade Towers fell, many were claiming that the battle of Armageddon was approaching. And now we have preachers who watch the news in the Middle East and then go to church Sunday morning and tell their congregations, "This was prophesied in the bible!" There are even websites you can visit that supposedly tell you the link between modern terror and the battle of Armageddon. If there's a change in weather patterns, a few hurricanes hitting the U.S in the same year, or a couple of severe earthquakes striking in the same time frame, you can expect someone to claim these events are signs of the end of the world. Just an example of how ...

By Gabe I have a serious question concerning the Bible's teaching on the doctrine of hell. Actually I have several serious questions concerning this teaching, but I'll focus on just one point for the sake of time. I'm sure almost all of us at some point in our lives have been to church and heard a preacher giving a sermon on the topic of hell. During my years when I was very religious, I had a favorite sermon entitled, "Hell, Fire, and Damnation." Actually it wasn't a sermon, but rather a five part sermon series. It was preached by my favorite pastor, Dr. Roy Hargrave, who is the senior pastor of Riverbend Community Church, a very large Southern Baptist church located in Ormond Beach, Florida. A friend of mine sat through one of the sermons during a Sunday morning service, and the sermon was so intense and terrifying that he caught a glance of a young college-age girl sitting in the same row literally trembling in her seat, while listening to the pastor descri...

The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin. The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.

Yes, it's the name of a real book that purports to explain intelligent design. Apparently, the book is for idiots who don't quite understand intelligent design, but who after reading the book, are fully equipped to become idiots who promote intelligent design. Available on Amazon.com

From the hilarious site, Ridiculopathy.com : WASHINGTON, D.C.- In a difficult 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled on Monday that judges can no longer display religious artifacts such as the Ten Commandments in their courtrooms. By manipulating a loophole in the Constitution, lawyers managed to convince the court to invalidate centuries of federal sponsorship for the nation's most popular religion. The end result is that Christianity as we have known it has been effectively outlawed in America. The same Court later approved of the limited outdoor display of the stone law books but this door prize was too weak and narrow in scope to be of any consolation. "For my faith to be fully realized, I need to be free to foist it on other people," said life-long Christian Holly Rohler. "Without the ability to make people feel excluded, what's the point of being a Christian? Hey, if Indians get to smoke peyote on religious grounds, it's only fair that I...

By Stronger Now So there I was, in a truck pulling a float in a christmas parade. A float celebrating the birth of Jesus, complete with a manger scene, and birthday cake no less. How did I get there, you ask? Well I'm really not sure. It seems like it would be against my volition to be pulling a float that was promoting Christianity, but I must say I was never really asked. I was conscripted by the Christian majority, whether I liked it or not. I suppose I should bear the blame for this odd circumstance. After all, I could have put my foot down and refused to do any such thing. Of course that would have been tantamount to outing myself as an atheist and thereby calling my wife's worldview into question. For which she most certainly would have gotten blacklisted in the area and her little business would have went belly up in less than a month. Economic forces keep my wife from being her true self in the establishment that her business is set up in. I dare say that monetar...

Honor the Child Marlene Winell , December, 2007 The Christmas season is often busy and complicated with families and schedules and special events. There are standard criticisms of materialism and holiday angst. Yet at the center of it all there is a powerful image that speaks to all of us – the Child. It’s fascinating to me that once a year so many people stop everything, or at least pause, to acknowledge a Child. But who is this Child of Christmas and why does the image have such power? We have religious and secular interpretations, and I would like to suggest a third – a soulful interpretation. For Christians, this is a specific Child, the baby Jesus, entering the world to be its savior. This is why the angels sing and the wise men visit. God has at last fulfilled his promise, and there is rejoicing. For other people, not Christian, the Christ Child still represents hope and renewal. As with the solstice and the new year, the Child symbolizes newness and birth, the promis...

According to Christians , the story of Abraham and Isaac (from Genesis chapter 22) is a testament to Abraham's great love for God . Basically, God ordered Abraham to kill his son, Isaac , and present him as a " Burnt Offering ." So Abraham ties Isaac to a wooden alter (as instructed) and, knife in hand, gets ready to kill his son. Then, an angel stops him just in time and God let's him kill a ram instead. What a horrible story! What kind of "loving" god would order such a thing? It sounds more like something a gang member might have to do to prove his loyalty. And what kind of father was Abraham ? He was willing to kill his son in cold blood and burn him, without protest or even questioning God . The real answer lies in verse 12. The angel says, "now I know that thou fearest God." The story is not about love, but fear! Like most of the Old Testament t, the story is designed to scare people into submission to " Almighty God ." And what...

Part 1 Part 2 On the 30th of September, 2007, Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett , Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) and filmed by Josh Timonen . All four authors have recently received a large amount of media attention for their writings against religion -- some positive, and some negative. In this conversation, the group trades stories of the public reaction to their recent books, unexpected successes, criticisms, and common misrepresentations. They discuss tough questions about religion that world is facing, and propose new strategies for going forward. The authors' recommended books: " The God Delusion " by Richard Dawkins, " Breaking the Spell " by Daniel C. Dennett, " Letter to a Christian Nation " by Sam Harris, " The End of Faith " by Sam Harris, " God is Not Great " by Christophe...

Another video by Pat Condell

Purchase this DVD at Amazon.com . From the History Channel : The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight. In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year. The end of December was a perfect time for celebration in most areas of Europe. At that time of year, most cattle were slaughtered so they woul...

By Dave, the WM " Merry Christmas" gives the political correctness crowd lots to write about, but I think they've all missed the boat on this. We should all be campaigning to preserve and promote the real reason for the season. We need to keep the Mass in Christmas! From Wikipedia : The word "Christmas" originated as a contraction of " Christ's mass ." It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse , a phrase first recorded in 1038. In early Greek versions of the New Testament , the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ. Since the mid-sixteenth century Χ , or the similar Roman letter X , was used as an abbreviation for Christ. Hence, "Xmas" is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas. So, having the X in Xmas is still keeping Christ in the holiday, but people have forgotten the real reason for Christmas – celebrating the Mass! Continuing from Wikipedia : The identification ...

By John W. Loftus As a former Straussite I credit much of my approach to two things Dr. James D. Strauss drilled into us as students, but in reverse. When doing apologetics he said that “if you don’t start with God you’ll never get to God.” He’s not a Van Tillian presuppositionalist because he doesn’t start with the Bible as God’s revelation. He merely starts “from above” by presupposing God’s existence, and then he argues that such a presupposition makes better sense of the Bible, and the world. Again, “if you don’t start with God you’ll never get to God.” Since that’s such an important, central issue, I’ll focus on why we should not start “from above” with the belief in God in the first place, but rather “from below,” beginning with the world. If successful, then my argument should lead us to reject the existence of the God who confirms the Biblical revelation. The second thing Dr. Strauss drilled into us was his argument that “we don’t need more data, we need better interpretive sch...