Johann Bode and Johann Titius were best buds and they made a rule about planets.

I stopped going to church over 40 years ago. I have friends from that time who are still Fundamentalist Christians. My parents and some of their  parents are still Fundamentalist Christians. When I talk to them they usually avoid talking about religion to me. I think that it's for…

My interest in Richard Dawkins has long been kind of on-again, off-again.  Don't get me wrong, I think he's brilliant, and most of his ideas about religion and its value (or lack thereof) are quite sensible.  However, he sometimes strikes me as a bit naive about religion, at least as it is practiced by many people in everyday life. In other words, in interviews I've seen, he adopts an attitude of being completely unable to understand how any sensible person can believe in a god, any more…

There is no scientific and rational basis for believing in the existence of a god of any description. All religions involve irrational beliefs and practices. Islam is not only a religion, but also a political movement. Unlike other religions, its irrational beliefs and practices are a threat to all liberal democratic societies. We need to bring an end to religion. We also need to defeat Islam with a two pronged approach.

The first part of the approach is the head-on attack. The Koran…

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" -Douglas Adams

I guess that's really the point, isn't it?  Differing worldviews.  Christians often ask, "How can an atheist look at the sky or a newborn baby, and not believe in God?" Atheists ask the opposite question about Christians.  I remember a woman who considered herself a Christian saying to me, "Where do atheists think all the blessings come from?"…

My brother died almost exactly 7 months ago, at the age of 40. I understand my parents are still grieving, so logical thinking is not coming naturally to them at this point.  But some of the things they do and say are really bothering me. I am trying to let them work out their grief in their own way, but here are a few odd things that have come up:

• They visit his grave every single day. I guess it helps them feel like they still have some connection to him, but…

A black hole is a region of space where the force of gravity is so intense that it is best pictured as having curvy criss-crossing lines on it. Nothing can escape, not even snarky comments.

If you've ever thrown a baseball into the air, you probably noticed it quickly returned to the Earth. The harder you throw it, the…

Wow, it's been months since I realized I really didn't believe in God any more.  And nothing's really changed.  I still don't believe, but I still do a pretty good job pretending I do, for the sake of job and family. I've gotten the occasional comment from folks here at TA that I'm doing a pretty horrible thing, living a lie, etc.  I appreciate your interest in my situation, but sorry...maybe you have the perfect little atheist life, where all your friends are atheists, your job is great,…

I found a website where Texas lists every capital execution from 1982 on. One of the more interesting things about it is that it includes any last statements the prisoners made. Interesting reading. Lots of "foxhole converts" among them, I note.

Article found @ http://sokagakkailies.wordpress.com/

The Dark Sides and Hidden Perils of Soka Gakkai Cult

Is SGI a cult? Does it matter?

Posted on May 7, 2012

The word “cult” has an alarmist ring to it. Most people think that cults must be obviously dark and sinister. We…

I’m scared of dreams….

I am walking in a house and then some snipers stand

in a circle around me.

And then

They shoot me!

One shoots me here and one shoots me here

And then one shoots me here.

I remember we used to walk around everywhere

and buy ice cream.

We would eat, shop, go everywhere.

You go past the checkpoints to the market.

You walk that way.

You see crowds of people.

There’s the ice…

ever sense i was seven or Eight years old i began studding how people reacted. Id fake sleep to discover there actions. questioned everything and even observed ants for my recess, When i was Eight or nine all the way till the end of elementary school. I discovered ants behaved like society and people in a small sense they where like a food chain. Sometimes when someone stepped on the ant i would get upset not because i was sad for the ant though i kinda was but mostly i was upset because…

I skipped church today. It’s the first time I’ve done that in years, unless I was traveling on a Sunday or was sick.

Usually I go to my parents’ church, or a different church closer to where I live. Every week my parents ask me where I went to church, what they talked about, what I thought of it. I’m not out to my parents about my religious questioning, and I don’t like lying, so it’s always just been easier for me to go to a church. Plus I like church; I like the songs, I like…

"In the beginning there was nothing at all. To the north and south of the nothingness lay regions of fire and frost." ~ Snorri Sturluson 1220 CE

 

Snorri sounds like a real hoot. If the 13th century Vikings had a dictionary, and looked up the word "hoot" I bet Snorri's image…

[moderator]This original poster is no longer a member of TA and as such will not be able to reply to any comments on this blog post.[/moderator]

There’s very little that we can actually talk about that wouldn’t, in some way, correlate, and in one way or another be linked too, if not be directly affiliated with God.  It doesn’t matter if your conversations linger on the weather, which is set in motion by its’ creator, or if you prefer to discuss the fundamentals of…

CLEARWATER — Gary L. Gauthier, the former host of a Saturday morning Christian radio show called “It’s God’s Money,” is one of two men arrested this month in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 38 people in the Tampa Bay area of $6 million, according to court documents.

Gauthier, 64, who now lives in Okemos, Mich., was arrested last week in Tampa, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. David George Dreslin, 54, of Seminole, was arrested earlier in the month, the FDLE…

Todd Starnes …