In Oklahoma, an atheist high school student and his family face threats and intimidation from angry Christians after the young atheist had the courage to report the unconstitutional display of the Ten Commandments in his public school classrooms.

On Saturday, May 11, atheist Gage Pulliam, a Junior at Muldrow High School, explained to the Friendly Atheist why he was motivated to blow the whistle on the unconstitutional…

Oh, Catholics... Some of you never fail to entertain disgust me.

Made aware of its existence by bigots on Twitter, I recently came across an article at 'catholicstand.com' entitled 'Contraception: A Psychological Prostitution'. So here's that...

It began with a quote:…

"My friends joke that I am a coconut: brown on the outside, but white on the inside." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

I wrote a post fairly recently for the Rationalist Association's blog (soon set to be in New Humanist…

"I find it astonishing and depressing that many people who lead their lives according to the ideas and rules laid down in these books have not read them" - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

You may have guessed it, but faith often has a lot to do with religious belief. Strip even the most 'educated' theological argument down to its core, and what you're often left with is 'we just don't know - therefore God'.

The 'we…

"I once met a Texan who bragged that he had only ever read one book from cover to cover: the Bible" - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

I've read the Bible; and if I'm honest, the prospect of having it come along with me, by default, to a celebrity/music-filled island is, to say the least, a little disappointing.

Don't get the reference? I'll explain... Desert Island…

"Despite not believing in God, and not believing in an afterlife where I might be rewarded or punished for my behaviour, I try to be a good person. That's the most any of us can do." - Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist's Handbook.

It's a favourite argument of the Theists: 'How can you be good without God?'

Even supposedly 'enlightened' Theologians (mean?) like William Lane…

Disclaimer: I may not necessarily wholeheartedly stand by everything written below, but it's not like I'm not allowed to poke fun once in a while...

___

It doesn't take long on the internet, or in real life, to come across this old chestnut:

'Atheists are so full of themselves, thinking they're right all of the time... So much smug certainty, so much confident piss-taking, so much inconsiderate hate-speech I can't help but…

One argument that I tackled in an earlier post was the fine tuning argument. I thought about it for a while, and I thought of one of my interests: Astronomy. I realized that there are thousands of galaxies and millions of stars and planets out there. So are we really "fine tuned"? Why us and not any one of the other millions of planets? Why haven't we found life on other planets? For those of you who do not know much about cosmology or astronomy there is a certain Goldilocks zone that a…

The other day, I got a question from a friend...

"Did you really say that you 'respect people too much to respect their beliefs', or something?"

So here's how that went (more or less):

"I did, yes. Kind of." I replied, grinning. "It's a quote from a guy called Johann Hari actually; 'I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs' is what he said, I…

I am sure that most of you, weather you be Atheists of Theists have heard a whole lot about God's Will. This is thrown out like verbal diarrhea every time that someone dies or a natural disaster occurs. I have often questioned why people are so quick to say that a kid that gets caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting received a "gift" and that it was God's Will that she get shot and killed in a park. How is that a gift? What proof is there that she is in a better place? Who are you to…

To what extent can a religious believer actually argue their faith, reasonably? Not very far, it seems to me.

There are two quantities to consider here, by which all human beliefs can relate back to: Faith and Evidence.

Let's look at the first. Faith, by its very definition, is 'belief without evidence'. It is a gut feeling, and it cannot be proven wrong. Why? Because, for…

You'll likely all have heard this argument at some point. It's a classic.

Outlined rather well by http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm, it goes something like this:

"(1) Person X, a well-known atheist, was morally inferior to the rest of us.

(2) Therefore, God exists."

It's just poetic, isn't it?

So... Assuming Hitler was an…

Crosspost from here:

Dear Christian,

Well, you've heard it said... and I imagine many of you have said it yourself, exasperated with some atheist complaint about prayer in school or a creche scene in front of a courthouse:  "It's freedom of religion not freedom from religion."

Well, actually it is both; you cannot…

This week, on Tuesday 5th of February, MPs in England voted in favour of a bill named the "Marriage (Same Sex…

Before I start, I'd like to introduce this all new (yet not original) post format.

In light of a series of interesting comments on the last post (Why Tolerate Intolerance?), I've decided to dedicate the occasional (slightly more humorous and ranty) 'rambling' to methodically picking apart sentiments expressed in the comment section of this blog which don't sit with me too well. I think it's only fair that if…

“Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.” - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A while ago, around December, I went to have Christmas dinner at my Mother's parent's house. After the food, crackers, and hats were all finished with my Grandmother leaned over the table, rested a hand on my Mother's arm, and said - completely out of the blue - "I brought you up to respect other people's beliefs."

Now, as this somewhat hushed and accusatory utterance was so…

About 2 weeks ago I did post on my status a petition to the Royal Society to start a debate on resetting the calender to reflect our true heritage. 

The text of the petition has been altered slightly and I request you to again append your signatures. And I apologize to those who had signed it.

Nothing much may come from it, but I think it will start a discussion that all of us alive today and who are secular would be interested in. There is nothing about 1 BC and 1 AD that…

Hello Think Atheist community! This is my first attempt at blogging, so I'm not sure if this really belongs as a blog or as a discussion topic. However, my blogging exploits will cover topics within my realm of experience. I am also attempting to write a novel, so I may post excerpts and ask for feedback at some point, I'm not really sure. I don't know what direction this blog will take, but hopefully you will enjoy my posts. 

*DISCLAIMER THIS POST WILL BE MOSTLY OPINION AND…