I'm lucky I suppose. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with me. Other people sometimes tell me there is. But from the inside I feel like I'm doing fine. I'm functional.

I mean, I have my "things". Like I feel uncomfortable hanging clothes on the line using two different coloured pegs, or cooking while someone else is in the kitchen, or being in my lounge with more than four other people, or making small talk with people on the street...

But nothing like…

Imagine a world where we were the ones claiming the cross is not a religious symbol. Perhaps there'd be a billboard claiming it for all of us. The christians would be furious.

And if they believed the claims made to justify crosses in classrooms or on public land were sincere, they would be even more outraged. One of their own! Disowning the cross. For shame! Jesus would be turning in his grave!

But we all, atheist and theist alike, know that this is just a…

I just pulled mself from the quicksand. I've been trapped for the last two days in a fruitless and frustrating back and forth with a pro life, anti euthanasia, creationist... I know, I know "Someone is wrong on the internet" but it is so frustrating recieving her messages. You know you shouldn't look, but the stupid calls to you. "How bad can it be this time" you ask yourself.

Seriously, this girl uses all the talking points! She repeats "questions" over and over looking for…

I sat through so many RE lessons in school. And by RE I mean Catholicism. We would read Good News Gospels and if the existence of other world religions was mentioned I must have been off sick that day.

Anyway. It always used to puzzle me that the Gospels made a big deal out of how angry people got when the Jesus character would say "your sins are forgiven." I didn't understand what the fuss as about, and it was never addressed in class - possibly because it would involve…

Plenty of our words have been stolen. Anti vaxxers call themselves skeptics for example. And the religious often turn everything on its head definining up as down to squeeze reality around their chosen dogma.

An interesting example I came across recently was "pro science" which should mean supportive of the scientiic method and the evidence based approach. I heard it disputed by someone claiming that pro science shouldn't mean against…

I'm listening to a lot of podcasts at the moment. I was working through back episodes of Point of Enquiry. I don't often agree with Chris Mooney, who usually seems to be the host. He didn't get that Templeton fellowship for nothing! But I especially didn't agree with a statement I heard today about Francis Collins.

"He's on our side"

No, I don't think so. If you define our side as "accepts evolution as a fact" then sure, he is on our side. But... come…

I mentioned this whole elevator thing in passing to my friends yesterday and they said

"is that the thing where Dawkins said something stupid?"

I was astonished they knew anything about it at all, but apparently the only bit that filtered out into the world was that Dawkins responded badly. Very, very badly. Astonisingly so considering how much thought his typical response has had put into it. But then, we are all human.



One friend (who  mentioned it…

I jumped into the swamp again recently. Some atheist blogs linked to atheist related stories at the Christian Post. Since Facebook notifies me everytime someone replies to my comments I'm in the ironic position of now being rated as a top commentor over there. I should have learned from my mistake commenting on…

I don't write the way I speak. I never have, and I've always wondered why. Either I'll have this eloquent passage in my head that sounds pretentious when I write it but fine when I speak it, or I'll have what seems like a clear position in my head that sounds like waffle when I say it, but that the time taken to write it let's me make clear.

Which is to say - I've decided I should blog more. I have all these opinions about topical religious storys that just evaporate from my…

• "Evolution is a fairytale for grown ups."
  
  
• "you can lead an atheist to evidence but you cannot make him think."
  
  
• "Evolution is the dumbest religion ever…