By Donna L. Halper

Skeptic Magazine

Even the most skeptical among us have had this happen: A friend or relative forwards an e-mail from an organization with a safe-sounding name (“The Clean Air Initiative,” “The Center for Consumer Freedom”), but the e-mail is filled with scary assertions, usually of a political nature. If the Obama-care health bill is passed, Grandma will face a “death panel” that will decide if she lives or…

Disclaimer: This is an article posted on AlterNet which I could tell had a lot of important things within it, but the message was held hostage in the worst formatting of a (presumably) recorded interview ever. I only took the time to format it myself because I really wanted to untangle what Chomsky had to say, and break the word-wall down into digestible paragraphs. I also made some edits for the sake of clarification, so it's not all completely original. I tried to contain my edits within…

Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

I don't really know much about Benjamin Franklin, but apparently this quote is out of context; it was one statement in a letter to a colleague…

Brought to you by The Onion (a satirical "news" organization)

THE HEAVENS—Sources close to God reported Thursday that the Creator of the Universe and Author of Our Eternal Salvation suffered a crippling bout of existential dread this week, lying awake all night as He pondered His own immortality.

Anxiously drumming His fingers, the all-powerful being was…

I've become increasingly frustrated with people's insistence that words can mean whatever they want them to mean, and whatever is convenient for them to mean. Words are meant for one thing: communication. Once everyone personalizes words and definitions, we lose that ability. If "to you" a chair is what the rest of us consider a table, you're going to lose us when you start telling about setting the chair for dinner.

Even more frustrating is when people, or Bibles, make absolute…

There’s an image floating around on Facebook of what appears to be an African man holding his emaciated son in his arms. The caption says something about God and prayers being unanswered, and how this is proof there is no god. It’s not the only image like it floating around, so I’m sure you get the gist. God answers the prayers of indulgent, greedy Americans yet ignores the pleading of starving children everywhere else in the world (well, and even right in the United States). Of course, a…

*Disclaimer: I am not actually advocating these tactics since they are all logical fallacies and dishonest. However, theists are notorious for pulling these tricks even if they're not aware of it. We should be aware of their wily ways!

SCHOPENHAUER'S 38 STRATAGEMS,…

My mother learns about my thoughts and motives by reading books and watching shows produced by Christians. Instead of asking me, or believing what I tell her, she looks to people who don't know me. I borderline hate her for this. I don't hate her (just resent), but I do hate that she lets strangers inform her about who I am when she's known me my whole life. It's so invalidating.

In general, Christians seem to have a habit of speaking for others and assuming they know the…

I am closer than I ever have been to disassociating with anyone supporting or endorsing Conservative Christians... and that's significant because most of my family is exactly that. I am disgusted and horrified by these anti-woman bills that are being passed, and the asinine arguments being made to strip of us of our medical privacy and bodily autonomy. I am terrified that these unethical laws will affect me someday... it makes me want to have all my "lady parts" surgically removed just so I…

It all started when we pulled into the Metro parking lot. The line to pay for parking alone was quite long… but then someone pointed to THE line leading into the station. It coiled from behind the parking garage,

back inside, and slithered it’s way to the entrance, five bodies wide and

thousands of bodies long. We were definitely going to be in line for a while,

but there was no way we were turning back.

Once we got on the…

Can everyone just stop being so disenfranchised and overly critical for just one day?

I’m a skeptic and probably a bit of a cynic, too, but I’m actually tired of hearing everyone’s moans of disapproval (said disapprovingly). PZ Myers and Chris Hitchens ripped the Rally to Restore Sanity

to Shreds. It’s…

In his fight against British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi described the life cycle of successful civil disobedience: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you

win." Mikey Weinstein, the 55-year-old founder of the Albuquerque, New

Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), likes to

quote it, knowing full well he's crossed the line into a…

Thursday 13 May 2010

by: Greg Grandin | TomDispatch.com

Americans, it's been said, learn geography when they go to war. Now, it seems, many get their history when they go to a Tea Party rally or tune in to Glenn Beck.

History is a "battlefield of ideas," as Beck recently put it, while…