I posted this yesterday on my Facebook page**; however I decided to post it here as well, in its entirety. I suspect that there are fellow atheists who find this to be an especially frustrating time because of the continuing fight over sanctioned prayer at high school graduations. At a minimum you may find yourself irritated and disgusted with this whole, ongoing, mess - such as the story of the Valedictorian in Pickens County, SC.

Or your…

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I was going through my daily ritual of catching up with the goings-on in the world, checking out stories on various sites, when I saw an article that I just had to read: Pat Robertson Dispels Creationist Idea That Earth is 6,000 Years Old, on Huffington Post.

I immediately began reading the article, convinced that this was some tease and he didn't…

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I have found numerous reports on various sites that the Iowa GOP has a new proposed platform. (full platform on Scribd; Raw Story article and summary;…

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For those who may not have heard of him, Dan Savage is a gay rights activist - and an outspoken atheist. He engages in many talks around the country, and in the media, concerning gay rights; and since the fight against gays is almost always religious in nature, he tends to call out the contradictions and overall hostility within the Bible.

There's a pretty popular video of him speaking at a high school journalism convention the overall speech is about bullying, and gay bashing in…

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I was looking at some links to Answers in Genesis (AiG) posted in another discussion, and I began poking around this Young Earth Creationist (YEC) resource site. At the top it has links to other related sites, and one of them caught my eye - ARK Encounter ("Help Build the Ark!"). Being the "Click-Curious" type, I clicked on the link and was taken to a site that is currently a…

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BACKGROUND

As I have mentioned in many, many posts I am an "out of the closet" atheist, and have been since my mid teens. I have been married for 27 years, and have five great kids - 2 of whom are adults. I also have a grandson. When I was dating my wife, and we were beginning to get serious, we had the religious discussion. I knew she came from a very strict Catholic upbringing, but through our discussions over the years I also knew that she wasn't a Christian, much…

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In case you've been in a freethought cave for the last couple of weeks, you've heard about the brave atheist teen, Jessica Ahlquist, and her (along with the ACLU and others) fight to have a prayer banner taken down from the auditorium of her high school. The Huffington Post has published an updated news story concerning this battle for separation of church…

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I replied to a thread a bit ago and told a story about my experience in the late 1970s/early 1980s in dealing with aggressive xians from penecostal megachurches - both adults and teens. Here's the story I told...

I became an "out of the closet atheist" in High School, in suburban/rural GA (well, at the time it was ;) ). There was a group of us "geeks" who were into politics, heavy…

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(NOTE: I initially posted this on my Facebook page - you know, I've got to keep the outspoken, "out of the closet" atheist thing going ;) I decided I wanted to share it here as well, with people whom I respect and admire, friends and acquaintances whom I know are of like mind.)

I want to take a moment to honor an amazing man whom I greatly admired. Today, Christopher Hitchens died at the age of 62. He died from pneumonia, a complication of the oesophageal cancer he had. He…

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(NOTE: I originally posted this on Facebook, but I'm reposting this here because I know a lot of the people here aren't on Facebook.)

 

I learned today that, in in Michigan, their state legislature has passed a bill in the House and is now being debated in their Senate. The bill is called "Matt's Safe School Law", in honor of Matt Epling of East Lansing, Michigan who committed suicide…

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NOTE: This was supposed to be in DRAFT mode, as I had not finished it. If you happened to have read it beforehand, I apologize for the abrupt ending. I'm working on it now :)

 

I know that we here at T|A encourage others to share their (non)spiritual journey - the story of how they got from where they were to where they are now. I have enjoyed reading other people's journeys - and I find it fascinating and comforting that most of these journeys are more alike than they…

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I'm sorry, but this is taking things too far. I know this is a private daycare, but can they get away with this? When I had a dive store we were allowed to "discriminate" a little, because it was a specialty shop that required specific training and certification to perform the job; if you didn't have that training and certification, you weren't considered.

 

But this is unreal. Making employees reapply, and then banning basically everyone that isn't a fundie is insane. I'm glad…

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I saw a CNN story recently (sorry, don't have link for it) that talked about various companies who have begun taking advantage of doomsday believers who happen to have money. The story talked about one segment in particular - the companies building underground bunkers so that when the Apocalypse/End-Times/Doomsday comes they will have a place to live and ride it out.

One of the companies profiled is Vivos. While some companies…

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OK, I'm not usually one of the types of people who get some sort of smug, self-assured satisfaction from mocking the beliefs of others, especially in a public forum. However, I may have to make an exception to this, at least this one time. I was reading over the various feeds and such that I have on my Google Homepage, and I found this article posted on WikiHow. The article is entitled (I shit you not):… Continue

As I have stated elsewhere on this site (and on my own blog, LotusGeek.com), I am an "out of the closet" atheist. I am a bit unusual as an atheist, and by that I mean that



1) I have been married (mostly happily ;) ) for 25 years this June (that's twenty five YEARS, in case you missed it), and I have five amazing kids (and one grandkid already!). Most of them are agnostic/atheist, and the rest I'm not sure about (I don't… Continue

I have been sick recently, and during my sickening stupor I was thinking about Adam and Eve (and even the myth of Lilith being before Eve, and an equal to Adam), and the "Tree of Knowledge". You know, just going over the stories in my head, and thinking about the whole "original sin" stuff - and then it hit me, like a bolt of lightning (ok, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the idea).



God told Adam, and Adam told Eve, not to partake of the Tree of Knowledge; and if they did, they… Continue