Atheism // Current TV

Atheism shines bright in Kentucky

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation’s largest association of... more

putdownmypants
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Godless Billboard Goes Up in OKC in Time for State Fair

"Don't believe in God? Join the club."

These words are part of a prominent billboard now up in Oklahoma City on I-44 at NW 10th Street near State Fair Park. Positioned on the left side of the road and visible to northbound traffic, it will be seen by fairgoers from September 16-26 and will remain up until October 10. The 14' x 48' billboard features the words superimposed over an image of a blue sky and fluffy white clouds. It has been placed by the Oklahoma City Coalition of Reason (Oklahoma City CoR) with $5,250 in funding from the United Coalition of Reason (United CoR).

This billboard also marks the public launch of Oklahoma City CoR, a coalition made up of four freethought groups in the Oklahoma City and Norman community of reason, with activities ranging from educational and activist to social and charitable.

The Oklahoma City billboard is also part of a national effort. Already this year there have been similar billboards, or bus ads, in Austin, Des Moines, Detroit, Fayetteville (Arkansas), Louisville, New Orleans, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Tucson, Sacramento and Seattle. Last year there were United CoR-sponsored billboard, bus, and subway ads in 20 cities, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Tulsa, Phoenix and San Diego.

"The point of our nationwide awareness campaign is to reach out to the millions of atheists, agnostics, skeptics and humanists living in the United States," explained Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason. "Nonreligious people sometimes don't realize there's a community for them because they're flooded with religious messages at every turn. So we hope this will serve as a beacon and let them know they aren't alone."

Reaching out to the like-minded isn't the only goal of the effort. "We also want Oklahomans to know that there are many humanists, agnostics and atheists living here, contributing to the community," added Nick Singer, coordinator of the Oklahoma City Coalition of Reason. "We're your coworkers, neighbors, friends and family members. And like many people, we are leading good, happy and functional lives – giving back to the community and staying true to our values."

"Being visible is important for us," Edwords concluded, "because atheists and agnostics in our society often don't know very many people of like mind. Furthermore, if traditionally religious people can be open about their views, why shouldn't we be open about ours?"

For high-res images of the billboard, free for media use, please see the images at right."Don't believe in God? Join the club." These words are part of a... more

putdownmypants
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This Chaplain Is Protected By God—and by an Atheist--at War - WSJ.com

SANGIN, Afghanistan—They say there are no atheists in foxholes. There's one... more

toyotabedzrock
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8 comments

WHY - Gay "Marriage" is a Bad Idea

BECAUSE - "Marriage" IS a Bad Idea,....and it should have been discarded a... more

remanns
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49 comments

Stephen Hawking: The universe arises from scientific processes, not God + documentary "Master of the Universe"

Hold the front page: the big bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of... more

worrg
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Concerned about terrorism, Real Americans torch The site of a Future Mosque was burned down in Tennessee

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new... more

atomiclegion
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151 comments

UK study: Athiest doctors may hasten death more

LONDON (AP) — Doctors who are atheist or agnostic are twice as likely to make... more

ayipis
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Try Religion Today

Boy, have i got a deal for you.

Stoneyroad
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5 comments

What Do You Mean You Don't Want Christian Evangelists Hanging Outside Your House?

Members of the Highfield Road Gospel Hall in Toronto spent an evening caroling... more

toyotabedzrock
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Soldiers Punished For Not Attending Christian Concert

For the past several years, two U.S. Army posts in Virginia, Fort Eustis and Fort Lee, have been putting on a series of what are called Commanding General’s "Spiritual Fitness" Concerts. As I’ve written in a number of other posts, “spiritual fitness” is just the military’s new term for promoting religion, particularly evangelical Christianity. And this concert series is no different.

On May 13, 2010, about eighty soldiers, stationed at Fort Eustis while attending a training course, were punished for opting out of attending one of these Christian concerts. The headliner at this concert was a Christian rock band called BarlowGirl, a band that describes itself as taking "an aggressive, almost warrior-like stance when it comes to spreading the gospel and serving God."

Any doubt that this was an evangelical Christian event was cleared up by the Army post's newspaper, the Fort Eustis Wheel, which ran an article after the concert that began:

"Following the Apostle Paul's message to the Ephesians in the Bible, Christian rock music's edgy, all-girl band BarlowGirl brought the armor of God to the warriors and families of Fort Eustis during another installment of the Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concert Series May 13 at Jacobs Theater."

Soldiers Account

"Those of us that chose not to attend (about 80, or a little less that half) were marched back to the company area. At that point the NCO issued us a punishment. We were to be on lock-down in the company (not released from duty), could not go anywhere on post (no PX, no library, etc). We were to go to strictly to the barracks and contact maintenance. If we were caught sitting in our rooms, in our beds, or having/handling electronics (cell phones, laptops, games) and doing anything other than maintenance, we would further have our weekend passes revoked and continue barracks maintenance for the entirety of the weekend. At that point the implied message was clear in my mind 'we gave you a choice to either satisfy us or disappoint us. Since you chose to disappoint us you will now have your freedoms suspended and conduct chores while the rest of your buddies are enjoying a concert.'

-----------------------------------SR---------------------------------------

I wonder if the 3 little girls that make up BarlowGirl told the soldiers suffering from
Post Traumatic Stress how God had cured them of EATING DISORDERS ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uju2JAJqvfs&feature=related
pic 4 post only
http://www.matt-hughes.com/images/blogimages/Soldier/ATT7303302.jpgFor the past several years, two U.S. Army posts in Virginia, Fort Eustis and Fort Lee,... more

Stoneyroad
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Why Atheists Are More Intelligent than the Religious

Humans are designed by evolution to believe in God
Published on April 11, 2010

It is natural to believe in God, so more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheists.

Religion is a cultural universal, and its practice is observed in every known human society. However, as I explain in earlier posts (Why do we believe in God? Part I, Part II), recent evolutionary psychological theories suggest that religiosity may not be an adaptation in itself but may be a byproduct of other evolved psychological mechanisms variously called the “animistic bias” or the “agency-detector mechanisms.”

These theories contend that the human brain has been selected to overinfer agency – personal, animate, and intentional forces – behind otherwise natural phenomena whose exact causes cannot be known. This is because overinferring agency – and making a Type I error of false positive – makes you a bit paranoid, but being paranoid is often conducive to survival. In contrast, underinferring agency – and making a Type II error of false negative – can result in being killed and maimed by predators and enemies that were incorrectly assumed not to exist. So, evolutionarily speaking, it’s good to be a bit paranoid, because being paranoid can often save your life. Religiosity – belief in higher powers – may be a byproduct of such overinference of agency and intentional forces behind natural phenomena.

If these theories are correct, then it means that religiosity – belief in higher powers – may have an evolutionary origin. It is evolutionarily familiar and natural to believe in God, and evolutionarily novel not to be religious. Consistent with this reasoning, out of more than 1,500 distinct cultures throughout the world documented in The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, only 19 contain any reference to atheism. Not only do these 19 cultures exist far outside of our ancestral home in the African savanna, but all 19 of them without an exception are former Communist societies. There are no non-former-Communist cultures described in The Encyclopedia as containing any significant segment of atheists. Nor is there any reference to any individuals who do not subscribe to the local religion in any of the ethnographies of traditional societies.

It may therefore be reasonable to conclude that atheism may not be part of the universal human nature, and widespread practice of atheism may have been a recent product of Communism in the 20th century. So belief in higher powers is evolutionarily familiar and natural, and atheism is evolutionarily novel. The Hypothesis would therefore predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheist than less intelligent individuals.

Once again, analyses of large representative samples from both the United States and the United Kingdom support this prediction of the Hypothesis. Net of a large number of social and demographic factors, including education, more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheistic than less intelligent individuals. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “not at all religious” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 103.09, whereas those who identify themselves as “very religious” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 97.14.

Even though past studies have shown that women are more religious than men, the analyses show that the effect of childhood intelligence on adult religiosity is twice as large as that of sex. Remarkably, childhood intelligence has a significant and large effect on adult religiosity even when religion itself is statistically controlled for. So it appears that more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be atheists than less intelligent individuals, and the Hypothesis provides one explanation as to why.Humans are designed by evolution to believe in God Published on April 11, 2010 It... more

putdownmypants
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Bad Astronomer Phil Plait: Don’t Be A Dick [video]

In late July 2010, Bad Astronomer and skeptic, Phil Plait, gave a thoughtful public... more

GrrlScientist
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A Flowchart to Determine What Religion You Should Follow

EthicalVegan
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Evangelicals' Stealth Mission to Sneak Jesus into Our Public Schools | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet

'_stealth_mission_to_sneak_jesus_into_our_public_schools/ pg. 1 of 6... more

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Futurama turns intelligent design on its head with robot evolution

Last night's truly awesome Futurama episode offered a ringing endorsement of... more

atomiclegion
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3 comments

The Sun is God

Film about the Sun being god. Clarifying this from the title is essential.... more

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Why I don't eat babies - Teenage Atheist

A common Christian response to atheism is: "What's the point of being moral without God?"... It fails, miserably.

By asking such a question, the Christian is stating that the only reason why they bother being good to other people is because they crave reward and fear punishment. It's pathetic. They are saying that the only reason why they're not out raping, murdering or committing genocide is because of them being fearful of God or lust for immortality. That is not morality. That is a selfish and cowardly position devoid of sincerity and genuine compassion.

So why bother being good?
I'm an atheist, so why am I not out raping and murdering for the giggles? I mean, I don't believe in God, so that means I don't have to worry about being judged. Right?

Nah. I'm good to others because I realise that this life is not some sort of rehearsal for the big show. This is it. And I don't want to waste mine or anyone else's being an ass. I care about other people and do to others as they would like to be treated (well, I try). I don't need a God to tell me what's right and wrong. I use my own judgement and do what I believe to be right. I may be fallible, but I'm not a jerk.

And to the people that claim that our inherent understanding and recognition of basic morality is a reason to believe in God, well, that's simply not the case. It's a purely naturalistic concept and it isn't confined to humans. Nonhuman animals are known to demonstrate altruistic behaviour, ie, Chimpanzees feeding Turtles, social play, empathy, mourning etc.

A naturalistic explanation:
Humans are social creatures. We constantly rely on external forces and peoples in our own survival. In order to depend and interact with others, we must have an inherent comprehension of what's acceptable. Thus, our innate sense of morality is not of divine origin. It's a biological drive that's a direct consequence of natural selection. A society that tolerates murder and lying is severely unstable. Simple principles of right and wrong help strengthen a community and allow for growth. It's the glue that ties and unifies a population so that we can live in a cohesive and viable environment.

********************************
There is more follow the link!
http://www.teenageatheist.com/2010/07/why-i-dont-eat-babies.htmlA common Christian response to atheism is: "What's the point of being moral... more

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Christopher Hitchens on Cancer, Life and Religion | Open Culture

Christopher Hitchens hasn’t turned inward since his cancer diagnosis in June.... more

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Hitchens Talks to Goldblog About Cancer and God

Aug 6 2010, 2:03 PM ET Last week, [Jeffrey Goldberg] spent a delightful afternoon... more

putdownmypants
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Christopher Hitchens Talks Cancer and God [video]

This video is Anderson Cooper’s interview with atheist Christopher Hitchens who... more

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