Atheism

Santa wants you to have this book! Atheist Voices of Minnesota (which comes in a print version and a Kindle version) is a collection of individual journeys to atheism. All the authors are Minnesotan (natural born, former, or immigrant to the North Star State). While some of the authors are professional writers or high profile bloggers, most are regular people with interesting stories to tell. The essays are selected from a much larger group of submissions, the works are carefully edited, and organized into general categories. The Minnesota connection itself is great for Minnesotans, but…
Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories was released earlier this year. It is chock full of personal stories about the journey from some place to atheism, written by Minnesota authors such as Norman Barrett Wiik, Elizabeth Becker, Kenneth Bellew, Ryan Benson, August Berkshire, Donald L. Boese, Ryan Bolin, Jill Carlson, Justin M. Chase, Greta Christina, Linda Davis, Andrew Downs, Shannon Drury, Anthony Faust, Paul Gramstad, Mike Haubrich, Kori Hennessy, Peter N. Holste, Michelle M. Huber, Eric Jayne, George Kane, Greg Laden, Bill Lehto, M. A. Melby, PZ Myers, Robin…
Veterans Day parades. Thanksgiving parades.  Christmas parades.  Halloween parades.  St. Patricks Day parades.  MLK Day parades.  Gay Pride parades.  Fourth of July parades. Parades are a fantastic way for atheists to advertise, get positive exposure, and reach out to a wide variety of people... ... If you do it right.  If you do it wrong, it can turn into a fiasco, negative for both the participants and the observers. Luckily for you folks, OKC Atheists LURVES to do parades, so they put a handy guide of tips up on the OKC Atheists blog! Sure they have got a nice list of ideas, but the main…
This morning, my inbox had a handful of interesting data that are totally unconnected to each other, each interesting in its own right, and together, a veritable potpourri of bloggyness. So, here goes: First, Don Prothero at Skeptiblog has written one of those posts you want to keep handy next time you need to refer to Noah's Ark. The title of his post is "Ship of Foolishness" but I'm going to catalog it under Noah’s Ark compared to the Titanic. Here's the embedded data comparison: I gotta get me some of that Gopher Wood. Ok, I said these different data comparisons were not related to each…
Just in time to promote FreeOK2, theres a really nice article on OKC.net about OKC Atheists! To that end, McCall said the vast majority of people who join AOK are coming from a religious background of some kind, and whatever their former denomination, most are used to having a network of people to turn to for support. And that network may or may not disappear depending on each family, community, and individual. But whatever the situation, finding other non-believers helps to alleviate some of the stress by providing a safe place to vent frustrations, worries, and more. “When someone new joins…
Two weeks till FreeOK!  You can grab tickets in advance HERE. My talk will be: "How I learned to stop worrying and love viruses" The visceral, negative emotions one pins to viruses are antiquated-- Viruses are a part of you.  They have protected you since birth.  They might just save your life sometime in the near future. The organizers have also arranged a semi-official after-party in the Holiday Inn conference center-- RSVP on their facebook page so they can get an idea of how many people are coming!!
Skepticism is a cultural phenomenon. I know that many self-declared skeptics prefer to ... ah ... believe otherwise, or as they would perhaps say, they have deduced from pure principles using sound logic that Skepticism is rational behavior and there is nothing cultural about it. But they are wrong, and that is trivially easy to prove. Sarah Moglia is the event specialist for the Secular Student Alliance1 and has written an interesting piece on "Why [she doesn't call her]self a Skeptic" in which she asserts that there are people who call themselves "Skeptic" who are not, at least…
Skeptics of Oz was great-- Sean Gillespie asked me if I had any requirements/requests to speak, I gave him my usual rider: Sean didnt just fill a brandy glass with brown M&Ms... He filled huge Richard Dawkins Foundation coffee mug with brown M&Ms! AWESOME! Sean was just a fantastic organizer, overall. On several occasions things were not going *exactly* according to plan, and without missing a beat, Sean smoothly resolved the situation. Hes obviously a doer, not a talker, and I was impressed. The speaker line-up obviously reflected his personality, as each and every speaker was…
Skeptics of Oz: FREE EVENT April 21 - 22 Forum Theater 147 South Hillside Street, Wichita, KS 67211Speaker lineup Im going to be speaking at 2 pm on "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Viruses" - Sure some viruses are 'scary', but modern domesticated viruses are what make our vaccines work, treat our cancers, and are curing our genetic defects. Dont be so scared of viruses. FreeOK2 $10 EVENT June 23 Tulsa Convention Center - Assembly Hall 100 Civic Center, Tulsa, OK 74103Speaker lineup Im going to be speaking at 2.30 about something. Probably involving viruses. :P The ever awesome The…
And they are! Just yesterday I was hanging around with a bunch off atheists and they were all pretty angry. They were even getting angry with each other. I could hear "get off my lawn" as a more or less constant droning sound in the background. People who are not atheists, or who may be indifferent to religion but never thought about it much, might want to know what this is all about. One way to do this is to read a book that just came out, literally about five minutes ago, for the Kindle. This book is by my friend Greta Christina, and it is called Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Thing…
I was recently chatting with a friend from South America about my excitement about getting to see Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak right here in Oklahoma. He had never heard of her before, which of course flipped me into super-fan-mode and I started gushing about her life and accomplishments and powerful voice and OMFG SHE IS SO PRETTY. I also tried to carefully, tactfully mention the topic of female genital mutilation and the way women get treated in other societies (and how it is creeping into our society) and her AHA Foundation. My friend couldnt understand my 'gentle' description of female genital…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! *runningaroundlikeacrazyperson* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! *pointsexcitedlytolink*An evening with AYAAN HIRSI ALI October 27, 2011 7.30 pm Te Ata Memorial Auditorium Chickasha, OK (pdf) I AM FREAKING OUT!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Thanks to PZ for the format/inspiration! Be self-aware. You are the speaker in a room filled with dozens, hundreds, thousands of people. Especially at atheist/skeptic conferences, we are all very interesting people, but out of those dozens/hundreds/thousands of people who could have been chosen to give a presentation, you were chosen. Your opinion and your words are most likely highly valued, because other people want to hear them. Other people want to learn from you. Other people look up to you. Other people have not had the exact same life history, education, experience that you have…
Note from ERV-- Like all posts on ERV, I wrote this one the night before (Thurs) and scheduled it for the next day (Fri). But with this post, I wrote it, but then just saved it, intending to completely alter the tone of the post as I was eating breakfast. But then I woke up to an extremely cognizant, articulate post by Stef McGraw, complete with a shockingly arrogant, jackass comment by Rebecca Watson, and I was like "Ah, no. No 'Full House' heart-warming conversation with Watson. She wanna act a bitch, she gonna get a bitch." One of these days, theyre going to come for my Vagina License.…
Assuming he didnt get blown away last night, Brother Sam Singleton is going to be doing a show tonight in OKC! If you also didnt get blow away last night, you should totally go-- I got to see Brother Sams show at the Texas Freethought Convention, and it was great! Its like stand-up comedy, but sometimes it was more sad/touching than funny, but it was mostly funny :) Brother Sam SingletonIf the Ocean was Whiskey and God was a Duck Wednesday, May 25, 2011 6:30 PM Channing Unitarian Universalist Church 2800 West 15th Street Edmond, OK
I have always thought, naively and probably incorrectly, that what defined Accommodationist is what they think, not how they argue. At the same time, I have always thought that what defined a "New Atheist" is how we argued, and not what we think. When I say "always thought" I mean for the last four years max, and when I say "naively and probably incorrectly" I might be only kidding. The "new" part of "New Atheism" to me has always been this: You are willing to get up into some dude's face to make your argument because religion, with its centuries of experience in being on the scene for…
I hate flying. I hate the wasted time. I hate the invasion of privacy. I hate being disconnected from the internet. I hate the food. I hate being around that many people. I hate being squished next to people on the actual plane. I hate the stress. EDIT: UGH AND THE BATHROOMS! I HATE THE BATHROOMS. How could I forget that??? I hate it. What does not add to the fun, is flying itself is extraordinarily painful for me. As far back as I can remember, flying, especially the descent, causes me *extreme* ear pain. Sharp shooting pain, as well as a dull, constant aching pain. Its all…
Classic moment in ERV history:Me: *ranting to my mother about my interactions with a big-box-store veterinarian not understanding what 'platelets' are and letting smaller dogs attack him while he was waking up from anesthesia when he was getting neutered and my inability to get across to the 'vet' how FUCKING STUPID her actions were* Mom: Now honey, you know you dont deal well with those kinds of people. Me: *stops mid rant*... What kind of people? Mom: ... You know. Stupid people. I dont. Some people are just so stupid I honestly cant figure out how they know how to 'feed themselves' or '…
Via Dianna Narciso, one of the funniest/most pathetic excuse for a child-star-gone-wild: Atheist community service. "Somewhere along this journey," he says, "both mine and Miley's faith has been shaken. That saddens me the most." When they first came to Hollywood for Hannah Montana, the two of them would drive down the freeway together to the studio each morning, and every day Miley would point out the sign that said ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY ATHEISTS UNITED Just before moving out to Los Angeles, the whole family had been baptized together by their pastor at the People's Church in Franklin, Tennessee…
For some reason, our local FOX affiliate decided to cover a blog post by Sanjay Gupta:Anger at God common, even among atheists Technically they were covering some study by Julie Exline, but considering the fact no one has linked to it, and I cant find it anywhere online, lets be honest. It was opinions on second hand opinions using third hand opinions. High-five there, traditional media! Anyway, the gist of it is that atheists are 'mad' at a god-like creature Christians imagine as their choice of deity. OKC Atheist president Nick Singer rightly noted that that is stupid. Atheists cant be '…