Another of the magazines I pick up every couple of months is New Humanist. I haven’t actually picked up the latest issue yet, but based on checking out their God Trumps piece online, I really do want to try to grab a copy before it’s too late–just in case they’ve got got cardstock versions of [...]
Did you read where earlier this month, as part of the celebration of the anniversary of the U.N.’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, France and the Netherlands sponsored a new non-binding UN declaration extending the rights guaranteed in the UDHR to homosexual and transgender people?
Out of the 192 countries in the UN, only 66 [...]
So, I thought the barbecue sauce guy was weird, but he has possibly been surpassed by the eggbeater bandit.
New Walter Jon Williams books are automatic buys in this house (as you know if you’ve been reading for a while), and now he’s not just selling me his books, he’s putting anime on my Ziplist.
I may [...]
So, we know that I like Revelations, especially some of the bits at the end, and especially including God’s no-modifications open license.
We also know that I like Hal Duncan, and especially when he’s being his most over-the-top flagrantly intellectual.
You might not know that I have a sentimental affection for historical surrealists and Burroughs, and thus, [...]
Also officially on The List: The Salvation Army. (Note to self–remember this for the next time someone starts off on “faith-based initiatives” and public funding.)
So, if someone told me I would enjoy reading a short fiction piece entitled Talking To God, I would be skeptical. If they told me it was found on a site entitled “The Ragged Trousered Philosopher“, I might be more inclined to believe them. And I would have been right to do so. Good piece. [...]
Wikipedia is one of the best things humanity has yet invented for allowing us to use up any extra time we have hanging around. As an added bonus, this time comes with a putative “educational value” benefit, which makes it easy to justify the time and avoid guilt over it.
One example of how this might [...]
I got into a huge debate today about the distinction between religion and spirituality, and the relative worth of the two concepts.
Instead of boring you with more of my cocky atheism, I’ll just quote a Zen story that I think captures the whole thing:
The Real Miracle
When Bankei was preaching at Ryumon temple, a Shinshu priest, [...]
Since 2001 I’ve had less use for Christopher Hitchens than I used to. But hey, I’ve got even less use for Pope Inquisitor and his attempts to pull the Roman Catholic Church backwards in time.
So if Hitchens wants to get snarky on the practice of indulgences, as he does in the latest Free Inquiry, I’m [...]
It turns out there’s a party running in our federal election who I am even more opposed to than the ReformConservatives.
Yes, I just found out today about the Christian Heritage Party.
Apparently they’ve been around since 1988, but they’ve never even showed up on my radar before. Since they’ve usually only run candidates in less than [...]
You know the drill, this is the miscellaneous tab closing ceremony. Since I’m tired of politics today, there will be none in this list.
I have had several discussions about this recent article on a particular form of elective surgery. All that I can conclude from these discussions is that I have different aesthetic than many [...]
Man, there’s some stuff in the Bible that’s really not for kids. I’m not even talking about the rules in Leviticus, or the LSD trip in Revelations. Do the fundamentalists know about this?
As a general rule I am entirely in favour of freedom of speech and thought, and I look askance at any government attempts to curtail them. I can go on for quite a while about how hate speech legislation is probably a mistake, especially in a country where the current government wouldn’t think twice about [...]
You know, I probably wouldn’t be worried about this storm if Jesus was my friend.
It’s hard out there for an atheist.
And now for your intermittently recurring muttering about the extremely religious.
Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity [...]
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