Why Was The Reason Rally An Atheist Rally, Instead of Just a Secularist One?

January 8, 2013 By 5 Comments

Many of us movement atheists fear Christian supremacism and theocratic intentions when right wing Christians mix their political rallies with professions of their religious beliefs and affirmdations of their religious identities. So, to make sure we are not hypocrites, in this post I explore the question of whether it was a good idea for us to have The Reason Rally be so much an atheism rally, rather than a broadly secularist rally. Should we have focused on our identities as atheists and our non-beliefs as much as we did on our politics? I explore the challenge that we should have just kept our political agitation separate from our private cultural and philosophical beliefs if we didn’t want to imply we wanted to impose our private philosophical views about religion on everyone through political means. I also talk about why it was important to have an atheists only rally and not just an “interfaith/no-faith” secularist rally.

Filed Under: Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Political Secularism, Secularism 5 Comments

“It’s amazing what some people will justify through their religion, isn’t it?”

September 20, 2012 By 10 Comments

Why should it be amazing that people who adhere to their religions sincerely actually adopt the regressive or militaristic values often explicitly attributed to their god or gods in their sacred writings themselves? Isn’t that what you would expect? That they would believe in and adopt the values of their sacred texts? Let’s stop equating religion with goodness just because religions say they are the arbiters of morality and its best promoters.

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Bible, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Secularism Tagged With: , , , , , 10 Comments

Jesse Galef and the Obnoxious CNN Interview Questions

June 15, 2012 By 7 Comments

So Jesse Galef of the Secular Student Alliance (on whose behalf I am awake in the wee hours of the morning blogging as part of a 24 hour blogathon) appeared on CNN today and the questions he got (nor the tone of voice he got them in) could not have been any more smarmy, indignantly [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism Tagged With: , , 7 Comments

The Pros and Cons of Hiring A Republican to Represent Secularists

May 4, 2012 By 7 Comments

The Secular Coalition for America was created to lobby lawmakers on behalf of all Americans who believe in secularism. This week they hired a longtime Republican operative, Edwina Rogers, to be their executive director. In this post, I am going to explore the pros and cons of hiring a Republican in general to run this [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Politics, Politics, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism 7 Comments

Contra de Botton: Religions Are NOT To Credit With Universalistic Humanistic Values

March 12, 2012 By 6 Comments

Alain de Botton’s chapter on community in his book Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion is filled with half-baked thinking. After one-sidedly disparaging modern social life from numerous selective (and sometimes specious) angles, he goes on to model really effectively how not to try to learn from religion (Kindle Location 189):

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Islam, Jesus, Jesus, Judaism, Judaism, Koran, Koran, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Religion, Religion, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Virtues, Virtues, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights 6 Comments

Why I Bother Writing About the Boring Question of Whether Religious Beliefs Are True

March 8, 2012 By 43 Comments

Alain de Botton has caused a stir in the atheist blogosphere, and particularly here at Freethought Blogs, with his new book Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion. More specifically he caused waves with his article on CNN , which is heavy on selections from the book, and which begins as [...]

Filed Under: Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism Tagged With: 43 Comments

Sex and "Spirituality"

February 23, 2012 By 10 Comments

Casey: Sigh, Pat. It seems like there is nowhere in this culture we can escape the pernicious influence of religion. Pat: What are you thinking of in particular? Casey: I’m thinking of the way that even some of the most “sex-positive”, taboo-breaking, kink-celebrating, sexually liberated people I know still cannot enjoy the pure physicality of sex [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Paganism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Sex, Skepticism, Skepticism, Wicca Tagged With: , , , , , , , 10 Comments

Religious Privilege and Grievance-Based Catholic Identity Politics on Full Display

February 7, 2012 By 12 Comments

In a column last week, Melinda Henneberger criticized the Obama administration’s refusal to exempt the Catholic Church from requirements it provide for its employees health insurance which would cover birth control at organizations it runs which have secular functions. The column is an extraordinary exemplification of religious entitlement, identity politics, and anti-secular, anti-democratic demands for [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Feminism, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Law, Law, Law & Politics, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Rape, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

"Should Catholic Employers Be Exempted From Paying For Health Insurance Covering Contraception?"

February 5, 2012 By 48 Comments

If you were reading Camels With Hammers regularly before we made the move to Freethought Blogs, you would have frequently been treated to the long, insightful, and vigorously argued comments of my friend Mary. Mary is a Roman Catholic and is politically liberal in many (but not all) respects. We met when I was a [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Authority, Authority, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Feminism, Feminism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Personal, Philosophy, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , 48 Comments

How To Make God Die A Little More

January 17, 2012 By 11 Comments

Scientific American summarizes studies which locate people’s distrust of atheists in their fears that atheists are more likely to act deviously in secret because they fear no god is watching them. We have talked about such research before. Then this article explores other research which gives indications about how to combat this problem: When we know [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Psychology, Psychology, Secularism, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Sciences 11 Comments