A serial comma is the comma you use before the last item in a series of three or more things. With the serial comma: I went to the store to buy oatmeal, milk, and cookies. Without the serial comma: I went to the store to buy oatmeal, milk and cookies. There are arguments to be made for and against it. Why do I bring this up? There’s an article by Jay Lindsay of the Associated Press called “Evangelists target spiritually… Read more
This is the most wonderful anti-atheism writing I’ve seen all day. I think I came across a quintuple-negative in one of these sentences… Like their denial of God, atheists are also in adamant denial that their non-belief in God is a religious endeavor. Atheism in fact is a lot of ‘denial’ because they not only deny that they deny that God exists, they deny that they believe that God does not exist. Many atheists also deny that they have any… Read more
Tina, an atheist, recently tried to friend her cousin on Facebook. This sounds like an automatic “accept” to me, but it got complicated for her. Her cousin said she would only accept the request on one condition: Tina must promise never to discuss religion or politics. This stems partly from the fact that when another relative was in the hospital and got better, her extended family praised God for his recovery (and for putting his care in the hands of… Read more
The various holidays that plague enliven the year have all gone through a complicated process of being co-opted. Each successive culture that has conquered or prevailed over a previous culture has adapted local holidays to fit its own agenda, drawing the conquered populace into participating in the new culture. So local animist holidays were co-opted into Celtic forms, then Roman forms, then Roman Catholic forms, then Protestant forms, and in the United States, the latest co-opting has been into Capitalist… Read more
Go, LAPD! The Los Angeles Police Department wants to stop working with the organization that runs its Explorer program for youths because the group is linked to Boy Scouts of America, which bans gays from becoming members. The organization, Learning for Life, was spun off from Boy Scouts of America. A department official told the Police Commission Tuesday that the Boy Scouts policy is “inconsistent” with the city’s policy of non-discrimination. He suggested that the department manages the Explorer program… Read more
There will come a point where so many atheist candidates are running for public office that we won’t be able to keep up with all of them. We’re not there yet. Cecil Bothwell is running for a seat on the City Council in Asheville, North Carolina. He’s described as a “writer, environmentalist, builder, war protestor, gadfly”… and atheist. As a journalist, Bothwell often focused on former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford, and takes much credit for Medford’s prosecution as part… Read more
Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News and the God & Country blog recently wrote about Ray Comfort’s attempt to smuggle Creationism into a bastardized version of On the Origin of Species. I don’t mind that he’s reporting on that non-story, because there’s an appeal to that story from both sides of that fence — the people who prefer sound science and rational thinking… and the people who agree with Ray Comfort. When complaints started pouring in that the article about Comfort… Read more
(Or is is Babies Ruth?) Funny. I think this applies to atheists as well as witches… I prefer the King Size babies. (Thanks to Alan for the link!) Read more
No wonder my spaghetti never comes out right. I never dry the children before adding them to the meal! We now have Holy Communion for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Thanks to hoverFrog for the link!) Read more
This post is by Jesse Galef — Thanksgiving and Independence Day are real secular holidays; everyone can participate. I celebrate Christmas as the celebration of the spirit of giving and I celebrate Chanukah as an excuse to eat my Dad’s latkes, but I can understand why other atheists don’t want to celebrate days so closely associated with religious themes. Halloween is an interesting case though – it seems to be the other way around. Many religious people seem to take… Read more
