I actually celebrate Thanksgiving, though not in the traditional way of course. I’ve heard too many horror stories about how this tradition came about. For one thing, Thanksgiving is the Christian version of the pagan Halloween. They’re both harvest festivals. It’s just that one of them was bastardized and the other erected as a replacement […]
Atheist Debate at a Muslim Convention in Texas
I’ve been asked to do another public debate with a live audience. On Christmas Eve, I will debate “Is Darwinian Evolution a Fact” at the Texas Dawah Convention in Houston. My opponent is Subboor Ahmed of the iERA (Islamic Education and Research Academy) He and I have had this conversation before, but he wants to […]
Thanks for Giving to Recovering from Religion
Please donate to Recovering from Religion this weekend during their Thanks for Giving charity telethon. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPv_vpyPlZk[/youtube]
Scooby does denial
Someone pointed me to a video where an apologist was criticizing skeptics for being apologists in denial. Of course there can be no examples of this in reality, so he took his from cartoons. He was talking about Fred from a Scooby Doo cartoon where they visit an island populated by ghosts and zombies which […]
Think twice before sharing about the Electoral College voting against their State’s vote
Yes. A Donald Trump presidency is terrible even terrifying. However, the reasoning in having the Electoral College throw out their state’s various votes is not just flawed but dangerous. There is technically nothing stopping any of the electors from refusing to support the candidate to whom they were bound, or from abstaining from voting altogether. There’s even […]
Secular Voter Election Viewing Party
This will end one way or another tomorrow. Patheos Atheists are doing live coverage of the election. Secular Voices will be hosting live tweets. Added so far are Andrew Hall (Laughing in Disbelief), Galen Broaddus (Across Rivers Wide), Stephanie Savage (Miracle Girl), Matthew Facciani (According to Matthew), Aron Ra and Lilandra Ra (Reason Advocates), Luciano […]
Rest in oblivion, Jack Chick
Back in 1970, someone applying for the job of babysitting the eight year-old version of myself left one of Jack Chick’s hateful religious tracts on my mother’s sofa. They were tiny comic books using bewilderingly inane and deplorably bad arguments in an attempt to convince ignorant bigots to adopt his form of mindless reactionary religious […]
Hope for the environment?
Yesterday I was once again hanging with Dan Arel, author The Secular Activist. This time we were at the State Capitol in Sacramento California lobbying on behalf of the Secular Coalition. Of the few conversations I could comment on, the one that stood out for me was someone who agreed with me. Christian Burkkin is […]
Still Voting for Trump?
Who could have predicted the Donald Trump campaign could have sunk any lower going into the second presidential debate tonight? Perhaps, the 42 percent of Hillary Clinton voters in a 4-way match-up that includes third party voters according to Politico’s numbers. That now leaves 39 percent that still support Trump even after the release of […]
Which is worse? Lying to children? Or being truthful with them?
In this Skeptrack panel, Someone told me I was a big meanie for making a little girl cry at the Reason Rally. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFS_WD-FJYI[/youtube] I told a story about a little girl at the Reason Rally who was passing out CDs about Jesus. She handed me one and I handed it back, saying “I only accept […]