Positively Non-Religious

This awesome sign was spotted in the DC Metro. (source)

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 13:34:00 -0400

This awesome sign was spotted in the DC Metro. (source)

This pretty much speaks for itself.

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 20:16:13 -0400

This pretty much speaks for itself.

Straylight Run - “With God on Our Side” The reason...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 02:08:00 -0400

Straylight Run - “With God on Our Side”

The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side

I just discovered this song the other day, although it’s 5 years old (and, what’s more, it’s a cover of a Bob Dylan song from 1963), but it’s a good tune about the dangers of using religion to justify warfare. The full lyrics are in the video’s description on youtube if you click through.

How Godlessness Is Increasing With Each New Generation

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:41:00 -0400

How Godlessness Is Increasing With Each New Generation:

In the generation born since 1982, variously referred to as Generation Y, the Millennials, or Generation Next, one in five people identify as nonreligious, atheist, or agnostic. In the youngest cohort, the trend is even more dramatic: as many as 30% of those born since 1990 are nonbelievers

"Circumstances predict religiousness. Difficult circumstances lead more strongly to people being..."

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:32:00 -0400

““Circumstances predict religiousness. Difficult circumstances lead more strongly to people being religious. And in religious societies and in difficult circumstances, religious people are happier than nonreligious people. But in nonreligious societies or more benign societies where many people’s needs are met, religious people aren’t happier — everyone’s happier.””

- psychologist Ed Diener, on findings from a recent Gallup World Poll

(source)

"A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that..."

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:58:22 -0400

“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged.”

- Czeslaw Milosz

(source)

Why we’re skipping church, according to The Onion. The...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:37:00 -0400

Why we’re skipping church, according to The Onion.

The biggest reason for most of us non-believers (i.e., it’s all a load of bunk) isn’t represented, but it’s The Onion, so I’ll let it slide.

Neil deGrasse Tyson to host sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:33:00 -0400

Neil deGrasse Tyson to host sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos:

This should be pretty exciting news to any Carl Sagan fans and/or science nerds out there. Astrophysicist (and non-believer) Neil deGrasse Tyson is signed on to host Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which will be developed by Ann Druyan and Steve Soter, both of whom worked on the original Cosmos, along with Family Guy creator (and fellow atheist) Seth McFarlane. The new Cosmos will air in primetime on FOX, which is pretty much unprecedented for a science documentary series, with encore airings on the National Geographic Channel, which will help produce the series.

There’s only one downside to this story, though: you’ll have to wait ‘til 2013 to see it.

Second Annual A-Day

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 05:39:44 -0400

Second Annual A-Day:

It’s time again, to spend time with your atheist loved-ones, drink, carouse, or just finally come out to your parents.

Urban Evolution

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:34:06 -0400

Urban Evolution:

Because nothing warms my heart like a good story about evolution :)

Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples across New York State to marry this weekend

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:33:00 -0400

Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples across New York State to marry this weekend:

I haven’t gotten around to posting anything about gay marriage becoming legal in New York State yet, and now’s a good time to do so. Here’s a recent article from the New York Times about the hundreds of couples who are planning on getting married this Sunday, the first day that gay marriage will be legal in the state. Niagara Falls is lighting up in rainbow colors tonight in celebration of the occasion, while some couples are being wed there at midnight. Anyone who’s non-religious should care about this, since it represents a step forward in the larger battle to move past the antiquated, progress-stifling moral values of Christianity and other religions.

Photo

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:32:41 -0400

How to Start a Cult Here’s an entertaining and satirical...

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:11:00 -0400

How to Start a Cult

Here’s an entertaining and satirical video. Some of the things it mentions are pretty legit persuasion techniques, too.

"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be..."

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:03:01 -0400

“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”

- Carl Sagan

(via)

Here’s some interesting info from a relatively recent...

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:17:00 -0400

Here’s some interesting info from a relatively recent Gallup poll. This chart shows the percentage of Americans (18 and older) who believe in God or a “universal spirit.” Overall, about 92% of Americans believe in God, which is pretty consistent with the 2008 Religious Landscape Survey conducted by Pew, which sampled about 35,000 people, whereas this Gallup poll had about 1,000 participants. Still, it’s important to point out that the margin of error for this poll is ±4 percentage points (it was only ±0.6 percentage points for the 2008 Pew survey).

What’s really interesting, though, is seeing how much variability there is when you break it down into different demographic and political categories. Notice that for people aged 18-29, God belief is about 10 percentage points lower than it is for all other age groups. That’s more than double the amount of atheists! Holy cow.

One possible interpretation of this is that we’re witnessing a lasting cultural shift, and these 18-to-29-year-olds will continue to be atheists as they grow old (and, potentially, future cohorts of young adults will become increasingly non-religious). An alternative interpretation, however, is that non-belief is more common during this phase in people’s lives, but young adults tend to grow out of their non-belief as they get older. There are a few reasons to believe that this isn’t the case, though.

First of all, I don’t think it’s all that common for people to undergo major changes in their religious beliefs after the age of 30. Conversions and deconversions most likely occur during people’s formative years, and also during times of great change or upheaval in their lives (which are also a lot more common during adolescence and young adulthood). Anecdotally, at least, I’ve never known any atheists who’ve gone the other way and have become religious (or re-religious).

Second, I can think of at least one major cultural change that could possibly explain such a big increase in the number of non-believers among this cohort: the internet. It’s possible that steadfast religious belief depends in part on remaining ignorant to other cultures, other religious beliefs, and critical opinions or contradictory evidence towards one’s own beliefs. Given the incredible amount of information that’s become readily available to Americans as the internet has come to play a central role in all of our lives, it’s entirely plausible that the internet has been a big part of this increase in non-belief.

Third, there’s this chart from Gallup which shows that there really has been an overall increase in the number of non-believing Americans over the past 30+ years (which wouldn’t be the case if non-belief were only a phase that previous generations have also experienced during young adulthood):

(source: Gallup)

"Many Christians today may think that the canon of the New Testament simply appeared on the scene one..."

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:19:55 -0400

“Many Christians today may think that the canon of the New Testament simply appeared on the scene one day, soon after the death of Jesus, but nothing could be farther from the truth. As it turns out, we are able to pinpoint the first time that any Christian of record listed the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as *the* books of the New Testament—neither more nor fewer. Surprising as it may seem, this Christian was writing in the second half of the fourth century, nearly three hundred years after the books of the New Testament had themselves been written. The author was the powerful bishop of Alexandria named Athanasius.”

- Bart Ehrman, in Misquoting Jesus

Facebook evolution debate, done properly

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:52:25 -0400

Facebook evolution debate, done properly

I recently learned that BBC documentarian Louis Theroux...

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 21:58:57 -0400

I recently learned that BBC documentarian Louis Theroux revisited the Westboro Baptist Church for an hour-long documentary, America’s Most Hated Family in Crisis, which aired just a couple of months ago. It’s a follow-up to the 2007 documentary, The Most Hated Family in America.

Here’s a link to a youtube playlist which includes all parts of the newest documentary (it’s broken into four 15-min. long videos). I can’t recommend it enough. It provides a unique glimpse into the private lives of one of the most infamous and absurd religious cults in the country. A number of things have changed since Louis visited them 4 year ago. Their views seem to have gotten even more extreme and insane, including new beliefs about the imminent end of the world. They’ve lost a number of church members, including one who Louis interviews (24-year-old Lauren). They’re also a bit more hostile towards Louis this time around — at one point, one of the church members casually refers to him as a “jackweasel.” Altogether, it provides an enlightening — and troubling — portrait of a fringe religious group coping with changing circumstances and ongoing defections. Again, I can’t recommend it enough (same goes for the first one, if you haven’t seen it yet).

Happy Flag Day, everyone!

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:59:26 -0400

Happy Flag Day, everyone!

There Are 10 Times As Many Atheists as Mormons: When Will Non-Believers Become a Political Force?

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:18:00 -0400

There Are 10 Times As Many Atheists as Mormons: When Will Non-Believers Become a Political Force?:

Here’s a good article on the politics of religious belief (and non-belief) by Adam Lee at alternet.

American politics clearly has a “stained-glass ceiling,” a de facto barrier to atheists running for office. Despite the many great Americans who’ve been nonbelievers, despite the guarantees of secularism written into our Constitution, outspoken atheism is still seen as an insurmountable liability for anyone who seeks to serve our country as an elected officer of the government.

Why is this? It’s not because atheists are so rare that politicians can safely ignore us. On the contrary, nonbelief is far more common than many people realize.