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Brian Sapient

Brian Sapient


Last Updated: 11/21/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 32
City: PHILADELPHIA
State: Pennsylvania
Country: US

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Saturday, November 21, 2009 

Current mood:  determined
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
http://www.rationalresponders.com/donations_requested_please

Hey folks, as you know the core leadership of RRS was rather inactive for the first half of 2009, this was due to various factors including several that are personal, however the recession took it's toll as early as the beginning of 2008.  A bunch of folks who were donors and subscribers wrote to us with apologies after they lost their job, or their wives lost their jobs, or something recessionary in nature happened to them presenting a situation in which they had to withdraw their funding of our efforts.  This story was echoed by the SSA who was on the verge of disappearing this year as a result of the hard times, and has raised over $90,000 in two months.  I've been working as many hours as possible in the real world for over a year now to reduce the fundraising burden in order to keep this site afloat.  While I seemed absent on an activist level my time away from the limelight was designed to preserve RRS.  
Since I've been able to alter my schedule to get back to the typical 50+ hour RRS workload, the donations are at an all time low.  This is to be expected of course, there is no current radio show, there was a hiatus, and we're still in a recession... but we're recovering on multiple levels.  I'm gonna manage to work in the 70 hour range on activist activities here, while holding down a job and caring for a son, this week. Signs of a recession ending are upon us.  However, due to the intense workload already on my plate, the show is far from my mind.  Doing the show takes preparation time, editing time, and more... while I currently have 60 hours of unedited material that still needs to be addressed.  Work that needed to be addressed for a very long time now, my sincerest apologies to those who were waiting for that content.
Since I've returned I've been bombarded with countless positive comments, many of which are encouraging me to get the show back up and running, here's your chance to get me one step closer to that.  Yeah... I'm begging for money.  Pick up that phone and call us now to keep the congregation going.  I hate feeling like this, hate having to ask for it, I thought maybe donations would just start coming back organically, but they're not.  So I'm asking.

4:58 PM 
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Monday, November 19, 2007 

Category: Religion and Philosophy
Click here to donate


A while back we asked for some help raising money for advertising, and we managed to bring in $480. Originally this $480 was going to go directly to one specific site however due to multiple factors we've decided to dish out the money through google ads around the web instead. We've also decided that we wont be alerting the audience as to which sites we are advertising on, as we are worried about sabotage from the fine folks who would like us to remain silent. We've set up an extensive, and horribly confusing system for anyone who would attempt to find our ads and click them over and over again. Part of this system includes having ad placements on a wide array of sites. We're very proud and happy to have ads running on some of the sites we're currently on. Furthermore there are several atheist orgs and sites that we like to support and have ensured our ads would be weighted heavier on those sites(helping both RRS and a friend site at the same time). You should start to see an influx of highly intelligent people as well from varying areas from psychology, biology, evolution, cosmology, physics, and more. While most of the campaign is aimed at people who would agree with us who can become part of our efforts, we are also running an in your face ad on a few Christian sites:

It is specifically because of ads like the following, that this campaign to bring in traffic will be highly successful:

A test comparison picture was actually larger and is Googles most successful size ad... but it was 480 times less likely to be clicked than the one above...

While both graphics are in the campaign for some balance in marketing types, using the first ad alone without the second would save us well over $1,000 per year (if we could afford to keep going) because we pay based on how many times an impression is made... not based on clicks. Since the first picture is 480 times more likely to be clicked than a comparable picture (we tested and did the math), and we pay for the impression not the click... we'll receive more visitors as a result. To appease a few of the "please don't put women" on ads people, only half of our ads feature our model by herself. (her fans can get a little more time with her here)

Here is some proof that since Oct 15th we've been spending money on ads, and have started a $15 a per day campaign until the $480 runs out. However we here at the house believe in this so strongly we're gonna dip into savings and throw another $520 at it for an even $1,000. Unless of course.... you decide to donate... and then it'll keep going. The first two campaigns were text ad and video campaigns that proved not to be nearly as successful and as inexpensive for us as picture ads. For reference: CPM= Cost per thousand impressions ---- CPC=cost per click ---- CTR=click through rate (play rate referred to video ads)


We know through research that grass roots activists like yourselves like to know exactly where your money is going, and so we hope this advertising project will be one way for you to help us over the long term anytime you want to throw a few dollars towards boosting site traffic.

As you can see there is no dollar limit on this project. We will utilize every cent that comes our way on ads. You will be able to see every penny and we will update this thread every month or two with updated stats including total dollars spent. The end result will be at least the $480 already donated, the $520 we're throwing on top, and whatever you give.... (this will run for as long as we exist).
With the campaign we set up we could go up to $800 per day and still only be seen about 1% of the time between all of the sites we are set up on.

Click here to donate

If you would like to donate $1,000 or more specifically to this project, and would like your donation to be tax deductible, please contact us and we'll help arrange it. (serious inquiries only please)


You can follow our mission to reach the top of the Alexa rankings and how well it's going in this thread (if you use firefox and don't have the Alexa toolbar please go grab it now.)

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Thursday, November 15, 2007 
kellym78's picture

Reddit this -- Digg this!

One of the methods used by the religious to marginalize atheists and our increasing visibility is to accuse us of becoming that which we originally opposed, or in other words, just like them. It's even better if they have the convenience of one experience with these so-called "secular fundamentalists" from which they can draw unfounded conclusions as to the validity of this argument and, ultimately, the character of all those who have no belief in gods, goddesses, or other mythical creatures.

This is the route taken by Michael Brendan Dougherty in the November issue of The American Conservative. His article, entitled "Secular Fundamentalists: Can atheists form a movement around shared disbelief", uses this year's Atheist Alliance International convention as fodder for his clumsy attempt to represent atheism as a new phenomenon comprised of the dogmatically anti-religious.

The title alone is an oxymoron—would Mr. Dougherty mind explaining the fundamentals of secularism before he starts labeling us as adherents to them? He tries to use Sam Harris' speech about the word "atheist" and the subsequent reaction as proof of this claim, pointing out the discomfort of the audience during his speech. He goes on to assume that Sam Harris would prefer that there be no AAI conference next year, which is only true in one scenario—that in which religion is no longer a menace to society and has been effectively stripped of its power.

Of course, according to Mr. Dougherty, the only reason we get together is to tell jokes about pedophile priests and fight the morality imposed upon us by the "prudes and prigs" who surround us, it is really unnecessary since all of this can be done online anyway. As a matter of fact, most of the conference attendees or those with whom I have spoken regarding Harris' speech, which was reprinted in The Washington Post, were pleased to see a dissenting position presented, even if some may have disagreed with that position. This is an example of the very thing that makes atheism different from religion; we're allowed to ask questions and present our differences of opinion. There's no excommunication from atheism. Apparently, he hung around for the Q&A, but failed to mention that in my question to Sam, I stated that I agreed conceptually but see no other way to gain any influence as a group by avoiding the one word under which we can unite. Harris agrees with that, and furthermore, I think that as atheists, we all agree that we would prefer to live in a world in which the word was not even necessary.

Dougherty goes on to the addition of Harris' somewhat controversial affinity for meditation. He adds the jab frequently used against us, that we hate all religions, rather than just not believing in them, and goes on to misrepresent Daniel Dennett's comment that he himself had been practicing meditation. Of course, in his mind, the audience was deeply troubled by this, despite the fact that meditation does not necessarily have a religious connotation and does have scientific evidence to show that similar contemplative practices have health benefits. Meditation may not be everybody's cup of tea, but there were certainly some in the audience who understand this point, but mentioning that would undermine his initial claim that we are "fundamentalists." So he chooses to be dishonest instead, proclaiming that "the leaders of unbelief are exposed as potential monks and mystics."

At least we still have Hitchens, whom he briefly addresses by using the well-worn "he's just angry at God" argument. He then finds it humorous that conference attendees are excited by the opportunity to meet these distinguished individuals, and points out a person that had a conversation with Hitchens and was ecstatic, claiming that this is a form of "idol worship" and a religion of its own. If that is true, then Christians are assuredly in violation of their precious commandments by idolizing their own batch of celebrities such as Rick Warren, Dinesh D'Souza, or Lee Strobel. Being happy to meet a person that you admire and respect, who has potentially influenced your life through their work, is now a religion, folks. Again, nothing other than juvenile and amateur attempts to disparage atheists and a simple restatement of that childish taunt, "I know you are but what am I?"

In an egregious violation of journalistic objectivity, he goes on to personally insult Margaret Downey, referring to her as a "dippy hostess." Margaret has fought for the rights of atheists and gays to join the Boy Scouts, has given a presentation to the United Nations on the discrimination of atheists, and is still the UN expert on atheist discrimination in the US. She has worked tirelessly for years on end and put her own life at risk to make separation of church and state a reality, not just some words on an aged document_ The fact that he would have the audacity to refer to one of the most influential women in the world of atheism as he did displays the utter lack of respect and contempt that he holds for those who do not worship his imaginary friend, yet he wonders why we feel the need to rally together, speak up, and rattle cages.

The fact that, in his opinion, holding a conference qualifies your group as a "movement" is mildly amusing. I guess that makes attendees of "Star Trek" conventions members of a pro-Star Trek movement. In much the same way that the aforementioned "Trekkies" are chided for having their apparel, costumes, and merchandise, Dougherty goes on to more trivial evidences of this subversive "atheist movement."

Apparently, Dougherty finds "young men with haircuts fit for their mother's basement" a valid point upon which to base an argument that we are nothing more than a "cranky subculture" that wants to ridicule religion much as a teenager wants to rebel against his/her parents. He interestingly notes that we did not view "The Passion of the Christ" and instead chose "Life of Brian". I take it he didn't consider that we atheists have no desire to watch a man brutally tortured and ultimately murdered for two and a half hours. I consider that to be a good thing, and would certainly allow my children to watch "Life of Brian" before that snuff film of which he apparently approves.

He comes back to the worst insult Christians have to offer, which is the conflation of atheism to a religion itself. It is about time that atheists come together at conferences and stand up for ourselves in a country dominated by irrationality. How ironic that the best argument he can muster is that we're just like them. He claims that the conference "provides plenty of evidence" by "[resembling] an evangelical retreat weekend." Wouldn't any conference probably have similarities; such as there were speakers, there were meetings, and an amalgamation of people hanging out conversing? Again, if the Church of Star Trek hasn't been founded already, it is now, whether the fans agree or not. He completely ignores the valid criticisms of religious belief and insists on using ridicule and insults to make the entire concept seem silly, much like Christianity. Is he projecting his own feelings regarding the absurdity of his own religion, maybe?

He attacks Julia Sweeney as a "D-list celebrity" eager for a second career as an atheist spokesperson. The fact that she does a monologue based on her personal experience with religion escapes him, and once again, he sardonically quips that she must be fun on dates after she recounts a story about debating evolution while out with a former romantic interest. Watch out ladies and gentlemen—we've entered the "no-humor" zone.

The ad hominems don't stop there, either. His next target is Greydon Square, and Dougherty can't stop himself from painting him as a thug with a rap sheet. We all know that getting arrested completely discredits a person despite the validity of their beliefs or lack thereof in this case. Any journalist with credibility would at least have done his research and known that Greydon was released that day—his only charge being an unpaid ticket. We can add this to the list of half-truths purposely written by Dougherty and designed to deceive the readers.

Coming full circle back to Sam Harris, he quotes Sam from The End of Faith as saying, "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." Not only is this completely skewed and out of context, he presumes that nobody would contemplate this statement. If you had the ability to stop the 9/11 hijackers before they boarded the planes that eventually slammed into buildings, killing thousands, would you have? What if lethal force was the only means by which it was possible? It is certainly a delicate subject, but it is not presented accurately in Dougherty's piece. Dougherty's defense then consists of the absurd claim that, "The Inquisition at least allowed defendants the chance to recant—often many times." Yes, they did, offer a choice between keeping one's integrity and dying or lying about one's lack of belief and remaining alive. What a stunning example of Christian generosity and kindness. Maybe we should watch two and a half hours of that at next year's AAI conference.

Finally, we have Richard Dawkins. Even this criticism isn't bereft of superficial personal attacks, as he refers to Prof. Dawkins as "owl-faced" and "ignorant of religious people as a species." Apparently, a speciation event occurred that officially separates the logical from the illogical; the reason-based from the faith-based. Unfortunately, it's not true (sorry if he got anybody's hopes up).

He argues that Dawkins' proposition that religious indoctrination is tantamount to child abuse and that we should refrain from labeling our children as a particular religion is reductive and tendentious. Dougherty claims that religion is not a "mere set of mental propositions" and is, in fact, a way of life started at birth. I don't imagine that Dawkins would disagree with the latter, but the issue is one of choice and the autonomy of children. It concerns the routine obfuscation that occurs when parents lie to their children with regards to evolution, history and the value of faith as a reasonable methodology. Many who have suffered from this treatment do not possess the ability to deprogram themselves as adults, and thus logic and rationality have been suppressed for yet another generation.

If he has no problem with that concept, why is it that he aims to make Julia Sweeney look like a child abuser for telling her daughter that they don't believe in God? If the general consensus is that pushing religion on your children is not an issue, then why is the advocacy of non-religion? Why was there such a backlash to our own Blasphemy Challenge, largely because teens were being "targeted" by the evil atheists? It is the obvious hypocrisy that is most problematic here—indoctrination from Christian parents is fine, but atheist parents need to keep their lack of belief to themselves. The hazard represented by this mode of thought is actualized in the many cases of discrimination against atheist parents in child custody cases.

This article was nothing short of a long list of intellectually inept claims peppered with personal attacks which do more to reveal the character of the author than his intended targets. Michael Brendan Dougherty should be ashamed of himself for exploiting the kindness of the atheists at the conference who spoke with him in order to purposely malign and misrepresent us. His penchant for focusing on irrelevant, superficial details, such as age, clothing or hair-style, was deftly demonstrated in this piece, which I can only describe as being a supremely dishonest polemic aimed at the continued marginalization of atheists. Hopefully, his lack of journalistic integrity will prevent him from getting a press pass at any future events.

Here is the original article.
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This piece is part of a year long series (ends Oct 31, 2008) that Kelly of the Rational Response Squad will be writing to address theist talking heads in the media. Kelly is a Psychology major, co-host of the RRS Radio show, and has been featured on ABC debating Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. All articles may be reprinted in any major media publication or any blog. All articles will be submitted by Kelly or an assistant to the major media outlet that initially published the story as well as to the author of the original piece(when possible). Reprints are encouraged in blogs and must link to source. Reprints in media will be thanked in our book, so please alert us if you repost any story. Media outlets may shorten articles if necessary without removing context. Upon completion, a book and documentary will be made about the year (ending Oct. 31, 2008) and our plight to have dishonest argumentation countered with rational and factual answers in the press. If you would like Kelly to address any major media story from a theist talking head, please post a link to the article in her blog. We welcome messages from leading atheists asking us to refute stories attacking them and their views. At the end of the year the writings will be given some bulk, some supporting citations, and edits from a publisher to be compiled in a book. The book will include a documentary DVD shot from Sapient's vantage point as he works alongside Kelly, asking her questions about the project as it moves along.

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Friday, November 09, 2007 

Category: Religion and Philosophy
kellym78's picture
Submitted by kellym78 on Thu, 2007-11-08 04:58.

Kelly responds to Dinesh D'Souza and his "What atheists Kant refute" drivel.

Digg Kelly's Response - Reddit Article

The question of the nature of reality is one that likely will never go away. There will always be those who support the belief that this mysterious "something" exists, and there will be those on the opposing side. We must work with the tools available to us, and those just happen to be limited to our five innate senses and the knowledge that we have gained through science and reason.

In Dinesh D'Souza's recent piece for Christian Science Monitor, "What Atheists Kan't Refute", he asks why we should believe that "reality" is all there is, but the question should be, "Why should we believe otherwise?" Empirical evidence is the basis and foundation for all human advancements. All technological, scientific, and medical discoveries have been made using these faculties. Nobody would dare to base a monumental decision on anything other than evidence in their daily lives, yet they are expected to do so with regards to this one matter—one that, according to D'Souza's religion, would be the most important decision anybody could ever make.

One of the most frequently held misconceptions that continues to be used in defense of Christianity is that atheism is a new concept. They argue that the lax moral ethos of society has created a brand-new generation of god-bashers. While it may seem that atheism is having a resurgence of sorts, it is in no way a new phenomenon. Ironically, he not only uses this argument, but then gives demonstrable proof of its falsity.

Convincing the general public that atheism is a new wave of immorality spawned by a materialistic culture is a powerful piece of propaganda. The use of Enlightenment era Kantian argumentation as the backbone of his piece shows that the battle between believers and rationalists has been raging for centuries at least and makes his previous statement seem strangely out of place. (Obviously, he wouldn't want to mention that this has been happening since the inception of Christianity.)

His self-contradictory statements here are but the beginning of a disturbingly convoluted argument. He states, "The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that there is only one limit to what human beings can know: reality itself." What definition of "reality" is he using here? How exactly does one go about attaining knowledge of something that isn't real? The debate between the "Rationalists" and the "Idealists" was much more complex than D'Souza's practically dishonest representation of it.
He presents conclusions from Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" as if they were definitive. Any amateur student of philosophy surely understands that one person's ideas, even if that one person is Immanuel Kant, are not necessarily axiomatic. Kant argued in support of his belief that the five senses were insufficient tools with which to ascertain truth in regards to metaphysical claims. While this is a philosophically valid concept, it is not scientifically valid.

Kant's philosophical ideology separates the world into the phenomenal and the noumenal. The noumenal world is essentially an agnostic one, but D'Souza would lead the reader to believe otherwise. He can't even contemplate the notion that just as we atheists cannot perceive the noumenal realm, neither can he. We don't have knowledge of every possibility in the universe; nevertheless, all major religions claim to have the corner on special knowledge of this supposedly unknowable world. It gets even more oxymoronic when D'Souza claims that one cannot equate experience and reality, but belongs to a religion that is based on having a "personal relationship" with Jesus. He even goes as far as admitting that it will be easier for religious people to understand this because they know that "[t]he spiritual reality constitutes the only permanent reality there is." I wonder how he knows this since he cannot trust his senses to accurately reflect the nature of reality and has no access to this "spiritual reality".

D'Souza's entire piece is a collection of conundrums designed to confuse the reader and shift the burden of proof onto the non-believers. Kant says there is no reason to not believe in that which you cannot know; D'Souza wants you to believe that lack of knowledge provides sufficient reason to believe. He accuses atheists of "foolishly [presuming]" that reason is the proper method for ascertaining knowledge, and then claims to have knowledge of a "reality" about which it is impossible to know anything. I have two words for this kind of absurdity: utter drivel. "Reality isn't all that there is, but the spiritual reality is the real reality." "Experience and sensory input isn't valid as a method to acquire knowledge of reality, but Jesus is real because I feel him in my heart and you can't prove he's not there." The title should have been "What I Can't Prove but You Should Believe."

by: Kelly O'Connor

Original Piece was posted in Christian Science Monitor, Baltimore Sun, Yahoo, and Catholic Online.

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This piece is part of a year long series (ends Oct 31, 2008) that Kelly of the Rational Response Squad will be writing to address theist talking heads in the media. Kelly is a Psychology major, co-host of the RRS Radio show, and has been featured on ABC debating Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. All articles may be reprinted in any major media publication or any blog. All articles will be submitted by Kelly or an assistant to the major media outlet that initially published the story as well as to the author of the original piece(when possible). Reprints are encouraged in blogs and must link to source. Reprints in media will be thanked in our book, so please alert us if you repost any story. Media outlets may shorten articles if necessary without removing context. Upon completion, a book and documentary will be made about the year (ending Oct. 31, 2008) and our plight to have dishonest argumentation countered with rational and factual answers in the press. If you would like Kelly to address any major media story from a theist talking head, please post a link to the article in her blog. We welcome messages from leading atheists asking us to refute stories attacking them and their views. At the end of the year the writings will be given some bulk, some supporting citations, and edits from a publisher to be compiled in a book. The book will include a documentary DVD shot from Sapient's vantage point as he works alongside Kelly, asking her questions about the project as it moves along.

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Friday, November 09, 2007 

Category: Religion and Philosophy
Submitted by kellym78 on Thu, 2007-11-01 03:58.

Here's the link to the original article and below is my response. Enjoy. Bump my response on reddit. Digg me on Digg.

Anybody who has ever perused the "Religion" section of the local bookstore has undoubtedly seen that the sheer volume of available apologetics material is most certainly not in danger of being over taken by the comparatively miniscule, if even present, section of books on atheism. That notwithstanding, the response from believers to books like Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion or Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great has been so vociferous that one would think that it was in imminent peril. As much as I would relish that notion, it is apparent that instead of diminishing, it is in fact increasing--with new names, albeit old arguments.

The newest poster-boy for defenders of Christianity is Dinesh D'Souza. He has written books in response to or publicly debated many of the forerunners of the so-called "New Atheism". His recent op-ed in the USA Today section "On Religion" (Oct 22, 2007) is but a fragment of the kind of nonsense that passes for valid argumentation in the realm of apologetics. While reading it, one must wonder if he is either a blatant liar or simply downright deluded. (Maybe this could be the D'Souza Dilemma: Dishonest or Deluded?)

The fact that anybody with even a shred of logic or knowledge of history would make it past his opening salvo without lighting it on fire is a miracle of its own. Is he a champion of the provocation of hysteria, or does he realize that atheists don't want to remove Christianity from the history of the founding of the country--It was never there! Does he not know that we already live in a secular society--we just want to keep it that way? That all of the values and institutions that he claims are "inextricably tied" to his faith existed before Christianity and were instilled in this country which was explicitly created to not have ties to any particular religion? Somebody should point out to him that it is this type of rhetoric against which we rail.

It is not particularly difficult to portray religion as the thorn in the side of civilization. A cursory glance at world politics will reveal that the impetus for the majority of both current and historical instances of bloodshed, terrorism, and genocide is religion. The fact that the entire basis for belief in any god is faith, the definition of which is the antithesis of reason, manifests itself in the fanaticism of its adherents. Whether you call this invisible and undetectable being Yahweh or Allah is of little consequence--were it not for the unshakable faith of the believers, people would be much less willing to kill or die in order to reap the rewards of the promised afterlife.

This is the fundamental reason why faith is so dangerous. A belief system founded upon faith is untouchable. One cannot reason with that person; in fact, a believer is taught to purposely ignore valid arguments and trained to feel guilty if the uncomfortable sensation of doubt begins to plague them. Mr. D'Souza, in his attempt to exonerate faith, particularly his brand, then ascribes to faith all that we as Americans hold dear. It is a mere ploy to appeal to the emotions of people who value democratic ideals and scientific progress.

His blatantly fallacious anthropocentric argument for the supposed "perfection" of the universe has been exposed by others much more knowledgeable than I in that realm and betrays his presuppositions regarding the order that we observe. It is in fact an observation. As cognizant beings, we like to categorize and quantify that which is taken in by our sensory organs. The universe is just as adept, if not more so, at creating black holes as it is at creating planets that can sustain life. His inference that this necessarily must be from a divine creator is not evidence of that at all, unless his god also enjoys swallowing galaxies into a vacuum from which nothing can escape. (I won't even touch the list of "Christian" scientists, some of whom were forced under penalty of torture and death to swear fealty to their divine lord.)

Concerning democracy, I would like for him to explain how, if Christianity is responsible for democracy, the Ancient Greeks had democratic societies. Why is it that he credits god with the Jeffersonian dictum that "all men are created equal" when Jefferson himself was not a Christian and in fact owned slaves? To them, the "men" were those that the elite decided were "men", and that didn't include blacks, women, or Native Americans. Although this does sound very similar to the type of behavior that the god of Moses, Joshua, or David would endorse, it seems little like the one that D'Souza tries to conflate with democratic ideals.

Finally, the association that he claims between Christianity and human rights is the epitome of absurdity. It would behoove D'Souza to speak to some homosexuals about "the right to marry and form a family". His equality-espousing god speaks of homosexuality as an abomination and punishable by death. His followers, supposedly created in his image, have done more to thwart universal human rights than any other group short of the Third Reich.

D'Souza is right about one thing, though. I will not hesitate to privately and publicly acknowledge the role that Christianity has had in "the things that matter most to us": It has worked it's hardest to obfuscate the truth, subvert scientific advancement, and decimate those who do not allow themselves to be swayed by vapid argumentation and psychological terrorism. Those are the things that matter most to me.

___________________
Blog Info: READERS ARE HIGHLY ENOURAGED TO PROMOTE THIS BLOG ON THEIR SITE FOR ONE YEAR.
Give Kelly a year and she'll give you major media theism debunked!

Subscribe (free) with feedburner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Kellym78sBlog (have it alert you via email, all free)
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Please support this project and make a widget to put Kelly's feed on your site (simple and sleek).

This piece is part of a year long series (ends Oct 31, 2008) that Kelly of the Rational Response Squad will be writing to address theist talking heads in the media. Kelly is a Psychology major, co-host of the RRS Radio show, and has been featured on ABC debating Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. All articles may be reprinted in any major media publication or any blog. All articles will be submitted by Kelly or an assistant to the major media outlet that initially published the story as well as to the author of the original piece(when possible). Reprints are encouraged in blogs and must link to source. Reprints in media will be thanked in our book, so please alert us if you repost any story. Media outlets may shorten articles if necessary without removing context. Upon completion, a book and documentary will be made about the year (ending Oct. 31, 2008) and our plight to have dishonest argumentation countered with rational and factual answers in the press. If you would like Kelly to address any major media story from a theist talking head, please post a link to the article in her blog. We welcome messages from leading atheists asking us to refute stories attacking them and their views. At the end of the year the writings will be given some bulk, some supporting citations, and edits from a publisher to be compiled in a book. The book will include a documentary DVD shot from Sapient's vantage point as he works alongside Kelly, asking her questions about the project as it moves along.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007 

Current mood:  cheerful
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007 

Current mood:  accomplished
Category: News and Politics


The video on youtube.

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Brian Sapient blogs about heading to Borders to pick up Radar Magazine.

Some behind the scenes details about the documentary with the the Rational Response Squad can be found here.  (includes videos)

Margaret Downey makes big steps to unite atheists.

Operation Spread Eagle

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Friday, October 06, 2006 

Current mood:  accomplished
IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION READ EVERYTHING FIRST, CLICK LINKS!  COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS SHOULD BE POSTED PUBLICLY IN THIS THREAD FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL PARTICIPANTS!  PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THE INFORMATION OF THIS SUBMISSION DRIVE FREELY.

The Rational Response Squad is proud to announce a call to action for content submissisions.  Over the last several months we have been blown away by the positive feedback we've received from the freethinking community.  Thanks to everyone who has placed a banner, or our player on your website and helped spread the word in some manner.   We've received many great written submissions of thoughts and views, but had no place to put them, so we've created a guideline to help you, help us.  The categories in which we need submissions are listed below, send us your best material.  Your writings will be added to our library of articles, essays, and debunkings.  We're hoping to build one of the largest and diverse free libraries of rational thoughts on the internet.  In addition to hosting everything in a free web archive, we may also compile views into a free e-book or a book for sale to generate money for activist projects. Not that you need a reward to share your views with others, but as a thank you we'll be awarding prizes to as many of the top participants as we can.  Prizes will be awarded based on effort put in and quality of writing.  We're also offering special prizes in a video submission contest.  Aside from the little prizes were giving away, if you have a freethought themed website, we will gladly put the URL within your piece and possibly host you on a show as well.  We've put the categories in order of need and may alter the order later as submissions come in
Prizes will be awarded March 1st, but you can continue to submit content well after March 1st.
The first section is a brief summary of items in need, the following section is a further explanation of the same topics and what we're looking for.
BRIEF SUMMARY SECTION
ARTICLE SUBMISSION REQUESTS IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE
  1. Flyer creation for the Rational Response Squad Perpetual Enlightenment. (a counter to Christian "tracts") Submissions go here.
  2. In the spirit of the new Sam Harris book, "Letter to a Christian Nation" write an essay imploring theists to leave their irrational beliefs behind.  Example here  Submissions go here.
    3.  
  3. Write an essay entitled "I am the Rational Response Squad" (please see details below) Submissions go here.
  4. Write a letter to a specific loved one or friend who embraces an irrational theistic worldview.  Example here  Submissions go here.
  5. A debunking of any creationist or theist site.  Also debunkings of specific arguments of theists.  Example here  Submissions go here.
    6.    
  6. Write an essay entitled "I am every atheist" (please see details below) Submissions go here.
    7.    
  7. Essay explaining the origins of Christmas and/or Easter, and how Christianity stole previous holidays.  Submissions go here.
    8.  
  8. Flyer creation for War on Christmas and/or War on Easter.  Submissions go here.
VIDEO SUBMISSION REQUESTS SPECIAL CASH PRIZES AWARDED IN THIS CATEGORY!
  1. Create the most creative video portraying a War on Christmas mission.  Don't do anything illegal!  Plant a DVD or a flyer in a Church, possibly interview Churchgoers for a reaction to the "War on Christmas."
  2. Create the best music video for Proclaims' song "Brainwashed" download the original, download the remix.
  3. Create the best music video for the title track to Proclaims' new album "Question Everything" download
    4.  
  4. Create a music video consisting of religious attrocity footage for Amanda Blooms' song "Magdalene" download
PRIZES FOR SUBMISSIONSTONS OF PRIZES AWARDED FOR THE MOST HELPFUL PARTICIPANTS AND THE BEST ENTRIES!
______________________________________
FURTHER EXPLANATION
ARTICLE SUBMISSION REQUESTS IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE
  1. Flyer creation for the Rational Response Squad Perpetual Enlightenment. (a counter to Christian "tracts")The ideal flyer would be one that captures your attention, is not too confrontational and is filled with verifiable facts.  Flyers can be pictorial or textual and up to two pages (one piece front and back).  The perfect flyer encourages the reader to find out more about the flaws in theism after they've read it.  Possibly the biggest prize of all is having a flyer you created handed out millions of times over the rest of your life in an attempt to help our fellow man abandon his mind crutch.  There are so many ways to attack religion, we're reluctant to suggest how best to go about it.  Pick a theme, come up with something that people will actually want to read, and people will actually want to hand out.  If you're a cartoon artist or can sketch something out you may want to make a comic strip.  If you would like to make your message very small and to the point, this may be a good method as well.  Smaller messages save paper, you could print it two (or more) times per page and fill front and back!  All flyers should link people to www.RationalResponders.com

  2. In the spirit of the new Sam Harris book, "Letter to a Christian Nation" write an essay imploring theists to leave their irrational beliefs behind.  Example hereYour essay can be any length, although 2-5 pages is a good size.  There are so many ways to tackle this, as there are so many flaws in theistic faith.  Keep your arguments based on facts, evidence, and reason, we hold the intellectual highground, lets prove it.  Here is a thread that has some ideas on how one might write a good essay imploring theists to abandon theism.  You might also want to read Atheist Manifesto by Sam Harris for some ideas.  Your letter can be addressed to a Christian, Muslim, any specific type of theist, or theists in general. Unlike the letter to a friend you should not write this letter to a specific person, although you can revise your letter to make it fit the other category and submit two seperate letters.
    3.  
     
  3. Write an essay entitled "I am the Rational Response Squad"Do you remember the Tiger Woods commercials "I am Tiger Woods?" This essay and the "I am every atheist" essay are based loosely on that ideal.  The notion that everyone is Tiger Woods is obviously absurd, however there are certain shared qualities and principles that embody a young golfer who strives for perfection, qualities that Tiger Woods has.  In the same regard, there are certain similarities amongst people who speak up about the dangers or problems of religion.  There are certain things we have in common, even though as atheists, the only thing we must have in common is lack of belief in a god, there are often many shared principles and ideals.  You should write a paper of any length but preferably of about 1 page as to why you are the Rational Response Squad.  Your piece should start and end with the same sentence "I am the Rational Response Squad."  If you prefer to express yourself through poetry, please feel free to do so.   Here is a list of some irrationalities the Rational Response Squad speaks out against.  Keep in mind that being a Rational Responder simply means we are capable of responding responding rationally, and specifically to the irrationalities listed here.  Essays can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as several pages.

  4. Write a letter to a specific loved one or friend who embraces an irrational theistic worldview.  Example hereWe recently purchased several new websites that will likely get a lot of public attention once they are up and running.  The theme of these websites is that "God stole my friends/mom/family."  Very often we hear people with prayer requests for non believers, or we get told that Satan led us to non-belief, however there is another side to that story, a side which is often silenced likely due to the fact that non-believers are a minority.  Who cares what we think right?  Well not anymore.  Atheists have emotions too, we care too, theists don't have the market cornered on emotion.  If you choose to accept this mission you should write a letter to a specific theist you care about, explain to them how much it hurts to see them have a deluded view of reality, or a life based on faith, hypocrisy, etc.  Write about whatever flaws in your relationship or their life you feel have come out of their religious belief.  You don't have to send this letter to them, and if you want, it can all remain anonymous, however it will be posted for public viewing.  Letters can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as several pages.

  5. A debunking of any creationist or theist site.  Also debunkings of specific arguments of theists.Example here  Every theist website on the internet deserves a debunking.  They need to be outed for their dishonest, absurd, and false claims.  Some sites are much worse than others.  RationalResponders.com carries a high weighting with the search engines and it's likely that your efforts will show up high in the search engines when someone seeks out the theist site you choose to debunk.  Make clear and factual arguments, point out as many flaws as possible in as much detail as possible, debunking as much of the site as possible.  If you are an author or simply have a freethought themed website, this would be a great way to help us and draw traffic to your site at the same time.  Articles can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as you want.  Here is a good example of a page you could debunk from http://www.josh.org/.
    6.    
  6. Write an essay entitled "I am every atheist"Special thanks to Jake for this idea.  As Jake puts it, "The idea is to show commonalities between atheists. To show that even though people may be diverse, we still have some basic things in common."  These essays are much like the "I am the Rational Response Squad" essays, however they are better suited for the atheist that doesn't subscribe to the same sort of activism that RRS engages in.  You may submit two essays (one for each category) that are similar, and use one to help compile the other.  Like the RRS essay, please start and end with the sentence "I am every atheist."  Articles can be as short as two paragraphs and as long as several pages.
    7.    
  7. Essay explaining the origins of Christmas and/or Easter, and how Christianity stole previous holidays.This essay can be played from so many angles.  You could write about how that Jesus (if he ever existed) wasn't born in December.  You could write about Saturnalia/Festivus/Pagan holiday origins.  You could integrate those points into the history of the Church silencing opposition.  For Easter you can speak about the first Easter celebration occurring hundreds of years before Jesus was born, or maybe it's origins in fertility.  Feel free to link in some of the other myths that were used when creating the Jesus myth like Osiris-Dionysus.  Your essays should be posted here and can be any length.   We don't need many submissions in this forum, we're looking for about 10 viewpoints, and then we may remove this item from the list. 

    8.    
  8. Flyer creation for War on Christmas and/or War on Easter.The notion behind these flyers is very similar to the flyers for "The Perpetual Enlightenment," please refer to the ideas given under that item with the exception that now you'll link those ideas to Easter or Christmas.  Flyers can be pictorial or textual, and should be no more than 2 page faces (1 page front and back).  Flyers should be to the point, and implore Christians to research their beliefs further.  All flyers should link people to www.RationalResponders.com AND www.EndChristmas.com or www.WaronEaster.org depending on which holiday the flyer is for.


VIDEO SUBMISSION REQUESTS SPECIAL CASH PRIZES AWARDED IN THIS CATEGORY!
  • Video submissions can be made here!
  • Videos should contain appropriate links if you have the ability to add text to your video.  Either link to RationalResponders.com/EndChristmas.com or the artist you made a video for.
  •  A great idea for both Amanda and Proclaim might be to choreograph a compilation of religious attrocites set to their music. 
  • Music videos should have the text "Music by......"  and "Song title......"   It should also include an RRS logo at some point.
  • A great video could bring you major exposure if you are a budding director!
  •   Creation of the best music videos may earn you a place as director if Proclaim or Amanda rise to the point where they can create a made for MTV video!
  •   This site might help you with capturing footage for your video.
  • You could use this site to create a video based on pictures.
  • You should upload your videos to youtube and send us a link.  If you are unable to place a text link within your video you must link to the appropriate site in the description of your video. You should also make sure to keep the video on your hard drive in case we want to store it on our server and host it from our site without youtube.
  • We'll create a library of videos for people to view and we'll draw traffic to your youtube page... be prepared to retort comments on your youtube page!
  1. Create the most creative video portraying a War on Christmas mission.  Don't do anything illegal!  Plant a DVD or a flyer in a Church, possibly interview Churchgoers for a reaction to the "War on Christmas." A "War on Christmas" mission consists of either giving a DVD to a Christian at a Church, placing a DVD in a Church, posting a flyer outside a Church or handing them out at Church.  You can listen to the short episodes about the War on Easter for free (right here) to get more ideas. Visit www.WaronEaster.org for pictures of the many different "missions" people conducted in the Spring.  If you don't have a legitimate War on Christmas flyer or God Who Wasn't There DVD that's ok!  Keep in mind this is a theatrical piece, it's essentially an advertisement for the project, you can stage the entire thing or place a mock DVD if needed.  Of course, it would be great if you could incorporate real War on Christmas missions into this, however we are in need of material well before Christmas to help advertise the project.  You are not limited to one submission.  If you feel someone created a video much better than yours, you can submit again, or submit an early theatrical version, and then the real thing after Christmas.  You may want to make your mission appear guerilla like, with a ski mask motif.  Or maybe you'll want to ask questions of Christians outside of a Church (blurring out their face unless you get signed permission) inciting funny answers about the War on Christmas.  Come up with a creative idea to draw attention to this project!  A good possible tag line is "This Christmas no Church is safe from the truth!"

    2. PRIZES!First Place: $50 CASH, Flemming Signed TGWWT DVD, Free Lifetime Subscription to RRS
    Second Place:     $30 CASH, Flemming Signed TGWWT DVD, Free Lifetime Subscription to RRS
    Third Place: $20 CASH, Flemming Signed TGWWT DVD, First 25 shows of RRS for free


  2. Create the best music video for Proclaims' song "Brainwashed" download the original, download the remix.
  3. Create the best music video for the title track to Proclaims' new album "Question Everything" downloadPhilosopher and psychologist Proclaim is debuting his first EP this fall entitled "Question Everything."  Check out the intro song he did for our show.  If you live in the Los Angeles area Proclaim is willing to make himself available to you within 30 minutes of his location for a total of 2 hours to help you create a video representative of either of his two songs.  Come up with something creative and original.  If you need to ask Proclaim anything pertaining to this project, send him a message via his myspace.  Amanda Bloom had the idea to set her song "Magdalene" to a backdrop of religious attrocities, either pictures or video... this idea could work for Proclaims songs as well.  Lyrics are available here.
    4.  
    Only one grand prize will be awarded between both songs:
    First Place:     $75 CASH, Proclaim Signed New Album "Question Everything," Free Lifetime Subscription to RRS
    Second Place and Third Place:     Proclaim Signed New Album "Question Everything," First 25 shows of RRS for free

  4. Create a music video consisting of religious attrocity footage for Amanda Blooms' song "Magdalene" download  The rules under the main heading for video submissions and the section on Proclaims' videos are a good guidlines to help you in creating a good video for "Magdalene."  If you would like to learn more about the song and it's meaning see Amandas' blog on the issue.
    5. PRIZES:
    First Place:     Be the first one to own Amanda Blooms' new EP when available, personalized to you(signed)! Plus a free Lifetime Subscription to RRS
    Second Place:     Signed copy of Amanda Blooms' new EP when available, plus first 25 shows of RRS for free
    </ol>
    Fine print for an overly litigious society: You will retain shared copyright.  You may use your article or video in any manner and the Rational Response Squad may as well.  We may use portions of articles to create a main compilation article, or use ideas from pieces.  If a compilation piece is made you will be credited for your work.  An editor may touch up grammatical errors or spelling mistakes on your behalf without adjusting the context.  You might produce a video in poor quality but have an excellent idea, we may utilize your idea and reshoot the project, you would still be awarded a prize.  We may need to add our logos, overlay text, identifying marks, or links to a final version of a winning video.  We will take the utmost care in never changing your context or using your piece in a method you wouldn't approve of, but we must retain the right to use your piece in literature, on our sites, on our broadcasts, or for any other reason in any manor we see fit.  If you are not a member, PLEASE take the time to create an account at RationalResponders.com, this is the best way to pot your content as it ensures you get proper credit and minimizes excessive workload for RRS staff.  
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Friday, September 29, 2006 

Current mood:  accomplished
An Atheist Manifesto
by Sam Harris
Sam Harris argues against irrational faith and its adherents
Originally posted atTruthdig

Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture, and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of six billion human beings.
The same statistics also suggest that this girl's parents believe -- at this very moment -- that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this?

No.

The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be observed and re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It carries with it an aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is, moreover, a job that the atheist does not want.

It is worth noting that no one ever need identify himself as a non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words for people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines. Likewise, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. The atheist is merely a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (eighty-seven percent of the population) who claim to "never doubt the existence of God" should be obliged to present evidence for his existence -- and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day. Only the atheist appreciates just how uncanny our situation is: most of us believe in a God that is every bit as specious as the gods of Mount Olympus; no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain that such a God exists; and much of what passes for public policy in our country conforms to religious taboos and superstitions appropriate to a medieval theocracy. Our circumstance is abject, indefensible, and terrifying. It would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high.

We live in a world where all things, good and bad, are finally destroyed by change. Parents lose their children and children their parents. Husbands and wives are separated in an instant, never to meet again. Friends part company in haste, without knowing that it will be for the last time. This life, when surveyed with a broad glance, presents little more than a vast spectacle of loss. Most people in this world, however, imagine that there is a cure for this. If we live rightly—not necessarily ethically, but within the framework of certain ancient beliefs and stereotyped behaviors—we will get everything we want after we die. When our bodies finally fail us, we just shed our corporeal ballast and travel to a land where we are reunited with everyone we loved while alive. Of course, overly rational people and other rabble will be kept out of this happy place, and those who suspended their disbelief while alive will be free to enjoy themselves for all eternity.

We live in a world of unimaginable surprises--from the fusion energy that lights the sun to the genetic and evolutionary consequences of this lights dancing for eons upon the Earth--and yet Paradise conforms to our most superficial concerns with all the fidelity of a Caribbean cruise. This is wondrously strange. If one didn't know better, one would think that man, in his fear of losing all that he loves, had created heaven, along with its gatekeeper God, in his own image.

Consider the destruction that Hurricane Katrina leveled on New Orleans. More than a thousand people died, tens of thousands lost all their earthly possessions, and nearly a million were displaced. It is safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Katrina struck believed in an omnipotent, omniscient and compassionate God. But what was God doing while a hurricane laid waste to their city? Surely he heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. These were people of faith. These were good men and women who had prayed throughout their lives. Only the atheist has the courage to admit the obvious: These poor people died talking to an imaginary friend.

Of course, there had been ample warning that a storm of biblical proportions would strike New Orleans, and the human response to the ensuing disaster was tragically inept. But it was inept only by the light of science. Advance warning of Katrina's path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of his plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of the Lord, they wouldn't have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. Nevertheless, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80% of Katrina's survivors claim that the event has only strengthened their faith in God.

As Hurricane Katrina was devouring New Orleans, nearly a thousand Shiite pilgrims were trampled to death on a bridge in Iraq. There can be no doubt that these pilgrims believed mightily in the God of the Koran: Their lives were organized around the indisputable fact of his existence; their women walked veiled before him; their men regularly murdered one another over rival interpretations of his word. It would be remarkable if a single survivor of this tragedy lost his faith. More likely, the survivors imagine that they were spared through God's grace.

Only the atheist recognizes the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved. Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God while this same God drowned infants in their cribs. Because he refuses to cloak the reality of the world's suffering in a cloying fantasy of eternal life, the atheist feels in his bones just how precious life is--and, indeed, how unfortunate it is that millions of human beings suffer the most harrowing abridgements of their happiness for no good reason at all.

One wonders just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be to shake the world's faith. The Holocaust did not do it. Neither did the genocide in Rwanda, even with machete-wielding priests among the perpetrators. Five hundred million people died of smallpox in the 20th Century, many of them infants. God's ways are, indeed, inscrutable. It seems that any fact, no matter how infelicitous, can be rendered compatible with religious faith. In matters of faith, we have kicked ourselves loose of the Earth.

Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either he can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities or he does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God's goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If he exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.

There is another possibility, of course, and it is both the most reasonable and least odious: The biblical God is a fiction. As Richard Dawkins has observed, we are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor. Only the atheist has realized that the biblical god is no different. Consequently, only the atheist is compassionate enough to take the profundity of the world's suffering at face value. It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer needlessly while alive. That so much of this suffering can be directly attributed to religion--to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious delusions and religious diversions of scarce resources--is what makes atheism a moral and intellectual necessity. It is a necessity, however, that places the atheist at the margins of society. The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

The Nature of Belief

According to several recent polls, 22% of Americans are certain that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years. Another 22% believe that he will probably do so. This is likely the same 44% who go to church once a week or more, who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews and who want to stop teaching our children about the biological fact of evolution. As President Bush is well aware, believers of this sort constitute the most cohesive and motivated segment of the American electorate. Consequently, their views and prejudices now influence almost every decision of national importance. Political liberals seem to have drawn the wrong lesson from these developments and are now thumbing Scripture, wondering how best to ingratiate themselves to the legions of men and women in our country who vote largely on the basis of religious dogma. More than 50% of Americans have a "negative" or "highly negative" view of people who do not believe in God; 70% think it important for presidential candidates to be "strongly religious." Unreason is now ascendant in the United States--in our schools, in our courts and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28% of Americans believe in evolution; 68% believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.

Although it is easy enough for smart people to criticize religious fundamentalism, something called "religious moderation" still enjoys immense prestige in our society, even in the ivory tower. This is ironic, as fundamentalists tend to make a more principled use of their brains than "moderates" do. While fundamentalists justify their religious beliefs with extraordinarily poor evidence and arguments, at least they make an attempt at rational justification. Moderates, on the other hand, generally do nothing more than cite the good consequences of religious belief. Rather than say that they believe in God because certain biblical prophecies have come true, moderates will say that they believe in God because this belief "gives their lives meaning." When a tsunami killed a few hundred thousand people on the day after Christmas, fundamentalists readily interpreted this cataclysm as evidence of God's wrath. As it turns out, God was sending humanity another oblique message about the evils of abortion, idolatry and homosexuality. While morally obscene, this interpretation of events is actually reasonable, given certain (ludicrous) assumptions. Moderates, on the other hand, refuse to draw any conclusions whatsoever about God from his works. God remains a perfect mystery, a mere source of consolation that is compatible with the most desolating evil. In the face of disasters like the Asian tsunami, liberal piety is apt to produce the most unctuous and stupefying nonsense imaginable. And yet, men and women of goodwill naturally prefer such vacuities to the odious moralizing and prophesizing of true believers. Between catastrophes, it is surely a virtue of liberal theology that it emphasizes mercy over wrath. It is worth noting, however, that it is human mercy on display--not God's--when the bloated bodies of the dead are pulled from the sea. On days when thousands of children are simultaneously torn from their mothers' arms and casually drowned, liberal theology must stand revealed for what it is--the sheerest of mortal pretenses. Even the theology of wrath has more intellectual merit. If God exists, his will is not inscrutable. The only thing inscrutable in these terrible events is that so many neurologically healthy men and women can believe the unbelievable and think this the height of moral wisdom.

It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, "This belief gives my life meaning," or "My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays," or "I wouldn't want to live in a universe where there wasn't a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator." Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot.

Here we can see why Pascal's wager, Kierkegaard's leap of faith and other epistemological Ponzi schemes won't do. To believe that God exists is to believe that one stands in some relation to his existence such that his existence is itself the reason for one's belief. There must be some causal connection, or an appearance thereof, between the fact in question and a person's acceptance of it. In this way, we can see that religious beliefs, to be beliefs about the way the world is, must be as evidentiary in spirit as any other. For all their sins against reason, religious fundamentalists understand this; moderates--almost by definition--do not.

The incompatibility of reason and faith has been a self-evident feature of human cognition and public discourse for centuries. Either a person has good reasons for what he strongly believes or he does not. People of all creeds naturally recognize the primacy of reasons and resort to reasoning and evidence wherever they possibly can. When rational inquiry supports the creed it is always championed; when it poses a threat, it is derided; sometimes in the same sentence. Only when the evidence for a religious doctrine is thin or nonexistent, or there is compelling evidence against it, do its adherents invoke "faith." Otherwise, they simply cite the reasons for their beliefs (e.g. "the New Testament confirms Old Testament prophecy," "I saw the face of Jesus in a window," "We prayed, and our daughter's cancer went into remission"). Such reasons are generally inadequate, but they are better than no reasons at all. Faith is nothing more than the license religious people give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail. In a world that has been shattered by mutually incompatible religious beliefs, in a nation that is growing increasingly beholden to Iron Age conceptions of God, the end of history and the immortality of the soul, this lazy partitioning of our discourse into matters of reason and matters of faith is now unconscionable.

Faith and the Good Society

People of faith regularly claim that atheism is responsible for some of the most appalling crimes of the 20th century. Although it is true that the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were irreligious to varying degrees, they were not especially rational. In fact, their public pronouncements were little more than litanies of delusion--delusions about race, economics, national identity, the march of history or the moral dangers of intellectualism. In many respects, religion was directly culpable even here. Consider the Holocaust: The anti-Semitism that built the Nazi crematoria brick by brick was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, religious Germans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominately secular way, the religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued. (The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914.)

Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields are not examples of what happens when people become too critical of unjustified beliefs; to the contrary, these horrors testify to the dangers of not thinking critically enough about specific secular ideologies. Needless to say, a rational argument against religious faith is not an argument for the blind embrace of atheism as a dogma. The problem that the atheist exposes is none other than the problem of dogma itself--of which every religion has more than its fair share. There is no society in recorded history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

While most Americans believe that getting rid of religion is an impossible goal, much of the developed world has already accomplished it. Any account of a "god gene" that causes the majority of Americans to helplessly organize their lives around ancient works of religious fiction must explain why so many inhabitants of other First World societies apparently lack such a gene. The level of atheism throughout the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that religion is somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on Earth. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the 50 nations now ranked lowest in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious. Other analyses paint the same picture: The United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms.

Of course, correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality--belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a society's health.

Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France 15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475 to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through the eye of a needle.

Religion as a Source of Violence

One of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the 21st century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns--about ethics, spiritual experience and the inevitability of human suffering--in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith. Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities--Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc.--and these divisions have become a continuous source of human conflict. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews versus Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians versus Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians versus Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants versus Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims versus Hindus), Sudan (Muslims versus Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims versus Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims versus Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists versus Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims versus Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite versus Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians versus Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis versus Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. In these places religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in the last 10 years.

In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the obvious: Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing degree. Religion inspires violence in at least two senses: (1) People often kill other human beings because they believe that the creator of the universe wants them to do it (the inevitable psychopathic corollary being that the act will ensure them an eternity of happiness after death). Examples of this sort of behavior are practically innumerable, jihadist suicide bombing being the most prominent. (2) Larger numbers of people are inclined toward religious conflict simply because their religion constitutes the core of their moral identities. One of the enduring pathologies of human culture is the tendency to raise children to fear and demonize other human beings on the basis of religion. Many religious conflicts that seem driven by terrestrial concerns, therefore, are religious in origin. (Just ask the Irish.)

These facts notwithstanding, religious moderates tend to imagine that human conflict is always reducible to a lack of education, to poverty or to political grievances. This is one of the many delusions of liberal piety. To dispel it, we need only reflect on the fact that the Sept. 11 hijackers were college educated and middle class and had no discernable history of political oppression. They did, however, spend an inordinate amount of time at their local mosque talking about the depravity of infidels and about the pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise. How many more architects and mechanical engineers must hit the wall at 400 miles an hour before we admit to ourselves that jihadist violence is not a matter of education, poverty or politics? The truth, astonishingly enough, is this: A person can be so well educated that he can build a nuclear bomb while still believing that he will get 72 virgins in Paradise. Such is the ease with which the human mind can be partitioned by faith, and such is the degree to which our intellectual discourse still patiently accommodates religious delusion. Only the atheist has observed what should now be obvious to every thinking human being: If we want to uproot the causes of religious violence we must uproot the false certainties of religion.

Why is religion such a potent source of human violence?
  • Our religions are intrinsically incompatible with one another. Either Jesus rose from the dead and will be returning to Earth like a superhero or not; either the Koran is the infallible word of God or it isn't. Every religion makes explicit claims about the way the world is, and the sheer profusion of these incompatible claims creates an enduring basis for conflict.
    •  
       
  • There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us-them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If a person really believes that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. It may even be reasonable to kill them. If a person thinks there is something that another person can say to his children that could put their souls in jeopardy for all eternity, then the heretic next door is actually far more dangerous than the child molester. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism or politics.
    •  
  • Religious faith is a conversation-stopper. Religion is only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and--all too often--what they will kill for. This is a problem, because when the stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence. Only a fundamental willingness to be reasonable--to have our beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments--can guarantee that we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by their dogmas.

It seems profoundly unlikely that we will heal the divisions in our world simply by multiplying the opportunities for interfaith dialogue. The endgame for civilization cannot be mutual tolerance of patent irrationality. While all parties to liberal religious discourse have agreed to tread lightly over those points where their worldviews would otherwise collide, these very points remain perpetual sources of conflict for their coreligionists. Political correctness, therefore, does not offer an enduring basis for human cooperation. If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our having dispensed with the dogma of faith.

When we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; when we have no reasons, or bad ones, we have lost our connection to the world and to one another. Atheism is nothing more than a commitment to the most basic standard of intellectual honesty: One's convictions should be proportional to one's evidence. Pretending to be certain when one isn't--indeed, pretending to be certain about propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable--is both an intellectual and a moral failing. Only the atheist has realized this. The atheist is simply a person who has perceived the lies of religion and refused to make them his own.

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12:06 AM 
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Monday, June 26, 2006 
Surely if an all knowing god exists he knew that I would come into existence showing believers the flaws in his system, showing believers that the Abrahmic gods are impossible. If this god is all powerful he would've also been able to make sure I never came into existence, and this wouldn't have affected the free will of believers in the least. That argument aside, here's a more basic one for you...

Today, I was set to play a round of golf with my son. It rained. So instead of golfing I engaged several theists in a debate, recorded audio responses to irrational mail, worked in other back-end areas for RRS (try to avoid the easy joke), and edited a portion of a future show. Surely an all knowing god would've known that it was either golf or help end Religion. God chose to make it rain so that I would help end Religion, god wants me to end Religion.

Or maybe, just maybe... god doesn't exist. Think theists.

In Reality,

Sapient
www.rationalresponders.com

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Sunday, April 23, 2006 
FROM: http://myweb.cableone.net/silentdave/how_to_irritate_an_atheist.htm

"How to Irritate an atheist"

Some foolproof methods to irritate your favorite atheist. Just be careful how you use them, or you may start wondering why the atheist is strangling you.

1) Ask them why they are bitter against God.

2) Tell them that if there's no God, they might as well go out and kill people.

3) Ask them to pray with you.

4) Invite their children to go to church with you.

5) Insist that there is a God, and show them where in the Bible it says so.

6) Hide Chick tracts in clever places around their office.

7) Tell them that the universe is too complex to "just exist," and must have been created by a God who "just exists."

8) Make up statistics.

9) End a discussion with "Well, I know you're smarter than I am, but I know I'm right."

10) Accuse them of persecuting you.

11) Bring up arguments that make no sense whatsoever; criticze their response with "You're just not making sense."

12) Use multiple versions of Pascal's Wager as though you thought them up yourself.

13) Use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to disprove evolution.

14) Post inane arguments on the Internet, and never follow up on them.

15) Say that seperation of church and state isn't in the Constitution; insist that the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments.

16) Cite Kent Hovind as a legitimate source of information.

17) ...and call him "Dr. Hovind."

18) Tell them they know in their hearts that God exists.

19) Point out that we all take things on faith.

20) Before starting an argument, say "You're an atheist? That means you're going to hell!"

21) After losing the argument say, "I pity you."

22) Accuse them of willfully ignoring the "obvious truth."

23) Use bad math to back up your claims.

24) Drink the last beer in the fridge.

25) ...and buy natural light to replace it.

26) Witness for Jesus, and completely ignore anything your competition says.

27) Call him a meanie.

28) Tell him you don't care what you say or prove, you will still have your faith.

29) When given a Bible verse that looks bad, tell him that's what the verse says, but that's not what it means.

30) Argue that the Bible stories are not myths . . . they're parables. And they're all true!

31) Lead off your criticism of the Big Bang theory with the disclaimer that you're not a physicist like he is.

32) Lead off your suggestions for ways to prove that Noah's Flood occured with the disclaimer that you're not a geologist like he is.

33) Overwhelm him with your knowledge of science, using examples: "And because of entropy you have to press the nozzle on the spray can. The nozzle is entropy."

34) Use Latin a lot.

35) Maintain that the King James Version is THE Bible; ignore questions as to who was saved prior to 1611.

36) Tell him that Moses wrote the Books of Moses.

37) Explain that the lack of proof doesn't mean it didn't happen.

38) ...and give him a blank look when he says that all people tried for a crime would go to jail.

39) Blame absolutely everything wrong in society on evolution.

40) Repeat something over and over, as if that made it true.

41) Repeat something over and over, as if that made it true.

42) Repeat something over and over, as if that made it true.

43) Tell him that he acknowledges Christ every time he uses "A.D." -- which, of course, stands for "After Death."

44) Accuse him of being an agnostic, since he isn't 100% positive that God does not exist.

45) Insist that the Bible is meant to be taken literally -- all except that verse he just showed you.

46) Tell him that God works in mysterious ways.

47) ...and we're too small to comprehend his reasoning.

48) ...and we shouldn't think of him as "how he should be."

49) Point out that the fact that he talks about God so much proves God's existence.

50) Tell him you know God exists because Mount Everest exists.

51) If a plane crashes killing 300 passengers and crew, but one little girl survives with only third-degree burns, tell him that this miracle proves the existence of God.

52) Insist that Noah's Ark and the Shroud of Turin are real.

53) ...and tell him about the special on FOX where you saw it.

54) When he shows you a verse about genocide, ask him how he dares to question the morality of God.

55) Punch him in the face. Hard.

56) When asked to prove a statement you made, say that you already proved it.

57) Tell him that we all fall short of God's grace.

58) Insist that faith is the only logical answer.

59) No matter what he quotes from the Bible, say that it's out of context.

60) ...and when he points out that the quotes are in correct context, tell him you need to be a Christian to understand the true meaning of the Bible.

61) Tell him you must study the Bible for many years to reject Christianity.

62) ...and when he points out that you reject Islam despite never having studied the Qu'ran, say that you have faith, and faith is all you need.

63) Ask him how he knows God isn't real if he can't see the air.

64) Sigh, shake your head, and say "I just know that someday you'll need Jesus."

65) Talk about how you used to be a miserable, sinning, drug-abusing, alcoholic, sex-addicted, spouse-beating criminal until you found God.

66) Change your handle every couple weeks.

67) Knock on his door at 9:00 in the morning and offer him a pamphlet.

68) Tell him that God loves him, even if he doesn't love himself.

69) Admonish him to have sex for reproductive purposes only.

70) Tell him about Christ's plan for salvation for the billionth time.

71) Refuse to debate.

72) Name a bunch of smart Christian people.

73) ...and when he names a bunch of smart atheist people, call him stupid.

74) Attribute every apparent error in the Bible to mistranslation.

75) ...and then pull up a mistranslation from Isaiah to prove that Jesus fulfilled prophecy.

76) Burn him at the stake.

77) When shown that the Bible says that Pi=3, say that the Hebrews didn't know anything about science, so it's not their fault.

78) When shown the creation account in Genesis, insist that the Hebrews had all kinds of scientific savvy, being inspired by God.

79) Lead him on until the very last moment, then tell him no . . . not until you're married.

80) Insist that a person who makes Christianity look bad was not a True Christian.

81) Claim intellectual superiority on the grounds that only smart people read the Bible.

82) Smile smugly and tell him that there are no atheists in foxholes.

83) Quote Psalm 14:1 to him.

84) ...and then tell him that you think highly of him, and want to be his friend.

85) Give him the special gift of his very own "paraphrased" modern Bible.

86) Speak to him with a fake Australian accent.

87) Cite the TGE Project as a collection of successful proofs for God's existence.

88) Threaten to kill yourself if he doesn't believe.

89) Equivocate scientific faith with religious faith, and conclude that, metaphysically, you are both in the same boat.

90) Claim that archaeology is proof of the Bible's truth.

91) Misconstrue logical terms in order to prove that logic does not work.

92) Claim that logic is the atheist's god.

93) Claim that atheism is not only a belief -- it's a knowledge claim.

94) Support your ludicrous contentions with "Most scholars agree that..."

95) Use only circular reasoning.

96) Claim that the atheist only uses circular reasoning.

97) Claim that circular reasoning is legitimate due to circular reasoning being legitimate.

98) Use the phrase "Hate the sin, love the sinner" as a blanket response to the notion that Christianity is at fault for something.

99) State that Christianity has done a lot of good along with all the mass murder.

100) When asked to explain a theological concept, compare it to something simple, like "water," and then misunderstand that you have incorrectly labeled the constructs of your analogy, then dismiss the whole thing with, "You've just got to have faith."

101) Upon hearing that he is an atheist, jump back reflexively, as if you don't want to catch whatever it is he's got.

102) ...then look at him as if he were a diseased leper who just spit in your eye.

103) End all your posts with John 3:16.

104) ...or "God Bless."

105) When he takes the time and trouble to explain where your analogy or interpretation is at fault, begin your response with a sigh, so he'll know how patient you're being.

106) Open a minor-league baseball game with the national anthem, followed by a gospel quartet singing a hymn, and solemn prayer. (True story!)

107) Open and close a martial arts class with obligatory prayer, including the spectators. (Another true story!)

108) Claim that God chooses who is going to heaven and humans have nothing to do with his decision, but he's going to hell because he sinned.

109) State that whatever he says is not worthy of consideration, because the Bible says atheists can't discern what's true anyway.

110) Offer inane apologetics books in the hopes that he hasn't heard the arguments in them a thousand times already.

111) Patiently explain that the 42 children that were torn to bits by two bears sent by God were not really children, but spawn of Satan.

112) When asked if they would sacrifice their own child for God, respond with "God would never ask me to do that."

113) Carefully explain that Lot's daughters were never in danger of gang rape, and that Lot knew this all along.

114) Most carefully of all, explain that while all of the Bible is inerrant, Revelation does not literally mean what it says.

115) Tell him that God answers all prayers -- sometimes the answer is no.

116) Tell him that Christians aren't perfect -- just forgiven.

117) Tell him that he can't love anyone -- that's why he can't love God.

118) Offer to drive, then insist on listening to Christian Talk Radio.

119) ...and laugh when you hear "This condom-nation will face condemnation."

120) Claim that Einstein was a Christian.

121) Claim that Darwin recanted evolution on his deathbed.

122) Tell him that he'll come around just like your daughter did . . . when she got confirmed just so that she could get married in a big church.

123) Vehemently claim that the theory of evolution is incompatible with theism, then turn around and blame the theory for promoting atheism.

124) Say that evolution is not proven -- therefore the Bible is correct.

125) Tell him it's his responsibility to prove that God doesn't exist.

126) Invite him to a church social function, and show up late.

127) ...because you were with his wife.

128) Deny that his child looks like him.

129) Ask what he believes in, if not God.

130) ...then tell him that nonbelief is also a worldview, therefore there is no such thing as an atheist and Christianity is true.

131) Explain that Buddha's last words were "Jesus, forgive me."

132) ...and tell him that you were "saved" when you heard that story.

133) ...and when he explains that Buddha died 500 years before Jesus was born, give him a blank look.

134) Say that God can't reveal himself with any real proof, because that would remove the need for faith.

135) When something awful happens, tell him not to blame God -- he doesn't interfere.

136) When something wonderful happens, tell him to credit God -- he made it happen.

137) Tell him not to ask what happens to those who have never heard of Jesus . . . HE has, and what is HE going to do about it?

138) Explain that it doesn't matter whether or not he thinks he's sinned -- all humans were imbued with original sin at the moment of their birth.

139) ...then tell him that babies automatically go to heaven.

140) ...and mentally retarded people.

141) ...and those with Down's Syndrome.

142) Treat nothing he says as credible, because he is possessed by Satan.

143) Show that the Bible must be true because when you take the original Hebrew letters, spread them out and twist them around, you can spell words.

144) ...and when he points out that that will work with literally any work in any alphabet, accuse him of closed-mindedness and blasphemy.

145) Spell it "athiest."

146) Spell it "evilution."

147) Tell him that the Bible is true because the Bible says it is.

148) Tell him that Hitler was an atheist.

149) ...and all atheists are therefore Nazis.

150) Tell him that he's playing right into Satan's hands, because Satan's greatest ploy is convincing people that God doesn't exist.

151) Use the word "atheist" as a verb.

152) After your argument has been effectively refuted, wait a few days and then repeapt the argument, adding, "You still haven't addressed this."

153) Make up your own language, and claim that his inability to understand is due to his atheism.

154) Claim that Jesus is the God based on the Old Testament, then turn around and say that the Old Testament has nothing to do with the New Covenant.

155) Use the word "presupposition" incorrectly, repeatedly.

156) Argue the most insignificant point you can think of; when he doesn't address your pettiness, claim victory.

157) Constantly attempt to equate atheism with theism.

158) Argue that the translation "errors" in the KJV were actually God-inspired improvements, and therefore the KJV is the most accurate of all trnslations.

159) Say that God believes in him, whether or not he believes in God.

160) Call the Branch Davidians a "cult," but insist that your particular faction is a "religion."

161) ...and argue that a practical distinction actually exists.

162) State with a straight face, "Yes, I believe that an invisible fairy god king magically blinked us all into existence in order to punish us for our salvation and that we must all humble ourselves and eat his flesh and drink his blood," and then claim your belief is perfectly rational and supperior to the atheist "mind-set," which can provide no answers.

163) Tell him that he can't use absolute logic because God is the only absolute.

164) Tell him the signs are there -- he's just not looking.

165) Tell him he wouldn't believe even if someone rises from the dead.

166) Play Matthew McConnaghey: "Do you love this person? Prove it."

167) Tell him that the third hour was Jewish time; the sixth hour was Roman time.

168) Try to perform an exorcism on him.

169) Claim to be speaking in tongues when actually you're just babbling incoherently.

170) Say that the Bible (as opposed to other holy books) is true because it's an eyewitness occount.

171) When he points out an apparent inconsistency of God's attributes, just say that God is infinite. The atheist, with his finite, human brain cannot begin to understand God.

172) For Muslims only: Say that it's perfectly reasonable for anyone to convert to your religion, but no one has a valid reason to leave Islam; it is the perfect religion.

173) Tell him that everyone has faith in SOMETHING.

174) Say that whatever you turn to in your hour of need is God.

175) Make him clean out your car.

176) Include cosmology and abiogenesis when discussing evolution.

177) Tell him he won't understand unless he believes, and he can't believe unless he understands.

178) Ask how he can have any morals if he doesn't believe in God.

179) Say that you know in your heart that belief in God is perfectly logical and rational.

180) Say that going to church is fun.

181) ...and when he says it's boring, act surprised.

182) Leave little Jesus cards on the tables at restaurants.

183) Talk about all the great things Dubya is going to do for our nation.

184) Insist that homosexuality is a choice.

185) Insist that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian.

186) Tell his that it's not a religion -- it's a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

187) Sing.

188) When asked what's wrong with evolution, tell them that it doesn't account for the origin of matter.

189) Tell him he only doesn't believe in God because his family hates him.

190) Advertise for heaven and hell.

191) Send a child over to witness to him.

192) ...when he tells the child he's not interested, send over two adults to say the same things.

193) ...when he refuses again, give a Chick tract to a 3 year old to give to him.

194) Send a chat room message that he is a black-hearted sinner.

195) ...then turn your IM off so that he can't respond.

196) Tell them that Darwin recanted evolution on his deathbed.

197) ...and when he tells you about the Lady Hope myth, cry.

198) Create a website challenging evolution.

199) ...and when he actually does, close it down.

200) Create a term for a blatant paradox in your religion, then call other religions false because they don't have it.

201) Get into a chatroom argument with him, then start SCREAMING the lyrics to "Amazing Grace" while your friends write "Amen, brother" and other such nonsense as the atheist tries to make his point.

202) After losing an argument horribly, say that you will pray for his eternal soul.

203) ...then begin praying loudly without his permission.

204) Yell and scream about how he is going to hell during a debate.

205) ...and when he gets tired of your yelling and screaming, back out of the debate.

206) When losing a debate, take advantage of his good nature by punching out somebody near you until he stops talking.

207) ...when you see someone else do this, stop him by saying that his religion is a peaceful one.

208) Put gigantic crosses on everything he owns that you can get your hands on.

209) Counter every argument that begins with "God is defined as..." with "So you believe in God?"

210) Cry foul when he tries to create a club that is not religious.

211) Fail to have a basic grasp of history. (Spanish Inquisition? What's that?)

212) Have your pastor hunt him down and force him into a debate over dinner.

213) When all else fails, never talk to him, and convince a lot of other people to never talk to him either.

214) Treat his Christian wife like shit.

215) Complain to him about your own church, but don't leave it.

216) Send the DEA an anonymous tip that he has bundles of cocaine in his garage.

217) Put a large cross in his yard.

218) ...then set it on fire with your hooded brethren.

219) PUT ALL ARGUMENTS IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU'RE YELLING AND SCREAMING!

220) Start your own university dedicated to religious narrow-mindedness and restriction of free choice.

221) ...and name it "Liberty."

222) Perpetually ask saps for money on your television show.

223) Avoid taxes and regulations because you're doing God's work.

224) Ask why he only focuses on the bad parts of the Bible.

225) Accuse him of closed-mindedness for not accepting your extraordinary claims.

226) Tell him he has to believe before he can understand the evidence.

227) Tell him he is innumerate.

228) Tell him he is illiterate.

229) Tell him he is pissed.

230) Tell him he won't agree with you because the Holy Spirit has closed his eyes to the truth.

231) ...then continue preaching to him.

232) Insist that you've already refuted everything he said.

233) Ask God to bless his dark heart.

234) Threaten to sue his university for infringement of free speech after he heckles you.

235) Tell him that long hair is the Devil's work.

236) Tell him that all your music is the Devil's work.

236) Tell him that the fossils in the earth are the Devil's work.

237) Create hoaxes to prove cerationism (i.e. a human footprint alongside a dino's footprint).

238) Claim that God can cure HIV if one prays hard enough.

239) ...then say that it is God's choice who he will cure, and anyway having HIV is better than an eternity in Hell.

240) Turn up your amps so that everyone within three blocks has to listen to him rant about Jesus.

241) Double park on Sunday. Claim the principle of righteousness.

242) Ask who he turns to when he's in danger.

243) ...when he says himself, say "No -- when you're REALLY in danger."

244) Grossly misunderstand the word "theory."

245) Declare that everyone knows in his heart that God exists, but just want to worship themselves.

246) Declare that without God there are no ultimate answers to anything.

247) ...then declare that WITH God there is an ultimate answer to everything -- and that answer is God.

248) Declare that without God you finally die alone.

249) Declare that atheism gives you nothing to hope for except the false promises of this world.

250) Use transitive verbs intransitively (e.g. "Jesus raised from the dead").

251) ...when corrected on the above (e.g. Jesus ROSE or WAS RAISED from the dead), shout "Then you really do believe!"

252) Announce that God was watching over a loved one who survived a terrible tragedy.

253) ...and when the loved one later dies from his wounds, announce that it was God's will.

254) Get him to admit that he KNOWS God exists, but Satan has seduced him.

255) Invite every single person in your church to give Chick tracts to everyone they know.

256) Ask if he's ever heard of Jesus Christ.

257) Show up on his front porch at 9:00 on Saturday morning, and take advantage of his groginess by shoving copies of Watchtower into his hands and getting him to read the Bible with you, then walk away before he has any idea what's going on.

258) When he finally gets tired of you and launches several "Do Not Feed The Troll" campaigns against you, change your handle.

259) When confronted with a sound logical argument, respond with "Yes, but I don't believe that."

260) Have the Gideon Bible waiting in the hotel room that he pays for.

261) Regale him with questions such as "Who do you think wakes you up in the morning? Isn't that a miracle?" while you, the bus driver, should be watching the road.

262) Scrape your fingernails on a blackboard.

263) If you're an ISP, repeatedly cut him off during a net session, so that he must spend 90% of his time dialing.

264) Program your church bells to play very loudly at really odd hours.

265) Every time the subject of his being an atheist comes up, burst out laughing.

266) Ask how he can possibly raise children in a godless environment.

267) Accuse him of having more than one personality.

268) Talk to him with the assumption that he shares your beliefs -- i.e. start a sentence with "You know how God wants us to..."

269) When the subject of homosexuality comes up, say "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

270) ...and expect it to be taken as an intelligent remark.

271) Insist that the Bible is completely true.

272) ...and when he conclusively proves otherwise, acknowledge that the Bible is trash, but remain a Christian.

273) ...then take him to church.

274) ...and tell him he really must come more often.

275) Reply to every statement he makes, "That's only your opinion."

276) Post something inflammatory about him, wait for him to respond, then go back and either delete or edit your post so that it appears that the ateist is attacking you for no reason.

277) Become completely and totally paranoid about him.

278) After bringing up a number of topics, explain your lack of response by referring to some organized sport that you participate in.

279) Point to something in nature that's really cool, and call it proof of God's existence.

280) When he shows up at your wedding, bearing an expensive gift for you, return the favor by sicing your minister on him after the ceremony.

281) If he has cancer, tell him with a sickeningly sweet smile that you will pray for his recovery, because someone needs to.

282) Refuse to give him your wallet after he quotes Matthew 5:42 to you.

283) Insist you believe in the literal truth of the entire Bible, except for Matthew 5:42.

284) Take advantage of a horrible national tragedy, caused in large part by religious fanaticism, by pushing your own religious fanaticism as the only thing that will save us all.

285) ...and announce that the tragedy only happened because of those who ignore your religious fanaticism.

286) When ask why you bother praying to ask for things if God has a Divine Plan, tell him that you're not really asking for things, but you're trying to get closer to him. (It's a lie, of course, but don't let that stop you.)

287) Insist that a denomination of Protestantism founded in the nineteenth century is the only true way.

288) Insist on deathbed conversions.

281) When ending your conversation with the atheist, promise to read whatever book the atheist may have mentioned, knowing darned well that you yourself never made it through Leviticus.


Nearly all the participants of the Secular Web's FHJE board contributed to this list in some way -- those who did not may share in the credit anyway.)
7:37 PM 
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Friday, March 03, 2006 

The first episode of the Rational Response Squad has arrived, LISTEN TONIGHT!

The Rational Response Squad Radio show is available for free on live internet radio to everyone on Earth, and it will air several times for your listening convenience. To listen tonight go Freethoughtmedia.com or visit RationalResponders.com and click "Listen now." For a small fee you can also download the Rational Response Squad before it airs to the general public. If you want to hear a preview of this first episode, click here. (right click "save as")

SHOW SCHEDULE
 Freethoughtmedia.com: TONIGHT Friday March 3rd at 9pm EST
FreethoughtMedia.com: Friday March 10th at 9pm EST
AtheistNetwork.com: Sunday March 12th at 10am EST and 6pm EST
RevereRadioNetwork.com: Tuesday March 14th at 9pm EST

Join RationalResponders.com for free now so you can join us in the chatroom for the show! Tune in at 8pm EST to catch the Infidel Guy show!
 
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Special Guests: Proclaim and Brian Flemming
Brian is the creator of The God Who Wasn't There Movie <-- ADD THIS ACCOUNT!
 
Win a free copy of the God who wasn't there movie here and here.
 
6:40 AM 
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Wednesday, February 15, 2006 

I have a new site.  We'll have a chatroom soon, and the message boards are up and running.

Check it out: http://www.rationalresponders.com

5:32 AM 
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Wednesday, February 01, 2006 

SIGN THE PETITION TO IMPEACH BUSH... yes... if it's done right, Cheney will go too!




If you missed it, Cindy Sheehan was inside the Capitol building before the State of the Union. A Congresswoman invited her earlier in the day and gave her a ticket to go. Here's the whole story from Cindy herself:

    Dear Friends,

    As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address tonight.

    I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.

    There have been lies from the police and distortions by the press. (Shocker) So this is what really happened:

    This afternoon at the People's State of the Union Address in DC where I was joined by Congresspersons Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim and John Cavanagh, Lynn brought me a ticket to the State of the Union Address. At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2245 Dead. How many more?


    (Notice she had to do some "editing" to her shirt because three more soldiers just died)

    After the PSOTU press conference, I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.

    I got the ticket back from John, and I met one of Congresswoman Barbara Lee's staffers in the Longworth Congressional Office building and we went to the Capitol via the undergroud tunnel. I went through security once, then had to use the rest room and went through security again.

    My ticket was in the 5th gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person who in a few minutes was to arrest me, helped me to my seat.

    I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

    The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."

    I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."

    After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2245, huh? I just got back from there."

    I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

    What did Casey die for? What did the 2244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shrit that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing.

    I wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George's speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable that I would be arrested...maybe I would have, but I didn't.

    There have already been many wild stories out there.

    I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back.

    I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ulitmate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.

    I am so appreciative of the couple of hundred of protesters who came to the jail while I was locked up to show their support....we have so much potential for good...there is so much good in so many people.

    Four hours and 2 jails after I was arrested, I was let out. Again, I am so upset and sore it is hard to think straight.

    Keep up the struggle...I promise you I will too.

    Love and peace soon,
    Cindy



    REPOST, BLOG, WHATEVER, SPREAD THE WORD
3:31 PM 
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Saturday, January 14, 2006 

Current mood:  happy
6 Easy Steps to Debating a "Right-winger Red-Stater"

1. Usually, the only place they get their info is multi-media outlets like Rush, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, or Fox-News, they will try and cloak their poorly researched points in silly humorous fashion that is set to demean the listener/reader opposed in order to distract from the facts and put them in a defensive posture.

2. Don't fall for that maneuver, take their points and break them down one by one with verifiable facts. Using real data sources and valid news outlets, basically anything not from the US will work just fine. All US media sources are bias and present a one sided version of the story, look abroad, there are hundreds of world news sources that are far more credible than anything you will find in this facist country.

3. Chances are, at this point, the "Right-Winger Red-Stater" will again try to distract you from the actual topic and discussion with either a personal attack on the debater or, someone that he sees as a "beloved leader of the liberal movement" (IE Clintons, Dean and such) furthering nonsense with Ad Hominems to hurt feelings and cause disruption.

4. As I said before, don't let them distract you, keep them on the ORIGINAL point, you can even agree to proceed to anything they wish to discuss, ONLY after they have responded to the lies/poorly put together in the beginning of the discussion, but if they take that challenge you must reserve the right to return to anything they left out or got wrong. Do not respond to thier attacks with attacks, this will only lower you to thier level, and if that happens, you have lost.

5. Usually by now the conservative will have moved on to other things, or other people that are weaker and cant handle themselves in a debate, seeing that his/her tactics haven't worked, but in the rare case they stay with you, the most likely next thing is to end with something utterly sad, like "why do you hate our troops/country. These people want only to pick on easy targets, they have no desire to actually debate with you. They are right and everyone else is already wrong, before they even attempt to listen.

6. At this point I think its pretty safe to declare victory and move on. There can be nothing accomplished by talking to soemone that only comes online to put people down and pick fights because it makes them feel better about thier miserable wasted lives and thier desicrated pathetic morals that mean nothing to even themselves.

PLEASE don't fall for these tricks, I have seen so many of you get distracted in your discussions, remember this is a fight that is won one person at a time.
12:39 AM 
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