TreesNightly

I was listening to the Geologic Podcast �s Religious Morons of the Week segment in which host George Hrab highlights the most ridiculous or hypocritical stories involving people of faith. There was a reported moron a couple weeks ago who convinced followers that his semen was holy and a divine benefit would come from swallowing it. If you have listened to the segment as long as I have, you�d know that this moron isn�t completely unbelievable. There have been many folks who have leveaged their religious authority to trick their followers into sex, especially those from fring cults. This moron was less subtle in it�s connection to specifically blowjobs, enough so that I should have questioned it more than I did. This particular moron didn't exist. The following week, George admitted that he misreported the story. In fact, it was made up by an Onion -like satirical website. Generally, listeners email Hrab stories to read and he reads them. He bought the lie just as I did because...

Link to related content they tell me. Research SEO they tell me. Post daily and engage readers they tell me. Bah! I?have ideas of my own, successful blog people! Here�s one: I�ll scale back on content creation while simultaneously starting a new blog ! And this is why they don�t invite me to Blogging Conferences. Let me back-up. I started Deity Shmeity with the intention of posting my thoughts on various religious topics for reference when arguing with apologists. It was to be a debating database, if you will, but over time that changed. Interview projects, cross-post throwdowns and my personal struggle with Attention Deficient Disorder all contributed to the evolution of this site�s purpose. That is, if you believe in evolution. Turns out I had a lot to say on Deity Shmeity . I posted everyday for some time. Then I posted every weekday. Then thrice weekly. Now twice. I still have stuff to say, don�t get me wrong, but clearly not as much. There are only so many ways to say that God i...

There is a petition to change back U.S.A.'s motto to "E Pluribus Unum." I always liked that motto even though I never grew up with it. If you live in the States and want it to be just a little more secular, sign-up! (via A Particular Atheist ) God is a Myth  did a two parter on stupid things in the Bible's creation story. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart John Oliver aired a bit with Samantha Bee making fun of Christian's perceived persecution. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes , Indecision Political Humor , The Daily Show on Facebook Ah, the ol' lice argument for evolution. A classic. Jesus is an asshole . (via LadyAtheist ) Freedom to Offend is taking the Geologic Podcast bit Religious Morons of the Week and makes them into comics. Christian Domestic Discipline , because Christians just had too good a rep with feminists. The micro/macro evolution distinction explained by fish people . And finally, I've been listenin...

I admit, I�m a strange bird. I�m always keeping an eye out for content for this blog which has me coloring even the most secular interactions in my day-to-day as metaphors for religion. When I see something that inherently does have religious themes, I�m so distracted about how to leverage it into a post that I stop living in the moment. This weeks opening movie, Man of Steel , has inherent Christian themes--yet I barely realized until retrospection. This goes to show, as much as I think about Jesus, I think even more about Superman. Spoilers follow. Sure, Man of Steel depicts Kal-El as a miraculous birth who grows up to stand beside stainglass windows of JC and float out of space ships crucifixion-style, but as I said before, I barely noticed in the awesomeness that is Superman. The only thing that bothered me enough to take me out of the flick was a mid-fight speech in which General Zod�s right-hand woman waxed poetic about the merits of evolution over morality. To sum up, she said...

I recently had a sad and interesting exchange with a girl I met on Google+ after she heaped praise on a post I shared. I then shared her praise since I'm a huge narcissist and gave her the pseudonym "Kitty Pryde." The following is a small part of her story. This is what I can tell you in regards to my personal life and how I am who I am today. As a child I was molested by several "friends of the family" and at least 1 "family member" ( I think I have managed to block out a lot ). Growing up we didn't go to church, but believing was expected. After enduring the molestation during my childhood, there was absolutely no way in this lifetime that I could begin to make myself believe that some magical invisible being was looking out for me, a 5 year old child whose innocence was being ripped away by full grown "god fearing" adults. I became vocal about my non-belief when I was in high school. This was probably because of all the teenage rebell...

I wrote in my last post how a newly popular Christian apologetic argument is claiming that God is needed as a foundation for logic. I was trying to classify the argument and the best I could come up with is simply a bundle of talking points I�ll label the Foundation Arguments . What strikes me as particularly fallacious about each example of this type of reasoning is that they clearly don�t take into account the entirety of the deity they argue for. Let�s go over a few. God is needed as a foundation for logic. And yet God, as many Christians define him, is omnipotent, omniscient, and eternal--qualities that break logic in several different ways. Examples follow. An omnipotent God can�t both make a stone so heavy that he can�t lift and then lift said stone. An omniscient God can�t know what is it like to learn considering he has always known all, yet he must know what it is like to learn in order to know all.  An omnipotent God can, by definition, commit suicide; yet an eternal God...

Is it just me or have apologetic arguments become more vague and confusing than ever before? I�ve been seeing the claim that atheism can�t account for the laws of logic and mathematics because they need a foundation in the divine. Upon asking the apologist why they think this is so, the responses vary. Most often they say something about logic and math working on faith because we can�t show why they work. In their minds, this makes atheists have faith in something thereby putting theists and atheists on equal ground. In their minds, it actually gives them a 1-up on atheists in that they can define a source for their faith...which just so happens to be what they have faith in, God--thus showing that their minds need more regular maintenance. This is where we can offer a tune-up. Math works. I need no faith that math works, I can show that math works. This is evidential, which is right in the unfaithful�s wheelhouse. I don�t even know how to classify the argument that the...

A case could be made that atheism is seen more positively today than it has ever been seen in the last few millenium. This is an awesome statement...which is also kind of sad when you consider how negatively atheism is still perceived  I�ve spent most of the last week thinking of public relations strategies that could raise both good will and public awareness for atheists, and I�m clearly not the only one. There are billboard campaigns in many major cities that are doing a great job of thrusting us into the public conversation. I don�t know if this tactic makes people talk about atheism positively, but it certainly makes people talk about it. Regardless, that kind of campaign is beyond the scope of my modest blog. Here I�ll offer a couple grassroots efforts that individuals can use to give atheists a good name. Publicly donate in the name of atheism. When checking out at my local grocery store, I was asked to donate one dollar to fill-in-the-blank charity. I complied as I alwa...

�If you could meet any historical figure, who would it be and why?� I was asked this question by a friend the other day when we were both feeling especially hypothetical. It�s one of those probing questions that come up every once in while to gleam insight about someone that regular conversation would never gleam. It also prompts me to use the word gleam, which is an awesome word. Gleam. Anyway, my answer was and is �Jesus.� My friend, a Christian, likewise answered Jesus. He wanted to meet the son of God and be blessed, forgiven, and/or taught by him. My friend assumed my reasons for meeting JC were similar. He didn�t know that I was an atheist. Setting the record straight, I said that I wanted to meet Jesus to know who he really was--expressing my skepticism of the bible. My friend was a little taken back but evenutally followed up with another question. �As an atheist, why would you care about meeting Jesus?� It�s a good question considering many nonbelievers are fairly tuned out of...

A natural explanation is always better than a supernatural explanation. This goes for theories, hypothesises, guesses, hunches anything--if it relies on the natural it is preferable by the sheer fact that we know that the natural exists and don�t know the supernatural exists. This will remain true until we have proof of miracles, repeatable experiments in clear violation of natural laws, or something to confirm that magic is real. This may seem obvious, but the religious rarely apply the rule to the claims of their church. For instance, Christians often claim the best evidence supporting their faith is the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.* This is really the linchpin of Christian apologetics. While whether or not there ever was an empty tomb as described in the bible is debatable, if we assume the resting place of JC was revealed to be empty--there are so many better explanations than resurrection. Examples follow. Early Christians could have removed the body to propagate the resurrection l...

This is a throwback to a track from one of my favorite albums. It has nothing to due with atheism, but it has a bunch of science references so...enjoy?