By now, many of you have probably seen the study that shows that atheists, liberals and sexual exclusive males tend to be more intelligent.

Young adults who subjectively identify themselves as “very liberal” have an average IQ of 106 during adolescence while those who identify themselves as “very conservative” have an average IQ of 95 during adolescence.

Young adults who identify themselves as “not at all religious” have an average IQ of 103 during adolescence, while those who identify themselves as “very religious” have an average IQ of 97 during adolescence.

While I find this interesting, it is important to take this with a grain of salt. It makes sense that many who would declare themselves as atheists tend to be smarter, as most atheists use a system of logistical thinking versus faith based. Remember these are just statistics though. Personally I know many atheists who have shown themselves to be incredibly stupid.I also know many highly intelligent religious folks. You can’t just look at these numbers and begin to judge others. I realize that to say we are “all created equal” is bullshit, but that doesn’t mean we can’t treat each other like its true. At least until others give us a reason not to. I’m not trying to say this study isn’t great news, I’m just worried some people will use it as “scientific ammunition” to backup their foolish elitist beliefs.

I’m sure you are familiar with the phrase “One bad apple spoils the bunch”. It seems like we may have another case of this unfolding. Just because somebody is an atheist, doesn’t mean they want to burn down churches. Of course, that won’t stop the media from misrepresenting things and putting atheism and demon worshiping together.

From DallasNews:

One of two East Texas church arson suspects kept books on demon possession and atheism as well as assault rifles and guns, and may have left graffiti offering inside information about one of the attacks in a local store bathroom, according to court records.

Jason Bourque, 19, was under police surveillance on Feb. 13 when he went in the bathroom of a ranch store in Tyler, according to one search warrant affidavit filed in Smith County District Court.

Investigators later found an upside-down cross topped with flames carved onto the store’s bathroom wall, the documents said. Beside the cross were the words “Little Hope was Arson,” an apparent reference to the first of 10 churches burned in the spree that terrorized three East Texas counties.

…

A search of Bourque’s home after his arrest recovered books titled Demon Possession and The Atheist’s Way.

Also seized from Bourque’s residence were a Chinese-made SKS assault rifle, a Ruger 7 mm rifle and two .22-caliber rifles, a GPS and several pairs of brown shoes.

The thing is, it doesn’t even explicitly say the guy is an atheist, but he very well might be. I mean I own a copy of the Bible and a book about alchemy, but that doesn’t make me a Christian Alchemist. Unforutnately, I’m betting the average Bible-Belt American will make that connection. I see this all the time when I’m asked if I “worship Satan” or if I “dabble in dark magic”. Atheism is not connected with any supernatural phenomena. I don’t merely reject Yahweh, I reject his counterpart Satan equally. It is completely unfair to blame the actions of one fool on atheism in general. Personally, I’d never burn down a church or anything like this. Clearly the media is once more trying to make atheists out as the “bad guys” and I fear they may succeed.

It seems like people are always asking me this question “What would it take for you to believe?”. I’ll admit that is a legitimate question to ask and I’ve thought about it for a while. The thing is though, I’ll never be able to simply “believe”. This whole faith based thing doesn’t work for me. I need concrete and solid proof before I can commit to this, not winning the lottery or suddenly hearing a voice in my head.

This doesn’t mean I cannot accept a deity or supreme being though. All I need is a quick “Hey how are ya?” from above and I could accept God. Accepting something and believing in it are two very different things. Why doesn’t God come down and talk with people like He did in the Old Testament? Surely giving us a sign wouldn’t be too difficult for an omnipotent being. Althought it would destroy the concept and requirement of faith. Maybe I just don’t understand how that works, but wouldn’t it be kinder to just give us some evidence instead of making us be “faithful”?

I have added a new page on the little header bar titled “comments”. It shouldn’t take too much imagination to determine what that is about. I just wanted to set some basic guidelines for commenting here. As an effort to help publicize this, here is the text from that page:
Here are some basic guidelines to commenting on my site:

1.Don’t Be A DumbFuck

This is the most important rule. If you have something to contribute, at least give it an honest attempt to make sense. Repeatedly posting on a 2nd grade level will get nobody anywhere.

2.Don’t Worry About Being Censored

Provided you post isn’t in violation of #1, I will NEVER censor anything. Ever. I don’t care if you disagree with me. In fact, I encourage it! A good conversation is ideal. I highly believe in the principle of free speech and never wish to infringe upon your right to speak your mind. Unless it is spam.

3.Spam Is Bad

Please no spam. What is spam? I consider writing a sentence and then linking to your blog, without contributing, spam. Or just posting nonsense. Or repeatedly posting the same thing over and over again. Use common sense here.

I hope this makes things atleast a little more clear. I sincerely hope I never have to ban or block somebody from commenting on this site, but repeated violations of (what I think to be) simple rules will result in that. Obviously, if you make an honest mistake or something like that I won’t just go and ban you. It is those who are repeatedly delinquent. Please try to contribute in an intellectual and interesting way.

If we were going to teach one form os pseudoscience, shouldn’t we be fair and teach them all? I mean clearly those people from millenia ago are smarter than us…

So it isn’t really a secret(If you follow me on Twitter…) that I’ve been out for the last week due to illness. I apologize. Anyway, now I’m back and I hope to make some changes around the site. Most will probably be behind the scenes and hopefully yield better load times and the like. I also plan on launching AtlantaAtheistAd.com within the next day or so after the domain name fully propagates. We are already 10% of the way there and a full website should expedite things.

Thanks for the continued support!

-Jake

Today I read about this in an email from the AA. It is quite a loss to the “atheist community”. If anything, she was truly an inspiration to anybody who wants to be an activist. For those of you not familiar with the name, she is also the co-founder of the Camp Quest program.

Here is the AA article:

Kagin was a heroine and activist in the Atheist movement.  Along with her husband, attorney Edwin Kagin, she co-founded Camp Quest, a summer camp for the children of nonbelievers, which has grown into an international outreach.  She and Edwin were frequent guests at various conventions, and belonged to several freethought groups.

In 2005, Helen and Edwin were named “Atheists of the Year” at the National Convention of American Atheists.  Helen was active in the Free Inquiry Group of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.  She worked closely with Edwin and others organizing countless demonstrations and meetings, including the Rally for Reason which attracted hundreds of pro-science supporters who peacefully protested outside the opening of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY.

She  was an outstanding wife, mother, friend to so many; and Helen also had an illustrious career as an anesthesiologist

We will miss her infectious laughter, her wonderful friendship and stalwart support for the cause of Reason and state-church separation.

Helen Kagin will be cremated.  Edwin Kagin asks that expressions of sympathy in the form of donations be used to send kids to Camp Quest.  There will be further announcements, including details of a Memorial event.

She will definitely be missed.

Today I have a guest post from Simon Myerson of the Oxford Atheist Society. It is about a UK initiative called “Think Week”. It actually sounds kind of fun!

I’m Simon, a second year undergrad at the University of Oxford. Over the past few months a group of atheists, humanists, secularists and others from the university and the town of Oxford have been working to bring together speakers from across the country for a week of free events we’ve named ‘Think Week’. The week (8 days, really) will run from 22nd-28th February. As well as public talks on philosophy, education, and current affairs there will be an interfaith panel discussion, music, poetry and comedy. Speakers include the chief of the British Humanist Association Andrew Copson, local Member of Parliament Dr Evan Harris and Samantha Stein, who brought secular summer camp Camp Quest to the UK. We hope that the week will give people in Oxford and beyond a chance to join a rational debate about religion.

Although we all want to promote serious discussion of atheism and the secular life, the organizers are by no means uniform in our beliefs, and it’s been great to see different groups come together for a project like this. A full list of events and organizers is at www.thinkweek.co.uk. If you’re in the UK, or you have any friends who might be interested in coming along, it would be great to see you there!