As I read Pharyngula today, I noticed an article about Australia’s PM Julia Gillard. I could really care less that she isn’t married and has a boyfriend ect. The interesting news was her response to a question on a radio show:

This morning during a Melbourne radio interview, the new Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard was asked point blank:

“Do you believe in God?”

Her reply:

“No I don’t, John”

Interesting. Now while an atheist doesn’t necessarily make a superior leader, it does give me hope for humanity. Australia’s citizens apparently don’t really care about a secular leader though:

A Nielsen Poll last year found three-quarters of Australians do not care whether political leaders believe in God or not.

I’m now wondering when America will get its first atheist President. Hmmm… Perhaps I should hit the campaign trail.

Today I have a guest blog from Louise Baker, so without further adieu here it is:
Even in today’s society, it can be difficult to discuss atheist topics without getting a lot of flak from people. Some areas it is completely taboo, and any mention of atheist beliefs will get you blacklisted with the locals. Small towns are particularly known for this. Finding people with similar beliefs to have intelligent conversations with can be difficult, if not impossible. Thankfully though, we live in the modern world, and access to the internet is becoming easier and easier. Today, there are a variety of resources for the online atheist, and this article lists five of the best.

1. Happy Atheist Forum

Happy Atheist Forum is a site that welcomes friendly discussions from all. This site was designed with the happy atheist in mind. This is a forum that welcomes all positive atheists and free thinkers, and it has a relaxed, informal atmosphere. Thought provoking discussions dot the message boards, and any hecklers are dealt with quickly. Their goal, they claim, is to help get rid of the negative stereotypes that are inflicted upon atheists.

2. The Atheist Spot
“In Our Minds We Trust”

The Atheist Spot is akin to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Twitter, and Reddit. Here, you can share your favorite atheist web content and links, and other people get to vote and comment on them. This is a great site to find news stories and other web content for atheists.

3. Atheist Nexus
“The World’s Largest Social Networking Site Exclusively for Nontheists!”

Atheist Nexus is very similar to Facebook and MySpace – with one major difference. They cater exclusively to nontheists. Members get their own customizable homepage, and they can network and chat with atheists from around the word. There are over seven hundred groups to join, which include everything from atheists that love science to atheist who survived religion.

4. Atheist Toolbox

Although Atheist Toolbox is a smaller atheist community, they are still packed with information. When you first navigate onto the site, you are greeted with a “Fact of the Day”. This is an interesting and thought provoking blurb dealing with different aspects of atheism. This is a great site for those new to atheism and old veterans alike. Atheism is clearly explained in a number of articles, and the most common questions about atheism are answered. Information and beliefs on the bible are also included, along with a blog and a forum.

5. Atheist Empire
“No Sheep, No Shepherds”

If you’re looking for an all inclusive guide to atheism on the web, Atheist Empire is it. Started as a Yahoo group in November of 1998, it is now one of the leading atheist websites and message boards. The founder and webmaster, Michael Pain, says “consider this the ‘Cliff’s Notes’ / ‘Disneyland’ of atheism.” The site includes atheist quotes and writings, humor, and a message board. There is even a guide to atheist entertainment and a section to download atheist media such as videos and music.

Louise Baker is a freelance writer who writes about Accredited Online Degrees for Zen College Life. Her most article deals with criminal justice degrees.

A friend of mine on Facebook, Joy Nichols, sent me a guest blog  that she described as “an atheist’s ramblings”. They were written in response to being asked why being atheistic is better than being theistic.

_______________________________

#1. I think atheism and agnosticism are both fairer, more honest approaches to the question of god because neither approach assumes existence of that which is not yet credible.

They both assume no “faith” in god; and atheism assumes that the onus is on the believer to prove beliefs with evidence, and has not seen evidence for development of faith.

Saying you believe in the “Pink Unicorn” or tooth fairy or Santa Claus assumes their existence without proof of such, and that is not a scientific, nor rational approach to reality, but rather a childish one; atheism demands more than feelings and agnosticism refuses to accept such mere emotionalism as satisfactory.

Asking someone to prove the non-existence of something that is clearly fantasy and/or non-existent — but that is, in fact, a sometimes pleasant and comfortable delusion — is a patently unreasonable approach, regardless of whether or not one “believes” in that entity.

And many believers understand this, for belief is not driven by factual evidence, but by feelings and delusions, whereas, more often than not, I have observed, that most atheists and agnostics have arrived at their point of departure from the incredible – which is religion – after years of search, research and scrutiny of many topics, including, but not limited to “spirituality,” religion, biology, astronomy, philosophy, physics and the like.

Most atheists come by their understanding after years of struggle in both the humanities and sciences; perhaps they have a moment of intellectual epiphany, but not usually without some long intellectual struggle and work at questioning, observing, and thinking.

Although “spiritual epiphanies from god” often evolve out of struggle, as well, I have noticed that they are entirely subjective and are the result of emotionalism or of literal brain damage (as is common in some seizure disorders). They are never the result of intellectual rigor, but a cop-out known as ” feel-good wishful thinking.”

They are powerful, as mythology and sex and love often is, but they are not universally verifiable, falsifiable, testable and observable.

Belief and epiphanies are subjective and emotional and valid as that; but they are not sufficient as evidence of god’s existence; therefore choosing not to believe until evidence – (rather than a feeling, which is often misguided) – is provided for all to peruse and judge is most sensible, and would keep humanity out of much of the trouble it continually finds itself in as the result of gullibility.

Because theism – (belief in god) – relies a great deal on gullibility, wishful thinking, and even hatred, it is dangerous.

It allows people to justify true amorality and terrible immorality and prejudice in the name of piety, which often turns out to be the result of terrible cases of destructive mental illness or good-hearted delusion-turned-terrible, thanks to charismatic leaders who know how to manipulate and use religious sentiment for various political and social aims that are more harmful than good.

A lack of atheism, I am certain, has set human endeavors in medicine and science back thousands of years.

It has happened for thousands of years and will continue to as long as people cannot comprehend how tricky the human mind is regarding conviction versus fact, and as long as people are lulled into intellectual laziness by their religiosity (over-attachment to a paradigm), which also generates paranoia (at the worst) and suspicion (at the best) of science and reason.

History speaks volumes more on this topic than my opinion ever could:
crusades, witch hunts, superstition superseding science, again and again, even now, in the 21st century. It is a tragedy exploding as I write.

I don’t know about you, but this is something that always bothered me. Even religious people who reject ghosts and accept their skyman irritate me less. It seems strange to me that an atheist would still have all this faith in the supernatural. Personally, I don’t think ghosts exist. I’ve yet to see any conclusive evidence and the ‘proof’ shown on those shows is frequently debunked. I remember reading an article that said a certain pitch is also responsible for some people hearing eerie things. It probably ties back into evolution. It makes sense to think that something is there rather than to assume it isn’t. Let’s say you are walking in a field and you hear something. It could be the grass or it could be a leopard about to attack. The human who assumes it is dangerous is more likely to survive than the person who dismisses it. Any of you believe in ghosts?

While I was on vacation, I had made arrangements to have someone blogsit for me but that didn’t pan out due to personal issues. I did receive some interesting guest blogs from other people though while I was absent. Today I present an article entitled “Why Do I Have To Call Myself An Atheist?” by Brother Echo of DegreesofEmotion. It is an interesting way to think about the way labels are applied to us as soon as we declare ourselves atheists, or any other religious affiliation.

I’ve been a Muslim, a Christian,a half-assed Buddhist and an Atheist and from my own experience and looking at things as they are they are all playing the same game.

Subscribing to any label be it Atheist or Christian is really… dangerous and quite frankly rather pompous.

The idea that one takes a stance saying there is a god or not is beyond me.

Nobody knows, nobody will ever know until you die. For me I subscribe to NO LABEL, no Atheist, no Gnostic, no Buddhist… NOTHING.

If someone asks me I tell them I DON’T KNOW… and that is the truth.

The typical argument Atheist bring up with I talk about this subject is well by definition I AM AN ATHEIST… well no you’re not. You don’t have to subscribe to anything… if someone else wants to define you as an Atheist so be it but YOU don’t have to. The moment you say I’m an Atheist you’re drawing a line in the sand, you’re taking a stance, you’re waving a flag and from that point on it’s US and THEM.

This world needs more LOVE not US and THEM. I hope you have an open heart and mind and simply go deep with this topic I think you’ll find you don’t have to be an Atheist… you might as well be a Christian if you’re going to play that game at least you’d get to get go to heaven then…

Peace, Love, Unity and much Respect.

Namaste,

-Brother Echo

P.S.-I am hosting the Carnival of the Godless tomorrow, come check it out!

Recently Twitter has been buzzing about hte upcoming ‘A’ Week. In case you haven’t heard, it is an awareness campaign taking place on, you guessed it, Facebook.

Here is an excerpt from their site:

Good without God? Imagine Facebook with ‘A’s all across the site showing the world is full of people who are ‘good without God’ and don’t need religion to influence their lives. Imagine the awareness we can raise during ‘A’ Week On Facebook if 1,000s of people take part. Imagine… you can be a part of making a difference…

Seems like a good campaign to me. What’s more, it is incredibly simplistic to participate. I imagine many of my  readers are already on Facebook, so you can be participating in about 2 minutes. Just download the picture from their site and set it as your profile. Also, join the group and event pages on Facebook. That’s it. The campaign officially starts on Monday, but I went ahead and set mine right now so I do not forget. It should be a fun week of discussion and hopefully will promote some more awareness. Just remember, it is a campaign based on good. So try to behave.

Facebook Group
Event Page

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.