(via Atheist Media Blog)

Oh boy, Fox News.  A commenter on Atheist Media Blog makes a fun observation in noting that Fox’s analysis is more of a “How can we make this illegal?” stance than a report on its own.

I realize there’s opposition on both sides to Smut for Smut.  Even atheists argue against the idea both from feminist and humanist standpoints, in opposition to the objectification of women that pornography promotes.

Personally, I’m a fan of Smut for Smut.  I see very few ways to garnish this much attention to the immoral (by today’s societal standards) items in the bible without being at least mildly offensive.  Regardless of what Fox News presents from the religious side, the campaign has people talking, which is exactly what it was intended to do.

friendlyatheist:

Top Ten Creationist Arguments (via TheThinkingAtheist)

Dead on.

(via orbitalteapot)

Christianity

1. Abandon the mythology of Genesis. God did not make the world in 6, 8 or 1000 days or 1000 days of years. Stop squabbling over Hebrew syntax and what you think the Biblical writers meant. They meant what they wrote and they were wrong. We know far too much about how things really came about to believe any of the nonsense written by a Hebrew-speaking priest of the sixth century BCE who thought things came about by a direct act of his hereditary deity.

[..]

Muslims

1. Give up the idea that the Quran is the most beautiful poetry ever written, the most perfect Arabic ever set to ink, the closest we can approach God in the scheme of time. Are you inhaling this stuff or just smoking? You have two hundred poets whose Arabic is better, any one of which could have won in a slam-down with Gabriel.

[..]

Judaism

1. There are no chosen people. There are just people. It is depressing, isn’t it? We all want to be special.

(via friendlyatheist.com)

Like Hemant says on Friendly Atheist, #4 under Judaism might require a bit of an exception, but otherwise this is a pretty dead-on accurate list.

An 11-year-old boy’s parents say that he has been having memories of a WWII pilot killed in battle 60 years ago. (via CNN.com)

Really?

Their logical conclusion is to say the kid’s nightmares are from a past life, and there is no other explanation for his statements?

You’re really going to label your child like that, and force him to grow up thinking he’s really someone else?

Do you even know what that could do to your kid, psychologically and emotionally?

Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?  Most people assume that it has always been a Christian holiday and that it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus.  But it turns out that Jesus was not born on December 25th.  However, a whole bunch of pagan gods were born on that day.  In fact, pagans celebrated a festival involving a heroic supernatural figure that visits an evergreen tree and leaves gifts on December 25th long before Jesus was ever born.  From its early Babylonian roots, the celebration of the birth or “rebirth” of the sun god on December 25th came to be celebrated under various names all over the ancient world.  You see, the winter solstice occurs a few days before December 25th each year. The winter solstice is the day of the year when daylight is the shortest. In ancient times, December 25th was the day each year when the day started to become noticeably longer.  Thus it was fitting for the early pagans to designate December 25th as the date of the birth or the “rebirth” of the sun.

The truth is that thousands of years before there was a ”Santa Claus”, there was another supernatural figure who would supposedly visit a tree and leave gifts every December 25th.

His name was Nimrod.

The celebration of December 25th goes all the way back to ancient Babylon.

Please continue reading by clicking here.

This is one of the most in-depth summaries of the origin of Christmas I’ve seen online.  Definitely a read worth your time.

There is nothing dogmatic about the Winter Solstice. It is reality. It is the shortest and darkest day of the year.

(via WhyWontGodHealAmputees)

Only Fox News seems to think there’s a “War on Christmas”. I can’t handle how ignorant Laura Ingraham is during this whole thing; it’s almost as if she’s training to be the next O’Reilly.

I’d rather be a rising ape than a fallen angel

<3 Terry Pratchett