tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28218890772608020442024-03-13T09:14:38.640+01:00The Amiable AtheistThe Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.comBlogger145125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-18157090015346479042009-01-23T18:06:00.006+01:002009-01-23T18:15:55.492+01:00Germany Has the Right IdeaOutside of Scientology headquarters in Berlin, officials have posted a warning sign expressing opposition to activities of the sect and asking people to keep a critical eye out (read Der Speigel article here).The German government has never recognized Scientology as a religion, refuses to exempt it from taxes, and keeps a constant eye out for "anti-constitutional activity" because of aggressive The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-56704930944528422042008-11-12T17:30:00.005+01:002008-11-12T17:43:46.107+01:00You're a Mean OneGroup's new Christmas message: Be good, not godlyAds proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington buses starting next week and running through December....The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday...."It's the ultimate grinch to say there is no God at a time when millions of people around the The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-86681286994279346422008-11-11T11:17:00.004+01:002008-11-11T11:21:38.923+01:00Posthumous BaptismsI suppose I would be irritated if the Mormon church was trying to posthumously baptize my family members. But only slightly, since it's entirely nonsense and has no effect on reality.Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-oldThe Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-76401253537099659492008-11-01T18:03:00.002+01:002008-11-01T18:11:39.113+01:00FlawedAround the country early voters are having to wait in long lines to cast their ballots. These waits have been as long as 8 to 10 hours.It is unconscionable that we still do not have an organized national voting system instead of a disorganized mess that lends to so much unfairness and error. This is unfair to voters who cannot afford to stand in line for that long because of their jobs, children,The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-56550108746545935442008-10-29T11:53:00.003+01:002008-10-29T12:11:09.853+01:00PrivateThe other day I set my blog as private. I was thinking about discontinuing it, but did not want to do anything hasty like deleting it. I was surprised that some of you noticed, as I have been a bad blogger lately and have not written anything in ages, so I suspected that I had lost most readers. I realize that doing that without saying anything was in bad form and I apologize.I promise you there The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-62485703673364536782008-10-10T11:04:00.003+02:002008-10-10T11:09:24.446+02:00Vote!Hey everyone,I'm back from my honeymoon. Thank you for all of the kind wishes. We didn't really have a ceremony, we did it city hall style and then went backpacking around Croatia for a little over a week.I just got my absentee ballot in the mail today and voted for Obama!Hope everyone else votes as well.CheersThe Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-43803615018624056762008-10-01T17:21:00.002+02:002008-10-01T17:21:35.751+02:00AbsentPlease excuse my absence, I'm on my honeymoon for the next week or so.Cheers!The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-56092758129458752232008-09-23T00:41:00.005+02:002008-09-23T00:56:41.282+02:00Meddling KidsAs a kid I remember being slightly disappointed that Scooby Doo always ended the same: every mystery would have a rational explanation.I guess I was lucky enough as a child to have seen a couple of good shows in the midst of all the rubbish on TV, like Scooby Doo and Bill Nye the Science Guy.I was reading Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World the other day(yes, it takes me this long to read it!) whereThe Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-90332383571388274392008-09-22T18:19:00.004+02:002008-09-22T18:50:02.180+02:00Love LetterIt was pretty lame being the youngest kid in youth group.I had just turned 13, so they forcibly removed me from the safety of Sunday school class with my younger brother and made me go alone to the class with all of the scary high schoolers who were all at least 16 years old. I felt like such a dork. Junior high was bad enough without having to hang out with these older kids who clearly thought IThe Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-21883142910979629812008-09-21T09:23:00.003+02:002008-09-21T09:28:05.019+02:00Scum of the EarthFormer ROB ZOMBIE guitarist and current SCUM OF THE EARTH frontman Riggs' 13-year-old son was reportedly reprimanded by his eighth-grade art teacher for wearing an inappropriate t-shirt in the classroom. The art teacher allegedly insulted the student in front of his peers, dragged him out of class into the hallway and forced him to pray on his knees for forgiveness from Jesus Christ."This is The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-64215443088813846382008-09-13T13:49:00.001+02:002008-09-13T13:50:23.713+02:00Very Scary!Oh my goodness, the internet is a scary place!And apparently only liberals use it...The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-26206895397467943562008-09-13T13:04:00.004+02:002008-09-13T13:16:54.850+02:00CraziesTo demonstrate the fact that there are clearly crazies on every side of every issue is this young man, Timothy Brown, an atheist who continually harassed a Christian woman by urinating or smearing excrement on her property because she had put a fish sticker on her own car. Regardless of what someone believes, this is clearly an inappropriate way to communicate with them. This guy is immature and The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-4036493134554735772008-09-09T09:02:00.004+02:002008-09-09T09:08:29.935+02:00...And More Death ThreatsScientists about to conduct one of the world's biggest physics experiments have received death threats amidst fears they could destroy the world.Despite the expected scientific benefits, some fear the experiment could create black holes that will eventually swallow the Earth. German chemist Professor Otto Rossler even led a last-ditch legal attempt to stop the experiment.While recent studies haveThe Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-49004163417956616692008-09-09T08:48:00.002+02:002008-09-09T08:58:39.237+02:00Atheist Soldier Receives Death ThreatYou've probably heard of Jeremy Hall, an atheist soldier who, working with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, sued because he was harassed for not believing in god. Now Hall has received a death threat in the form of an SMS message on his cell phone. The message is laced with obscenities and a racial slur commonly directed at African-Americans, though Hall is white. In it, the caller The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-87346947869960534042008-09-08T14:45:00.007+02:002008-09-08T14:58:41.514+02:00Biden on Religion in PoliticsSen. Joe Biden talks about abortion and his faith on Meet the Press.Sen. Joe Biden: I know when it begins for me. It is a personal and private issue. For me as a Roman Catholic I'm prepared to accept the teaching of my church. But let me tell you, there are a lot of people of great confessional faiths, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others, who have a different view. They believe in God as The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-1605188772883769602008-09-08T14:25:00.002+02:002008-09-08T14:43:13.292+02:00Communion on the MoonHere is a short article titled Communion between God and science by Rev J Williams.Immediately after Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon in 1969 and his ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind’ speech, his colleague Buzz Aldrin celebrated Holy Communion in the landing craft.Buzz, after whom the toy Buzz Lightyear is named, asked Mission Control for silence.Then, to mark this historic The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-73172499019576667392008-09-05T17:43:00.004+02:002008-09-06T08:46:04.827+02:00The LesserThis will be the first year that I vote in a presidential election and the first year that I have paid close attention. I will admit that I was of age in 2004, but I was still too young and naive to have a real opinion about it. I was still strongly influenced by my family and religious upbringing and hadn't formed any thoughts of my own on the matter. I figured since I couldn't make an educated The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-52941109936146396742008-09-04T16:17:00.003+02:002008-09-04T16:19:24.326+02:00What Does She Know?I've been having trouble containing my anger regarding McCain's VP Pick. To avoid saying anything unamiable, I will just let Jon Stewart do the talking:Thanks to Parenting Beyond Belief for the link. Visit here to Learn more about Palin.The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-34268870608286451422008-09-02T17:51:00.003+02:002008-09-02T17:54:45.348+02:00Imagine ThisWish I was there to see it! Group of atheists, agnostics put up billboards in PhoenixPHOENIX - Billboards touting freedom from religion and separation of church and state are going up around the downtown Phoenix area.The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., paid advertising company CBS Outdoor to put up five signs around Phoenix that read Imagine No Religion. Annie Laurie The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-17017581221798180592008-09-02T17:15:00.003+02:002008-09-02T17:42:30.552+02:00ArroganceI just read an article titled Fundamentalist atheists show arrogance, too, by Paul C. Campos, in which he discusses what he considers to be militant atheists.I'd like to point out a couple of problems I have with this article:Needless to say, just as most religious people aren't fundamentalists, the same holds true for atheists. Those who are, however - what we might think of as the Taliban of The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-76487272461435932222008-08-30T13:57:00.016+02:002008-08-30T21:48:05.981+02:00Response to Kitty Foth-RegnerThis is my response to a comment left by Kitty Foth Regner, author of the book Heaven Without Her.Original comment is here.You mentioned several different topics in your comment to me, which you probably realize have already been addressed and answered hundreds of times by more qualified people than me, and that the responses are available for you to see on the internet and have been for a long The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-9309986610296239132008-08-28T19:07:00.004+02:002008-08-28T21:18:01.095+02:00It's in the Water!Here's a book review I stumbled upon. The book is Heaven Without Her by Kitty Foth-Regner, the story of an atheist turned believer after her mother's death. This is a clear illustration of the fact that people do not turn to religion out of rational thought, but out of pure emotion. Because there is nothing rational about it.But what particularly struck me is the opening line of the review:We've The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-31375993375517238782008-08-28T08:16:00.005+02:002008-08-28T08:25:56.138+02:00Who's That GirlThe Atheist Spot has a series on their blog where they interview atheist bloggers so we can all get to know the atheist community a little better.I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute, and here is my interview!Check it out, and please read the other interviews. Two of them are from two of my favorite bloggers Adrian and Vjack. I am looking forward to getting to know the others and to The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-31384329670471217942008-08-26T16:01:00.006+02:002008-08-26T16:30:49.863+02:00Awe InspiringSince I have had the awesome opportunity to live in Europe, I have seen several beautiful cathedrals. I can easily see how these massive structures inspired awe.These buildings could be seen from far away and people traveled great distances to visit them. It is mind-boggling to consider how difficult it must have been to build these cathedrals without modern machinery and it is easy to imagine The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2821889077260802044.post-51947042754879174002008-08-22T10:38:00.003+02:002008-08-22T10:43:21.156+02:00Thoughtful ParentingI just wanted to promote a blog I discovered recently which many of you might have already heard about: Parenting Beyond Belief. Someday I hope to have kids and I already anticipate what a challenge it will be to answer their questions and encourage them to be skeptical and thoughtful individuals. I read an entry where the blogger talks about death with his two daughters, ages 6 and 10. I am The Amiable Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11591728632496066343noreply@blogger.com1