SKP Freethinkers

Front Page Archives

This page is for previous posts to our front page.

 

Clip from new movie "The Ledge" (6-28-2011)

See more here: http://ledgemovie.com/ 
and here: http://www.secular.org/blogs/

 

True News - Hatred of Atheists! (4-20-2011)

 

The Skeptic In The Room (3-16-2011):

 

Richard Dawkins at the Protest the Pope event 9-18-2010

 

Good Reasons for "Believing" in God - Dan Dennett, AAI 2007

 

"The Values We All Stand For"

This video recently won The Reason Project video contest.  posted here 4/5/2010.

 

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News Item  -  Sam Harris:
"Science can answer moral questions."

About this talk (from the TED conference, Feb., 2010)

Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life. 

About Sam Harris :

Adored by secularists, feared by the pious, Sam Harris' best-selling books argue that religion is ruinous and, worse, stupid -- and that questioning religious faith might just save civilization. Full bio and more links

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Is Atheism a Belief??

Far and away the most misconstrued view of atheism is that it is a belief or even a "faith."  It is not.  It is the absence of a belief.  Atheism is no more a belief than "not collecting stamps" is a hobby, or "off" is a television channel.  We know this is so because it is what atheists actually say of themselves.
- Howard Replogle, founder SKP Freethinkers BOF

 

Pat Condell has a new venue.  If you've enjoyed his articulate rants on this page in the past, you can now see him at dotSUB.

 

Freedom From Religion Foundation signs on 100 busses in Seattle.  Also available as Christmas cards, bumper stickers, etc.

 

Semi-nude Mary and Joseph spark outrage in New Zealand

Anglican church defends Christmas billboard campaign showing couple in bed together

Toni O'Loughlin guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 December 2009

A New Zealand church has sparked outrage by erecting a billboard depicting Mary and Joseph lying semi-nude beneath the sheets.

 In an unorthodox take on the Christmas tale, the billboard depicts a forlorn Joseph and Mary looking to the sky with a caption which reads: "Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow."

The St Matthew-in-the-City church said it wanted to inspire people to talk about the Christmas story.

But within five hours of the billboard going up in downtown Auckland a man was standing on his car roof painting over the raunchy image.

Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the church meant to challenge a fundamentalist interpretation of Christ's birth.

"What we're trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about. Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?"

Cardy said one person had threatened to tear down the billboard but that of the 20 odd emails and phone calls he had received "about 50% said they loved it, and about 50% said it was terribly offensive".

The Catholic church joined those on the attack, accusing the Anglican church of disrespect.

"It's flying in the face of our 2,000-year-old beliefs," a Catholic church spokesman, Lyndsay Freer, said.

The conservative Family First organisation said the Anglican church could debate the Bible story away from the public eye. "To confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary," Family First's national director, Bob McCoskrie, said.

A complaint has been lodged with New Zealand's advertising watchdog, the Advertising Authority, but Cardy was unrepentant.

"I don't see why one person's protest should deny other people the enjoyment of the billboard."

 

News Item: Frank Schaeffer on Rachel Maddow

Mark Morford in the SF Chronicle comments: "Frank Schaeffer, noted author and a former fundamentalist nutball himself, who made a simply superb appearance on Rachel Maddow's show recently, wherein he offered up one of the most articulate, fantastic takedowns of the fundamentalist idiot's mindset in recent history. It's a must-watch. Do it. Do it now."

Read the rest of Morford's 9/25/09 column here.
Watch video here:

Aired 9/16/2009
embedded here 9/25/2009

 

National Journal Cover Story

"In the past, politicians in Washington and elsewhere could largely ignore the Godless. But those days are over. With their numbers growing, nonbelievers are intent on pushing a political and legislative agenda governed more by cool reason than by faith."

So concludes a cover story in the March 7, National Journal. Read the complete article here.

Five minutes with: Richard Dawkins - from the BBC

Celebrities and news-makers get grilled in exactly five minutes by Matthew Stadlen in a series for the BBC News website.

This week, evolutionary biologist, atheist and author Richard Dawkins talks about death, being good and the point of life.

 

I Am An Atheist       by Micki Krimmel

Note:  If you let these YouTube videos run to the end, they will display some links to related videos that you can watch here.

 

Pat Condell - Why Does Faith Deserve Respect?

OBAMA ON POINT WITH RELIGION!

 

George Carlin on "Religion"

Note:  If you let these YouTube videos run to the end, they will display some links to related videos that you can watch here.

Members of "The Rapture Right" explain why they are calling for a boycott of Bill Maher's movie "RELIGULOUS."

"Religulous" opened in theaters October 3, 2008
Click here for local theaters and show times.

Michael Shermer v. John Lennox
The Great Debate: Does God Exist?

Dr Michael Shermer the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and a monthly columnist for Scientific American, during his lecture tour of Australia for that country's National Science Week in August, 2008, takes on Dr John Lennox, who holds three doctorates in the fields of science and mathematics (Ph.D., D.Phil., D.Sc.) and is a Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green College, University of Oxford. His most recent book is God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

In this debate before a standing room only crowd in Sydney, Lennox and Shermer debated the usual arguments for God’s existence, with Lennox predictably leaning on Christian apologetics arguments and ending with his commitment to Jesus as his savior. Shermer closed with a passionate plea for science as the most transcendent form of knowledge that puts religion in the shade when it comes to revealing the wonders of the creation.

Watch the debate on YouTube:

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5
part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10

Parts 1 and 2 are Shermer's opening arguments, parts 3 and 4 are Lennox's opening arguments, parts 5 through 9 is the debate, and part 10 is closing arguments.

 

Bill Maher's movie "Religulous" preview:

"Religulous" opened in theaters October 3, 2008
Click here for local theaters and show times.

 

Sidebar Archives

 

Asimov on "Belief"

Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death? No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no. One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?" "Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be." ~ Isaac Asimov

 

 

 

In The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan wrote:

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

 

 

Pat Condell videos

Pat Condell rose to internet stardom in 2007 with a series of topical rants, posted to popular video-sharing websites.  With topics usually centering on religion, politics, and current events, each of Pat's videos quickly caused a stir and racked up hundreds of thousands of views.  Use the link above and dotSUB to see them.

 

 

 

 

Time to change the church window:

Probably seemed like a good design at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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