Free Inquiry Forum

From The Atheist Experience blog:

When I first recognized I was an atheist, I hadn’t read any atheist literature. I studied and came to my own conclusions about god after being brought up as a fundamentalist (and for many years accepting the Bible as the inerrant word of god). After a few years as an atheist, visiting atheist forums and debating and dialoging with atheists and theists alike, I stumbled upon ACA in my community. I had already begun drawing Atheist Eve–a character who reflected my own perspective of what I saw as problems in my own past “logic” and who also voiced my assessment of current Christian doctrines and trends.

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From Slate.com:

How blind salamanders make nonsense of creationists’ claims.
By Christopher Hitchens

It is extremely seldom that one has the opportunity to think a new thought about a familiar subject, let alone an original thought on a contested subject, so when I had a moment of eureka a few nights ago, my very first instinct was to distrust my very first instinct. To phrase it briefly, I was watching the astonishing TV series Planet Earth (which, by the way, contains photography of the natural world of a sort that redefines the art) and had come to the segment that deals with life underground. The subterranean caverns and rivers of our world are one of the last unexplored frontiers, and the sheer extent of the discoveries, in Mexico and Indonesia particularly, is quite enough to stagger the mind. Various creatures were found doing their thing far away from the light, and as they were caught by the camera, I noticed—in particular of the salamanders—that they had typical faces. In other words, they had mouths and muzzles and eyes arranged in the same way as most animals. Except that the eyes were denoted only by little concavities or indentations. Even as I was grasping the implications of this, the fine voice of Sir David Attenborough was telling me how many millions of years it had taken for these denizens of the underworld to lose the eyes they had once possessed.

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From the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster:

Pastafarian Families Needed For Major Primetime Show!

Wife Swap, ABC’s hit primetime reality show, is looking for Pastafarian families for an upcoming episode.

Families must consist of two parents and at least one child between 7 and 17.

Families that appear on the show receive a generous honorarium. Anyone who refers a family receives $1,000 if that family is cast in an episode.

Email Greg at your earliest convenience if you or anyone you know have what it takes for this amazing opportunity. Please include names and ages of all family members and a brief description of your family and a photo.

Greg DeLucia
Casting Producer
RDF Media USA
greg.delucia@castingrdf.com
646.747.7954

From LiveScience.com

Shoppers do crazy things. And retailers bank on it.

Several studies reveal how Americans shop in irrational ways, and increasingly scientists are figuring out how easily we can be duped. Retailers in turn use these tricks to get inside our heads, encouraging window shoppers to become real shoppers, driving purchases of sales items regardless of real value, and helping buyers feel good about the things they walk out with … often for no good reason.

Full story.

From LATimes.com:

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper — alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin.

In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his “wee little book” of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”

He called the book “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation’s third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus.

Move over “War on Christmas”, there appears to be a new “war” brewing. Check out the post on The Calladus Blog that explains the “The Cracker Controversy”.

http://calladus.blogspot.com/2008/07/webster-cook-cracker-pz-cracker.html

TheModestAgnostic comments on “CrackerGate”:

From Tennessean.com:

KNOXVILLE — A man says he was so consumed by the spirit of God that he fell and hit his head while at a Knoxville church.

Now he wants Lakewind Church to pay $2.5 million for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering he says he’s endured from his injuries.

Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, 7-8-2008

CNN Story and Public Comments

The “Christian Embassy”, filmed inside the Pentagon can be seen here.