One of These Things is not Like the Others

My end-of-semester crunch has eaten up a lot of time, so here's a rather short but sweet post.  See if you can spot the outlier.  Remember, one of these things is not like the others.

Relationship Status

Things I would do if I wanted to form a strong relationship with you.	Have I experienced this firsthand from your deity of choice?
Ask you about your day	No
Mail you a greeting card	No
Email you	No
Call you	No
Text you	No
Visit you at home	No
Say “Wassaaaaaap!”	No
Visit you at work	No
Snail Mail you a letter	No
Send you a post card	No
Invite you to lunch	No
Invite you to dinner	No
Buy you a drink	No
Tweet you	No
Facebook “poke” you	No
Reality poke you	No
Skype you	No
Buy you a birthday present	No
Lend you five bucks	No
Help you move	No
Shake your hand	No
Hug you when we meet	No
Hug you when you’re sad	No
Invite you to my cookout	No
Invite you to my sleepover	No
Invite you to game night	No
Babysit your kids	No
Babysit your parents	No
Give you a ride	No
Bum a ride off you	No
Congratulate your success	No
Show you I’m not a hallucination by letting other people see me interacting with you.	No

My Easter Celebrations

Most Americans celebrate Easter by honoring¹ the sacrifice² of a flawless³ godling⁴ who died⁵ for your⁶ sins⁷.  But since I actually read the footnotes (hint hint), I’ve decided to celebrate Easter in a more insulting fashion.  So here’s my plan for the day.

Okay Fine, Here's Some Commandments...

We all knew this was going to happen sooner or later...

Faith-Based Technology

After painstaking effort I have finally succeeded in compiling a complete and exhaustive list of techological advancements gained by stalheartedly refusing to look at the evidence.  These gadgets were invented by those great minds who refused to accept repeatable demonstration of functionality as a viable standard.  And, of course, every single one of them is powered by prayer.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the world's first complete and exhaustive list of faith-based technology:

New Atheists, New Advertising Campaign

The next time one of our ads gets vandalized...

Fictional Atheists

I figured this part deserves its own post (along with a couple additions).  Here's some advice on how to make fictional atheist characters that aren't horribly insulting.

Guest Post: The Value of Science

Hey readers.  This week we have another guest post from a fellow phycisist.  My notes (mostly added links) are in bold.

As I said to Zaqvhk* earlier in the week, I have something to get off of my chest, and dammit I’m gonna make somebody listen to me while I do it! Now, please grab hold of your chairs and find your earplugs. It’s rant time.

The Value of Science

Written by Dan Barnak

Assistant Researcher at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics**
Fusion Science Center
Rochester, NY

Art

At long last, it’s time for me to blog about the fifth pillar of the fight against religion, art. There are three main aspects to this pillar that I wish to discuss. The first aspect is art about atheism, the second is art by atheists, and the third is art with atheists. There is of course some overlap, but it is where the second two aspects do not overlap with the first that we need improvement.

The REAL Meaning of Christmas

There was once a great and benevolent and powerful and wise old being who doesn’t really have a name, so we’ll call him bob.  Bob was amazing, far more intelligent and noble than any human could ever hope to be.  So Bob decided to create, in his own image, a lesser being named ‘mankind,’ which was named after the first and far superior version that came with exterior reproductive organs, with the other type being more of an afterthought really.  Because Bob knew all about concepts like ‘genetic diversity’ and the potential problems of incest, he realized it was a great idea to start with only two of these creatures, named Adam and Eve.

Community

No, I am not talking about things like TAM, the Secular Student Alliance, or the Rational Response Squad.  This point is not about atheist communities.  The term ‘Community’ here refers to atheists’ interactions with other communities, and the way they are viewed by those communities.  In particular, I’m going to talk about atheist charities and social action campaigns, and the role they serve in improving the image of atheists worldwide.

Liberty

So I have FINALLY gotten back to that long-ago series about how to combat religion (and more importantly irrationality) with the atheist movement.  In case you’ve forgotten, my last post in this series was about atheist increasing their Presence in America.  This post is about making that Presence a force for Liberty in a way that highlights the moral depravity of religious doctrines and demonstrates the ability to separate morality from religion.

Presence

Before delving into this topic, I should let you know that much of my information is coming from this publication by the Pew Research Center.  The slated release date was October 9^th of this year, so it is quite current.  I’m going to be pulling various numbers from it, but if you’re interested I strongly recommend reading the article itself.  The Full Report is also available, though it is quite long.  I will also warn you that I may use some of these numbers in other posts in this series.

Integrity

For the past year or so, my mom has been keen to keep reminding me that she doesn’t believe in anything like the classical concept of God.  Of course, this is always a prelude to her spewing out some crap about connectedness, spirituality, or homeopathy.  I point this out because by the way most atheists use the term, my mom is technically an atheist: She doesn’t believe in anything worth calling a god.  However, in terms of our end goal towards a more reasonable tomorrow, my mom does not represent any substantial progress.

The Five Point Plan

As you are undoubtedly aware, the past decade or so has seen a lot of atheists taking a stand against religion.  We’ve seen a proliferation of high-selling anti-theism books like The God Delusion and The End of Faith.  We’ve seen the formation of groups such as the Secular Student Alliance, the Rational Response Squad, and TAM.  We’ve seen an explosion of atheistic internet content, from Facebook and Blogs to Reddit and YouTube.  And the vast majority of this content shares a common theme: Religions don’t make sense, and many of them are quite problematic and need to be eliminated.

I'm Muhammad, and I Approve this Post

Hey guys.  Turns out outlining and detailing my plan of engagement is getting to be a big task.  I though I had a good idea for splitting it up amongst multiple posts, but then I realized that some of the parts wouldn't really make much sense without the others.  So instead of posting half now and half next week, I'm just going to delay the first half and post it all together next week.  However, I have managed to devise an insightful yet easy-to-demonstrate anti-Islam technique.

Beating Religion: Strengths and Weaknesses

Last week I identified the two wildly different mindsets that frame religious and irreligious thinking.  This week I’m going to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Guardian mindset.  I am going to skip such an analysis for the Seeker mindset, because it is not terribly pertinent to what I have in mind.  The results of this exercise in analyzing the Guardian mindset will be utilized next week, when I look at the kinds of strategies we need to employ in order to beat religion.

Beating Religion: Seekers and Defenders

In this post, I am going to highlight what I think is a very important difference between skeptics and dogmatics (by which I mean “those who follow a dogma which is not supposed to be questioned”).  The two groups tend to have two very different mindsets when it comes to the concepts of truth, knowledge, and morality.  I am terming these two highly distinct mindsets as the “Defender” mindset and the “Seeker” mindset.

Funerals Or Parties?

As some of you may know, this blog's origins come from a sporadic series of Facebook notes I posted criticizing religion.  However, I have recently realized that here are a fair few topics I covered on Facebook that never made the transition to the blog.  So I'm starting a short pseudo-series where I will be reposting the old Facebook notes here, with slight updates as needed.  Hope you enjoy!

Pete and Zaq's Excellent Wager

True story, I swear!