Yet another new TV channel - but this time it's Atheist TV

Here's another way to spend your TV viewing hours, a channel by and for atheists.  As they say, everyone else has a TV presence, so why not unbelievers?


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/arts/television/atheist-tv-has-its-premiere-on-roku-and-online.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

Obviously not a Dawkins fan

Here's someone who is not enamored of Richard Dawkins, erstwhile hero of the freethinking set.  Apply your humanist critical thinking here and make your own decision about the legitimacy of the attack.  Be sure to read the reader comments.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/30/richard-dawkins-what-on-earth-happened-to-you

Surprise! Atheists still don't get much acceptance

Here's an article from Slate that shows where non-believers stand in the who-would-you-want-your-kid-to-marry poll.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/06/13/pew_report_on_political_polarization_americans_will_accept_a_variety_of.html


A link within that article that you may have missed points to a longer, meatier article in Salon about the contemporary face of atheism and, spoiler alert, the author doesn't think it's the Hitchens/Dawkins group.

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/05/forget_christopher_hitchens_atheism_in_america_is_undergoing_a_radical_change_partner/

"Soft Atheism"

The Opinionator column from the New York Times has been running an interview series on religion.  Here's one that actually makes sense.   Some interesting back-and-forth on the subject of "transcendence".  Be sure to read down to the end where the interviewee makes the case for what he calls "refined religion" as a "half-way house" with secularism as the ultimate desired outcome.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/the-case-for-soft-atheism/?ref=opinion

Glad to be godless at Camp Quest

Thanks to member Mike Franklin, here's an article about Camp Quest from July of 2009.  Thanks to the wonders of the internet where nothing ever disappears, it's still available for your reading pleasure and just as relevant today as when it was published.  By the way, reading the comments were a treat, at least as far as I got they were thoughtful and well-put.  Of course they appeared to be mostly from fellow non-believers, which might explain the tone.  Perhaps the anti-atheists are farther down in the pack.

http://www.economist.com/node/14031492

English majors without enough to do....

Your respectful blogger tries not to interject personal prejudices into this blog, but this article from Slate left me ROFL (or rolling on the floor laughing for those of you not into texting acronyms.)  I guess it's just another sign that too many college graduates are underemployed and are possibly searching for a way to justify spending that $120,000 on a BA in English.  (I almost said "god love 'em and then I remembered where and who I am.) If you read this article and disagree with my reaction, I'd love to hear from you.  If for no other reason than to know someone reads this blog occasionally.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/04/shakespeare_and_atheism_what_his_works_tell_us_about_the_playwright_s_religious.html

I did appreciate the fact that the article notes that at the time of Shakespeare the notion of atheism as a world view was just becoming possible.  One does well to remember that we are fortunate to have the option of being a humanist.

Reclaim the Spring Festival

Here's the poem read by Bruce Pettycrew for the Humanist Minute on April 20, 2014, known to some as Easter Sunday.  It is an excellent statement of how we should view the Spring Festival.

http://www.humanists.org/blog/easter-holiday/