gdp's Comments

Atheist Revolution : Smart Phone Zombies

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 02:43:51 +0000

I work in Manhattan and it irritates me to no end to see all of the people around me who seemingly can't pull away from their mobile devices. They text while walking across the street or watch a movie or tv show on their iPad while walking up a crowded stairway in Penn Station. Not only do they risk tripping or being hit by a vehicle, their lack of situational awareness can leave them vulnerable to theft. Just annoys me, but what can one do?

Atheist Revolution : Lying By Sam Harris

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 15:17:49 +0000

For me personally, one of my most common occasions for lying probably involves making excuses to avoid social situations of which I want no part. And thanks to changes in technology, we can't even use the Patrick Bateman excuse anymore! "I have to return some videotapes." My recent post The Platform Preacher

Atheist Revolution : Existence of Atheists Offends Christians

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:24:33 +0000

The one I hear sometimes is "So you don't believe in anything?" I'm like "No, I believe in lots of things, like justice, compassion, tolerance, equality etc." My recent post There Can Be Only One?

Atheist Revolution : Existence of Atheists Offends Christians

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:23:30 +0000

I agree. In a sense, we function as living billboards that tell them they are basically wasting their time when they go to church, attend bible study or engage in prayer. My recent post There Can Be Only One?

Atheist Revolution : Freethought Bullying

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:20:13 +0000

This speaks to something that I've been noticing lately. With regard to "professional atheists", there is a certain segment of the atheist blogosphere where it seems they spend a fair chunk of their time going to and speaking at atheist conferences. How many friggin conferences can you have in a year? They all get to feel like they're some sort of celebrity. As for the dustups over sexual harassment allegations at these conferences, I can't help but think that Christians reading and lurking on atheist blogs can't help but feel a certain schadenfreude over it. After all, we're the ones always claiming that their religion is misogynist, and then we have prominent female atheists and skeptics decyring their treatment at the hands of supposedly more enlightened and rational atheist men.

Atheist Revolution : The New American Christianity

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:11:15 +0000

I had to chop up my comments in order for them to be accepted. Here's the last paragraph: And we have all of this taking place while Republicans in particular are trying to gut the social safety net because we supposedly can't afford it, and calling taxes on the wealthy class warfare. That is the heart of what OWS is all about, bringing attention to a system that is geared towards screwing the poor and the middle class while enriching the wealthy.

Atheist Revolution : The New American Christianity

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:10:43 +0000

All of the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything. Everything Gingrich says is wrong because his basic premise above is wrong. The Occupy movement is about opposing a structural inequality in our tax and fiscal policies that is skewed towards the wealthy because the wealthy influence our politicians to make it that way. The NY Times recently had an article about how Mitt Romney has an arrangement with Bain Capital that he still gets income from them even though he left them years ago. Plus, the income is taxed at a lower rate, and a lot of Bain's profits were made from buying companies and then laying off workers and selling the companies for a profit. Oddly enough, Gingrich even alluded to this when a reporter mentioned to him that Romney said he should return the money he made from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Atheist Revolution : The New American Christianity

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:59:53 +0000

Whiffle, that's from the movie Spartacus. Gracchus and a young Julius Caesar are in a Roman market. Gracchus gives some religiously themed greeting to a vendor and then Caesar expresses surprise, being under the belief that Gracchus is a non-believer. Then Gracchus replies similar to what you said, but IIRC, the order was different, "Privately, I believe in none of them, in public I believe in all of them."

Atheist Revolution : Idiot of the Week: Rick Santorum (Again)

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:11:14 +0000

Suffering is a fact of life. But it doesn't mean that it should be reveled in. I thought it was supposed to be Catholic doctrine that witnessing the suffering of others inspires us to be caring. I guess this means that if Santorum is ever in a hospital and suffering from excruciating pain, he won't mind if the hospital staff refuses his requests for pain medication and tells him to just deal with it because it builds character.

Atheist Revolution : U.S. Motto Inaccurate: American Atheists Do Not Trust in God

Tue, 8 Nov 2011 01:55:15 +0000

When it comes to In God We Trust, all I can think is "What's this WE shit?"

Atheist Revolution : Oppose Mississippi\'s Personhood Amendment to Help Keep Abortion Legal

Sun, 6 Nov 2011 19:19:08 +0000

They should have put up billboards featuring a fertilized egg with a caption that reads THIS IS NOT A PERSON. Then next to it a picture of a woman (with different billboards showing women of different ethnicity) in her home with a visible harried expression on her face, bills piled up on the table (with the implication that she is having a tough time paying them) and one or more children in the background behind her, with a caption that reads THIS IS A PERSON. DON'T MAKE HER LIFE HARDER. VOTE NO ON PROP 26.

Atheist Revolution : Atheists Do Not Need to Have All the Answers

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 03:33:44 +0000

Man, something really bad must have happened to you. It's been my observation over the years that people turn to religion because something really bad happened to them, usually a problem of their own making. Generally, it is someone raised with some religion in their background, but they might not be much of a churchgoer. But still, it's there. Then they have a moment of crisis in their lives, and then they remember the religion they were brought up in and they think "Maybe I ought to give this a shot." Most of the time, the crisis passes, but since they happened to turn to religion at the right moment, they credit the religious belief to things getting better.

You Made Me Say It! : American Myths

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 03:02:43 +0000

I love this line: In fact, atheists actually do have an image of a supreme being. It is Man... Actually, it is theism that suffers from what I call human egocentrism. In this vast universe filled with billions of galaxies, religions like Christianity and Islam posit that a being that created all of that is primarily concerned with the behavior of the species homo sapiens on planet Earth, that we are so special that we are created in this deity's image, and that our world is the central front in a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil.

Atheist Revolution : CNN Interview with Writer/Director of \"The Ledge\"

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:19:57 +0000

Remember, this is the same CNN that several years ago on Paula Zahn's program bashing atheists without having a single atheist on the panel. Then after the outcry, they did an interview with Richard Dawkins that lasted maybe 5 minutes.

Atheist Revolution : American and Atheist

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 16:31:02 +0000

I really like the "God-LESS America" message, but I'm less than thrilled with the claim that atheism is patriotic. I thought of a Godless America bumper sticker. Don't care for Atheism Is Patriotic either, because it's not. What's patriotic is supporting freedom to believe in any religion or no religion at all.

Atheist Revolution : American and Atheist

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 16:29:09 +0000

Uh, Republicans don't really believe in small government either, except for the parts of the budget they don't like. Republicans also don't believe in trading with all countries either, which is why maintaining the embargo with Cuba is one of their red meat issues.

Atheist Revolution : How to Tell Whether You are a Real Christian

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 00:22:38 +0000

As an atheist, my definition of a Christian is rather broad. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that he was born from a virgin, and that he was crucified for our sins and rose from the dead, is a Christian.

Atheist Revolution : Elevators and Sexism in the Atheist Movement

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 00:14:02 +0000

It seems that every atheist who has a blog has already weighed in I'm going to be one of the few who doesn't weigh in on it.

Atheist Revolution : As an Atheist, What Do I Want?

Sun, 29 May 2011 15:30:58 +0000

Yeah, I don't need for religion to be eliminated, merely relegated to the same level of respectability as astrology, a quaint, harmless belief.

Atheist Revolution : Are You Ready for the Rapture?

Fri, 13 May 2011 23:12:58 +0000

I did a few posts on this on my blog. In the last few days I've noticed a few more people holding signs or handing out flyers by Penn Station in Manhattan, and yesterday evening I saw some woman driving a vehicle in the lane to my left with May 21 stickers on it. I laughed at her. On the 21st I plan to live blog Judgment Day.