This thread has asploded ...

Please continue any and all arguments about the scientific method, the existence and nature of God, the limits of technology, and attestations to alien abduction, ghost stories, and near-death experiences here. Thank you. Have at.

Rev. Moon Marries 45,000 in Global Mass Wedding

For those of you who remember last year's Unification Church talk, here is an example of mass weddings as performed by the Unification Church, along with a general rationale for them.

Your mama's a bigger monkey than we thought

Interesting article from Science (via the excellent io9 blog) pushing back our idea on the age of bipedial apes. pushing it WAAAAAAY back. good for a read.

Possible future discussion topic? Yay/Nay?

"Find God, win a trip to Mecca (or Jerusalem, or Tibet)"

The title of this post links to an article about a future Turkish gameshow with the objective of converting at least one of ten atheist contestants to Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, or Christianity.

Let's Try Something New...

I'd like to see if I can get a discussion going on the blog. The topic is:

Should Atheists engage Theists in debate?

Here are some rough thoughts to get the ball rolling. Please weigh in in the comments. (Anonymous commenting now available.)

Yes: Not debating means your side won't be heard; Might convince some people on the fence; Can correct some common mistaken beliefs about atheism.

No: Not going to convince Theists; It's a false dichotomy--there's no "Atheist side" to represent; Atheists already handicapped in debate by cognitive biases in favor of Theism.

Hulu Takes Down Family Guy Episode on Atheism [Edited: Not because of the Atheism]

Edit:

Autumn comments: The issue has something to do with a joke made earlier in the show about William Shatner's wife. I have read that there is a pending libel issue because of this which caused Fox to take the show off their site and ask Hulu to do the same. The fact that this was the Atheism episode was an unfortunate coincidence.

If you're like me and addicted to both television and internet, then Hulu is like a bowl of cocaine-flavored ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Basically, it's a service that allows you to stream episodes from popular TV shows with minimal commercial breaks. One of their more popular shows is Family Guy, which recently showed an episode in which Atheism is pitted against hardcore Christianity (Spoiler: Atheism wins.)

But you can't find this episode on Hulu. Why?

Due to a legal matter, we've had to pull the episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" from the site temporarily. We'll get the episode posted back up shortly, after the content owner has resolved the issue.

I'm not going to pretend I know the whole story. It just seems a bit odd that it's this particular episode that gets special treatment. I'll keep you guys updated when if I find out more, but if you want to watch the episode, it is available on other sites on the interwebs.

Open-Mindedness

Found this video on Pharyngula:



So I'm personally into "atheist evangelizing," by which I mean explaining my lack of belief in a god to others and why this view makes more sense than believing in a god. But I'm still trying to come up with a better way of explaining to people that "I do not believe in any god" =/= "I believe that no gods exist." The video helps but it's a bit too long-winded for arguments.