Random godless thought

After seeing a few recent atheist videos and reading a few godless articles, I had a question: where are my natural-born, god-free from birth atheists at?

It’s just strange that all the popular atheists nowadays are people who deconverted — you know, like Matt Dillahunty and Paulogia — which is fine, they are good representatives, but I can’t relate. Other ex-Christians and ex-Muslims probably find them relevant and interesting, but they aren’t me. I never believed; I got shuffled through Sunday school more because it was free daycare for my parents, who had six kids wearing them out, and I would memorize Bible verses for the teachers, but that was just an exercise that would get me praise on Sunday. I never prayed, not even as a very young child, because it seemed stupid to me. Who’s listening? I didn’t expect a response from someone else inside my head.

My parents were not religious either, and neither did they ever pray or even go to church. My grandparents made me read from the Bible every Christmas, but do you think they ever went to church? Heck no. I didn’t know anyone, except the Sunday school teacher, who was particularly devout, and even the pastor, when I asked him about why I was going to church at all, just shrugged and said it was fine if I didn’t. (I wonder if he was deconverting himself — he later left that church).

This is not a complaint — atheists who deconverted are great, and an important part of the face of atheism. I am just feeling unrepresented. For instance, I don’t give a flying fuck about interpreting Bible verses or finding contradictions, but there’s a lot of atheist content on that sort of thing, which I find largely irrelevant. I enjoy stuff about humanism and science, which matters far more to me.

What about you? Are there more people here who never ever believed in Jesus or prophets or whatever, or more people who fought the good fight to escape from youthful misconceptions?

I’m missing Skepticon!

I’m sad, but the good news is that I watched Debbie Goddard on YouTube last night, and I assume the rest of the talks will be on the Skepticon YouTube channel today. Check out the schedule:

10am: Panel – Planned Parenthood Great Rivers
2:30pm: Main Stage Speaker: Greg Gbur. I don’t know what he’ll be talking about: throwing invisible cats off the roof?
3:30pm: Main Stage Speaker: Kavin Senapathy. She has a new book: The Progressive Parent: Harnessing the Power of Science and Social Justice to Raise Awesome Kids.
4:45pm: Panel – The Fourth City Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Tune in and check it out, and don’t forget to leave a like on the videos!

What happened to the New Atheism?

I’ve been a bit withdrawn lately, with concerns over personal matters. As I tend to do, I retreated into self-absorbed uselessness. I did get three lectures organized for my new fall class, though, so that’s something…and I also started thinking about a far less productive question. What the heck happened to the New Atheism? I used to be loosely associated with that “movement,” although nowadays I’m more inclined to repudiate it.

Transcript down below
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Looking forward to the big meeting

Skepticon is coming on 26 July, and they’ve announced the first few speakers. One is Kavin Senapathy

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Kavin Senapathy is a writer, journalist, and author covering a slew of life science-related stories for outlets like SciShow, Scientific American, Slate, Forbes, Undark, The Daily Beast, and SELF. They are the author of the forthcoming book The Progressive Parent: Harnessing the Power of Science and Social Justice to Raise Awesome Kids (August 2024, Hanover Square/HarperCollins).

Another is Greg Gbur.

Greg Gbur is a Professor of Physics and Optical Science, the author of two popular science books on invisibility and falling cats, and the author of a long-running blog, Skulls in the Stars, about physics, science history, horror fiction and whatever else catches his fancy.

They are both excellent human beings and interesting people. This is going to be a great meeting!

Honesty is no way to get rich

The Museum of Atlantis is opening! Take the AI-guided tour of empty rooms and missing evidence and a well-stocked gift shop.

I was a bit disappointed, though. At one point they show a gallery of promoters of the myth, featuring Graham Hancock and Edgar Cayce and Madame Blavatsky, and you’d think they’d have learned. When there’s no evidence, just make it all up! Don’t show empty rooms, fill ’em up with dioramas and animatronics and cheap mannequins and wall signs! Learn from the modern master, Ken Ham.

I’m still reluctantly impressed at the Ark Park’s brilliant strategy of filling empty rooms with empty crates and announcing that the animals were inside.

The Museum of Atlantis could be a fabulous money-maker, all you need is imagination and a gullible public…and the US has the latter in great overwhelming masses.

Isn’t it always this way?

Guy rides to the top on little more than his charisma and confidence, and what happens? All his unpleasantness bubbles to the top.

The pastor of one of the country’s largest churches—and who Donald Trump once named as a spiritual adviser—has admitted to “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a woman who says he sexually abused her when she was just 12 years old.

On Friday, Cindy Clemishire told The Wartburg Watch, a religious watchdog blog, that Robert Morris, the pastor of Texas’ Gateway Church, asked her to come into his room when he stayed with her family for Christmas in 1982. She was 12 and he was 20 at the time. She said Morris molested her and then ordered her not to say anything about his behavior “because it will ruin everything.” The abuse continued for years before Clemishire confided in a close friend, prompting Morris’ wife to find out and Morris to step down from the ministry, according to the report.

When he made the standard tearful confession of guilt to his congregation, begging for forgiveness for this poor sinner, he admitted that he was guilty of “inappropriate sexual behavior,” he didn’t mention that his victim was 12 years old.

Elders at Gateway Church also told The Christian Post that Morris disclosed a “moral failure” and had since been absolved. He has not been criminally charged, but Texas’ statute of limitations does not cover sexual offenses committed against a child.

“Pastor Robert has been open and forthright about a moral failure he had over 35 years ago when he was in his twenties and prior to him starting Gateway Church. He has shared publicly from the pulpit the proper biblical steps he took in his lengthy restoration process,” they said, according to the Post.

“moral failure”. She was 12 years old. Jesus, these people. But he’s been absolved.

Atheists have their own examples of “moral failure” — Dave Silverman comes to mind — but at least we don’t pretend to “absolve” them.