Because I seem to be suffering from an over-all writer’s block, and to make up for the missing Friday Pics, here is a cavalcade of photos that illustrate what sort of things have been taking up my spare time this spring.

Tiny tiny chickens:

Stockholm and beautiful spring weather:

Mountains of beekeeping supplies needing attention:

Planting of interesting varieties of elderberry and discovering beautiful critters:

The first true democratic assembly of the Swedish Humanist Youth Organisation:

Flowers and bees:

Please don’t give up on me. Next week I’m going to the World Humanist Congress in Washington D.C. That should yield some interesting blog topics and release me from my writer’s block!

bees, beekeeping, chickens, humanism, stockholm

Last night I attended a release party celebrating Hitchens’ “God is not great” being released in Swedish, with the title “Du store Gud?”, by Fri Tanke Förlag (Freethought Publishing). There was a discussion between Elisabeth Sandlund, the editor of a christian newspaper and Åke Ortmark, a prominent journalist who was recently elected onto the board of the Swedish Humanist Association (which I guess makes us colleagues). The editor, an obviously intelligent lady with a lot of what I’d have to call spunk, had been atheist for a long time but met god at the confirmation of her handicapped daughter.

All in all it was a fun, friendly discussion. She wasn’t a creationist and I think ethically she and I would agree on most things - although she’s against euthanasia and thinks that diagnosing handicaps in the womb and preventing these fetuses from growing is a slippery slope. We shouldn’t give the scientists free reins, she opined, forgetting that it’s not the knowledge that’s dangerous, but the application. She also made a few other slightly baffling comments; for instance she was under the impression that scientists are pursuing a final answer and would be happy the day we know everything there is to know. During my turn to speak in the discussion afterwards I pointed out that the very jobs of scientists depend on there being more questions to ask.

I also asked her a question that seemed to piss her off, as she didn’t answer and instead made herself seem like an idiot. She had been lamenting the misuse of christianity during the crusades and in catholic countries outlawing homosexuality and the like. I asked her if it isn’t a little problematic to believe that her version of christianity is the right one, when these other christians believe just as fervently as she does that they’re doing the right thing. Huffily, she said that by that logic, all atheists like Stalin.

Yeah, I have no idea how she made that connection. The old “atheism led to the Holocaust/gulags/whatever” fallacy has been debunked ad nauseam, but in this case it’s not even applicable. I wasn’t saying that her personal faith was responsible for crimes against humanity, or that she’s in any way connected to these, I was asking how she knows that she really happens to believe in the right version of christianity, when there’s so many of them. Perhaps I phrased the question poorly, though. I am, after all, only human. Unfortunately she rushed off afterwards, panting “I have to get home to my handicapped child!” (she referred to her daughter often, and it irked me. Clearly she thinks she’s special because her daughter has a mental handicap. I have nothing but contempt for people who use their handicapped children as arguments in a debate, it’s so obviously fishing for sympathy), so there wasn’t time to resolve the matter.

Other than this, nothing out of the ordinary was said. Ortmark failed to answer a question from a christian about objective morality, probably because he as a Humanist doesn’t believe in any such thing and hence didn’t even understand the question. Sandlund repeated the old fallacy that Swedish ethics = Christian ethics, and failed to answer all the questions that normally lead people to reject god, such as the problem of theodicy, and complacently stated that she’s happy to hand over those problems to God, and that in fact, she feels it strengthens her faith that she doesn’t know everything. A lovely bit of rationalising - “This is a problem that might dent my faith. Therefore, I must believe it strengthens my faith.”

In short, the message to take home was that even nice, intelligent christians are still, well, christians. They still have an imaginary friend and they still believe in miracles, contrary to all evidence.

christianity, humanism, åke ortmark

Tonight, the president of the Swedish Humanist Association, Christer Sturmark, will meet Ulf Ekman, the founder of a prominent evangelical, charismatic christian cult in a debate. The cult in question is called Livets Ord, lit. Word of Life. It was invented by Ulf Ekman in 1983 (the year of my birth, incidentally). Some would probably object to my calling it a cult, especially since they’ve toned down the more controversial stuff in order to be more accepted in mainstream society. But a lot of to me very scary beliefs remain; the guilt and shame complex, the idea that homosexuality is a sin, and that women should submit to their husbands (even though men and women are supposedly equal under god - how they reconcile the two is an interesting exercise in twisted “equal but different” logic).

The debate takes place in Livets Ord’s home town, Uppsala, in fact in their own buildings, and there’s likely to be a lot of cult members there. Me and a few other Humanists will attend but we’re probably most definitely going to be a minority. Those of you who know Swedish can follow the debate live from Livets Ord’s webpage. It will also be aired on SVT2 on friday at 9:30 in the morning.

livets ord, ulf ekman, christer sturmark, humanism, christianity

Welcome to Life Before Death and the latest edition of Carnival of the Godless! I’m your hostess, Felicia, and originally I had big plans on making this carnival something … speshul. Then I realised that nothing I could possibly come up with would in any way add to the quality of the many, many posts submitted, which is why I’ve simply elected to let them present themselves with representative (or sometimes not so representative) quotes. So, without further ado:

HankFox.com: The Good Stuff - “I don’t know a single atheist, I’m not sure I’ve even MET one, who hated humanity, or wanted anything bad to happen to anybody.”
Also at HankFox.com: The Brassican Heresy and Atheist Questions.

The View from Here: Benny Hinn - What a Friend He Has in Jesus - “Despite the overwhelming evidence that Hinn is the lowest form of con man, exploiting the emotional and spiritual needs of the desperate, viewers, many of whom can ill afford it, will no doubt continue to donate millions of dollars annually in the hope of realizing some small improvement in their lives.”

The Barefoot Bum: Fine Tuning - “In short, the Fine Tuning argument is speculative, probabilistically meaningless, and, even if true, doesn’t establish anything interesting. I think it’s safe to say that, after Pascal’s Wager, it’s the second worst apologetic ever.”

Epsilon Clue: Where Are all the Reflective Christians? - “These people do believe in a magic man in the sky who helps them find their car keys /…/ So why aren’t the intelligent, reflective Christians telling them they’re full of shit?”

defryer.com: The Multiple Stages of Faith - “‘Faithlessness’ as a definition of the absence faith is really only used in a religious context since no one really knows or cares about our extent of faith in any other context. No one is ostracized (except possibly on a local level) for their lack of faith in government or purity of food or future direction of the stock market.”

Greta Christina: On Illness, Bodies, and This Weird Free Will Thing - “If there is no God and no soul, and everything we are is comprised of physical things and the relationships between physical things… then when you change those physical things, the self changes as well. Our selves are not in our own hands nearly as much as we like to think.”
Also from Greta Christina: The Meaning of Death, Part 3 of Many: Fear, Grief, and Actually Experiencing Your Emotions

A Swedish American in Sweden: Sweden Separates the Church and State - “I don’t buy creationism, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a subject that should be taught in public schools. At the same time though skeptical of the complete banning of a subject or idea.”

Rational Apologetics: God is Evil - “God doesn’t care if we’re good or not — he only cares if we stroke his ego.”
Also at Rational Apologetics: The Elijah Challenge

The Skwib: The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Wacky Ancient Greek Atheist Edition) - “soul is just an exceedingly fine and spherical kind of atom - or perhaps superstition - in any case, it’s not that different from a goat.”

Surgeonsblog: Funnyman - “The mind reels. It’s like walking into a crime scene, wading through body parts, and, because the perpetrator wrote “Hah hah” in blood on the wall, saying he must have a humorous streak.”

Wild Philosophy: My Favorite Moral Bible Passages - “To summarize, morality requires that we beat our children, control our women, or burn, stone, or sell them, execute homosexuals, cast the sick out of our society to fend for themselves, and completely and utterly destroy any society with which we are at war (except for their virgin girl children, whom we are free to rape). Truly, God is great, and will reward us with many slaves if we keep His ways!”

Free Thinking Joy: Religion is mental horror vacui - “Whereas religions must fill the mental vacuum at any price, using gods and other stuffing material, science just tries to construct useful theories that grow into the empty space, but never filling it completely.”

Alexander the Atheist: Zeus Endorsement - “Rather than engage in voter fraud to ensure a win for Zeus I have decided, instead, to officially endorse him as my candidate of choice for the Coolest Fabricated Deity in an attempt to stem the tide of this Odin fanaticism.”
Also from Alexander: End Times: 2,000 Years and Counting

Skeptic’s Play: The moutnain theologians - “Soon he realizes that the mountain goes much higher, but the path is poorly marked and obscured in fog. He points it out to the theologians, but they cannot see the markings.”

Fannie’s Room: Blasphemy! (Part I) - “I think the idea that God is some sort of male being is a quaint man-made idea.”

ShakaOfEarth: ‘Earth Worship’ on the rise among evangelical youth - “Wouldn’t a smart parent allow their child to explore all the different faiths? Oh wait, Evangelical like to brainwash their kids and hate anything that even looks like it might allow their offspring to learn about reality.”

Bay of Fundie: Fundie Atheists - “For all practical purposes, God does not exist. If there is not now nor has there ever been any evidence for a god, then in practical, real-world terms, it is identical to making the statement that a god does not exist.”

Atheist Revolution: “In God We Trust” Must Go - “How do you suppose American Christians would feel about using currency on which “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the greatest) was printed? How about “We Believe in Evolution,” “Secular Democracy,” or a similar slogan?”

Rational Responders: How to Respond to a Superlicious Christian - “As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, if you believe something without sufficient evidence, you are irrational.”

Atheist Ethicist: Hope - “Actually, I do grow warm and fuzzy in a blanket of science. Well, warm, at least.”

Homo Academicus: This Atheist - “…she is always asking me about my opinions or beliefs on all sorts of things, trying to see how far my atheism goes. I thought I’d save some time and just compile it all here.”

Long Live the Village Green: Upon the rack of this tough world… - “Before he died, I thanked my dad for being the best dad I could ever hope for. I told him how much I appreciated all the gifts he gave me: love for theatre and all the arts, for science and philosophy, for literature and history, for books and book collecting, and for Shakespeare!”

The Gaytheist Agenda: “Why do Atheists Hate America” - “…without faith and Christianity “America as we know it” would cease to exist. Of course to an extent that second part is true. Just imagine how much bigotry and oppression we could dispense with by eradicating Christianity alone.”

And finally, my own entry here at LBD: On Happiness: “The difference between atheists and religious people is that atheists are aware that our personal happiness is entirely up to ourselves and not some imaginary friend.”

carnival of the godless, atheism, religion, science

I’m cranky today. The reason is most likely a relapse into SAD, which I tend to suffer bouts of every winter. In light of this, one would assume today isn’t the best of days to write about happiness, but bear with me (and please excuse the somewhat rambling nature of this post).

Often in discussions about the relative virtues of atheism and religion, personal happiness is brought up. We atheists are told we cannot possibly be happy, or at least not as happy as christians/muslims/jews/whatevers. Because we don’t have god in our life. Immediately, atheists snap back that we are indeed happy, in fact we couldn’t be happier. We’re so happy, happy, happy that it’s a wonder we don’t explode. It’s like we forget, in our eagerness to prove to the religious that one can lead a fulfilling existence even lacking god, that happiness isn’t the standard human condition.

Am I basically happy with my life? Oh, yes. I have a lot to be very happy about, like my wonderful family, my amazing boyfriend, and biology. But am I happy all the time? Oh hell no. Are you?

Seriously. If anyone can honestly answer that they’re happy every minute of every day - because they feel god’s love or because they’re looking forward to the UFO coming to take them to Paradise Planet or whatever - I would have to question their sanity. Feelings of happiness and discontent is the mechanism by which our brains reward good behaviour and punish doing things that are bad for us. If we were perpetually happy, we would cease working toward a better life for ourselves and our loved ones. The human mind is a problem-solving tool, and it needs motivation.

That is not to say that depression is a good thing. If you’re always feeling like life is pointless, there is something wrong, and you should seek help. But my point here is that there is nothing wrong with admitting that you’re not always happy. In fact, I think it’s a problem for many that they feel unable to open up and admit to themselves and to others that they are not happy with something, be it their entire lives or just that horrible purple shirt their spouse insists on wearing to a nervous family dinner. And keeping those feelings bottled up, pretending that everything is perfectly fine when it’s not, is just about the worst thing you can do for your long-term happiness.

In the end, I think most people enjoy similar levels of happiness and unhappiness. Regardless of your circumstances your brain will still reward you with happy feelings when something good happens, and punish or motivate you with bad feelings when you need to do something to change your situation. The difference between atheists and religious people is that atheists are aware that our personal happiness is entirely up to ourselves and not some imaginary friend. We know that when bad things happen, it’s due to circumstances, enemies, or bad choices and that we are the only ones who can do something about it. And conversely, we also know that when good things happen, it’s due to circumstance, or our own actions, or the good will of other human beings. We never worry about being punished for faltering in our faith, and we never let some sky-god take credit when we have every right to be proud of ourselves or grateful to those around us.

As for my own current crankiness, I know most of it has got nothing to do with anything outside my own head. It’s an african mammal’s unfortunate reaction to lack of sunlight (and, well, exercise). If my brain were designed, I’d blame the designer, but as it is, all I can do is ride it out, and try to remember to eat properly and not snap at people too much.

atheism, happiness, religion, depression

The president of the Swedish Humanist Association is one Christer Sturmark, a 40-something man whom the media like to point out wears a pony-tail and a gold ring in his ear, and who is often referred to (by the same media) as an old IT guru. Be that as it may, he has brought the SHA to the forefront of public debate, leading to an amazing increase in membership and resources with which to battle religious fundamentalism, pseudoscientific woo and other things humanism opposes, as well as improving our own various ceremonial services and other activities. That the SHA has Sturmark to thank for most of this, I doubt anyone would contradict.

He is not entirely uncontroversial, however, and lately there have been a few elements within the SHA spreading what can only be seen as disinformation intended to hurt his reputation, regarding his personal life. I will not dwell on the exact nature of this discussion because it’s actually rather stupid. What is interesting though is what these people, when they have met with resistance from within the association, have done. A specific question has been raised: Are we allowed to criticise The Leader? Is the SHA in actuality a sect-like organisation?

This is obviously beyond ridiculous, and here’s why:

Christer Sturmark is not Our Leader. Nor is Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Cristopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, or any other prominent atheist or humanist you can think of. There are prominent thinkers within this loosely-held-together movement. There are prominent debaters, there are presidents of organisations, there are board members and there are people who are famous for other reasons who ally themselves with us (Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame being the obvious example in Sweden).

Many of us feel grateful to these people, for standing up for our worldview and beliefs, for taking the slings and arrows of the religious counter-attacks, and for developing and refining our worldview and the arguments for it.

But, and this is the important bit, they don’t tell us what to think or do. They don’t tell us what we believe. None of us went to a tent revival where Pastor Dawkins made us see the light and repent. There is no God and Sturmark is most definitely not his Prophet. Most atheists who were ever anything but atheists are self-converts - they thought about their worldview and realised it was wrong. Books and speeches by prominent atheists and humanists may have helped, but in the end, this is a thoroughly individualistic movement, which requires all members to make up their own minds. (In fact, the SHA has an age limit of 12, as we think it’s unethical to ally your children with a worldview organisation before they have had the chance to make up their own mind.)

Sturmark is an individual who happens to be the president of the SHA. I’m an individual who happens to be a member of the SHA. I do not think that just because he’s the president, his beliefs are more humanistic than mine, and that I ought to defer to him in everything related to our worldview. I do recognise authority where it is due, but this is not one of those cases. So yes, it is perfectly okay to criticise people like Sturmark, or for that matter the “Four Horsemen”. The fact that such criticism is often ignored, or sometimes vehemently disagreed with, does not reflect any sect-like tendencies, but rather suggests two things:

The first is that most atheists/humanists either agree with what these public faces of atheism/humanism think, or feel such a debt of gratitude that they feel obliged to defend them.

The second is that because of the very fact that these people aren’t Leaders, in the way that the Pope is the Leader of the Catholic church, there is no obligation on us (the members) to defend or denounce them.

The point here is that while for instance Ted Haggard’s behaviour was extremely important to the members of his church, because he purported to speak for a Higher Authority, such is not the case when it comes to Sturmark or other official leaders of the humanist/atheist movement. It may damage our reputation with other people outside the movement when our elected leaders make mistakes, but among us, we know that all humans are just that - human. Everyone makes mistakes, and if we made a mistake in electing a particular leader, so be it. Because we never claimed that these people are perfect representations of all it means to be a humanist, there is no need to act as though it’s the end of the world when they do something we don’t agree with - at least so long as they don’t claim to do it in the name of the movement.

My conclusion is that those within the movement who accuse us of cult-like tendencies are actually displaying the very same tendencies themselves, as they seem to suffer under the delusion that a person has to be without fault to be eligible to lead the movement!

humanism, atheism, sturmark, cults

There is a lovely interview with a member of the Swedish Humanist Association in SvD, titled “Att lämna tron var en befrielse” - “To leave faith was liberating”. Markus Anhage was formerly a very devout member of the Pentecostal church, a faith inherited from his parents.

The belief in God was as self-evident as the fil on the breakfast table. His family prayed and went to church regularly. But over Markus’ twelfth summer, something happened to his faith. He started burning, as they said in the pentecostal assembly. Every morning he got up an hour earlier to pray before he went to school. “God your will be done in heaven, your will be done in Sweden, your will be done at school. Let your kingdom come to me. Thank you Jesus for dying for me”, and so on.

Religion was everything to Markus, and consequently he was an outsider at school. The other kids bullied him and scribbled “hate god!” on his locker. But he wasn’t sad, after all, the bible said that christians should expect to be mocked for their faith. He saw the bullying as a receipt: He had the right religion.

Markus’ teenage years were mostly happy, but towards the end of high school he started experiencing doubts. How could there be so much evil in the world if God was good? He became depressed, and saw it as an attack from the devil. He refers to this time in his life as the “ambivalent” period. Eventually,

Markus heard that he could read about other religions, he would still find that christianity was the best one. For the first time in his life he read critiques of the bible, he devoured religious encyclopaediae from cover to cover, he studied philsophy and surfed muslim webpages. But instead of strengthening his faith, he lost it.

“I know that there are people, but I don’t know if there are gods. Therefore I focus on the humans. Science is limited and our intellects are limited. I have many questions and empty holes, but I don’t stick God, spirits or demons in them anymore.”

Two years ago his son was born with a heart defect, and needed a pacemaker when he was two years old. Markus couldn’t reconcile this with people’s claims of small miracles such as God helping them find an apple. He finally took the step and left his church. He describes the experience as physically liberating: It was suddenly easier to walk. No longer did he have to fear hell, no longer was he plagued by guilt over his human weaknesses. Finally, he was allowed to think for himself. But his wife is still in the church and he felt lonely. He joined the Swedish Humanist Association, looking for others like him, someone to talk to.

He points out that just like there are both wonderful and intolerant people in churches, there are both wonderful and intolerant people in non-religious groups. He wishes groups would intermingle more, instead of christians, muslims, atheists and others staying apart, refusing to communicate and try to understand each other.

To help people like himself get in touch with others in the same situation, he has started a network called Exkristen, “Ex-christian”.

Despite the very gentle tone of the article and the fact that Markus comes across as a very kind and tolerant individual who openly discusses the pain of losing his faith and how much better he feels afterwards, many of the comments to the article read as personal criticisms of his character and life choices. Especially against the choice of joining the SHA, which someone describes as a “religion devoid of feelings”. I have been subject to the same treatment when, about a year ago, I was in a similar article in the same newspaper. I was derided and accused of being a haughty and immature girl, thinking I know everything, and that “I’d probably come round as I got older”. I don’t understand why some people have trouble accepting that people might feel better without faith in an invisible friend, and why having strong opinions and a penchant for natural science translates into thinking you know everything. I don’t know any atheists personally who’d anonymously throw personal criticism in the face of religious people, but apparently the golden rule doesn’t apply if you’re religious and feel your faith’s being threatened.

It’s really depressing, especially given how few people are actually religious in Sweden. Thankfully, most of the commenters on Markus’ article seem to be nice, generous people who supports his decision and applauds him for being brave and open about it.

atheism, christianity, sweden, apostasy, ex-christian, humanism

Before I say anything else, I would like to point out that it is not at all weird for a Swedish person to be blogging on christmas day. The only thing special about today is that it’s a bank holiday - the actual christmas celebration took place yesterday. Which brings me to the actual topic of this post, a topic which seems to be very popular among secularist bloggers this time of year: Us godless atheists and our supposed difficulties with the holiday season.

The ridiculous figment “War on Christmas” aside, I’ve seen quite a few very snide remarks about atheists and humanists and how we obviously don’t celebrate christmas, and how we probably would like to forbid it altogether as the spoilsports we are. The fact that most of us celebrate christmas like any other person, and are not ashamed to admit this, is completely irrelevant to the people making these arguments, as they live in their own little imaginary world where atheists are all, if not the spawn of satan, then at least cousins of the grinch.

So how do I celebrate christmas? Eating with my family, like most other Swedes. Religion plays a very marginal role in Swedish christmas celebrations, mostly present in the form of music. In my family the only overtly religious tradition we follow is the lighting of the advent candles, the four candles of increasing height that can be seen at the back of the table in the picture. They’re lit sequentially on the sundays of advent, the fourth on christmas eve. But, for the most part, a regular Swedish christmas is a modernised pagan solstice feast centered on the consumption of vast amounts of a variety of seasonal food.

The crown of the “julbord” (literally “christmas table”, a seasonal variant of the smörgåsbord) is the christmas ham, a large ham which has been soaking in a solution of salt and sugar for ten days before you stick it in the oven. Then there should be meatballs, small sausages, various kinds of pickled herring, and so on ad infinitum. An interesting specialty is “dopp i grytan” (lit. “dipping in the pot”), where you take a piece of bread and soak it in a fat, salty broth and eat it with ham. Presumably back in poorer days, this was a way of making stale bread more palatable. Not all families prepare all dishes, of course, it’s all a matter of personal preference.

Then there’s obviously a lot of traditional sweets, cookies and other yummy things that should be present to make a christmas feast complete. This year I decided to make christmas sweets as a present to my family - depicted on the right is knäck, a kind of hard toffee with chopped almonds, resembling daim.

A slightly quirky component of a typical family christmas celebration is a reel of Disney cartoons shown every christmas eve at three in the afternoon. As far as I’m aware, most families with children will sit down in front of the television at this point and watch an hour of mostly the same cartoons as they saw last year, with a few changes (there’s a few perennials and then they show clips from the latest Disney movies, presumably to get us to buy them). My family still watches at least part of it, even though the youngest of my siblings is nearly 20 years old.

After the cartoons it’s time for the presents (although my family has developed the unconventional and blatantly, unabashedly materialistic habit of going christmas shopping together before the cartoons), which may be brought by Santa, or may be lying under the tree, which we decorate with most of the usual stuff.

In short, christmas in Secular Sweden is an advanced family dinner preceded by presents and disney cartoons. We celebrate not the birth of christ (which, if it happened at all, at least didn’t happen on December 25) but each other, by giving each other gifts and spending time together. It’s a time to indulge in what’s good in life, and you really don’t have to be christian to do that.

Merry Christmas everyone, and if that offends you, feel free to substitute “Christmas” with the holiday of your choice!

atheism, christmas, sweden

Following the open threads Questions for Christians and Questions for Atheists, Hemant posted the topics What Do You Admire About Christians? and What Do You Admire About Atheists?. The results are slightly disconcerting.

Whereas at least a couple of christians posted such kind comments as “not afraid to speak what’s really on their minds”, and “they tend to be thinkers and seekers of the truth beyond religion. They are not afraid to think, discuss, and discover. They are generally open to new ideas and new ways of thinking. They are not afraid of evolving thoughts,” there wasn’t much by ways of reciprocity. Several atheists unabashedly stated that there simply isn’t anything, or stated their admiration in such a way as to distance themselves from religion in no uncertain terms (eg. “I admire the fact that most Christians are better than their religion”). If they admire a person who is a christian, it’s not because of their christianity, but other personal attributes.

And I must admit, I’m one of those many atheists who simply can’t think of anything there is to be admired about being a christian (or a person of any other faith). There are no good personality traits that seem to go hand in hand with a predisposition for religion, whereas atheists do in fact tend to be more freethinking, skeptical and rational on average (all qualities I see as positive), at least such is the experience of me and many others. Christians tend to give more to charities, on average, but the question is whether they do that because they’re good people, or because it’s something they feel is required of them because of their faith or by the church they belong to.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that this here is the very thing I should be looking for: Maybe christians are admirable because they are capable of seeing something good about atheists, whereas we can’t do the same for them? But that doesn’t ring true, given that there are so many christians who seem to entertain the hobby of gleefully reminding us that we are going to hell.

In the end, all humans must obviously be judged as individuals. There is no stereotype atheist or christian that can represent the entirety of atheism or christianity. Not all atheists are skeptical and not all christians are charitable. But how are we going to be able to conduct a constructive dialogue between atheists and liberal christians when it’s so blatantly obvious that atheists in general have no admiration or respect for the most deeply held beliefs of the other side? Are christians really able to overlook this?

atheism, christianity, religion

Bob Churchill (Popper’s Troll-man Thing), whom I first got to know through the Brights’ Forum, has landed a job as Database, IT and Website Manager for the British Humanist Association. Congratulations, and good luck working on the new website (due to be launched “early in 2008″) - we’re all very much looking forward to it…

british humanist association