Free Inquiry Forum

Best-selling psychologist, Gary Marcus, on the myths and mis-steps of the human mind.

Colbert Report on the huge confederate flag flying over Tampa:

BGH over at The Information Paradox has an idea for theists to reduce their carbon footprint:

I had to attend a Catholic mass today as a family obligation (certainly not my first choice of activities on Sunday morning).

As I sat there and listened to the almost drone like chantings of the congregates, I began thinking to myself what a colossal waste of fuel, time and resources. It is a fruitless endeavor to get up, waste gas driving a few miles, sit in a ridiculously large (in most cases) auditorium being climate controlled by three to ten air handlers, and then get back in your car and waste gas again going home without having really accomplished anything.

Couldn’t the activities at church be performed in the privacy of your own home? Praying, singing, standing, sitting, kneeling, reflecting and all things that show the almighty you worship praise can be done, with your family, in your home. Isn’t that what _______ (insert your god’s name here) would want anyway, for you to do something to help the planet?

Just a thought.

From Philly.com:

A word for nonbelievers
Billboard on I-95 reaches out to atheists in the region.

By David O’Reilly

With its image of blue sky and fluffy clouds, the rectangle floating lately over I-95 near Allegheny Avenue suggests something dreamy, almost heavenly.

At least from a distance.

Drivers headed north toward the giant billboard might first discern the words God and Believe and suppose this to be the work of a fundamentalist church.

But this is the work of no church.

“Don’t believe in God?” it asks. “You are not alone.”

Think of it as a sign of the times.

Mounted by a consortium of local atheists, it is an invitation to the area’s atheists, agnostics, skeptics, rationalists and religious freethinkers (no one label fits them all) to overcome their differences and form a coalition.

“Hundreds of thousands of your neighbors in the Delaware Valley feel the same as you do,” according to the Web site www.phillyCOR.org, to which the billboard directs passing motorists.

“Our mission is not to convince fundamentalists to change their position,” Steve Rade, a Huntingdon Valley businessman, said last week. He donated the $22,500 needed to mount the billboard, which appeared May 1 and is to remain until the end of August.

Full article

“I want to put the blame on God tonight” a video clip from The Onion Movie:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/06/harsh_words_for.html

For a higher quality trailer go here:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/religulous/

FREE Obama For President Bumper Sticker

• Limit one free bumper sticker per customer.
• Offer valid while supplies last.
• Online submissions only.
• This offer is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
• Please allow 4 - 6 weeks for delivery.

Stephen asks Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr if he’s afraid the government will make him register his mustache.

Catholics aren’t the only ones to see pareidolia…

From ChicagoTribune.com:

Bark from Skokie holds religious message, some Muslims say
Markings made by insects allegedly show ‘Muhammad’ in Arabic

Something about the sound of the tree bark hitting the ground caught Assad Busool’s attention, compelling the Islamic scholar to pluck the wood fragment from the pavement in front of his Skokie home.

What he found written on it has caused a minor stir among some members of his Muslim community, who view the engraving as a divine reminder of the existence of God. The word “Muhammad”—or rather the Arabic for the Islamic prophet’s name—had been carved into the bark by insects.

Some of the most ridiculous quotes:

“They don’t know Arabic. To eat the inside of the branch and make that writing, it’s guidance from God, of course,” said Busool, who assumed the insects were termites. (Local experts said the markings were more likely made by wood borers.) “The termites were worshiping God,” Busool said.

His wife, Ann, a Christian who doesn’t read Arabic, said she hoped the bark chip might portend good fortune.

“Either we have some very intelligent termites out there or something else is going on—some kind of omen or wish,” she said.

From CommonDreams.org:

FALLUJAH, Iraq - At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure that he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.

Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. “Where will you spend eternity?” it asked.

He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16.”

“They are trying to convert us to Christianity,” said Anad, a Sunni Muslim like most residents of this city in Anbar province. At home, he told his story, and his relatives echoed their disapproval: They’d been given the coins, too, he said.

The Underground Unbeliever has more about this on his blog.