The Reason Rally is one month away!

The Reason Rally – the largest gathering of atheists, humanists, and secularists in history – is just one month away. On March 24, I’ll be in Washington DC to march on the Mall with my fellow heathens, including:

  • Jessica Ahlquist
  • Jamila Bey
  • Greta Christina
  • Lawrence Krauss
  • Richard Dawkins
  • Hemant Mehta
  • PZ Myers
  • Taslima Nasrin
  • Paul Provenza
  • James Randi
  • Adam Savage
  • Michael Shermer
  • A hugely famous comedian who I’m dying to announce but can’t yet!

…and more! With entertainment by:

  • Rational Warrior
  • Tim Minchin
  • Bad Religion

Don’t have the money? The event is FREE! Still don’t have the money? We’re doing everything we can to make the Reason Rally as cheap as possible. We’re offering 50% discounts on bus rides to DC, have a room share program on the website, and have discounts at a number of hotels in the area.

Are you a student and have negative amounts of money? I sympathize, but there’s still hope! If you’re part of a Secular Student Alliance affiliate group, your group can apply for funding from the SSA to attend the rally! No more excuses!

Not only is the rally going to be a blast, but there will be other fun activities going on. What fun activities, you ask? Well, other than laughing at the inevitable fundy protestors that will show up… A post-rally celebration with Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist and the bloggers of Freethought Blogs! Woooo! Exclamation marks!!!!

Can you tell I’m excited? I can’t help it – the Secular Student Alliance is one of the sponsoring organizations, and I’m their representative to the rally. That means I’ve been spending months helping to make sure the programming looks good and the event runs smoothly, along with the reps from the other sponsoring orgs.

I know some people just can’t make it. We have busy schedules, small budgets, and physical limitations. I totally understand. But at the very least, please spread the word. Tell all of your friends and family members who may be interested, even if they’re not already a part of the atheist movement. Especially if they’re not already part of the atheist movement. Plaster this all over Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and what have you. We don’t want a  piddly amount of people show up and Fox News to laugh at us.

So, come to meet me as I’m mulling around the crowd.

Come to show America that non-theists are a voting block that exists.

Come to give Rick Santorum a heart attack by showing that yes, secularism IS trying to take over our government.

But most of all, come to have fun.

Obama isn’t trying to destroy religion…

I AM.

Come on, Republicans. Give credit where credit is due.

The more I think about it, the more I think this could be a great ad campaign. Slap “Obama isn’t trying to destroy religion; we are” on a billboard and see the flood of media attention you get. Sounds like it’s right up the ally of those firebrands at American Atheists – wink nudge, Dave Silverman.

A simple step in promoting secularism

Last night I gave my talk about the Creation Museum. The highlight was making PZ jealous because I had crazier creationists in the audience asking me questions. Despite the talk being full of the mind numbing garbage the “museum” promotes, I try to end on a high note. What can we do to fight these ignorance spreading groups when they’re so organized and well-funded?

We need to become organized and well-funded ourselves.

There are plenty of worthy secular organizations out there, but I’m going to be biased and promote my favorite – the Secular Student Alliance. It’s easy to say something like “Students are the future.” People are more likely to change their minds about religion before they become set in their ways, have children, and all that jazz. And the young leaders we train will likely go on to other important leadership roles, both inside and outside of the movement.

But students aren’t just the future. Students are the present.

We have over 300 college and high school affiliate groups across the US. Each of those is its own grassroots community, working to promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, secularism, and human-based ethics. Our students are challenging unconstitutional religious legislation, creationism in their schools, and negative stereotypes about atheists. I know when I founded my SSA affiliate group at Purdue, it created a community where I finally felt comfortable talking about my atheism – it was an oasis in a sea of oppressive Christianity. And that’s why I’m now Vice Chair for the Board of Directors of the SSA. I’m happy to volunteer my time to help these student groups flourish.

If you want to help secular students across the country, please consider donating to the Secular Student Alliance today. And if you need even more motivation, there’s currently a $250,000 matching offer going on. That means any donation you make is effectively doubled!

We can win the battle against the Creation Museums, Focus on the Families, and Rick Santorums of the world.

PS: You could also start running for office – even if it’s piddly positions like Town Dog Catcher. We need to start being an active part of the political process, and I don’t mean just writing letters. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it – those of you who were at the pub celebration after the event know why. Thankfully I have 11 whole years to come up with my presidential campaign slogan and running mate.

Santorum: Obama and secularism are the path to beheading religious people

“They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it. What’s left, in France, became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that. But if we do, and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”

I don’t think Santorum‘s speech really requires any commentary (Via Slog).

Scratch the Amazing Atheist off your list too

EDIT: Ironically, I forgot to include a trigger warning. So…trigger warning!

The Amazing Atheist is a fairly popular YouTuber. I admit I’m not all that familiar with his stuff, just because I’m really not into watching YouTube videos in general – I much rather read something than watch it. But now I definitely won’t be checking him out, after this disgusting diatribe he launched at a rape victim on reddit:

“I will make you a rape victim if you don’t fuck off.”

“Yeah. Well, you deserved it. So, fuck you. I hope it happens again soon. I’m tired of being treated like shit by you mean little cunts and then you using your rape as an excuse. Fuck you. I think we should give the guy who raped you a medal. I hope you fucking drown in rape semen, you ugly, mean-spirited cow. Actually, I don’t believe you were ever raped! What man would be tasteless enough to stick his dick into a human cesspool like you? Nice gif of a turd going into my mouth. Is that kind of like the way that rapists dick went in your pussy? Or did he use your asshole? Or was it both? Maybe you should think about it really hard for the next few hours. Relive it as much as possible. You know? Try to recall: was it my pussy or my ass?”

“I’m going to rape you with my fist.”

“BTW, you have to admit, when I told you that I hope you drown in rape semen, you got a little wet, didn’t you? It’s okay. We’re friends now. You can share.”

“Fuck you, liar. All night you douches have tried to shit on me and tear me down. Then when I do the same it’s like, “Whoa man! That’s too far. Calm down.” No. Fuck you. Go get raped in whatever orifice you have to get fucking raped in. I am sick of your shit. I regret nothing.”

What caused this filth to flow forth from his fingetips? A male feminist (Lorrdernie) commented that they were surprised someone was against trigger warnings. Wow.

PZ has a thorough takedown already. You know, in case you needed it spelled out why threatening to rape someone is bad. But also if you wanted a little history about this Amazing Atheist character, including his latest YouTube rant which can be summarized as “feminists are castrating bitches.” He got me! The sex-positivity thing is all an elaborate ruse in order to draw men into our clutches for the sole purpose of castration. Or something along those lines. I haven’t read the Grand Feminazi Takeover Manifesto recently.

And I swear, if someone trots out a “Yes, but…” or tries to say that this is worse so what Penn did was fine… Well, I won’t threaten you like the Amazing Atheist did, but I will be cranky.

Update: The Amazing Atheist has responded to PZ, somehow trying to defend his behavior. What a toad.

Romney too

It’s unfair of me to point out Santorum’s idiotic views on religious freedom when Romney said the same exact thing earlier today.

“They are now using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.”

You keep on using that phrase “religious freedom.” I do not think it means what you think it means.

This new “religious freedom” schtick is because the Obama administration has dared to say that all hospitals – even Catholic ones – need to provide health insurance that covers contraception. And despite the Catholic outrage being utter bullshit, it looks like the Obama administration will cave. Oh joy.

Santorum wouldn’t roll over religious freedom, he’d drown it

If that mental image disgusts you, wait until you read this part of Santorum‘s victory speech. Yes, victory speech – he just handily won the polls in both Missouri and Minnesota EDIT: and Colorado. This is my favorite bit of lunacy (transcript courtesy of Slog):

“Americans understand that there is a great deal at stake…the president does not believe that.” Obama believes “the government can give you rights…they can give you the right to health care. Look what happens when the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights. The government can take them away. Santorum says he never believed we’d have a president “who would roll over” religious freedom to impose “secular values.” He continues, “We need to be the voice for freedom.”

Again, I wish I could completely disregard this guy as a fringe wacko…but thousands and thousands of Americans are voting for him. The idea that he’s the one who would uphold religious freedom is hysterical to me.

Dear Mr. Frothy Mixture: imposing a Christian theocracy on others is the exact fucking opposite of religious freedom. The only people who lap up what you spew have no concept of religious freedom, but just like hearing the promise that their personal nonsensical beliefs have the chance to become law. These are the same people who’d flip their shit if a Muslim candidate said the identical quote.

Thousands and thousands of Americans are voting for this man.

Gah.

My new favorite word

I was sitting on the bus on the way to work this morning, just spacing out and looking around. The person in front of me was reading a book that caught my eye because tons of notes had been scribbled in the margins in different handwriting and colors of ink. I was absentmindedly staring at it just because it looked neat, but then a word someone scrawled larger than the others popped out at me:

Nagnostic.

It was beautiful. I don’t know what they intended it to mean, or if it was really just a vaguely N-shaped scribble that happened to occur in front of “agnostic.” But I instantly knew how I would define the term:

nagnostic (noun) – A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena, and takes that belief to such extremes that they persistently annoy others with assertions that their position is obviously the most philosophically sound and that they too are actually agnostic.

Susie: So I went to this atheist meetup the other day and –
Billy: How can you be an atheist? Can you prove god doesn’t exist?
Susie: Well, no, but-
Billy: Then you’re really an agnostic!
Susie: That small margin of doubt is effectively insignificant. And you can’t prove a negative…
Billy: There’s still technically doubt! You’re agnostic!
Susie: But that’s impractical. Are you agnostic about unicorns because they’ve never been proved not to exist?
Billy: Yes.
Susie: …You’re such a fucking nagnostic.

As a former nagnostic, I apologize. And plan to use this slang wherever applicable. …Which is unfortunately pretty often.