This morning on Atheists Talk radio (9am Central), Erin Davies discusses her cross-country campaign against homophobia, driving her “Fagbug” Volkswagon Beetle car, and
Hector Avalos discusses his book “The End of Biblical Studies.” Tune in!

You may recall that there were some concerns about the motives and legitimacy of a social networking site, Atheist Nexus. Those concerns have been resolved to my satisfaction — it was simply a case of a recent apostate who had left a confusing trail of both religious and unreligious comments — and I’ve signed up myself.

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Uh-oh. Suddenly, all these people on Atheist Nexus want to be my friend, but there’s no single page to review friend requests, so I’d have to go through them all one by one, which would be so tedious. Somebody tell me if there is a more efficient way…alternatively, send me a comment on Atheist Nexus — the comment page does make it easy to add new friends.

These campus freethought groups are growing fast, and the SSA is a national umbrella organization that advises many students — it’s a great cause. They are trying to raise money to contribute towards more student support — help ’em out!

There is a new social network site for godless folk, called Atheist Nexus. Good idea, except that there may be a little problem.

A few doubting atheists (how could they possibly be suspicious?) investigated the site before signing up, and discovered some discrepencies. The fax number and mail server are shared with some outfit called the Divine Christian Center (warning: if you click on that link, the site autoplays Christian rock at you). The creator, who goes by the name Thor and Kym Membe, is also the registrant on both domains. He claims that he is an atheist, he just happens to also be a web design freelancer who was commissioned to work on the DCC site. That sounds perfectly plausible, and I’d accept that as an explanation, except that this message turns up on a bible college site:

We have seen a steady increase in uncommon and deadly events around the world – most recently, the quake in China and the cyclone in Myanmar. This is a call to prayer for the suffering and the hurting. God is calling us all to humble ourselves before Him in prayer. We may not understand what is happening; we may not have answers for anyone asking. One thing we should know without a shadow of doubt is that God loves the world and all who are in it. Let’s join forces and pray for those in China and Myanmar. Let’s lift them up before God and ask that He comforts those who need comfort and bring healing to those who need it. Let’s pray for the little boys and girls who have lost their parents, and for the everyone who has lost someone or something.

Kym Membe
Mattoon , USA

Hmmm. That doesn’t sound very atheist-like to me.

It’s all a little fishy. Maybe very fishy — this could be an evangelical group fishing for atheist names and email addresses. Or it could be an innocent case of an industrious web designer getting work with diverse groups.

There aren’t any grounds to flee Atheist Nexus just yet, but it looks like they need a little more in-depth scrutiny. Maybe some of the godless experts in networks and security that hang out here will want to chase down the details.

For another example of the religious expressing absurd beliefs, you must listen to this conversation between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox — it’s astonishing. Dawkins just probes with a few pointed questions, and Lennox, a theologian, babbles on and on and on, asserting the most amazing things. All those miracles in the bible? They literally happened — he doesn’t hide behind metaphor and poetry. Water into wine, resurrections, walking on water…it all actually happened, exactly as written, and further, he claims that all of these accounts represent historically valid evidence. This is the sophisticated theology we godless atheists are always skipping over, I guess.

Oh, he does start to waffle when Genesis is brought up. Those aren’t literal, 24 hour days, but still, he claims, the account is compatible with the scientific understanding of the origin of the world and life. He also trots out the ridiculous claim that he made in a prior debate that because Genesis describes a beginning, rather than a universe of infinite existence, it actually got the physics right.

Dawkins played it right, letting Lennox just run off at the mouth and expose the inanity of the theological position.

If you live in Edmonton, Alberta, which is somewhere up north in Canada (and if you live there, I presume you know where), you might want to get in touch with the newly formed Society of Edmonton Atheists. They’re looking to expand!

Hello, Seattle! Look what just went up on Denny, near the Stewart Street intersection:

Everyone might want to donate to this cause, too: a group is trying to buy ad space on London buses, saying “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life.”

Whew. We’re getting uppity.

The Beltway Atheists are planning a summer get-away in mid-August called Atheist Days. You want to go. Trust me. Get a gang of hot, sexy atheists together on a beach, and you can trust them to bare their minds and start swapping ideas, right there in public, without any shame at all.