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Do you dislike the state but are not sure if you’re an Anarchist? Do you want to see what your pro-free market, limited state option makes you? Then the following flowchart is just for you. (Click the image for the full version)
H/t: Reddit. No idea what the original source is
Insightful? Funny? Informative? Convincing? Helpful?
What is it about Elsa Lancaster and The Bride of Frankenstein? She's the "it" girl of the 20th century, and here's a whole gallery of Bride images. I have a favorite, for some reason.
Read the comments on this post...Let's do commercials for the 100th entry in the thread of agony!
(Current totals: 10,935 entries with 1,110,958 comments.)
Read the comments on this post...Here's a swami with his magic breathing advice for coping with throat cancer. How these guys can dispense bogus medical advice and not get lynched by angry cancer patients is a mystery.
At least he looks really goofy when he curls his tongue and breathes. Now if only there were some yogic enchantment that could do something about his creepy squink eye…
Read the comments on this post...Roy Peter Clark wrote a book about language which was savaged viciously on Language Log — in other words, the poor guy was publicly ridiculed and his work rudely trashed. He couldn't possibly have learned anything from that, could he? He has a guest post now in which he describes his reaction.
In brief, the criticism, some of it harsh and uninformed, helped me straighten out some crooked thinking about language, a process that resulted in the recent publication by Little, Brown of my book "The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English." On August 22, Ammon Shea gave the book high marks in the New York Times Book Review, calling it "very much a manual for the 21st century."
I write this on Language Log not to tell you that my success has proved some of your commentary off the mark. Quite the contrary, I have often said now to friends and colleagues that had I not been roughed up by the Language Loggers, I could not have developed the muscle tone to write the book.
Hmm. Who would have thought that maybe the response to criticism was dependent on the attitude of the recipient? Oh, gosh. Me.
Read the comments on this post...The Institute for Creation Research had been trying to get approval from the state of Texas to offer graduate degrees in science education — they failed. Now they have actually publicly admitted defeat, which is gratifying to see.
So we won't be seeing a wave of teachers with master's degrees in science ed and absolutely no science training emerging from the state. Instead, though, they'll be offering this:
Replacing it, apparently, is the ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics, which offers a Master of Christian Education degree; Creation Research is one of four minors. The ICR explains, "Due to the nature of ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics — a predominantly religious education school — it is exempt from licensing by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Likewise, ICR's School of Biblical Apologetics is legally exempt from being required to be accredited by any secular or ecumenical or other type of accrediting association."
This isn't a problem. Their lunacy will be clearly and accurately labeled, and that's all we should care about.
Read the comments on this post...Pat Condell has been releasing some less-than-stellar videos about his opposition to the (close to) Ground Zero Mosque (and community center). At least, I haven’t been a fan of them.
But until I saw this excellent video by The Amazing Atheist, I hadn’t seen a response to him that I liked quite so much…
Note to self: Always walk toward the camera when going on a rant. It is *so* much more effective than just standing there.
So, this is probably the saddest song ever recorded, but it’s one of my favourite songs of all time.
A Tea Party U.S. Senate candidate stands accused of sex with a minor girl he met at church. Eric W. Deaton has some explaining to do.
the Ohio Constitution Party candidate for U.S. Senate who was indicted on Tuesday for unlawful sexual conduct with a minor -- met the victim at a church where he was an elder, a police official told TPMMuckraker.
Deaton claims its a political ploy. He can kiss away any hope of office. Wait, no, he never had hope.
I don’t make this stuff up.

August Berkshire is the president of Minnesota Atheists. He’s written some very popular pieces on this site, including “34 Unconvincing Arguments for God,” and he’ll be speaking at the Project 42 Freethought conference in Fargo, North Dakota on September 18th.
August’s latest piece explains The Seven Cs of Atheism (PDF):
Conservative
Atheism is a conservative position. We accept statements only so far as there is reason and/or evidence to back them up. Anything else is speculation. We make no leaps of faith. If there should some day be a compelling reason or piece of evidence for a god, then we would acknowledge it and change our views.
Clarity
An atheist possesses clarity in his or her thinking processes. We are able to identify those things for which we have evidence and separate them from other things that are merely wishful thinking.
Consistent
An atheist is also consistent. We apply our skepticism equally to all supernatural claims. We do not say, “All prophets, saviors, or gods are false -– except ours.” We make no exceptions or special pleadings.
Contradiction-free
Another benefit of atheism is that it is contradiction-free. We don’t have to try to reconcile an all-loving, all-seeing, all-powerful god with the existence of evil. We don’t have to define love exactly the opposite of how we normally define it in order to make it applicable to a god. We don’t have to claim that a poor supernatural designer is intelligent.
Courage
An atheist possesses courage. It is natural for people to have a healthy survival instinct. However, some people have such a fear of death that they feel compelled to believe in an afterlife to alleviate those fears. It takes intellectual and emotional courage to abandon belief in an afterlife because there is no evidence for it (and compelling evidence against it). It also takes intellectual and emotional courage to abandon one’s belief in a cosmic, supernatural “protector” and realize that, as far as we know, we are alone in our universe and must therefore help each other as best we can.
Consequences
There are certain consequences that naturally follow from being an atheist. Since there are no gods to help us, we must rely on ourselves and each other. Since there is no afterlife, it becomes more important to improve life on Earth.
Conclusion
One of the arguments of Pascal’s Wager is that a person loses nothing by believing in a god. This is not true. Accepting Pascal’s Wager means saying that we are willing to abandon reason and evidence as our guides to living, and instead make a leap of faith to… where?
It’s true that by converting (or deconverting) from theism to atheism a person will lose his or her sense of divine specialness, cosmic meaning in life, and any hope of an afterlife. But you can’t lose what you never really had.
The reality of atheism far outweighs the dream of religion. There is an excitement and beauty to perceiving the world as it really is, and not as an illusion.
Would you change, remove, or add to anything on this list?
Pastor Kevin Pushia helped kill a disabled man for his life insurance money. He faces life in prison for his roll in the murder.
Prosecutor Robin Wherley said Pushia confessed to taking out multiple life insurance policies in Wallace’s name, then paying a hit man $50,000 to kill him.
That money had come from the treasury of a small East Baltimore church where Pushia was a pastor.
What next? According to his defense attorney, Pushia made some poor choices, now he’s trying to face the future.
“His plea was an effort to purge himself, emotionally and spiritually.”
He’s lucky. Murder for hire can put you on death row. But who want to execute a pastor? I bet the DA is happy.
I’m surprised somebody has not tried this or worse before. Westboro Baptists pour acid in the open wounds of the grieving. It just a matter of time until they piss the wrong person off.
A 62-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly tried to fire pepper spray at members of the radical Westboro Baptist Church as they protested the funeral of a U.S. Marine.
The incident took place at around 10 a.m. Saturday in Omaha, Neb., where some 20 followers of the extremist Kansas sect -- who believe the deaths of American soldiers are divine retribution for the country's tolerance of homosexuality -- were staging a demonstration a block away from the funeral of Staff Sgt. Michael Bock. The 26-year-old Marine was killed in combat in Afghanistan's Helmand Province on Aug. 13.
Read the full story here.