Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
So real life interferred and I did not have the time I had wanted to write for Blog Against Theocracy. In a way it doesn't even matter, because the response to this blogswarm has be so strong; just beyond my expectations. There have been so many impassioned, insightful, smart posts in support of our first freedom by both believers and non-believers I don't see how I could add anything to the conversation. But that's the most important thing to take away from this whole experience I think and why I so enthusiastically signed on to help out with Blog Against Theocracy when Blue Gal first ran the idea by me.
It's the conversation. For far too long believers and nonbelievers have been sniping at each other. Meanwhile the people that are really our common enemy, the people that would impose their own beliefs on all of us, the people that have made systematic attempts to undermine separation of church and state in this country, have been left unchecked. Yes, there are some believers that are trying to demonize and denigrate atheists, and we have a long way to go in countering common perceptions of nonbelievers in our society. And yes, there are some atheists who do go out of their way to do much the same to believers by characterizing them as delusional or irrational, who succumb to a sort of utopian fallacy in their belief that religion is the cause of all the world's problems.read more »
Blue Gal provides us with some more information about our upcoming Blog Against Theocracy scheduled for this Easter weekend, April 6-8. If you've been out of the loop, the idea is simple. Just write in support of church-state separation each day April 6-8. Blog Against Theocracy promises to be absolutely HUGE!
You'll want to read Blue Gal's full post but here are some topics that you might want to blog about during the blogswarm taken from First Freedom First's website. Really, the establishment clause touches on so many issues of importance to everyone in our country, not just liberals or atheists so these shouldn't be taken as a representative sampling:
FFF is a highly useful resource for establishment clause issues and I recommend everyone cruise on over there for a look.
Also, we've got another great piece of artwork (displayed on this post) for you to use on your blogs courtesy of Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors. Way to go Tengrain! Thank you!
Blue Gal and I are coordinating on putting together a special blog for Blog Against Theocracy as a central clearinghouse for information on the event and to permanently host the giant linkfest we'll be doing. We'll be hammering out details as we go along, but the intention is to keep the structure of the blogswarm really loose. One recommendation that we'd like everyone to take part in though is to place a 'blog+against+theocracy' Technorati tag in your Blog Against Theocracy posts. This will help create an automatic index of all the Blog Against Theocracy posts.
If your blogging platform doesn't support Technorati tags, all you have to do is create a special link in your posts. You can use Technorati's how-to, or get the code here but your HTML will look something like this (note the + signs and rel="tag" in the Technorati link):
<span class="technoratitag">Technorati Tags:
a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/blog+against+theocracy"
target="_blank" rel="tag"
title="Find blog against theocracy posts on Technorati">blog against theocracy</a>
</span>
Which ends up displaying like this:
Technorati Tags: blog against theocracyread more »
Finally, help spread the word everybody and a big thank you to everyone who has promoted Blog Against Theocracy so far!
Blog Against Theocracy: poster by Liz DitzAlthough I think Blue Gal is working on some graphics, Liz Ditz over at I Speak of Dreams has made some nice ones to use with this upcoming Easter weekend's Blog Against Theocracy (April 6-8). Thanks Liz!
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I'd like invite you all to Blog Against Theocracy. This is a little blog swarm being put together by everybody's favorite panties blogger Blue Gal for Easter weekend, April 6th through the 8th. The idea is simple. Just post something related to, and in support of, the separation of church and state each of those three days. Something big, something small, artistic, musical, textual or otherwise. The topic is your choosing. Whether your thing is stem cell research, intelligent design/Creationism, abortion rights, etc., it's all good. Separation of church and state impacts so many issues and is essential.
Blue Gal is still putting the finishing touches on everything and tying up loose ends so check in regularly with her for updates. In the meantime, if you need a little information to tickle your muse then you'll want to check over at First Freedom First for a ton of excellent resources. FFF is a partnership of two very cool groups; Americans United For Separation of Church and State and the Interfaith Alliance Foundation. Also, I can personally recommend this interview on CFI's Point of Inquiry podcast with Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. The Center For Inquiry is just one of many supporters of the FFF project.
So get involved in a little blogactivism and help raise awareness on the need to preserve separation of church and state and protecting the First Amendment. Your help in recruiting bloggers for Blog Against Theocracy is needed and appreciated too.
The Cardiff Giant: The Cardiff Giant has become known as the greatest hoax ever conceived.What does a 2,200 pound hunk of rock lying beneath a tent in Cooperstown, NY tell us about the religious right? Quite a bit more than you might think, especially the lying part. And, if you're real good (or at least real quiet), you just might get another one for Christmas...read more »
As an atheist Christmas is no longer a religious holiday for me. But having been raised in a Christian home, Christmas carols and Christmas decorations bring back happy childhood memories of gifts, decorating the Christmas tree, singing carols in the car as we drove downtown looking at the store windows, the big family dinner, and the pleasant exhaustion we all felt as the light of day waned.
In those days the theme of Christmas was "Peace on Earth, Goodwill To Men" The newspapers were full of stories about Jews volunteering to work at hospitals, manning the police phones, etc. so Christians could spend this very special day with their families. It seemed as though people bent over backward to be kind and considerate of other's feelings and religious beliefs. Even my freaky fundy parents taught us to outwardly respect the beliefs of others.read more »
Looked at one way, this colloquy is an occasion for national shame, albeit with a whiff of the risible: here is our country's leader, the champion-in-chief of educational standards, blandly equating natural science and supernatural supposition as “different schools of thought.” Looked at another way, it represents progress of a sort. Twenty-five years ago, Ronald Reagan, then the Republican candidate for President, endorsed the teaching of “creationism”; five years ago, George W. Bush did the same.
