The Atheist Mama

I started this list for a contest that was being held. The person to produce “The Book of Books” with links from The Bible of the Good and Moral Atheist was to win $50. I won!!

It’s an excellent list of books, but it’s still a work in progress. I’m still adding links to read the books online, when available. Most of the links go to Amazon.com.

I will be adding a table of contents soon to make it a bit easier to navagate.

Books

Although The Bible of the Good and Moral Atheist should serve you as a comprehensive but concise summary of day-to-day Atheism, we understand that many of you might be seeking more information on various aspects of Atheism or Freethought that were either omitted in this work, such as a detailed history of Atheism, or not covered in great detail, such as the arguments for and against god. Since a great deal has been written about these and other subjects of interest to Atheists, we list here in the Book of Books some important works on the subjects of Atheism and freethinking. Books are listed here by subject matter and format, in approximate chronological order within each group, and we have provided a short description of each book as well. We have tried to shorten the list to only the best of the best out of the numerous books available: the most historical, relevant, well-written, and/or readable books. Of course there are texts we have omitted, but the books shown here should serve as a good list for anyone interested in further study on Atheism.

Those interested in discussing the works they have read here, or wanting to search out other volumes for Freethinkers, are directed to Booktalk.org. Booktalk.org is an excellent website, dedicated to the discussion of freethought books. More information about this site can be found in the Book of Resources.

Please note that while Atheists, like Freethinkers of all types, encourage additional philosophical exploration, it is not a requirement of any sort. You don’t need to be a scholar of baseball history to play baseball, and you don’t have to be a walking Atheist’s encyclopedia to be a Good and Moral Atheist. Read further in other books if you like, or skip to the next chapter, and maybe come back to the Book of Books some other time.

Please let me know if you find any mistakes or links that are broken.
(more…)

RR from Rescuing Reason has set up a forum for our Game!! Thank you!!

Make sure you go by and register!!

Just a bit of history in case you are new -

The War on Easter was declared on April 11. I set out on my mission soon after. We then began “The Game.” Since we now have over 160 comments on that entry, RR was great enough to start a message board dedicated to “The Game.”

Go check it out! But don’t forget about my blog! :-P

Can I have all of your stuff? Please sign up here to leave me your cars, your money, and your house. I’d really like an acoustic guitar, some furniture in excellent condition, and I’ll take your house plants. After all, who’s gonna water the plants??

I got this idea after reading a post on Jason’s blog about Rapture Letters.

Come on now… Talk about signing someone up for SPAM!! I can’t tell you how many emails I get for “Christian re-financing,” “Christian singles,” and “Free Bibles.”

Anyway, back to the point of this post - I want your stuff.

:-)

This is for all atheists, humanists, skeptics or those of you who recognize the absolute necessity of the wall that belongs between church and state. I received this email from a fellow Ohioan who is as concerned as I am about the United States and the erosion of this essential wall:

>On Thursday, May 4, 2006 - exactly two weeks from today - many
Americans will be observing a National Day of Prayer. This is an
annual event that is observed on the first Thursday of every May and
has been endorsed by many goverenment officials from President Bush on
down.

>A National Day of Prayer rally is scheduled to be held (for the 16th
year in a row) on the west (High St.) side of the Ohio Statehouse from
11:30am until 1pm.

>I plan to be there with a sign and literature, protesting this
terrible breach in the wall of separation between church and state.

>I am doing this not as a member of any organization but as an American
citizen who is fed up with the drift towards theocracy in this country.

>I am also fed up with the way prayer, faith, and religion seem to be
increasingly eclipsing reason and science.

>[…]

Again -

What: To protest the National Day of Prayer and the breach in the wall between church and state
Where: Columbus, Ohio - Statehouse
When: Thursday, May 4, 2006 - 11:30am until 1pm

Before or after this event, I encourage you to give blood or volunteer somewhere! We all know that prayer does not work!! What we need is ACTION!!!

GET OFF OF YOUR KNEES AND DO SOMETHING!!

This game is a product of a few comments that were left during the War on Easter and the strike on a local church here in Columbus, Ohio.

A member of that church visited and left this comment:

>I am a Christian, I attend the big church you visited, I am not offended or threatened in any way by what you did. However, I would advise you to be very careful around this church or God might do to you what he did to me and reveal his love for you. It will drastically change your life and make you understand why we Christians look silly and sometimes do pretty stupid things.
He is madly in love with you and your very cute little kids!

And then left this comment:

>Cassandra, I was thanking God for you yesterday morning, and a thought came to mind from the 1980’s movie War Games. There was a line in the movie where the computer challenges its maker to a game. It said, “Do you want to play a game?”

>I think God is smiling upon the war on Easter. Enjoy the game!

Another commenter had this to say in response:

>[…]

>Kerry, if you want to play a real game, I dare you to research the religion you profess to bring “love.”

Kerry agreed and he we are. Edmond has agreed to join the game as well.

So the point of this “game” is to discuss Christianity with this Christian. Kerry has agreed to be open minded and to take a rational look at these beliefs, Christianity, and life. This is not about trying to change the mind of atheists. This is also not about conversion, for anyone. Kerry, if you disagree with something I’ve written here, let me know.

Yes, there are RULES.

No name calling.
No insults.
No threats.
RESPECT from both sides (atheists and theists alike).

Anyone who does not adhere to the above “rules” will be given a warning, and if they can not stick to the rules, their comments will be deleted.

Fair? If something isn’t clear or I missed something, let me know.

All right - theists, here are a few things that you need to answer for us first.

1. What is your religion?
2. How long have you claimed these beliefs?
3. Short explanation of how you arrived at these beliefs.
4. What do you do for a living?
5. Education level, if you are interested in sharing.
6. Anything else relevent to the conversation that you think might be important.

I’m not asking for a life story, just some background info.

If I edit anything in this original post, I will post it in the comments.

Let the game begin!!

I came across this over at Pharyngula.

On Friday, a man was arrested in Oklahoma for the murder of a 10 year old girl.

>Jamie’s unclothed body was inside the tub, along with a towel used to soak up blood, officials said. Police said that, while there were deep saw marks on the girl’s neck, she had not been dismembered.

Check out the guys blog (I’m sure it’ll be pulled off of Blogger soon).

The Insomnia Report highlights some of the more disturbing entries.

It’s really creepy to see the private (and I only say private because until recently, this blog was just about comment-less) thoughts of someone who is capable of such a brutal act. Of course, I’m not excusing what he did, but he’s obviously very sick and suffers from depression, as well as a social anxiety disorder. It’s just too bad that he didn’t get help.

Now we can all try to get back to reality. Just a few thoughts this morning from all over the place.

This weekend we got some serious work done here at home. Did some major reconstruction of a flower bed, pressure washed the side of the house, pressure washed the deck, accomplished the first cut of the year (grass), did some major weeding, did some transplanting and some plant trading with the neighbors, grilled all weekend, and even got some shopping in. It was an excellent weekend, but the inside of my house was very neglected so now I have carpets and floors to clean, laundry to do, dishes to wash, fish tanks to tend to, plants to work with and kids to keep happy.

Wow. I LOVE Spring. Such hard work, but so very fulfilling. Even without the belief of a god. It is possible…

So yesterday was Easter and our neighborhood was just “hopping” with activity. I was wished a “Happy Easter” more times than I could count yesterday. I answered each one with “I don’t celebrate Easter, but thanks. I’m having a happy weekend.” It was interesting that not one person asked me why I didn’t celebrate Easter.

My neighbors don’t really know that we’re atheists. Not that we’re in the closet, but it just hasn’t come up. We prefer to stay away from religion and politics when it comes to the neighbors. I mean, we see these people everyday, and they are all actually the first neighbors I’ve ever had that I really like. So why bring such controversial subjects up? I’m much happier just talking about the kids, and yards, and what we’re doing for dinner.

But yesterday, the subject of Easter came up while I was working in the yard and my two neighbors (Christians, but not church goers) started talking about church and what myth they believe in. I piped up with “Well, we’re atheists.” and there was complete silence. Then one of them said, “Yeah, right. So are we.” I don’t know. Maybe he thought I was joking. LOL!! That was the end of it.

It was really great seeing familys spending time together yesterday. Everyone having a good time, kids playing, kites flying… We live right across the street from the neighborhood park, so we get to see it all. It’s just so sad that all of this togetherness is all about celebrating a myth of magic. It would be much nicer if all of this activity was just because.

I wanted to point out a great post over at Pharyngula, if you haven’t seen it all ready - Easter mourning. Read it.

Another interesting thing to mention: A Christian from the church that I visited with that DVD has agreed to a challenge. So we will do this here. I’ll get the details together and post them at some point today. Please come back and take part in this. I’m trusting that Kerry is sincere… I would like this to be civil. So that means there will be no name calling or putting anyone down (that goes for theists and atheists). Also, please note that this is a challenge to a Christian to examine their beliefs, not the other way around. Anyway, I’ll reiterate this and other points when we begin.

Also, make sure you check out The Carnival of The Godless this morning over at A Rational Being. Some great entries to read.

Have a wonderful day!

I came across this comment from this post last night:

>Meantime, on a practical and realistic level, congregations should take whatever legal means are available to stop trespass, defacement, vandalism or whatever covers these acts, as needed. Use hate-crime statutes if necessary - turnabout is fair play, no? Public exposure and ridicule of the “perps” might be useful also.

(emphasis mine)

The War on Easter being a hate crime?? Come on… Can you imagine?
Tresspassing? Is a church a public place? Don’t my tax dollars support the property that the church sits on?
Vandalism? What vandalism?

I think that a lot of people would support this though. My husband warned me about the hate crime possibility before the mission.

The state of Washington is getting a new quarter. I came across this and thought I’d see what everyone else thinks. Voting is open until April 30, and they’ll show the results of the poll on May 1, if you’re interested.

So, which one do you like? I think that #3 is pretty cool.

Unfortunately, changing the other side of the quarter isn’t up for a vote.

April 17th is tax day!!

Added: Ok, It’s not the 15th like I originally said, it’s the 17th. Thanks for the head up Nicholas, and thanks for commenting!

From The Washington Post:

Ancient fossils fill gap in early human evolution

An international team of scientists have discovered 4.1 million year old fossils in eastern Ethiopia that fill a missing gap in human evolution.

The teeth and bones belong to a primitive species of Australopithecus known as Au. anamensis, an ape-man creature that walked on two legs.

The Australopithecus genus is thought to be an ancestor of modern humans. Seven separate species have been named. Au. anamensis is the most primitive.

[…]

Then we have this from a days ago.

Paleontologists have discovered fossils of a species that provides the missing evolutionary link between fish and the first animals that walked out of water onto land about 375 million years ago.

The question is: What will it take for a creationist to believe that evolution is what is responsible for man?

(Apologies for this post changing before your eyes. When I started it, my son hit my keyboard and I didn’t realize that it had published)

Well, first of all, I have no doubts that they have found the DVD. My most recent visitor was from the very church that I paid a visit to yesterday. They found me by googling “www.theatheistmama.com.” So I’m sure that they know exactly where the DVD is by now.

I’m seeing negative comments all over the place. That’s fine. I see a lot of your points. But like I said before: It was a prank. A joke. It wasn’t done with any intent to harm anyone. I’ve seen “use your time and effort to do good.” Well, I do. All day long. If anyone here knows me at all, they know that I don’t spend my time trying to think up ways to hurt or attack people.

I’m also seeing a lot of threatening comments from Christians.

“If I found one of my boys picking up one of these pamphlets or movies that one of these scumbags left in the pew, they would have confirmation extremely quick of the existence of God…”

Comments are being left by “the last guy you want to bump into while planting your hate propoganda” on the War on Easter site.

This one isn’t a “threat” but still interesting:
“And since when did being a Christian mean I cant tell you to go fuck yourself. You may take this as implying that Im not a perfect Christian. Oh well. Go fuck yourself.”

“I hope next time you try to put one of your hate mongering propaganda DVD’s in a church you are caught by another sort of extremist who will give you a taste of your own medicine.”

Wow.

You know, in Colorado Springs, they once included a Bible in with the Sunday newspaper? It went to everyone who had a subscription.

When I lived in Colorado, I had a box FULL of the Watchtower from witnesses. They came to my house once a week for 3 years.

I get people knocking on my door right now a few times a month with a Bible in their hand, ready to read to me.

I get junk mail all of the time from churches in the area trying to get me to come in.

It’s interesting that when the favors are returned, we are called “Nazi” “Hate Monger” “Animal Killers” and “Perverts.”

Ok, not really. It actually began about around 9:30 after I had dropped my oldest off at school, and cleaned out my car.

The reason that I picked the this church because of all of these little green signs that are popping up in lawns all over my neighborhood:

So I pull up into the gigantic parking lot. I had no idea how massive this place was.
(Note the FSM emblem) :-)

I walked in and talked to the woman at the front desk. I told her that I had seen the green lawn signs around and I was wondering if I could just take a look around. I should also mention that I had my 19 month old with me who was busy trying to go into every open door in sight. The woman at the desk was very friendly and helpful. She told me that everyone was in a prayer meeting so I wouldn’t be able to see anyone, but I was more than welcome to walk around.
I had my flyers folded up in my purse, and I began to place them in random spots on my way down the hall. Taking pictures of this wasn’t easy, especially since I was trying to keep up with this guy.

We walked around the lobby area. Unfortunately, the “sanctuary” was locked. I was told that this was due to frequent vandalism and theft. So I walked around and planted flyers while my little one climbed all over the furniture.

Then it was time to plant the DVD. I placed it among pamphlets and information on things like pregnancy decision, pro-life resources, ministries, and missions.

Can you find Jesus?

On my way out, I managed to get a few flyers into the windshields of cars parked in the lot. But only a few, because a lot of cars began pouring in to the parking lot.

I know that I may get some negative comments over this one. But I didn’t do anything illegal. It was all in fun. I was very polite and I have no ill feelings towards anyone there, and was very welcomed. The woman at the front desk actually suggested that I was sent by God because she was just praying that she would meet women from my side of town for her new Women’s Group. Besides, I can’t count how many times Xian tracts have been left on my doorstep.

Visit The War on Easter.

OHIO: Successful attack by Atheist Mama

For the last two mornings, I’ve noticed these green yard signs littering ther lawns in my neighborhood. The writing on the signs are a bit to small to see except for the part that says “Easter 2006.”

UGH… So I’m beginning to see them everywhere I go. Finally, I see one on the corner, near my grocery store and I end up at a red light right next to it. It’s a sign that lists the service times at this local church for Easter. I won’t be linking to them, so feel free to Google it if you want.

Then I came across this. That’s right. The War on Easter starts tomorrow.

>A total of 666 DVDs will be hidden like “Easter eggs” in sanctuaries, church yards and other holy areas by Beyond Belief Media’s national team of volunteers. The DVDs will be slipped into hymnals and other locations where they are likely to be discovered by unsuspecting worshippers.

Oh yes. I think I know exactly where my copy of The God Who Wasn’t There will be going.

Thanks to GifS for the tip!

Did anyone watch it?? Does anyone have a copy? I missed it!!
I’m really hoping that they air it again. Damn it.
If anyone can point me in the direction of a copy online, I’d appreciate it.

————————————————————–

Updated - Of course they will be airing it several times this week. I’ll be picking it up on Thursday. :-)

I found this in a comment in a post (about morality :-) at GifS.

>Former Ohio Congressman and the Fox News Host of Heartland John Kasich has made up his mind about the Gospel of Judas he says “I’m not very skeptical, I’m completely skeptical, I don’t believe it.” He ranks the Gospel of Judas it right along side the Da Vinci Code, all part of a conspiracy to destroy Christianity […]

Oh man. The ignorance is astounding. Go and watch.

On surfing around some blogs this weekend, I stumbled across an alarming number of Christian blogs out there. I mean, I know they’ve always been there, but it seems today, I’m seeing tons more than the norm.

On this blog, I found a post about entitled “More on Prison Ministry.”
He posts a story that one man wrote about his life and his prison ministry. It’s a sad story of a child whose mother was murdered by his father, who was abused, and who ultimately “came to know Christ as my savior.” It goes on to talk about how he “witnessed” to his father, how his father blew him off, and was killed in the end by a fellow inmate. Then, the comments all say things like “God is Love.” Oh man… It’s a strange post. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m an atheist, but I don’t understand how such a tragic story can lead to “You just have to have faith.”

Another one that I came across mentions the Gospel of Judas and how it’s just absurd that “Some are claiming this new document will force a complete reformulation of Christianity and our understanding of both Judas and Jesus.”

>The document claims to be the work of Judas, even though it certainly was written long after his death. If it has any value for Christians its very existence, written just 300 years after Christ,gives us a picture of the struggle early Christian leaders faced in defining and defending the authentic Gospel against the Gnostics. 2000 years from now a copy of the National Enquirer might also be dredged up claiming that Elvis was an alien sent to subvert the US government. I wonder how the people in the future will view that discovery?

This coming from someone who believes in the Bible? What’s the difference??

So, with the last post on the subject of morality, we’ve reached over 20 comments (which is a lot for this little blog). Thanks to all of you who are participating.

In the comments, The Atheist Jew posted:

>”Murder” is fine with many people wrt the death penalty.
If a child rapist murderer admits to doing horrific crimes to children, there will be a lineup of people giving their blessings to murder the person. Of course, there will be many who think that it is immoral no matter what to kill this guy.
>That is relative. The fact that you state abortion is immoral and I don’t in most cases means exactly what I’m talking about. It is relative.

I’m starting a new post on this because 1) I tend to get lost with all of the comments, and 2) I have to point this out.
What TAJ said above is along the same lines of what I was thinking this afternoon.

Here is a very, very basic example of morality being relative: In the United States, the majority of Christians (I have no evidence to support this so if anyone can prove that wrong, please do) are pro-life and see abortion as immoral. There are also millions of Americans who would disagree and say that abortion is NOT immoral (I would be one of those Americans).

In the same previous post, I asked about a few situations in our world that the majority think are immoral, but obviously not all do. I asked Noell what she thought should be done about these situations and she suggested that one option would be for countries to band together and “put social pressure on the governments who are causing these atrocities” (not advocating military force).

Keeping the above in mind, should the Christians in our own country put social pressure on our government to put a stop to abortion? Well, that’s exactly what is going on right now. South Dakota is the perfect example. So what I see happening is one group of people imposing their morals on another, and they are winning at this point.

Then you have the whole death penalty controversy that TAJ mentioned above. A whole new can of worms.

To me, this is a perfect example of morality being relative, and why one set of morals for the entire world just isn’t possible, and even dangerous.

My husband just sent this link to me. If you are familair with Linux and Windows, then it’s a must read. I’m not sure if it was a joke or not, but I can’t see it being a real post. Make sure you read some of the comments too!!

>Unix is too hard

>I tried Solaris 10. I tried Linux. I tried FreeBSD.

>Unix is too hard. Why is that? The Unix versions I listed above were
installed by my friend on my computer and yet I wasn’t able to connect
to the internet. My friend is a computer Wiz and he couldn’t figure
out how to get my computer on the internet. In fact all the
secretaries at work have my friend work on their computers and he is
thinking of going back to college to get his MCSE.

>I do have to admit that I tried OpenOffice and liked it a lot. The
export to PDF feature is really nice and the quality of OpenOffice is
somewhere between MS Office 97 - MS Office 2000 minus the VBA
functionality. This makes it good for home use although at the company
I work my friend tells me OpenOffice cannot run our VBA code. So it
will not work for most workplaces. My son uses it for school since it
is free and he would rather have new Nike shoes than an office
application.

>My friend is trying to get Unix to connect to the net still even
though I am telling him to put windows XP back on my PC. He tells me
that getting Unix connected to the net is one of the greatest
challenges a computer Wiz has to encounter. He tells me he is at the
point of almost making it work. He downloaded a bunch of DTrace
scripts off the internet at work and burned them on a CD. He brought
the CD home and was trying them out to see if he could DTrace to google
but he got no response. He ran this command:

> dtrace www.google.com.

>It didn’t work! I told him to go and get his MCSE and then Unix will
be easier to understand once he has the degree. He then tried using an
Apple emacs editor to edit some hosts files following some printed
instructions he got from google. Apple emacs was too hard and it kept
on beeping and there was no way to quit so we pressed a bunch of keys
until the emacs became really buggy and gave us this message:

> Debugger entered–Lisp error: (void-variable +)

>I had to pull the power cord on the computer to reboot it. By this
time I had convinced my friend that MCSE degrees were offered to give
training in computers and he agreed that in order to become a “hacker”
level computer Wiz, he would have to get that degree. So he went to
put windows XP on my computer but he told me it didn’t recognize the
partition. We googled solaris unix and found “ZFS” on google at work.
It said that the file system is indestructable and never goes away.
According to one website it was like this: “ZFS protects all data with
64-bit checksums that detect and correct silent data corruption.” That
means it fights Windows XP and Norton Ghost when trying to get rid of
Unix.

>By this time I really needed to be connected to the internet at home so
I could get email. I went to an Apple store and told them that I
needed a new computer but not an Apple Emacs because I already tried it
and had to pull the power cord to make it stop beeping. He led my to
an Apple iMac which he said was better than an Apple Emacs because it
was newer and based on OS X.

>I got home and got on the internet right away with my iMac. I am so
glad I’m done with Unix. My apple gets things done like unix where
unix couldn’t.

MUST SEE!!! I found this on Details (another Columbus, Ohio blog). This is great. Harry Taylor has some balls. So, would you be able to give it to Bush if you had the opportunity, on national television?

Wait, I found it!! Give your thanks to Harry Taylor (thanks to the Suburban Guerrilla for the tip)!