Tonight in Pittsburgh a straw broke a camels back.  After the Ravens beat the Steelers, Ray Rice gets interviewed and credits god with the win.  He said he told his team last night that they need to put themselves in the right positions on the field to receive the Lords blessings.  He also said that on the field he reminded his players to be in blessings positions.  

"I kept going to em and saying 'it's his will' 'it's his will.'" - Ray Rice on what he told his team during the game

He finishes this epic god dick sucking fest with, "to come out and win like we did today, I tell you God is amazing." Wow.  It's moments like this that fuel my activism.  We've got to speak up to drown out those voices that have such a huge stage.  I'll start with sending him a few strongly worded tweets.  Read these from the bottom up if you want to read them in order.

I along with almost everyone I know supports the Occupy Wall Street movement.  I was included in an email yesterday from Emily Paine.  I'd really like to give her piece a bigger audience, so with her permission, here is what she had to say about Occupy and how a connection to us.

Dear Fellow Atheists, Secular Humanists, Freethinkers and other Nontheists,

Why is it that we don’t see many Christian fundamentalists or Tea Partiers taking part in Occupy? Because of an alliance that began in the 70s. Back then, corporations wanted more of a voice and religious Americans needed more cash. The result was the “Moral Majority.” This 40-year alliance explains why religious right wingers, who claim to be moral and pro-family, vote with Tea Partiers against help for families and the working class – after all, we can’t afford all that and letting corporations off the hook in paying taxes.

 Tonight I replied to a thread about my deconversion.  A fortunate thing for me is I wrote down my prayers, this was the late 60s, early 70s. I have found it helpful to look back and see where I was and what I was thinking. Sometimes we can only understand who we were in retrospect. So this might be purely an indulgence, but I thought I would digitize some of what I wrote from a composition book made in Albany, NY by a company called Eastern Tablet. It cost me 79 cents. The book is holding it somewhat together, but the pages are quite yellowed. The cover crackles when I open it. I fear one day it will fall apart in my hands. But it is a snapshot of who I was and am. I was a strong believer and today am proud of myself for having gone through such a thing. As the saying goes what don't kill you will make you stronger.

Surveys indicate that around 40% of Americans have a monthly budget. I suspect that a good portion of those are lying or stretching the truth when it comes to defining a monthly budget. On average, Americans save well less than 5% of their income while personal debt remains at high levels. So suppose you are one of the millions who has been spending more than you make and have found yourself in hole, which direction do you dig?

On the surface, budgeting is pretty straightforward. You make $X so as long as spending<X your headed in the right direction. If spending>X then you either need to reduce spending or increase X. What is quite simple in theory proves quite difficult to implement in real life. So how do you get control of your personal finances so you can make rational economic decisions? 

Where did my money go?

Before you do anything else, you must know exactly how much money you are getting and exactly where every penny is going. There are a lot of resources available for free on the internet. I use Quicken because it is extremely helpful when it comes to doing taxes. Intuit also offers a free service at www.mint.com which does an awesome job helping you keep track of all your electronic transactions. However, if you are digging yourself into a debt hole internet service is one of those luxuries that is easy to cut out and doing your personal financing on a library computer isn't the best idea. Go to a dollar store and invest in a pocket notebook.

Dr. Jerry Coyne is drawing lots of internet attention because of the events that transpired around his debate on October 12 at the University of Kentucky.  Coyne debated John Haught a Catholic from Georgetown University.  

It didn't go unnoticed that I am more active over the last few weeks.  I'm glad to have the time again, and I'm glad you told me you were happy to see me more active.  My better computer was out of commission for a little while... like 9 months. I was on a laptop with a wireless connection and very busy since March.  The better computer has been fixed and the main room I conduct business in, has been revised over the summer.  I was almost finished the room but then I fixed the computer and well... it'll probably be the spring before I work on the room again.  Now that I'm moving fast online again I can cover a lot more territory.  I'm right back in the swing of things.  My real job is somewhat seasonal and it'll be slow until March.  I'll get less hours.  Those hours will be spent here.

I received an email from Matt [last name removed to protect privacy] a few weeks ago, and it was an argument against god.  I think Matt answered his own questions in this one.  But he wanted to know what I had to say about him. I think you give it more credit than it deserves in your answer.  Frankly his argument is rather stupid.  

Sye Bruggencate can't prove that there are absolute morals, much of academia would argue against absolute truths.  Even if we accept absolute morals and truths, God certainly wouldn't logically follow.  What would logically follow is that "there are laws and absolutes."  

The argument is ridiculously stupid.  He is trying to look intelligent and only makes himself look like a fool or a liar.  Matt on the other hand comes off as intelligent and hitting the nail on the head.  His email is all that is needed on this subject.  Join the forum so you can explain things like this to the next theist that comes here. [edited] 

I really appreciate your kind words.  I applaud your efforts as well in debunking the irrational and ridiculous.  Keep it up! 

Here is the letter Matt sent me, please feel free to comment:

Bob Spence,

I could have done this in private, but I think everyone should know why you now have a different look to the site. I have made you a site admin giving you Zeus power.  Funny how we don't believe in gods yet both are "Zeus" on this website.  

I wanted to elevate your power so you could learn more about how it operates in hopes that you'll be able to expand your role here.  Hopefully you will be able to play an on call role for us when we upgrade and overhaul the site for the year 2012.  Please be careful with the elevated power, and we can talk in private more about how to figure it out.  I get that you probably wouldn't want the power, but please accept it, and help me out in the future.

I am so glad to have gotten to share webpages with you over the years.  You and I go way back.  I can't even remember the years.  It has been a pleasure working by your side on message boards and over the airwaves.    We've been through a lot together and through thick and thin you are right there to bring another cogent argument for science and rationality.  You are a gentleman and a scholar.  You are calm, patient, rational, sane, loyal, and brilliant...  thanks for being here.

In Rationality,

Brian Sapient

P.S. Brian37... feel free to continue the love...

Two new books got added to the Amazon books on the side of some pages of the site.  

Nick Covington posts here under the name Switch89 and he has a great blog at Aigbusted http://aigbusted.blogspot.com  

It is with great sadness that I announce the death of a website that is near and dear to my heart.  Sadly PrayersToJake.com is now owned by an asian outlet with the interest of capitalizing on the power of the domain name.  Jake lost focus for a minute there and it got stolen.  You may already know that Jake has been taking some time away from kicking ass on the internet.  He put atheistnetwork.com to sleep a few months back.  

His site atheistnetwork.com is where I became an atheist primarily because of his line of questioning.  His site will always be important to me, and thankfully he hasn't lost that domain.  His knowledge, time, effort, and level headed approach has changed me immeasurably.  The clarity and patience that he had while volunteering for him in my first few years of activism is something I'll remember forever.  He is like no other man I know, and at times the many people who knew him on his message board would consider him worthy of prayer.  

A legend grew that he was godly.  People started praying to Jake, I'm sure there was an early thread call "Pray to Jake" and people did in fact do so.  I promise you, atheists literally prayed to Jake.  People reported their findings and prayers were in fact answered.  I had several instances where I was spooked by how helpful Jake was in answering my prayers.  Jake bought the domain and I slapped a website on it to bring more people into the prayers to Jake club.