Read "The Problem with Atheism" here:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1702,The-Problem-with-Atheism,Sam-Harris

I'm glad that this was brought to my attention, because I think Harris makes some excellent points. I do think that the word "atheism" carries with it some serious negative connotations. There are two definitions for the word "godless" on Encarta. The first definition states, "not believing in or worshipping any god," while the second definition states, "having an evil or immoral nature." Obviously, there are people who believe that atheists are wicked creatures who prey on the lowly, virtuous Christians. Sam Harris recognizes that, and proposes that the non-believers steer away from the atheist label which has alienated many. I too, feel that we tend to be irresponsible with labels in society, which can lead to misunderstanding, ignorance and bigotry. We find it much easier to judge rather than truly examine whatever it is that we do not understand and/or fear. We're all guilty of it at some point, but are we missing something important because of it? Before we draw our conclusions about someone or something, we should take the time to educate ourselves. Why do so many people demonize atheists? Have they been victimized by atheists at some point? Or is it just easier to judge rather than understand? I would predict the latter hypothesis to be more probable. Nevertheless, this stigma exists.

I recently watched a film called "The Magdalene Sisters" (2002) that was based off a documentary called, "Sex in a Cold Climate" describing the Magdalene Laundries of which approx. 30,000 Irish-Catholic girls were imprisoned until 1997. These young girls were sent to the Magdalene Laundries (also called Magdalene Asylums) run by sadistic nuns and priests (mostly nuns) who enslaved the "fallen" girls and forced them into hard labor for no pay - washing linens to "cleanse themselves" of their so-called sins, which included being raped, having a child out of wedlock, or for simply being too beautiful. Yes. Some girls were sent there "just in case" they should fall into temptations. Or more importantly, they could tempt other men into acts of sin, a mirror of Eve the foul temptress of Eden. Ah yes. The patriarchal, misogynistic themes of religion are alive and well. But in this case, it was the so-called whore Mary Magdalene who served as a model of repentance, for she did so after committing her most vile "sin" of f*king Jesus. (and not in the way Judas did!) I can imagine that the Christians didn't take kindly to her relationship with a person who they believed was the son of God, and thus she was written into the books as a whore. It doesn't surprise me that woman of the 20th century were also branded as such after doing absolutely nothing wrong. It's 2,000 years later, and we're still stuck in the dark ages.

Well, this isn't an official response to much of anything, but I wanted to at least throw a little update out there.

First of all, living with twenty thousand thoughts and ideas running around my neuronal network constantly is frustrating, exhilirating, and exhausting. There are twenty articles to which I want to respond, thirty different ways to track and promote my progress, contact lists to be exported/imported, stats to assess...you get the drift. O_O

An amusing development is the three (?) threads about our ads at Democratic Underground. Unfortunately, two have been archived and one is in a donors only section, so I wasn't able to invite them over here for a nice healthy debate on the definition of pornography, the objectification of women, and maintaining rational and effective marketing. No matter what our individual desires or wishes are concerning the more...primitive... parts of our brain, I feel that in order to achieve our goals as a group, it would behoove us to work with those inclinations rather than against them. Statistics support that theory, and I would even argue that part of our success would fall into that category as well. (Not trying to sound conceited--just saying...) Of course, most of you already know this since it has already been beaten to death on the forums.

Just a small portion of an essay I'm working on. Thought I'd share it.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and one of the most radically debated topics in the history of our country. The right of U.S. citizens to express themselves freely has been controversial danger to our society, while simultaneously the stifling of expression has often reflected the divisive and harmful nature of human beings when it comes to personal beliefs. To say that a single brush can be used to paint every decision regarding freedom of expression would be an egregious error of human judgment; at the very least. This innate nature of expression has and will continue to stir controversy at the highest judicial level. Indeed the First Amendment has seemed to have affected nearly every fringe of societal development in the United States.

Today, I started thinking over all the obvious evidence out there in the world against the Christian god's existence. There's enough of it to convince just about anyone with an open mind and a basic understanding of logic. We have the apparent malevolence of God all throughout the Bible, the clear dilemmas created by his very rules for mankind, the vague, crazy, sheer stupidity of "God's Word", the proven ineffectiveness of prayer, the overwhelmingly numerous religions which people submit to with the exact same devotion as Christians do theirs, the proven scientific facts that clearly contradict the Creation story, and on top of all that, the absolute absence of any real evidence for that god's existence. I was going over it in my head, thinking about how I could present it to a Christian, imagining myself delivering the most eloquent, rational, scientifically sound argument against their God I could ever be capable of. Imaginary me was doing everything right, asking the right questions, allowing the Christian subject to draw his own conclusions, not being to pushy or condescending. Then I imagined that I had my fundamentalist Christian parents as subjects.

This is a continued conversation with an ex-girlfriend who asked me if I could believe in love, without the belief in a God.

She said:

Now for the deep stuff: I can't really argue w/ you because at this point I have no idea what I believe. I know that I can care about people a lot, but I'm not sure if I'm capable of real love. Sometimes I care more about strangers than I do my close friends. I understand what you are saying though, especially the part about providing your reasons for loving yourself instead of getting them delivered to you. I don't know. Love just seems like such a vague concept that I don't understand at all. I guess I love my family. I mean I like spending time w/ them and I genuinely care about their happiness as much as if not more than my own; is that love? But love for a boyfriend? I'm not so sure. I think it's all hormones.