January 3, 2016::End of the day round-up

3 Keys to Progress the Secular Community Needs in 2016

This involves removing yourself from your comfort zones. Displace yourself within circles you don’t normally frequent. Read and intermingle with queer, disabled, black and brown voices who share their thoughts, observations, experiences, and their grasp on the cultural context of their social relegation and erasure.

Books like God Is Not Great, The End of Faith, and The God Delusion are well-known, widely read, and often cited among nonbelievers. But how many have perused Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels, Why I Am Not a Muslim, The Ebony Exodus Project, or Writing God’s Obituary? What about books not geared towards atheism like What Does It Mean To Be White?, Sister Outsider, Critical Race Theory, or Between The World and Me? How many frequent the blogs or social media of transmen or transwomen who openly discuss their lived experiences or ex-Muslims not associated with “the establishment” that tenaciously tackle many manifestations of social inequalities like Kiran Opal, Sadaf Ali, and Heina Dadabhoy?

Watch This Short Irish Film About a Young Atheist Challenging Religious Authorities

Creationism evangelist: God put contradictions in the Bible to ‘weed out’ the atheists

 
Large Group Of Armed Militia Members Take Over Federal Building

Pakistan Censors International New York Times Article About Atheist Bloggers in Bangladesh

Sarah Palin found something else to quit — and it isn’t her asking for money

You May Be Fined in NYC for Calling Someone the “Wrong” Pronoun

America has lost any semblance of biblical thinking, and this is clearly showing up in the laws and regulations that are being established. Sinful behaviors are being applauded and protected in the courts, and those who choose to disagree with sinful lifestyles are being punished for refusing to condone or accommodate these choices. As our culture continues to reject God’s Word and do what’s right in its own eyes, we can only expect things like this to increase.

As Christians, we need to stand firmly and lovingly on God’s Word. In a culture that has utterly rejected our Creator’s words, it’s more important than ever that we stand boldly on God’s unchanging Word and speak truth,,,

What Leaving Religion Has Done for Me

As I approached adulthood, and began to meet people from different backgrounds, with different beliefs, faith faded and gave way to doubt. I’d always been a curious person, but my youthful shyness and anxiety, combined with my insular upbringing, kept me mostly isolated from the world beyond family and church. It wasn’t until I entered the workforce, and then attended junior college, that I discovered the wider world, one of dazzling variety, and found it suited my personality to a T.
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Many religions, including the brand of fundamentalist Catholicism in which I was raised, lead many adherents to restrict the education of their children to a cherry-picked, often distorted or flat-out-wrong, circumscribed array of ideas, scientific theories, and historical accounts that accord with the doctrines of their faith. Many of these children remain ignorant of the wider world of human thought and history until something in their experience or personality compels them to look beyond the teachings of their youth. For example, my own dear grandmother, out of love but misguided by her piety, did a disservice to the education of her grandchildren by attempting, and in some cases succeeding, to restrict our education in this way. Her religious beliefs led to her conviction that a broad, liberal education offered too many temptations to disbelief, so she felt compelled keep us from learning anything other than that which would accord with her fundamentalist Catholic faith. As I later discovered, she was right, not for the reasons she thought. Truth, in my opinion, holds fast in the face of challenges; it does not give way as easily as error does. Each new thing I learned, then, was not a temptation: it was a window of opportunity for growing in understanding, and for replacing bad ideas with better ones. Fortunately, I inherited, and was inspired by, her adventurous side, her love of people. Over time, I encountered and fell in love with the wider world of ideas, through the people I came to meet and the broader education I eventually received.

Jehovah’s Witnesses Publication Explains How to Shun Family Members

Hospital Refuses Pregnancy-Related Care Again Because of Religious Directives

The refusal of hospitals to allow doctors to perform basic health procedures based solely on religious doctrine presents a real threat to a woman’s ability to access health care. Patients seeking medical care from public institutions should not have to worry that religious doctrine rather than medical judgment will dictate what care they receive.

This image is an excellent way to refute the common "Hitler/Stalin/Mao killed because they were atheists" fallacy

The chart breaks down every death in the 20th century, including those caused by ideology.

Communism, fascism, democracy, Ba'athism and even Catholicism all make the ideology breakdown but atheism does not. That's because Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were not motivated by atheism.

If there is an omnipotent god, one that can end disease and cancer, he's got a lot to answer for. Also, this is just a really cool chart. Yes, I am a nerd.

[Source: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/20th-century-death/]