I remember discussing the work of William Styron in his books Sophie’s Choice and The Confession of Nat Turner and how I love the way that his language flows so that the reader is enveloped in the story. The person with whom I was discussing it complained that Styron has tendency to show off his vocabulary, to “use a fifty-cent word when a ten-cent word will do.”

To all Christians: I apologize for being so uppity. I promise to be good. My hat is in my hand, and excuse me while I go to the back of the bus and get off at my stop and hope that none of you are dishonored again by having to look at me.

I am aware that people have negative impressions of atheists, that it is a choice of word that can lead people to dislike me or claim that I am being fundamentalist or arrogant. I hold that the atheist position is just as honorable as any other position that anyone else has in regard to religion and theology and that it can’t be made more palatable by atheists shying from the word. So I tell people when they ask me, “I am an atheist.”

Loftus said that they are not wrong nor stupid for being religious and even discussed the skeptical nature of the most intelligent of the apologists. Loftus made the case that, in fact, people such as William Lane Craig are probably more intelligent than he is. I can name some religious thinkers far more intelligent than I am. The issue with religion is not intelligence. The issue is that of core values, and presupposition.

This county road runs on a diagonal, northwest-southeast. Most of the time this doesn’t cause a perspective problem for me, except when I approach it from an east-west road…as I always do when coming from home. For some reason, my perspective overrides my rational understanding of directionality. It overrides my knowledge that the sun rises in a generally easterly direction and sets in a generally westerly direction depending on the time of year.

In December, Stephanie, Greg and I sat down in the studios of Metro Cable Network to tape a segment of the Atheists Talk TV show. We talked about us, about you and about how we all find each other and promote each other and be social atheists from distances sometimes made near.

Today is the first day of the Blog Bonanza for the Foundation Beyond Belief. Please consider joining Dale McGowan and help to select worthy, humanist causes.

Undyed, a flag is a piece of cloth. Dyed with the symbol of a state, or a country it gains meaning. What we need to remember is that this republic is not a “homeland” in the sense that Swaziland is a “homeland,” or that Germany was considered a “Fatherland.” It is a cobbled republic, whose borders weren’t even established as they currently stand until 1958. What I have been observing the last eight years, since the attacks on the World Trade Center, is a large degree of confusion over what a republic is and should be.

I have found in working with my own kids on their homework that I don’t have the patience to be a teacher. Since I grasped many of the things they work on rather quickly, I expect them to do the same when they approach new problems and assignments. I assume that they are wanting me to do the work for them, because they look to me to provide the answers.

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by the producer of BBC Radio Five’s Pods & Blogs show. The producer, Jamillah Knowles, had been alerted to this blog by a friend of hers recently. Jamillah was doing a program on history blogs, and she wanted to feature mine on that program. As you might imagine, I was flabbergasted but highly honored. I said yes!