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Hi folksies!!!
 

I'm not an atheist because I'm still an altar boy in an Anglican church but I believe in church attendance only as a cultural thing.  I don't accept the hocus pocus abacadabra nonsense of the supernatural stuff of religion.

Recently, in a yahoo group, an American Baptist pastor called Tipton Killingsworth who has been constantly insulting me, challenged me to blaspheme the Holy Spirit on this forum.  It was he who introduced me to this forum.  He challenged me to post a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit here and that's precisely what I'm doing.

So here goes my blasphemy (dedicated to Tip):

The Holy Spirit is a base, filthy, turdy, shitty piece of excrement that I spit upon.

Cheers,

Ernest the beamishboy who slays the Jabberwock and all untruths.

Religion creates another atrocity, god is great, eh?  Listen Muslims and Christians... stop the fighting.  You're both wrong, it's time to act like rational grown-ups and throw off your archaic belief system, you are destroying civilization, and will continue to do so until we're gone.  Abandon your superstitous nonsense, and evolve already!  Ask yourself, what solid proof do you have to believe in your God.  If what you have is a holy book, remind yourself that hundreds of holy books exist for hundreds of gods, and you don't believe in any of them, so obviously a holy book is not sufficient proof.  Throw off your superstitious nonsense, and embrace things you know exist like humans for example.  Make no mistake, today millions of folks around the world who have no belief in a god are sad for the people who were affected by this needless loss of life, just as we've been sad about all the other atrocities committed in the name of religion throughout the ages.  Our thoughts are with the billions who have been negatively affected by religion since the dawn of time, and always are.  In fact my life is dedicated to ensuring these sorts of things don't continue to happen, you can start by breaking the cycle... throw religion off today!  

I must've heard the words "an atheist can do no good" hundreds of times in the last few years.  It must be so hard to imagine how atheists can do good without the upstanding moral code imparted to us in the Bible or the Quran.  Sure I wouldn't sell my daughter into slavery, or kill a man simply for being gay, but I can do other good things instead. 

I'm proud to donate clothes to Goodwill and give money to charity.  But I take a bigger sense of pride in atheist volunteers which was created to unite and showcase acts of goodness by the men in black who apparently can do no good.  Well the door to that argument is being shut more and more everyday as atheists aren't as scared as they once were to show their face (we have religion to thank for our original fear).  We used to do acts of kindness simply because we liked doing acts of kindness.  But after being accused so often of being no-do-gooders some of us decided to show off what we've been doing all our lives while letting others know we don't believe in a god.  We believe good deeds are the work of men.  If good deeds are the works of god, well certainly bad deeds are as well.

I'm particularly excited about the recent developments in Austin with Texas American Atheist President Joe Zamecki at the helm.  He and his crew have been hitting the streets to hand out supply packages to the homeless.  Some interesting video has been shot along the way.  It's interesting to hear how often the homeless use the name Jesus or God in a positive manner while receiving free goods from a non-believer.  You'll have to check it out for yourself.  Details of the Austin Atheists Helping the Homeless are here.  (you can digg and stumble that page)

Thanks Joe, you're a blessing from your mom and dad!

Today is the day, on the Don Imus show Bill Maher referred to himself as an atheist very explicitly for the first time that I am aware of.  

Here is his page on Celebrity Atheists with the update: http://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/Bill_Maher

NOVEMBER 2009 ON IMUS - MAHER REFERS TO HIMSELF AS AN ATHEIST

November 1, 2009 on Imus, Bill Maher finally accepts that the term atheism describes him best when relating to Richard Dawkins and his atheism lacking absolute certainty:

"Neither me nor my girl believe in God or marriage, so there's not gonna be a big church wedding... I always say I don't know. Even Richard Dawkins a man whose name has become synonymous with atheism says he puts a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being absolute certain there is a god and 7 being absolutely certain there isn't, and he says even he's a 6.9. Because no one knows for sure what's out there. He says yes there could be a god and there could be a spaghetti monster out there, but it doesn't look like it. To me it was always great fodder for comedy. There isn't a week that goes by that there isn't something hysterically funny if it's not tragic, having to do with religion. My recent favorite example was at the Michael Jackson Memorial Stevie Wonder said 'we needed Michael but God needed him more.' And I thought really God needs people, God needs singers, God is up there saying 'Jesus, nothing on, get that Michael Jackson up here.'

Imus then asks if Hitchens is a 7. Bill Maher responds "he may be, I think we're just talking semantics at some point, we are all atheists (referring to Dawkins, Hitchens, and himself), which means we don't believe in a deity, we don't believe in a magic spaceman, and we think people that do, have a neurological disorder and they need help."

And on religion in general he said "When I hear from people that religion doesn't hurt anything, I say really? Well besides wars, the crusades, the inquisitions, 9-11, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, fatwas, honor killings, suicide bombings, arranged marriages to minors, human sacrifice, burning witches, and systematic sex with children, I have a few little quibbles. And I forgot blowing up girl schools in Afghanistan."

I need to know how much faster the forums work for you as a result of current changes I'll be making with the intent to increase forum speed.  This change is predominantly an attempt to increase forum speed.  Thanks to Brad for inadvertently suggesting this change which I had been contemplating but couldn't afford to do because I needed to use the side bars for advertising.  With recent donations I've been able to justify this change in hopes that this will make the forum more active.  

If you like the change and have yet to donate please help keep things like this by subscribing to bronze for $3 per month.  You can also send a one time $5 donation to help replace the ad revenue that will be lost.  Of course larger donations are appreciated but if I can get 30 bronze members at $3 per month it will easily replace ad revenue that will be lost.  (fwiw: we're not gonna get 30)

One of the reasons I need feedback here is to determine what else could be slowing the forums down.  I will slowly strip away a ton of advertising but if it's the text editor or how the menus are built, or something else I need to know.  

When giving feedback these are the most important things I need to know:

• What browser are you using?
• How much faster is it now?
• Can you tell if it is hanging on something specific?

This will be done in stages so revisit this thread to add more feedback later I will update the changes.

First batch of changes: 

• Removed entire right column on forums, the forums are now wider as a result.  Help make up the money lost!
• Removed 3 Amazon books on left side of site (some amazon books will go back up soon when I can deliver the content in a faster method)
• Removed the small amazon book table on the left
• Removed the bookmark button on the left side (use the bookmarks under the posts now ie stumbleupon, facebook, reddit... please use these so we can make new friends!)

This time of year fills me with a feeling of joy ~ mostly brought on by memories of Holidays past, those yet to come, and the consideration of events that create a sense of thankfulness. 

For me, the first holiday that kicks off my trilogy of year-end fun is nearly here: Thanksgiving!! This year my parents are driving in from Iowa to join Tracy and I for a gut-busting feast! (I am actually cooking!!!) Our grocery trip will be sometime today and we plan on buying a turkey breast and a ham to smoke~along with stuffing, taters, and several casseroles! Although we will not be saying grace over our tryptophan-laden meal, I do require that those that attend our meal discuss at least one thing they are thankful for:

I am thankful for the support my husband has given me over the past 18 months. I quit my full-time job to pursue a college education and in doing so, have placed us in a financial crunch. His support has been nothing short of amazing and without it, I may have gone insane while working 2 part-time jobs and attending class.

Now to all of you that will celebrate Thanksgiving next week OR those that do not (and yes, I realize not everyone on the forum does) ~ ~ what do you have to be thankful for?  

Hey folks, as you know the core leadership of RRS was rather inactive for the first half of 2009, this was due to various factors including several that are personal, however the recession took it's toll as early as the beginning of 2008.  A bunch of folks who were donors and subscribers wrote to us with apologies after they lost their job, or their wives lost their jobs, or something recessionary in nature happened to them presenting a situation in which they had to withdraw their funding of our efforts.  This story was echoed by the SSA who was on the verge of disappearing this year as a result of the hard times, and has raised over $90,000 in two months.  I've been working as many hours as possible in the real world for over a year now to reduce the fundraising burden in order to keep this site afloat.  While I seemed absent on an activist level my time away from the limelight was designed to preserve RRS.