Advocatus Atheist

Imagine for a moment, a person who claims all rocks are sacred, and that sitting on one or otherwise touching your ass to it is offensive in the extreme. Additionally, if you incidentally do touch the rock in an way deemed uncouth by them, they demand you apologize. Now, imagine I come along and say, no rocks are sacred, they're just rocks, and they're best for sitting on, scratching with, and generally touching your butt to is not only fine, it's your right to do so. Good. Next, suppose a popular actress comes along and touches her butt to some rocks. Maybe she knocks a few of them over. Still with me? Okay. So JLaw is called out for demeaning the sacred rocks of some Hawaiian people because they say she desecrated it with her woman butt. They demand she apologize. She does. Because, presumably, she's a nice person. Her actions seem to validate this assumption about her character. Now, let me ask you this. Is all of Hawaii going to ...

According to the folks at Feedspot, a new web-venture media news blog,  the Advocatus Atheist ranks in the top 30 of blogs based on, according to Feedspot, these criteria: Google reputation and Google search ranking Influence and popularity on Facebook, twitter and other social media sites Quality and consistency of posts. Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review   I'm humbled and flattered to be included in these other fine blogs. And I'll put the badge on my site proudly. If anything, the analystics seem sound. And if we're going by raw numbers, well, that's good news for this blog which I've maintained for over a decade. Although I don't post nearly as much as I used to, I still get around to it once in a while. Once a month on average according to Feedspot, Alexa, and Google Analytics. Here's to many more great posts!

This is my president? Try not to laugh. Impossible. After the election I took a hiatus from social media and the Internet. I was too disturbed, disgusted, and disappointed to even gather a coherent thought let alone talk meaningfully about it. Now I feel I have regained some semblance of sanity and will share with you my final thoughts and opinions on the whole Trump election. I wonder if  anyone else has noticed Trump's plans always involve doing the opposite of what is reasonable,  prudent, or right. According to Trump himself, he's going to quit social healthcare, regardless of who it affects. Very unwise. He's going to quit the Asian Pacific Trade deal, never mind that it took decades to work out and it will benefit everyone involved. Very ill-advised. He's going to get rid of Muslims and illegal aliens. Never mind that's racial profiling (evil) and doesn't make logistic sense on any rational scale. Very-xenophobic and racist. He...

I write books for a living. Both fiction and nonfiction. And one thing that stick's in my craw is censorship. Whether it is censorship of an author or artist's artistic vision, I cannot tolerate censorial attitudes. Whether it is censorship of a live video of an author talking on YouTube about their craft, I think the urge to censor reveals a lot about the people wanting to censor others. ​Censorship is just something I cannot abide. And it's worth saying a few words on. Censorship of ideas is a form of thought police. It limits free expression of ideas. It kills discourse dead. It interrupts the dialectic with the white noise of whiners and complainers who'd rather hear the sound of their own caterwauling than try to have a civil discussion. ​Like the image above, it leaves blanks spaces in our discourse. As the button says, the worst part of censorship is.... *message redacted.* ​It leaves you paranoid and wondering about what the information was. Was it import...

My brother was living there when it happened. Frantic doesn't begin to describe how we felt. All the phone lines were dead. Cell service was gone. All we had were the news cameras and the flames. And then... then the unthinkable happened. The buildings fell. Not knowing was the worst part. Nerve-wracked, we waited by the phone in case somebody called with bad news. Or in case my brother called. To our great relief, my father managed to get through via a land-line. My brother was alright. He was alive. A huge wave of relief washed over my whole family who were gathered in front of the television that day, but I'll never forget the terror I felt not knowing if my brother had died in NY while I sat helpless, watching it unfold on live television. We went to visit shortly thereafter, to visit my brother and give him company after experiencing first-hand such a terrible tragedy. Of course, we did go to ground zero. Going to ground zero was a solemn and hol...