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Friendly Atheist

Atheism with Positivity

Friendly Atheist Contest #38: In What Ways is Simon Cowell Better Than God?Yesterday

Last time, I ran this contest:

A recent poll asked 1,600 British children to “name the individual they considered the biggest celebrity.”

In first place: Simon Cowell.

In second place: God.

I think that gives new meaning to the word “Idolatry“…

But it raises another question:

In what other ways is Simon Cowell better than God?

Here are the Top 5 answers (with submitters):

5|

When Simon Cowell gets angry, he insults you. When God gets angry, he turns you into salt.

(postsimian)

4|

Simon Cowell only tells you that you are a bad person (singer, dresser, whatever) if you are.

(Nicole)

3|

When Simon Cowell judges people, there is video documentation.

(ZackFord)

2|

Eventually, people

Where is the Best Atheist Blog Category?Yesterday

The nominees for the 2008 Weblog Awards have been listed and you can vote for some fine websites all over the place.

But among the list of categories, I don’t see an important one: Best Atheist Blog.

I’m not just saying that out of self-interest. There are tons that deserve recognition and I suspect there are as many atheist blogs out there as there are blogs in many other categories.

There already is a Best Religious Blog category, but even if we want to be extremely broad in how we define that word, there are no atheists in that bunch.

I’m not claiming there’s some anti-atheist bias or anything. Maybe just someone unaware of all that is out there on the Interwebs. (Hell, even Reddit acknowledges us.)

If anyone knows how to fix this for next year, please let us know.

(Thanks to Diane for the link!)

Monkey Jesus. No, Really.January 6

Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane is clearly trying to court atheist fans with his latest cartoon short: Monkeys Talk About Religion.

(I forwarded through the ad at the beginning.)

It all makes sense now…

Common causes of atheism: Is there a cure?January 6

*cue sarcasm*

I had a great deal of fun on conservapedia.com today. And, I learned a lot! I discovered that what I have, this “atheism,” actually has several causes. To my dismay, though, there doesn’t seem to be a cure. Let’s go through the list, shall we?

The first noted cause is “Moral Depravity.” Although there is no cure for this, it seems I can blame Darwin, and others since him, who used deceit “in a major way to propagate atheism.” So, you see, it’s not my fault that I am “certainly the most despicable and the most miserable animal under the sun,” as some guy named Matthew Henry suggests. (A funny side note is that the person who wrote this bit went on to quote from the Bible. Apparently, I have been paying attention to the wrong deceit.)

Next, I want to point out that my atheism is due to “Superficiality.” After all, I have given in to the “peer” pressure of those who came before me spreading their lies, so it only makes sense that I would continue in the same way. I have no strongly held conviction, I cannot resist… I am just a lemming. (Wait, isn’t that what atheists say about theists? This is getting confusing.)

I would also like you to know that I am in “Error.” I either do not have

The War on FestivusJanuary 6

The atheists have lost.

It looks like Festivus is only getting bigger — it’s followers are going to steal our thunder as the propagators of the War on Christmas!

Most importantly, we can’t compete using our current ways of doing business, says Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle:

(Disappointingly, the atheist “display” [in Olympia, Washington] was nothing more than a cheesy cardboard sign mounted on an easel saying “There is no god” in large black sans serif letters. The atheists are not going to get anywhere until they hire some graphic artists, develop unique iconography and experiment with serif type. Sure, serifs do indicate to many the existence of an Intelligent Designer, but surely this issue should be secondary to marketing concerns.)

He has a point.

This isn’t very visually appealing:

The atheists could’ve at least gone for something a bit… happier: