The COTG

Welcome to Café Heathen! Today we'll be serving a mixed dish of cynicism, logical argument and circular debate. Ice cream flavors are Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla and the sweat, blood and tears that I've been pouring into this project for the past week (you can ask for that on the side).

On this, the 10th of December, Kingdom of Heathen and myself, Aeger, are proud to present the Carnival of the Godless.


Do enjoy.

For an appetizer, here's Ebonmuse with a delicious essay examining C.S. Lewis and his not-so-staunch defending of Christianity. Taste the crunchy goodness of knowing you're right.

Who likes Sweet and Sour stuff?

On the offensive we have Vjack, arguing against religion because of it's inbred intolerance.

I reject the notion that all human differences deserve equal respect and tolerance. For example, I have no interest in being tolerant of racism, sexism, homophobia, or other forms of irrational hatred. Thus, we should not be held to the expectation that we must be tolerant of intolerance.

Note the bitter flavoring.

Addressing the problem of the Scientist Mindset is Kirk from the Traveling Forever Blog. 'What is this mindset?' you may ask. Well, I'm not going to tell you. That's what the damn link is for.

Mojoey brings us morality without God.

Morality is a function of society, I was taught my morals by my patents, extended family, and social groups. I was taught morality by reading the bible and by my experience as a Christian. And, I refined my morality by deep thought and reflection on the nature of good and evil.

Purse your lips in citrusy expectation. A scientist using "scientific studies" to promote his own religious views? Not on Shalini's watch. From the blog Scientia Natura comes a smack-down of just such a scientist.

Christians: Learn the Bitter Taste of Defeat.

From our good friend Alfredo (it's the name of a food, so I don't have to make any allusions, hooray) over at Four Directions, we have a thesis which disproves the claim that theists can speak with God by pointing out the limits of our own senses.

Brought to us by Aaron from Symbolic Order, an argument twixt two friends of different beliefs made public in an inter-blog debate. And by Trevor from the same blog: a count down of the ten reasons that Christianity is false.

10. It is Absurd

And now we have Jeff from Minds, Meanings and Morals, who argues in support of taking religious experiences with God seriously, so as to better argue against them.

A Relish from A Published Mind.

From Rhyme and Reason, we have a transcript of a speech made by Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, at the World Religions Conference on the subject of salvation. Juicy, delicious salvation.

Fiction(?) Never Tasted So Insightful.

Volunteered by myself without his consent (it's not that he didn't want me to, I just never asked), a story by Harry from the Ragged Trousered Philosopher entitled "Talking To God..." Enjoy the 15-pagey goodness.

And from your dear Host, Kingdom of Heathen (more specifically: myself), I bring you an Ode to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Ever wondered what's really out there? Just use your noodle, you silly person.

A Mint for Your After Dinner Pleasure.

We've all seen that little purple and red tract that reads "Science Confirms the Bible." We look at it for a second, and say "Huh, I wonder if that's true," and then walk on. Well, Akusai from Action Skeptics has researched this tract, and found that not all of its claims are completely justified.

Later, at home, I looked over the card and had a long, hard laugh. I showed it to some friends and we all had a long, hard laugh. See, we're all hard-nosed, no-nonsense, science-type assholes. The great wish was that Buddy the Creationist had approached all of us in a group on a warm spring day, so we could have torn him to shreds.

I hope you enjoyed our food for thought. I'll see y'all in another year and a half.


WARNING: The writer of this post is not responsible for knowledge obtained or stomach cramps gained from reading this carnival. Repeated viewing of this page may result in swelling of the brain and/or revelations regarding the true meaning of life. And possible hemorrhaging. Have fun.

To all you who decided to wait until the last possible day to email in, I sincerely apologize. A combination of the dropout of the assistance of the other contributors, a small misunderstanding of the due date and an unusually large quantity of submissions led me to pull the due date back to the 7th. I apologize if you didn't hear about this in time and urge you to email your submissions to next weeks host, God is for Suckers.