Ceremonial deism is a legal term used in the United States to designate governmental religious references and practices deemed to be mere ritual and non-religious through long customary usage.

-- Wikipedia



Again, referring to Wikipedia, the term, “ceremonial deism” was first coined in 1962, by the then-dean of the Yale Law School, Eugene Rostrow, and subsequently used by the Supreme Court in…

Hello, everyone just wanted to make a quick update on my life, If anyone cares. lol. Lot has happened since the last time I posted. I published three books. I changed my name. I came out as a pansexual transgender and changed my gender marker to female. I helped start a local LGBTQ activist group in my area. It's been fulfilling! 

He sees you when you're sleeping.

He knows when you're awake.

He knows if you've been bad or good.

So be good for goodness sake……

There is a school of thought which says that atheism offers no comfort to those who hurt, who mourn the unfairness of life, the proverbial “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and cling to religion on the chance that the next life will be a marked improvement on this one.  I submit that this is a mistaken concept, that there can be comfort in the absence of a deity and indeed, a demonstrably better existence in the one life we have.  The four points listed below give some expression to…

Blaise Pascal (the 17th century French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, writer, and Catholic theologian) is world famous for his little "wager". Most atheists are painfully aware of it.

Pascal was inspired to write it in 1654, in one of his most famous works Pensées, after having a "religious experience". This unlikely state of mind puzzles me, since Pascal was an…

The Christian crucifix actually represents a condemnation of human rights and morality. After all, this religion’s imaginary God boasts about drowning nearly the entire population of humans on Earth—including…

With great power comes great responsibility.  With all power comes all responsibility.

-- Brian Keith Dalton



Most of us have heard the first half of the above quote.  It was spoken by “Uncle Ben Parker” to his nephew, Peter Parker, as wisdom and warning, though Ben never had any idea what powers had recently been inadvertently bestowed upon the teen in his care.  The second half of that quote, though, seems to have shown up in multiple places, and Brian doesn’t give it…

1. May the joy in your heart and the life in your spirit truly determine your age. Many happy returns! Happy Birthday!
2. It's time to cut the cake, stuff your face, and put that diet off until tomorrow! Happy Birthday!
3. Ibirthdaycake.com
4. Though the miles are far between us, my heart is near to yours on this your special day. Happy…

Is god good?



If we’re going to ask that question, the first thing that has to be established is: whose “good” are we using as a standard?  If human good is to be the benchmark, then the task is relatively easy.  Whatever good god recognizes, however, will introduce a degree of vagary which may be insuperable.



Regardless of which deity is supervising this reality, he/she/it cannot be said to be good by human standards in the slightest measure, and one need look no…

Book Writing Services

You want to write a book, in fact, you wanted to write a book for years, but you can’t. Business is crazy and the family is growing and changing. Whenever you think it’s taking too long, something happens. When you tried to be alone, you started to realize that this book had never been written. So, what can you do? Hire book writing services.

Ghostwriters are…

It’s been over a year since the November, 2020 election, and not quite a year from the infamy of the January 6^th insurrection.  Joe Biden has assumed the presidency, taken the reins, and begun to guide our nation out of the 10-point cluster-fuck which was the four years of the Trump administration.  Perhaps his two biggest and most positive accomplishments have been the organization and deployment of the COVID-19 vaccines, which now has roughly 73% of US citizens with at least one…

Brian Tyler Cohen has been producing political commentary on YouTube for the past couple of years.  Generally, his traditional format has been to start with a video clip of some event, whether a speech in the House or Senate or an incident in the field, then comment on that event or incident.  Such videos will usually see him in a neatly tailored suit and tie and likely reading his script from a teleprompter.



Then there are those rare times when Brian is speaking both off the cuff…

I think both theists and atheists don't realize the full ramifications of Russell's Teapot. I would expect everyone here already knows what Russell's Teapot is. If not, check out a youtube video about it or the wikipedia page on it. The thing is, Russell's Teapot doesn't work as an analogy for the kind of god religious people imagine. Russell's Teapot is an analogy for philosophical god, a theoretical god that is completely uninvolved and leaves no evidence of itself. Theists claim that…

When you get to be my age (70 years, 11 months), you begin to wonder how well or even if you’ll be remembered after the physiology quits working, and you’re no longer around to remind others of your existence.  That is a thought that I have intermittently pondered over the past couple of years.  My family situation frankly isn’t that reliable.  I have one brother and two sisters, none of whom have I heard from in the last 10 years, plus a daughter with whom I might exchange greetings and…

     This blog post isn't about atheism. Once again I'm using this as the closest thing I have to a place where I can post things of a philosophical, social, or political nature. This is quite an off the cuff idea and there could be plenty of mistakes in it (in rationale and in history, in this case).

     So why don't we tax food? Is taxing food likely to break you? Probably not, but if you're limited to affording the bare necessities that can make a difference. Along those lines aid…

It seems like unless I pay for my own website that I don't have any good place to blog all the ideas I wish to blog. Like now, I have a thought that's not about atheism that I'd like to remember and maybe even share and neither does it fit any other site I visit. It seems like this is best place to express ideas, especially if they might be controversial, compared to any other site I can post at. Am I going to post a political thought to a video game forum? No that just doesn't make sense.…

There has been an ongoing argument regarding the words, “atheism” and “agnosticism,” practically since the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term, back in 1869.  What further complicates the contretemps is the fact that the object at the center of the belief or argument – “god” – continues to be without any form of objective demonstration or proof.  The conflation of the two terms on the part of some people only muddies the waters further.  Granted that I am no Huxley nor Hume.  To…

Yet another reprint of a blog I first wrote back in 2017 for Atheist Nexus.  I could be accused of being excessively optimistic and wearing my Pollyanna suit on this one, but I think it has something to say.  Hope you enjoy.





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Back in college, I was invited to participate in a production of Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, which was being put on by the drama department of Notre Dame College.  It was a nice diversion…

It slowly dawned on me sometime between my 30th and 40th birthdays. You know, the realization that even though you’ve always believed yourself to be something special, better than “average,” whatever that means... In reality, you are just that, average, mediocre, middling, You're pretty good at some things that you’re interested in, but not so great with most everything else. And you never will be, even with dedication and perseverance. At most endeavors, you pretty much "suck," just like…

National and international news has been very revealing of late. Just stop and look at what is going on around us right now. From destroying our water resources and pumping so much garbage into our air that our climate is already changing, undoubtedly past the critical tipping point, ruining two of the three fundamental categories of “things without which life is impossible,” to adulterating that third category, our basic food supplies with killer pesticides, antibiotics, and plastics, not…