A mule deer buck with an impressive rack munches on an elm tree near my office building earlier today... He's clearly well-known by some agency, perhaps the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, because he's tagged and wears a radio collar. (Canon PowerShot SX60HS)

Your "spirituality" is nothing more than your own considered perception of your neural activity—a recursive, self-referential, and purely material apprehension of your own cognition. Quit imbuing it with a "supernatural specialness" that is nothing more than a wishful illusion.

"Good" and "evil" are not absolute concepts with objective definitions that magically exist as forces or standards in the real world—they're ideas created by humans relative to various, inherently subjective sets of judgements about what humans want, or don't want, to happen.

If when asked for evidence to defend your belief in God you start quoting Bible verses, describing your personal "spiritual experience", asking "How could it be otherwise?", or pointing out that many others also believe, then you haven't understood the assignment in the least.

Claiming something is "immaterial" or "supernatural" does not magically absolve one of the burden of explaining it.

At their logical best, Cosmological Arguments can only be used to conclude that an unknowable force somehow “caused” the universe to have existence by virtue of unknowable methods, a result that falls far short of demonstrating either a pantheistic "god" OR the Abrahamic "God".

Dear theists: That you have a right to practice your religion does not simultaneously afford you the right to impose it upon anyone else, including your children. Nor does it mean that I DON'T have a right to openly mock it. Keep your shitty ideology to yourself.

Let's please not attempt the experiment again.

The idea that purely physical patterns and interactions of neuro-chemical activity within the wetware of your brain can somehow give rise to an *immaterial* mind seems to reverse the concept of "something from nothing" into the equally absurd-sounding "nothing from something".

"Within a plankton, an even smaller cell has been found living an unexpectedly virus-like existence, challenging what it means to be alive. This extreme specialization challenges our fundamental understanding of the minimal requirements for cellular life." www.sciencealert.com/strange-cell...

I don't try to de-convert people from theism because that's almost always futile. I simply seek to demonstrate that supernatural beliefs are illogical to the point of absurdity and that such beliefs as expressed through Christianity, Judaism, and Islam can be extremely harmful.

Ten Commandments of Skepticism: Ignore the idiots Reveal the posers Be slow to believe Refute the illogical Defuse the adamant Expose the fallacious Unmask the deceitful Deflate the blowhards Question the consensus Challenge the authorities

There are around 85 billion neurons in an adult brain and each neuron makes about 10,000 connections to other neurons, meaning that there are as many intra-neural connections in a single cubic centimeter of brain tissue as their are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

For the credulous and the ignorant, the bar for believing in the absurdities of "God" and "soul" is abysmally low because fear of an imagined hell, desire for acceptance, discomfort with the unknown, irrational hope of an afterlife, and childhood indoctrination are all so high.

Because most Christians believed in God before they knew or understood the details of their own Bible, their preexisting belief gives them retroactive affirmation that the Bible must be true, so their arguments for it become as convoluted as needed to support that affirmation.

If you can rationalize these, you might be a Christian: Drowning all creation (Gen 6:17) Murdering all the firstborn (Ex 12:29) Beating the slaves (Ex 21:20-21) Raping all the virgins (Num 31:18) Killing all non-Israelites (Deut 28:53) Slaughtering all the infants (1 Sam 15:3)

"The spider hunts with a scientist’s precision, her curiosity carving a path through the wild, a silent partner in the world’s great order." —Annie Dillard They have such cute, inquisitive faces. A tiny jumping spider eyes me curiously as I take his portrait... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro)

Given the fact that the gospel accounts of Christ's resurrection were written many decades after the supposed crucifixion by unverified authors who were clearly not eyewitnesses of Christ let alone of any resurrection, they fall firmly into the category of anachronistic hearsay.

"The Earth is what we all have in common. It is a garden of infinite variety, yielding to those who tend it a harvest of both sustenance and wonder." —Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace They're getting to the traffic light stage... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens)

"The hawk, in its solitary flight, carries the sky on its wings, a hunter whose vision carves the world into moments of eternal pursuit." —John James Audubon A redtail hawk grasps the remnants of breakfast in one talon while keeping a close eye out for lunch... (Canon SX60HS)

"The sky lowers, and the wind begins to moan, a restless spirit weaving through the trees, heralding a storm that is both a terror and a strange, fierce loveliness." —Charlotte Brontë Grass blows in the wind as a storm approaches over the plains of Colorado at sunset... (Canon Powershot SX40HS)

"The conflict between science and the Bible is nowhere more evident than in the account of life's origins. The theory of evolution, supported by an overwhelming body of evidence, renders a literal reading of Genesis untenable." —Sam Harris

Falsehood is never perfectly harmless. Even if your own personal theistic faith and expression of it causes no harm and/or actively causes good, you are nonetheless a carrier of a mind virus that has infected and sickened the entire world, often with tragic and violent results.

If you sincerely call to God, believe Him to be a living Force, focus on your hope for His presence, search deep within your heart for His quiet words, and expect with all your Heart to hear His voice, you may very well feel something real. But it won't be God - it will be you.

"The rabbit’s life is a fleeting shadow across the meadow, yet in its fleetingness lies a kind of eternal dance." —Kenneth Grahame A baby bunny sunning himself in my backyard... It was one of his first forays out into the wider world from his nest under the deck. (Canon Powershot SX60HS)

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." ―Marcel Proust The inner sanctum of a purple iris... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens)

"Nature's first green is gold, / Her hardest hue to hold. / Her early leaf's a flower; / But only so an hour." ―Robert Frost, from Nothing Gold Can Stay An early blossom on a crabapple tree in my backyard earlier this spring... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens)

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." —Ralph Waldo Emerson The glowing center of an iris in my side yard... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens)

"As long as people want the Mormon Church to be true, more than they are willing to face the possibility that it is not, they will not entertain evidence or reason. Delusion becomes a choice." ―Jim Whitefield For equal truth, swap "Christianity" or "Islam" for "the Mormon Church".

"No wonder we cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from the horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home." —D.F. Wallace

You can't sin because there is no sin. You can't be judged because there is no Judge. You can't be damned because there is no hell. You can't be saved because there's nothing to be saved from. Treat others as well as, or better than, you would like to be treated. That is all.

There are nothing BUT false prophets.

"The lily whispers, ‘I wait,’ in its low, sweet voice." —Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Princess A closeup of a lily in my window well in the late afternoon... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens)

Ever seen a Christian apologist give one of those logically irrefutable and undeniably valid arguments for the existence of God that make you sit back in stunned appreciation of its power and clarity and wonder why you had never seen that obvious truth before? Yeah, me neither.

The fact that election-deniers, climate change deniers, antivaxxers, flat earthers, conspiracy theorists, anti-intellectuals, homophobes, racists, bigots, MAGAts, authoritarians, and neo-fascists believe in the same God should tell you everything you need to know about that God.

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. Even the smallest insect is a thread in the great web of life." —John Muir A cute little friend explores the folds of a towel in my laundry room... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens)

"All the world’s a stage, and I’m the star monarch!" —William Shakespeare, As You Like It A regal but skeptical marmot in Rocky Mountain National Park... (Canon Powershot SX60HS)

If you kill your only child to save your creations from a punishment that you decreed when you could've simply 1) killed the enemy that inspired the disobedience or 2) NOT have decreed the punishment in the first place, then the problem isn't with your creations, it's with YOU.

Reality: Dead people don't resurrect. Science: "Dead people don't resurrect." Christianity: "Dead people resurrect and we drink their blood!"

This is an actual post by our current "president". Forget for a moment the absurdity of the statements, and focus merely on the tone and demeanor. THIS is who most of the U.S. voted for. THIS is the comportment that most of the U.S. condones. Assholes and idiots are in charge.

Almost every theistic response to atheism will necessarily be a form of strawman or red herring, an attempt to deflect, distract, and/or divert from the fact that they can neither directly nor successfully shoulder the burden of proof or explanation for God's existence.

"The smallest insect, crawling on a leaf, is as much a part of the universe as the greatest star in the heavens." —Henry David Thoreau A tiny praying mantis nymph eyes me skeptically from the back of a grass blade (note the tiny black speck of his pupil) while I take his portrait. (Canon 6DMk2)

"Death doesn’t exist. But we’ve drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we’ve got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing." —Ray Bradbury (Sony RX10 IV)

"The bees hum their endless hymn, priests of the flower, carrying the sun’s gold dust from bloom to bloom, knitting the world’s sweetness together." —Annie Dillard A honeybee mines for pollen in the CSU Annual Trial Gardens in Fort Collins, Colorado... (Canon 6DMk2, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro Lens)

"The hum of insects is the true voice of the summer earth, a music finer than any human chord, threading the air with life’s delicate pulse." —Henry David Thoreau A grasshopper on my backyard fence... (Canon 6DMk2, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS Lens)

"In a new study from the University of Colorado, biologists used genetic sequencing from barn swallows to provide real-time evidence of preferential sexual selection driving the emergence of new species." www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

"According to research from Boston University, young children with a religious background are less able to distinguish between fantasy and reality compared with their secular counterparts." www.bbc.com/news/blogs-e...

"To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so." —Timothy Snyder

When you deify and worship a supposed God who gives commands like "slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear" Eph 6:5 and "kill every male among the little ones" Num 31:17, then there are arguably some serious problems with your morality, reasoning, and perspective.

Is a supposedly perfect and omnipotent God who commands constant adoration, devotion, attention, obedience, sacrifice, worship, prayer, and praise really worthy of the respect He demands? Or, could it be that such a God is really just a fiction created by human imaginations?