Freethoughtful

Years ago, before the stores and before the catalogues, before I'd ever heard of
Abercrombie & Fitch, A&F ran an ad with this guy in it. It's still one of my favourites.

"We see the Bible as a behavioural grab bag."

Monday night, a friend of mine heard Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, speak in Arlington. Barker was a fundamentalist Christian minister for 19 years before he -- to use the words of the FFRF Website -- "outgrew his religious beliefs."

My friend wrote down some quotations during the talk, including the one above. When asked whether he was happier as an atheist than he had been as a Christian minister, Barker said "I'm happier knowing the truth even if it's a painful truth."

Barker also compared the idea of intelligent design to someone saying "look at how the rivers were constructed to go right along the state borders." Clever, but I still think I prefer John Stewart's using the human scrotum as proof that any conscious design wasn't that intelligent.

Dan Barker will be here in Austin on Friday night, speaking at a forum organized by the Atheist Longhorns, the rationalist student group at UT. If I can rearrange some things, I'll be there.

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