Heh. "I dont condemn or judge you for what you believe. Nor do I think harshly toward the way that you believe ..." but my god sure does! And he says you're going to burn in hell unless you love him!

Sigh. At least the author seems to be trying to be nice...

There's a difference between companies that happen to be owned by religious people, and companies whose mission and identity is centrally religious. I don't care about the former (if I boycotted those, I'd hardly be able to buy anything anywhere) but I do my best to avoid the latter (like Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby).

My perception based on the radio ads I hear is that (evangelical, at least) Christians want to patronize stores run by Christians, and implicitly that means avoiding any stores not run by Christians whenever possible. This isn't the kind of attitude I take. Of course to some extent by supporting a business you support the leisure and charitable giving activities of the owner and whoever else makes money when that business prospers. But I can't examine the private spending habits of every business owner, that would be nuts. I can feasibly avoid the companies that explicitly make evangelizing part of their business plan and the companies that make a big deal out of spending a portion of their profits on "ex-gay" ministry or indoctrination of children.
My recent post In love with God?

Can you explain a bit about what "their accommodationist approach" involves? I guess I always saw it as more of a focus on the science classroom environment and outcomes there ... but I don't actually know many details about it. The NCSE is one of the groups I often mention to family members who ask me for Christmas present ideas (donate to [charity x] instead of buying me a present) ... if there's a better group to support instead, I'd certainly want to.
My recent post I’m “hung up on” what’s true

Interesting survey. I'm inclined to think, though, that this isn't a commentary on Americans' suprisingly-more-reasonable-than-expected beliefs as it is about how people tend not to think through to all the logical consequences of the beliefs they hold. The Pew article also said, "a majority (56%) say God is in control of everything that happens in the world." How can that not include natural disasters? Do ~20% of Americans believe that God sends huge earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. just whimsically, not as a "sign" as such? More likely, I think they just didn't really think about it.
My recent post There’s no one like you

It's of Americans, not of the whole world.

Also, that's rather grotesque, don't you think? ... Stupid people don't deserve to be "mulched". Everyone has the right to their own stupid opinions, and everyone is stupid about some things even if we strive to be stupid about as few things as possible. I don't want to put anyone in charge of writing "comprehensive examinations" to decide who deserves to be murdered and who gets to survive. What we need is smart people to be in charge of making most of the decisions that affect most of the people. We need to structure things so that the bad decisions of stupid people only mess up their own lives.

I've heard "celebrant" as a general term used to encompass priests, pastors, ministers, rabbis, imams, justices of the peace, whoever might lead a "celebratory" life occasion. It's not exclusive of religious people, but rather inclusive enough to also refer to atheists who do the paperwork so that they can preside over their friends' wedding.

Yeah, I'm with the other commenters -- if you get pay and benefits, and you have a union to advocate for better working conditions, etc. ... that's employment. Slavery is about owning another person as property. Does your couch complain to its local union rep if you put your sneaker-clad feet up on it? No, it's just an object.

We do have laws about how you can treat your pets, etc. so I guess there isn't a perfectly bright line. But I think it's safe to say that getting paid a million dollars a year to work for someone else is not what the vast majority of people mean when they talk about "slavery" or "property ownership."

Heh. Good point. I suppose it depends on whether his father taught him to question things and think about them from an objective standpoint, or whether he just pointed out things he thought were stupid and said, "That's stupid, son." Thinking critically is a skill, and it doesn't make much sense to say that you were "brainwashed into thinking critically." It sounds to me like Matt's experience has been more along these lines.

Nice post. One question - is there something I'm missing about buying furniture (or anything else) with a credit card? I use my credit card all the time, because it's a lot more convenient than carrying cash, but I don't spend more money than I have and I always pay it off in full. People certainly do treat credit cards like free money, but I think the problem's in the attitude, not the credit card itself.

I'm not talking about "proof" or "disproof" as much as I'm talking about "evidence in favor of" and "evidence against." There's almost nothing we can prove with 100% certainty about the real world. At the same time, I'm not interested in supposing things with no basis whatsoever. I haven't seen electrons, but I've seen lots of things that the existence of something with the properties of an electron would facilitate, and for which we presently have no other better explanation. I do my best to form my beliefs by considering this kind of stuff -- by figuring out what is most likely to be true about reality, based on what we have observed so far.

This is why I find it difficult -- or should I say, silly -- to talk about "asking God directly" whether he exists. If I don't believe he exists yet, why would I talk to him? I'll happily say whatever words you want me to say that you think your god would notice, but "in my heart" I won't really think that he'll answer, and that's usually cited as the reason why such "prayers" are unsuccessful.

Suppose that nobody else had ever met my husband. I'd never met his family, or any of his friends from before we met. Suppose I'd had people over to visit my home, and it was always while "my husband was out of town." My friends noticed no evidence of my husband living here at all -- none of his clothes in the closet, none of his books on the shelves, none of his favorite foods in the kitchen. They confront me and say, "We're not sure your husband really exists. He might be a hallucination, a dream you're having." If I were to later turn to my husband and say, "Honey, do you exist?" what could his answer possibly tell me in relation to my friends' concerns? His answer might be part of that hallucination. I think I have a relationship with him ... but in this situation, I would have to come to terms with the likelihood that I was mistaken.

I've actually thought a great deal about what might convince me that a god or gods really existed. For example, I wrote about what I think people who claim to talk to God could do to demonstrate that they're right. Plenty of atheists can give you a list of things that they'd consider to be reasonable evidence for a religion, enough to change their assessment about what's most likely to be true. Is there any evidence that would convince me of the Christian god? That depends largely on how you define that god ... and with tens of thousands of Christian denominations each with their own opinions, I'm not going to pretend to know which one you mean ahead of time. But I have read the Bible and read scholarly discussions of its text, and I feel reasonably confident concluding that it's not an authoritative document. (I wrote a series of posts about my reasons for this, beginning here.) I doubt that there's any experience I could have that would change my mind on those issues at this point, because there's such a preponderance of evidence on the one side already. That doesn't preclude my being convinced of some other god.