There are a lot of misunderstandings about who atheists are, what they believe, and what they don't believe. People become atheists for many different reasons. Being an atheist isn't a choice or act of will - like theism, it's a consequence of what one knows and how one reasons. Atheists are not all angry, they aren't in denial about gods, and they aren't atheists to avoid taking responsibility for their acts. It's not necessary to be afraid of hell and there are advantages to being an atheist.

Read Article: Who Are the Atheists? What Does Being an Atheist Mean?

Homosexuality is already a crime in Uganda, with punishments going up to life in prison, but politicians in Uganda are looking to making life even worse for gays. Under newly proposed changes both "repeat offenders" and HIV+ gay men would be sentenced to death. Anyone who argues on behalf of equal rights for gay could go to jail for seven years -- and even if you simply know someone is gay but don't report it, that could mean prison time as well. A new crime called "aggravated homosexuality" would be created, which would apparently impose more prison time for anyone who first buys a person a drink before having sex with them.

Africa generally isn't exactly friendly towards gays and gay rights, but the extreme situation in Uganda has been fostered by evangelical Christians from America. Lacking America's Constitution and long tradition of respect for civil liberties, the extremist views of Uganda's evangelical Christians is being taken to their logical extreme -- and apparently with encouragement from those same evangelical Christians, in particular the notorious political group known as The Family. Look to Uganda for a preview of what these evangelical Christians want for America. Read more...

A key issue for the Christian Right is installing Ten Commandments monuments and displays in public buildings. The purpose is to unambiguously link the Ten Commandments with American law, government, and politics. Mike Huckabee endorses Ten Commandments in public schools to teach students that their country is based on the Ten Commandments. Of course, linking American government with the Ten Commandments necessarily entails linking it with the Bible and, in the minds of Christian Nationalists, with Christianity itself -- even though Christianity isn't based on the Ten Commandments.

Read More: Mike Huckabee Says the Ten Commandments are the Basis for American Law

Aesthetics is the study of beauty and taste, whether in the form of the comic, the tragic or the sublime. The word derives from the Greek aisthetikos, meaning 'of sense perception.' Aesthetics has traditionally been part of other philosophical pursuits like the investigation of epistemology or ethics, but it started to come into its own and become a more independent pursuit under Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who saw aesthetics as a unitary and self-sufficient type of human experience.

 

Read Article: Aesthetics: The Philosophy of Art, Beauty and Perception