FreeThinkingAtheist.com

1. In space, no one can hear you scream. Sound, a mechanical wave, cannot travel through a vacuum (nothingness). Without matter to vibrate through, there is only silence.

2. Black holes are not holes or voids of nothingness. They are the exact opposite of nothing. Being the densest concentration of mass known in the universe.

3. The concept of "zero" in the mathematical sense was developed in India in the fifth century.

4. Any number divided by zero is… nothing, not even zero. The equation is mathematically impossible.

5. Aristotle once wrote, "Nature abhors a vacuum", and so did he. His complete rejection of vacuums and voids and his subsequent influence on centuries of learning prevented the adoption of the concept of "zero" in the western world until the 13^th century.

6. Creatio ex nihilo: the belief that the world was created out of nothing, is one of the most common themes in ancient myths and religions.

7. Current theories suggest that the universe was created out of a state of vacuum energy… that is: nothing.

8. But to a physicst there is no such thing as nothing. Matter is made of particles, and empty space is simply anti-particles. These antiparticles quickly form and, in accordance to the law of conservation, annihilate each other in about 10 to the -25^th seconds back into nothingness

9. So Aristotle was right all along.

10. These virtual particles popping in and out of existence create energy. According to quantum Mechanics, the theoretical energy contained in the empty spaces of these words are more than the energy generated by all the power plans and nuclear weapons in the world.

In other words, nothing could be the key to the theory of everything.

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Taken from the so-called "good book" that supposedly teaches good morals. Links to the actual passages are provided. And don't give me that "oh, it's taken out of context" nonsense. 

    1. Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails, and give her new clothes. Then she's yours. — (Deuteronomy 21:11-13)

    2. Find a prostitute and marry her. — Hosea (Hosea 1:1-3)

    3. Find a man with seven daughters, and impress him by watering his flock. — Moses (Exodus 2:16-21)

    4. Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal. — Boaz (Ruth 4:5-10)

    5. Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife. — Benjaminites (Judges 21:19-25)

This is actually kind of funny, yet at the same time, it is not. It makes you think twice before thinking about bring your child up a Christian and making them actually READ the Bible.  

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From user comments to the NY Times editor:   

    Senator Barack Obama candidly admitted in his 1995 memoir that he had smoked marijuana when he was in high school. On the other hand, when George W. Bush was first running for the presidency, he consistently refused to answer reporters’ questions about his alleged drug use.Bill Clinton admitted that he smoked marijuana, “but,” he added, “I didn’t inhale.”

    One personality trait I like about Barack Obama is how "honest" he comes off as. He seems to be the king of personality in this election! I admire a politician who can actually crack a joke and behave like a normal person; someone who isn't afraid to show his affectionate side, his family side, nor his history. This sort of thing seems to be becoming more and more prevalent these days, especially in corporations. "Change" is, afterall, the theme of this election. 

    As for campaigners who use this as a smearing device upon Obama, well, perhaps you are helping his cause? I personally do not care if any politician has done drugs before. I, along with many, many Americans, do not even view drugs as necessarily a bad thing in the first place. So kudos to you Mr. Obama for being honest! 

    Mr. Obama grew up in the 1970s. Anyone who was 15 to 30 years old during that era knows that drugs were pervasive and that almost everyone smoked marijuana occasionally. Cocaine was also commonly used.

With the change in the political climate and the rise of the Christian right, we now pretend that drugs were never mainstream and that only a few hippies and street people used drugs. We also pretend that minor drug use precludes success in life.

The reality is that students at mainstream colleges who did not use drugs were few and far between in the 70s.

I admire how Barack Obama isn't like your traditional, emotionless politician. Barack Obama is normal. How strange would it be to actually have a president who actually tells the truth..

Of course, personality isn't everything in an election, but it certainly does help. Politics is encapsulated in its own little world and most people have trouble relating or even giving a crap about politics. This election, however, seems to be having great turnout thus far. So we have a candidate in an election who has no problem openly admitting to drug use in his youth. Finally, somebody we can relate to, right?

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I found this article that really puts the significance of our race into mind-boggling perspective. I cut parts out to shorten it up, original article/site can be found here.

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How old are you? You probably think you've been around a while, that your 20/30/40/50 years on this planet is quite a long time, that you've seen a lot of changes? On our time-scale, you're probably quite right. On the time-scale of this planet, in geological time, you might as well have never existed.

Mount Everest, the highest point on the planet, is composed of marine limestone. It used to be under the sea, but slowly, millimeter by millimeter, it has been pushed upwards (and continues to do so, as India collides with Asia). You might think a year is a long time, but can you even begin to comprehend the lifespan of Everest?

Our planet is one tiny insignificant rock orbiting one average, ordinary star in the outskirts of the Milky Way, itself just one ordinary galaxy among billions. When you look up into the night sky on a clear night, you can hardly see any stars at all. If you could see all of them, if our eyes were better and there was less dirt in the universe, the sky would be completely white. There would not be the smallest gap between the stars that you see

For every star that you can see, there are thousands of galaxies, each containing billions of stars. The Milky Way itself is an insignificant speck. Our solar system is an insignificant speck within that. This image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, and the area of sky that is represents is approximately 1/30th the apparent diameter of the full moon. As you can see for yourself, it is packed with galaxies. Galaxies, not stars:

People think that we are somehow blessed or special, so of course the "Creator Of The Universe" must have set aside this little corner of the universe just for us, right? Religion used to teach that the Earth was the centre of the universe, the single most important place that God created.

Now, we know better. If the Earth was destroyed tomorrow, the universe would neither miss us nor mourn our passing. Would you notice one grain of sand missing from the beach?

We think we are special, and that supremely powerful beings look after us. We are not special; we are simply the result of a (probably very common) chemical accident billions of years ago, in a place where the conditions are right for life to flourish.

The same thing probably happens all over the universe, and in many places there will be life. Some will be more advanced than us, others less advanced. In many places, the conditions will not be right for life. There are probably entire galaxies or clusters of galaxies where life will never arise, because the conditions there are too extreme. Galaxies with super massive black holes, areas of stellar genesis (such as the Orion Nebula), maybe regions close to quasars may never produce life due to intense radiation or gravitational disturbances.

We are certainly lucky, yes, but special? No.

Just to make you feel really insignificant =), this is a scale diagram of Earth, Jupiter (which is about ten times the diameter of Earth), and the Sun (about ten times the diameter of Jupiter). The tiny blue ball is where we are. This is where we fight our wars, worship our ten thousand different gods, kill each other over a few meters of territory, argue with our neighbors about exactly where the property line is, pollute our fine film of atmosphere (too small to show up on the picture), and live out our lives. The Earth is whizzing around the Sun at 67,000 miles per hour. By the time you've read this page we have traveled ten thousand miles together. Hope you enjoyed the trip!

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This little comic compares Science to Norse Mythology. This essentially pulls your subjective & positively biased presumptions of Christianity that you've been brought up with, completely out of the equation. By using Norse mythology, you suddenly realize how silly religious creationism sounds, not to mention how much religions parallel and copy each other.

Popularity: 90% [?]