Last week, I got a call from my sister. She said that she wanted my wife and I to be her daughter's godparents. I gladly accepted. My sister has had a really hard time recently, recovering from a drug addiction and a falling out with my family.

I've never been asked to be a godparent before. It seems like a pretty tall order for someone who doesn't think god exists. My biggest concern is what the pastor who does the baptism is going to ask me. My niece is going to be baptized at my grandparent's church. I'm not sure what denomination, but it can't be too hard-line, or I know my grandmother would never go.

So I'm turning to Street Prophets. What does your congregation expect of godparents? What would they expect from a non-member? What would they make of a non-believer tasked with assisting the spiritual development of a child?

Today, May 25th, is about the closest thing to a religious holiday that I celebrate. It's Towel Day, created to remember the author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, Douglas Adams. Quoth the goddamned atheist:

Douglas, I miss you. You are my cleverest, funniest, most open-minded, wittiest, tallest and possibly only convert. I hope this book might have made you laugh - though not as much as you made me.

So, on this hoopiest of hoopy days, I hope you froods get to sass Douglas. He's a man who really knew where his towel was.

(Here's to hoping they name the landing site for the Phoenix Lander after Douglas. Carl's got one.)

Richard Dawkins (Boo! Hiss! Kill the unbeliever!) mentioned this new decalogue in The God Delusion. The link goes into quite a bit of detail explaining thee points, so here's a summary of the "commandments:"

1. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you
2. In all things, strive to cause no harm.
3. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.
4. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.
5. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
6. Always seek to be learning something new.
7. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.
8. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.
9. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.
10. Question everything.

Thoughts?

Americans for Truth About Homosexuality

Here's a group, complete with a ridiculously misleading URL, who decided that a day of activism to raise awareness of discrimination against GLBT students in response to a murder was so dangerous to the moral fortitude of this country they set up a whole movement.

I'm with Sarah Posner when she asks:

Wouldn't it be great to see some of the new evangelical centrists, who have said they don't want to engage in any more gay-bashing, come out against Mission America's vitriol?

Buried in the comments over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers raises a good question:

Why is the Expelled hullabaloo between an atheist and a gang of ID liars? I should think the people who ought to be most furious are the Jews who are seeing a vast crime against them used as a rallying point for creationist idiocy, and Christians who are being manipulated into regarding creationism as a point of doctrine in their creed. Try looking at the overtly Christian web sites that mention Expelled, though -- I haven't seen any that aren't approving.

And we atheists are far more poorly organized than any religion, yet we at least seem to have a mostly united and loud voice for science.

Has any religious organization taken a moment to do as little as put out a press release disavowing the claims of the movie. Does any religious organization even care?

So, believers, do any of you really care about your faith being misrepresented? Or is it being misrepresented at all?

Courtesy of Richard Dawkins, here's a video entitled "The Four Horsemen," a discussion between the most prominent of the new atheists: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. Here's the link, Google Video embedded after the break.

It's about two hours long. If anything, it'll get you whipped up into a good froth to keep you awake during this long Friday afternoon. One of the best quotes out of it is from Hitchens, with regard to atheists gasp celebrating Christmas:

I enjoy solstices as much as the next person