Weekend Leftovers: November 26

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and if your family is like mine, you’ve got leftovers enough for days. And speaking of leftovers, here are some links that I didn’t have more time to write about this week, but wanted to share:

• At Skepticon last weekend, the Dallas Fellowship of Freethought asked people – both speakers and ordinary convention attendees – what they, as atheists, were thankful for. The result is this excellent video compilation, with more than a few faces you may recognize.

• Speaking of Skepticon, videos of the talks from the conference are being posted on YouTube. If you couldn’t be there in person, they’re well worth watching. For my money, among the best were Greta Christina’s kick-ass speech on atheists and anger and JT Eberhard’s talk on skepticism and mental illness.

• And lastly on that topic, at the convention I met a very cool person named Sarah Moglia who works for the Secular Student Alliance. She was one of the people who pressured me into joining Twitter; I’m pleased to say I returned the favor by helping to persuade her to start her own blog. Show her some love!

• An outstanding post from earlier in the month: the definitive debunking of the claim that Nazi atrocities were inspired by atheism. Bookmark this and save it as a reference. (HT: Why Evolution Is True)

• From Reddit, one atheist’s heroic coming-out story.

• The Brick Bible, a humor book written by an atheist that’s a straightforward illustration of biblical scenes using Legos, was pulled from the shelves at Sam’s Club after customer complaints that it was too racy, violent and inappropriate for children. I believe this is what’s referred to as “shooting the messenger”.