I like it!

It SHOULD be a serious contender!

This is great! It gets the point accross, and it's memorable... what more do you want?

This even has the "stigmata"! (For all you hell-bound raised Protestants, Muslims and Jews, "stigmata" is the Latin / Catholic terminology for holes-in-the-hands.)

I ain't afraid of no holy ghost!

Presented without comment.

That link has sound, BTW.

This should be a serious contender. The other logos too closely resemble variants of the crucifix. Unless the point of the logo is merely to be secret sign communicating between atheists.

GODBUSTERS
If there's someone strange in your neighborhood
Who ya gonna call (godbusters)
If it's someone weird an they don't think good
Who ya gonna call (ghostbusters)

I ain't afraid a no god
I ain't afraid a no god
If you're hearin things runnin' thru your head
Who can you call (godbusters)
An' invisible god, watch you sleep in bed
Oh who ya gonna call (godbusters)
I ain't afraid a no god
I ain't afraid a no god
Who ya gonna call (godbusters)
If you're all alone don't let god pwn
An call (godbusters)

I ain't afraid a no god
I hear he likes the girls
I ain't afraid a no god
Who you gonna call (godbusters)
Mm...if you've had a dose
Of a freaky god baby
You better call godbusters
Bustin' makes me feel good
I ain't afraid a no gods

Don't get caught wanking oh no...godbuster
When he comes through your door
Unless you've just got some more
I think you better call godbusters
Ooh... who you gonna call (godbusters)
Who you gonna call (godbusters)
Ah, I think you better call (godbusters)

Also check out this link, with rubber stamps to cross God off our currency.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/01/tiny_rubber_stamp_re.html

I hope someone in Hollywood is reading this blog. We need Godbusters, the movie. PZ could be creative consultant. The Godbusters could bust up baptisms, post atheist theses averywhere, and do all sorts of mischief.

OT:

Richard Dawkins, in an interview on MPR for its Midmorning program, just casually mentioned the Flying Spaghetti Monster...

It's so good I hate to criticize, but...as a serious candidate, it would have the disadvantage of making it look like we thought there were two options: atheism and Christianity. Atheists don't believe in the Islamic, Jewish, Hindi, Buddhist, Taoist, Shinto, ancient Greek, etc gods either. (Sorry to be a party pooper...other than that quibble it's great.)

Off-topic, sorry! But we need help fast, there's a *lot* of expertise and experience here, and an open thread probably won't occur until tomorrow.

The sun bear reproductive project is culminating (yay!), and in crunching the data, the PI has asked me an Excel question (below) that I'm unable to answer. We'd very much appreciate any suggestions you may have.

also was wondering if you knew of a way to make excel or another graphing program do a split axis, I have such a range of values they cant be put on the same graph - double axis already in use and wont do it, I need range on same axis, any ideas? I'm getting desperate!

Doesn't anyone remember the sage attitude of the Chink in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues? (Whew, I found the quote even though I don't have the book at hand.)

"You have taught us much. Come with us and join the movement."

"This movement of yours, does it have slogans?" inquired the Chink.

"Right on!" they cried. And they quoted him some.

"Your movement, does it have a flag?" asked the Chink.

"You bet!" and they described their emblem.

"And does your movement have leaders?"

"Great leaders."

"Then shove it up your butts," said the Chink. "I have taught you nothing."

-- Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

Sorry if this has already been posted or discussed, but below is the link to Arlington Cememtery symbols. Scroll down to see the atheist emblem.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/funeral_information/authorized_emblems…

The regular Ghostbuster's logo is pretty good: Wikipedia:Ghostbusters

One ghost is as good as another to us godless, it might as well be Casper or a cartoon ghost.

I want to try again to get a reaction to my proposal for a motto. How about
"sententia licens" ?
Would any of you Latin experts tell me whether that translates to "free thought" or not.

evolvealready:

That's the American Atheists symbol:

http://www.atheists.org/visitors.center/logo.html

It was mentioned by PZ in the parent story. It's remarkable that it's included in the authorized emblems.

RavenT:
my advice: forget about doing serious (or even decent) figures with Excel.
Get SigmaPlot--it'll do anything (though occasionally you have to fake it out)

That's the American Atheists symbol:
http://www.atheists.org/visitors.center/logo.html

"Recognizing the new atomic era, ..."

Sorry, but that's just horrible. IMHO it feels as fresh and timeless as a Jetson episode;-)

C. W.: Yeah, I agree. Although at some point it will seem fun just because it seems retro.

at the risk of seeming humourless, I really don't find this funny. I don't believe Christ was divine, but he was a real person who was tortured to death on a cross. There's not a lot of humour in that.

I don't believe Christ was divine, but he was a real person who was tortured to death on a cross.

There are many who would dispute that. The story of Christ has been mythologized to the point of apocrypha.

thanks, CCP! from all the feelers I put out on this, SigmaPlot seems unanimously to be the way to go, and so I'll get a license/copy.

to bfy (and others):

The basic outlines of the case against the existence of a man named Jesus are best given by Earl Doherty, at:

http://pages.ca.inter.net/%7Eoblio/jhcjp.htm

Every atheist should have this link at her fingertips. And they should point people to books by GA Wells, too.

fair enough, i didn't know his existence was in dispute so thanks for the links. I have been so upset by the behaviour of the Bush Administration with respect to torture, that I am perhaps over-sensitive.

Do I need another Tattoo.......

PZ, when you do the post tomorrow, try to include both Affinity figures so people can get a sense of the variations available.

Thx.

Is there another one of these for Mohammad? That would be a riot.

The basic outlines of the case against the existence of a man named Jesus are best given by Earl Doherty, at:

http://pages.ca.inter.net/%7Eoblio/jhcjp.htm

Every atheist should have this link at her fingertips.

And how do you judge the quality of Doherty's work? By the fact that he comes to conclusions that you like. I have not been impressed with his rigor, and neither have the bulk of "laudably heretical" or outright agnostic/atheist biblical scholars. I even managed to catch a pretty big flaw:

http://iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php?p=3514637&postcount=239

As a biblical scholar, Doherty is a very good rhetoretician. Like a creationist, he is very good at convincing laymen who don't have the background or the time to check his claims. If you really want a book that should be at every atheist's fingertips, Robin Lane Fox's The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible is a far better choice. It's not perfect, but it's from an actual classical historian, and pretty much plays fair with the facts instead of being a hack polemic.

I think the American Atheists symbol is a bit silly looking (look! It's 90% of an atom!). But an atom does make sense for a philosophy based on scientific, rational thought. And it's easier to draw than a crossed-out Jesus ;).

99 bottles, I think you'll be interested in this article, in which Robert M. Price looks at the historicity of the Buddha, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. He pretty much beats the idea to death in his book, Deconstructing Jesus, but this article gives the gist of his thoughts.

There's this one.

I looked at the article by Price and it's a bit weasely, IMHO. For example, take this:

The anointing of Jesus at Bethany (as Randel Helms recognized) comes from Isis anointing the corpse of her husband Osiris to resurrect him

A serious problem with this so-called parallel is that anointing bodies was a common practice in the region.

As the Gospels have Mary Magdalene and her companions seek the body of Jesus only to find it gone, so do Isis, her sister Nephthys, and their maidens seek the slain Osiris, hoping to anoint him.

This is even more weasely. Osiris was dismembered, and Isis and Nephthys aren't trying just to anoint him, but to put him back together again so that Isis can revive her husband by her magic.

Again, in Luke 24 and John 20 Jesus appears to his astonished disciples, who have given him up for dead, showing them his solid flesh for proof that he has not died to reappear as a ghost but has miraculously escaped Pilate's wrath-just as Apollonius of Tyana appears to his dumbfounded disciples, extending his hands to convince them he has escaped Domitian's evil intentions.

Jesus didn't escape Pilate's wrath; he just purportedly survived it. By contrast, Apollonius teleported out of Domitian's courtroom--where he had been acquited--and then showed himself to his disciples.

It's a cute trick. The gross differences in plot and themes are hidden, while the superficial similarities are phrased just so to make them look significant.

This is really dishonest:

At the other end of the story, the execution of Jesus is attributed, as Alfred Loisy showed, by one of Luke's sources and by the Gospel of Peter to Herod Antipas, not to Pilate as in Matthew, John, Mark, and 2 Timothy. The Talmud has Jesus crucified in the time of Alexander Jannaeus (ca. 100 b.c.e.)! I suggest such confusion is incompatible with there having been any historical memory of the execution of Jesus. If any one of these versions represented the facts, how could the others ever have arisen in the first place? All seem more likely to be independent guesses, once someone felt the need to anchor Jesus in recent history.

Price asks "If any one of these versions represented the facts, how could the others ever have arisen in the first place?" as if it had no good answer. Yet the canonical Gospels already show attempts to make Pilate relatively sympathetic, as a man caught between a rock and a hard place, probably in order to show Christianity as not anti-Roman, and the Gospel of Peter takes this a step further and acquits Pilate (who is still mentioned in the text) and blames Herod. The Talmud is not only several centuries later, but its account of Jesus reads like a mocking parody of the Gospel accounts--which points to it being a distorted derivative of them--and the dating to Jannaeus' day is likely to do a conflation of Jesus of Nazareth with the Jesus in Sanhedrin 107b.

For after one removes everything that is more readily accounted for as simple hero-mythology or borrowing from other contemporary sources, what is left?

What's left is a Jewish apocalyptic prophet from Nazareth who got crucified by Pilate and exaggerated by his followers. If Price wants to argue that Jesus is a pagan copycat, he should offer more than strained parallels.

Sorry for the comment not being more directly related to the blog post, but I get tired of atheists complaining about the fashionable nonsense of theists while peddling fashionable nonsense of their own.

I would like to re-iterate from the previous thread, that in searching for a symbol we should look for something that is inclusive, established, serious, and as free of negative baggage as possible.

One that communicates an acceptable meaning to atheists as well as projects an understandable and approachable message to non-atheists while not painting an easy-target to distract rhetorical opponents from whatever matter is at hand.

For what it's worth, I've gone so far as to prepare the Affinity (original version) for use on items at Cafe Press for my own use because I would like to wear it.

It is already imbued with a sense of age and permanence, is not overly science-centered or focused on a negation of any particular sect or belief, and plays host to a number of positive associations and no negative ones that I can identify.

Atheists are not new. Not hostile. Enlightened by science, not enthralled by it. Not a rebellious fad. Not frivolous. And not presenting an easy target for theists to hang insults upon.
We are diverse but are united by an Affinity for reason and evidence in a complex and infinite universe.

This is all fashionable nonsense ^^^

;)

Imagine

puffy clouds in a blue sky in a cartoon thought bubble.

If we wanted to get too literal with the iconography, precede the thought bubble with a winged harp and halo inside a slashed circle, next to flames and a pitchfork inside a slashed circle.

"Imagine" by John Lennon is my cel phone ringtone.

Would any of you Latin experts tell me whether that translates to "free thought" or not.

More like "permitted opinion".

cogitatio libera

GodfreyTemple: "For what it's worth, I've gone so far as to prepare the Affinity (original version) for use on items at Cafe Press for my own use because I would like to wear it."

So which is the "original version", GT? The one with the "calligraphic" infinity (the one you linked to above), or the one with the equal-width line?

Personally, I like the calligraphic version, but I think so long as the character is integrated, whatever the font, it can be used as an atheist symbol.

Another question I have, though (Yo! PZ!!), is this supposed to be strictly an atheist symbol?

Why don't you call the major networks and tell 'em you're a liberal, too. Maybe you can save the Republicans.

minusRusty: So which is the "original version", GT? The one with the "calligraphic" infinity (the one you linked to above), or the one with the equal-width line?

The original version was the one with the uniform-width infinity. I got industrious last night and updated all my pieces to the new version (calligraphic/integrated infinity) though may have missed one or two.

Upon reflection, I have to agree that the more integrated calligraphic effect really finishes the symbol and solidifies a more Alchemical, Ancient or Timeless look.

Thank you for the suggestion.

GT: "Upon reflection, I have to agree that the more integrated calligraphic effect really finishes the symbol and solidifies a more Alchemical, Ancient or Timeless look.

"Thank you for the suggestion."

I agree, and no problem! It's definitely got my vote!

You must be, like, really scared of the coming theocracy.

(Explanatory note for US citizens: that was sarcasm.)

I don't believe Christ was divine, but he was a real person who was tortured to death on a cross.

Not bloody likely.

There's not a lot of humour in that.

The humor isn't about torture. Are you really that dumb?

truth machine,
why do you get so upset when talking about Christ? Why do you think the poster was 'really that dumb'? If it's 'not bloodly likely', why would you even be concerned that 'the humor isn't about torture'? If it never happened then there's no reason to justfiy what the humor is even about.
Consider changing your name from 'truth machine' to 'blinded by emotion machine'.... it really seems more fitting.

Hi, I just noticed your motto...the one ending in "godless liberal." Sigh...I'm a liberal who believes in God, and is watching our country being taken over by fascists, because they can get people to vote for them by making them afraid of people like you. Thanks for giving our real enemies a scapegoat. (That was sarcasm).