Last week, an old college friend of mine died. He was only 32 years old. When I met him, he was a Christian and over the course of our friendship, he became a Secular Humanist. He also came out of the closet as a gay man. His family is still really religious and I have been in contact with his super religious brother who is putting together the funeral arrangements. My friend was open about his lack of belief in… Read more
Seth MacFarlane — Family Guy creator, 2011 recipient of the Harvard Humanist of the Year award, and executive producer of the upcoming Neil deGrasse Tyson-hosted remake of Cosmos — was on NPR’s Fresh Air a few days ago. There was one portion at the end that was absolutely fascinating to hear because it comes from an atheist’s perspective and we rarely hear a celebrity say it so well. It concerns the fact that MacFarlane would not be alive today if… Read more
Over in the UK, the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) is gearing up for Non-Prophet Week 🙂 During Non-Prophet Week AHS societies are encouraged to raise and give money to charity (not that you’re discouraged at other times of the year!). This year we will be encouraging UK societies to raise money for Children In Need and Republic of Ireland societies to raise money for Barnardo’s. In addition, this year we want to place an… Read more
Spencer Troxell is an atheist social worker (a rare breed!) and he explained why he chose this line of work earlier this year: The spirit that led me to my current station was the realization that there was no other kingdom, and there was no greater glory to be found in the needless suffering of my fellow primates… Homelessness offends me on different levels. On one level, I’m offended by the sheer callousness with which mankind can treat his fellows…. Read more
The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles is looking for input on a couple of proposed “specialty license plate designs” and this is one of them: Can’t let that happen. Go here and tell them you “don’t care for it.” While you’re at it, CNN would like to know if you think Texas should “allow the Confederate flag on specialty license plates.” Right now, the No side is winning (63-37), but you can always nudge it a bit more… (Thanks to… Read more
OpenBible produced this “Sentiment Analysis of the Bible” visualization. Black means something positive is happening while red represents something bad: Things start off well with creation, turn negative with Job and the patriarchs, improve again with Moses, dip with the period of the judges, recover with David, and have a mixed record (especially negative when Samaria is around) during the monarchy. The exilic period isn’t as negative as you might expect, nor the return period as positive. In the New… Read more
At the 2011 Secular Student Alliance conference, I was fortunate enough to receive the Freethought Backbone Award. Since the video is now online, I thought I’d repost the transcript of my speech — though I’m sure there’s some difference between what’s written below and what I actually said: Thank you, Secular Student Alliance. Previous recipients of this award include Ellery Schempp, who helped get mandatory prayer out of public schools; Dan Barker, who has gone to hell and back as… Read more
It’s a short, potentially-surprising piece called “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, the famed writer and activist from the Harlem Renaissance: I was saved from sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved. It happened like this. There was a big revival at my Auntie Reed’s church. Every night for weeks there had been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting, and some very hardened sinners had been brought to Christ, and the membership of the church had grown by… Read more
What’s the Combined Federal Campaign? Here’s Wikipedia: The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is a program allowing certain charitable organizations to solicit contributions from employees of the Federal Government of the United States. The mission of the CFC is to promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee focused, cost-efficient, and effective in providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all. Reader Nick had a question about the CFC and I’m hoping some… Read more
The Bad Faith Award is given out by New Humanist magazine and it goes to “the person who has made the year’s most outstanding contribution to talking unadulterated (and often destructive) nonsense about matters of religion.” Voting is now open for this year’s contest! Nominees include: Melanie Phillips Anjem Choudary Rick Perry Nadine Dorries Michele Bachmann Tom MacMaster Details about who they are and why they’re deserving of the dishonor is on the New Humanist website. I cast my vote…. Read more
