In the wake of civil unions becoming legalized in Illinois, Catholic Charities in various cities have chosen to stop offering adoption services because they don’t want to give any children to gay couples. So what happens to all the kids in their care? They have to go somewhere… The (secular) Youth Service Bureau of Illinois Valley stepped up. They’ve already taken in 330 children and no doubt more will follow. Sean Gillespie of the Air Capital Skeptics has been in… Read more
You don’t have to donate any money for this, but a few clicks could help the Reddit Atheists win $50,000 for a variety of charities, including: Secular Student Alliance Doctors without Borders Center for Inquiry Freedom From Religion Foundation Foundation Beyond Belief What do you have to do? Click this EXACT link. Sign up under “Start Your Foundation” and check “I agree to the GiveBack Terms…” (I would uncheck “I agree to receive email communication…”) Verify you’re a human. Don’t… Read more
Ashley Paramore has a YouTube interview with Dylan Galos, the atheist whose billboard in Columbus, Ohio has been forced to move twice — it’s currently in its third location. I also had no idea there was a potential racial component to the issue before seeing this. There’s a lesson to be learned from whole controversy: Whenever you make a YouTube video, have your own billboard in the background. It makes you look badass. Read more
For months now, there’s been an attempt to get a couple atheist bus ads up in Kelowna, British Columbia. Back in May, they were stolen from the bus yard. The city admitted it had no idea what happened, but the Centre For Inquiry would have to foot the bill for replacements. Well, CFI ponied up the money and the ads are now back on two buses. They’ll be there for two more weeks. “Kelowna is the only place, as far… Read more
A few weeks ago, during the U.S. Open (golf) championship, NBC aired an introduction in which a slightly edited Pledge of Allegiance was said… As you can hear, the phrase “Under God, Indivisible” was omitted. Considering the word “indivisible” was also lost in the shuffle, it sounds to me like an honest mistake and not a deliberate attempt to get God out of the Pledge. The commentators apologized on the air later that afternoon, calling it “an editing mistake.” That’s… Read more
Now that civil unions are legal in Illinois, groups that receive public money cannot discriminate against gay couples. So when a few Catholic adoptions agencies were faced with the prospect of giving children to gay parents, they decided to shut down instead. In their view, only straight couples and single-people-who-are-not-cohabitating are worthy of being adoptive parents. In these Catholics’ eyes, having no parents is better for the children than having gay ones… (Thankfully, the secular, non-discriminatory Youth Service Bureau of… Read more
If you’re seeing this, then we’ve successfully migrated over! We’re still working on importing all the 200,000+ comments from the old site, so many of the comments from the previous week may be missing from their respective posts. The Friendly Atheist Forums will be up and running shortly! The official site URL is now http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ You can subscribe to the full RSS feed with this link (or keep using whatever you had before if it still works). Take a look… Read more
In the comments on Hemant’s announcement to have this site hosted by Patheos, several readers have expressed apprehension about being “overrun by fundies.” It would be unfortunate if people here instantly reacted with hostility to the first religious visitors who comment after the move. Many of them will be visiting out of simple curiosity rather than seeking to antagonize, and we should not throw a punch the first time they open their mouths. We should model the behavior that we… Read more
I’ve been blogging at this website for a little over five years now. And it’s time to move on… kind of. This is a big part of my life and it takes up a lot of my time (outside of teaching and coaching). I have no desire to stop blogging, though. The opportunities it has provided me with are wonderful and I learn so much from the commenters here and throughout the blogosphere. A couple months ago, I started having… Read more
It’s not uncommon for religious people to post Jesus-y messages on their Facebook wall, but last night, KTBS 3, a news station in Shreveport, Louisiana, posted this regarding the Casey Anthony verdict: What?! Why is an ABC affiliate endorsing Jesus? Why is a news station still talking about the verdict? Why did they feel the need to capitalize all the letters in GOD…? It starts with a commentary by reporter Rick Rowe that aired Sunday night. You can watch it… Read more
