Just a reminder for anyone in the area that I’ll be speaking in Los Angeles on Sunday morning at 11:00a! Where: Center For Inquiry West, Los Angeles, CA Group: Atheists United Cost: Free for all guests! ($5 suggested donation for regular members) More information can be found here. Read more
Surly Amy is on a mission to send as many women as she can to The Amazing Meeting 9 in Las Vegas this summer. How can you help? Buy a limited edition TAM9 surlyramic. Donate directly to the cause by going here. How can you apply to attend TAM9? If you’re female and (honestly) unable to pay the registration fee, the application is here. If you were given a grant, you’d still be responsible for your own travel and lodging,… Read more
Mary Stinemetz is dying of liver disease. There is a way she could live: Doctors at the University of Kansas Hospital could perform a liver transplant. Medicaid will even foot the bill. But Stinemetz doesn’t want that… because she’s a Jehovah’s Witness and she think God will hate her if she gets a blood transfusion. “I love life,” Stinemetz told The Kansas City Star by telephone. “But when it comes to obeying our creator, I am going to obey my… Read more
In honor of Earth Day, melodysheep has auto-tuned George Carlin and it sounds lovely: Edit: As commenters point out, Carlin was being sarcastic in his act when he said all this. I still think the video sounds good. Read more
After getting rejected by officials at Fort Bragg at the last minute, Sergeant Justin Griffith has resubmitted the application for Rock Beyond Belief. If it goes through, it will take place in the fall. The first attempt was not successful, but it was damn close. We received approval at every step in the arduous process, until the very last step. We are not going away. In fact, our new packet is even stronger. We even included a media analysis of… Read more
When Pastor Terry Jones burned a Koran and the ensuing violence was blamed on him, I wrote this at the Washington Post On Faith blog: As despicable as he may be, Jones didn’t do anything wrong — he certainly didn’t do anything illegal. He burned a book, but he has a right to do that. He may hate the Koran, Islam, and Muslims as a whole, but I have yet to hear him advocating violence against that community. He didn’t… Read more
Cosmo Jarvis, the artist behind the popular song/video “Gay Pirates,” has just released the video for his new song “Sure As Hell Not Jesus” — it’s catchy and has a great message: The video… is about sexual abuse scandals that have involved the followers and preachers of the catholic faith and its leaders’ frequent insidious dealings with them. It is also about the pressure that family members of victims, that become aware of the misconduct, sometimes have to endure due… Read more
I’m so glad this is finally public news. David Silverman, president of American Atheists, announced it at the group’s Convention in Des Moines this morning. For over a year now, a group of atheists representing many different national organizations have been working to put together a rally in Washington D.C. for atheists. (I was representing the Secular Student Alliance for a while, though I stepped out of that position a while ago.) We wanted to do this well before we… Read more
Actress (and Christian) Kristin Chenoweth, in a response to Ricky Gervais’s article on Easter, says she understands where atheists are coming from: Believe me, when I hear myself talk about Jesus Christ being “risen from the dead,” I can almost hear myself laughing. Another whackadoo notion is the idea of the second coming, or the Rapture, as many Christians call it. I get it when atheists look at us like we have three heads when we describe what will happen:… Read more
As wildfires race across Texas while a drought continues, Governor Rick Perry has figured out a way to put a stop to Nature’s wrath: … throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer; it seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this devastating drought and these dangerous wildfires; … I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas,… Read more
