What Are the Biggest Atheism-Related Stories of the Year? December 21, 2013

What Are the Biggest Atheism-Related Stories of the Year?

By Hemant Mehta
December 21, 2013

In preparation for an upcoming Atheist Voice video, we’re trying to compile a list of the biggest atheism-related news stories of the year.

If you have any suggestions for us to include, please leave them in the comments! Thanks 🙂

Previous Post
This is How the Right Thinks Atheists Prepare for the War on Christmas
Next Post
Check Out This Rapper With Atheist-Themed Lyrics
Browse Our Archives
What Are Your Thoughts?leave a comment
  • Edwin Mundt

    So many negative ones… We should try for a parallel list of positive ones as well.

    Persecution/murder of atheist Bangladeshi bloggers has to be my top one.

    Atheist physicist Peter Higgs won a Nobel Prize for the Higgs Bosun theory.

  • BillyJoe

    Boson.

  • HappyGilmores

    The
    Morton Grove $3000.00 donation… just rings in my head — this is the
    kind of discrimination that Atheists face — it’s silly! I do really
    hope that you find a solution to this before for the year is up!

  • HappyGilmores

    Atheist physicist Peter Higgs – agreed!

  • pierre

    1. Joe Klein’s Secular humanist-bashing in TIME

    2. The AA monument in Bradford County

    3. Rebecca Vitsmun, the Moore, OK atheist who was outed by Wolf Blitzer

    4. Juan Mendez’s humanist invocation

    5. Ron Lindsay Women in Secularism speech controversy

    6. Humanism at Work 2014

  • Ryan1159

    Morton Grove library/park district donation refusals.

  • Musichead2468

    1. Daniel Moran atheist chaplain
    2. Zack Kopplin and the textbooks
    3. The Atheist billboard
    4. The Atheist Mega-churches
    5. The atheist in the oklahoma storm news interview
    6. Oprah’s interview with an atheist
    7. Atheist monument next to 10 commandments monument
    8. suing MA district over under god in the pledge

  • Rob

    The crushing, humiliating, biblical-scale defeat of the fundies in Texas who tried to edit the science text books, with an extra mention for Aron Ra who took an active role.

    Also, Richard Dawkin’s tweet about how many Muslims vs how many of Oxford’s Kings College grads have Nobel prizes (which was a fair comment and I support him making it, btw).

  • quasibaka

    But , but , but ISLAMOPHOBIA !

    /sarcasm

  • LutherW

    All the prayers that worked:
    1.

  • baal

    #5 strikes me as hugely impactful. We came off really well in the end and it exposed how trite the post disasater god thanking is.

  • your story about the 3K is my choice, but that’s only because it’s strictly an “atheism” story.

    if you mean stories about where religion makes life worse, and some (atheists) point that out (and how atheism would’ve made it better), well. then we’re talking about too many from which to choose.

  • Edwin Mundt

    LOL.. typo.

    Maybe he’s a pirate too?

  • Amber

    The Pathfinders Project traveling the world!
    Camp Quest hiring its second full-time staff member!

  • I’m biased as an employee of American Atheists so take this as you will, but (in no particular order) Senator Lanza comparing us to Nazis, petitioning to remove our Times Square/Xmas billboard as hate speech and saying our nonprofit status should be revoked/calling for an IRS investigation into our finances, a First Amendment violation and abuse of his office.

    Our Bradford County monument, the first-ever atheist-sponsored monument on gov’t land with gov’t approval in the history of the US.

    Joe Klein fiasco

    The Arizona bill from January that wouldn’t let atheist high-school students graduate

    Juan Mendez’s humanist opener and State Sen. Smith calling for a do-over the next day—and following through with it!

    Supreme Court hears oral arguments for Greece v Galloway

    House votes against humanist military chaplains

    That huge Pew study about Jewish Americans

    50th anniversary of American Atheists and 50th anniversary of Murray v Curlett that declared it unconstitutional to force public school children to recite prayers from the Bible (outside of literary analysis)

    Texas science curriculum

    Wolf Blitzer/Oklahoma interview with Rebecca Vitsmun

  • GBJames
  • JethroElfman

    The June Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage. The only reason people object to same-sex marriage is “yea God hath said”. These two rulings are an affirmation that the law of the land will not follow such religious bigotry.

  • Edwin Mundt

    A Canadian one would be the Vancouver chapter of Centre for Inquiry denied service by a billboard company (owned incidentally by the country’s wealthiest individual). http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/atheist-billboard-ads-rejected-in-vancouver-1.2455156

  • AJ

    Wolf Blitzer being told “I’m actually an atheist.”

  • darwintyson

    PZ outing a well known atheist speaker, the method he used to do it and the buzz it generated in the community.

  • thatACDCguy

    FFRF’s Billboard campaign in Sacramento (that I happily participated in).

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=773391096009674&set=a.508582369157216.133693.100000163731708&type=1&theater

  • Megyn Kelly conflating Imaginary Friend White Santa with Imaginary Friend White Jesus

    Wingnut Catholic hospitals hilling women who need abortions to save their lives

    The Pope throwing us a lifeline and causing Catholics to come unhinged

  • Rwerd

    The Pismo Beach City Council Lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation with regard to the invocation before every council meeting. Lawsuit was filed on November 1, 2013. It was the work of Atheists United SLO (San Luis Obispo, CA) that alerted FFRF to this, and one of our members is a plaintiff in the case. (might be a bigger story next year when this goes to trial.)