The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses a student who claims he was rejected from a college program because of his faith. Read more
Earlier this year, Chris Johnson released a multimedia book about atheists called A Better Life: 100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy & Meaning in a World Without God. The book was years in the making and came about after one of the most successful Kickstarters for a book in that site’s history. It was incredible to be a part of the project and I think the final product was just stellar. In addition to taking pictures of atheists, Chris also shot a lot of video, and he’s embarking on a new project now to turn those clips into a feature length documentary: Read more
Todd Starnes, appearing on Fox News Channel because he’s the closest thing to an “expert” they have, shows that he doesn’t just save his fictional stories for his articles. He’ll make stuff up on TV, too. Just listen to how he talks about the ramifications of the recent Supreme Court ruling about prayer at government meetings. I’ll just add my own thoughts in red… Read more
Ever since I first heard it, there’s a comedy bit by stand-up Hari Kondabolu that has always made me laugh. It’s about God’s priorities and it begins around the 3:13 mark of the clip below: As a routine, it’s great. And it certainly fits the mold of many other non-religious comedians who poke fun at religion. But on a recent Fresh Air interview, host Terry Gross asked him about that bit and his response (at the 25:05 mark) took me by surprise: Read more
The Illinois Family Institute hates it when people call them anti-gay, bigoted, or a Hate Group… but look at how they’re reacting to the recent announcement that Bishop Gene Robinson (below), the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, would be getting a divorce from his husband after 25 years together. Not only does IFI celebrate his divorce, they can’t even bring themselves to accept that Robinson was ever married in the first place: Read more
In the video below, an agitated New Hampshire father named William Baer is arrested for getting mouthy at a school board meeting in Gilford, New Hampshire, two days ago. He begins talking out of turn at 0:22, and after about half a minute an honest-to-god cop motions for him to submit to arrest, which Baer, flummoxed and incredulous, ultimately does. By 1:59, he’s in handcuffs. Off to the paddy wagon with him, I guess. Read more
The latest pseudo-example of society persecuting Christians comes to us from Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. And it has the Todd Starnes Stamp of Bullshit, which gives you an indication of how much of the story you’re not hearing… Here’s the abridged version of the story as Starnes tells it: Park Lakes Elementary School fifth-grader Giovanni Rubeo was reading his Bible at school when a teacher made him stop. The teacher even called his dad and said, “He’s not permitted to read those books in my classroom.” The district’s legal department later told the dad that his son could read the Bible “before school, after school and during lunch, in accordance to the law.” Which is clearly code for “not during school.” And that’s where Starnes ends his story. Oh. Wait. I forgot Starnes’ last line: “Had the kid been reading Fifty Shades of Grey, he probably would’ve been given a gold star.” Yep, because those godless Communist teachers love it when children read a badly-written story of BDSM… Anyway, what happens when we dig a little deeper into this story? Read more
Here’s some unsolicited advice for everyone: Unless you’re referring to someone who wants to kill off an entire race of people, just don’t bring up Hitler when talking how you disagree with someone else. I mean, we have fallacies named after that. Creationist Ken Ham hasn’t heard that advice before because he was reading an article about how we ought to be introducing evolution to children at a young age and guess where his mind went? Read more
The Family Policy Institute of Washington (state) is one of those anti-gay groups that thinks giving the LGBT community equal rights is tantamount to chaos. Normally, I fight against groups like that. But for the past month or so, the FPIW has actually been doing something pretty interesting: They’ve been visiting places of worship for faiths other than their own in an effort to showcase non-Christian groups that “share our commitment to life, marriage, religious freedom, and parental rights.” The articles don’t really go into controversial social issues so much as they simply introduce the Christian readers to a different religion. They’ve already visited a Sikh temple, a Catholic church, and a Seventh-day Adventist Church with no problems. But then, last week, they posted about a visit to a local mosque and all hell broke loose. Read more
My friend Anu Garg runs the popular website Wordsmith.org, where he teaches you a Word of the Day complete with pronunciation, etymology, etc. This week’s theme is “Biblical characters who became words” and Garg introduces the theme with a personal story: Read more
