Good Friday, indeed. Tolga İnci and Ahmet Balyemez have opened the first physical building dedicated to atheism in Turkey: Read more
My friend Dan Riley wrote a book a while back called Generation Atheist. It’s a collection of true stories about people who transitioned from godly to godless. For the rest of the week (through Easter Sunday), the book is free on Kindle! I urge you to get your copy now if you haven’t already! Read more
Following the leads of Jenny McCarthy, Mayim Bialik, and Kristin Cavallari, actress Alicia Silverstone (you remember her from Clueless) is jumping onboard the train of ignorant mothers who eschew vaccinations for their kids because they think they know better than the scientists. In her new book The Kind Mama, Silverstone writes that vaccines are not necessary: Read more
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and State Senator Katrina Shealy are both Republicans, which may explain a Facebook spat they’ve been having over Haley’s 2011 pick to lead the Department of Social Services, Lillian Koller. Koller has been in the spotlight lately because lawmakers are investigating the DSS in light of stories of child abuse and neglect. Koller told a Senate committee yesterday that the DSS was doing everything in its power to fix the problem, though many of the politicians weren’t satisfied with her answers. That’s what we should be focusing on, anyway, but the spat between Haley and Shealy began yesterday when Haley took to Facebook to show her support of Koller: Read more
A 40-year-old French priest identified only as Father Christopher got in a spot of trouble with the gendarmerie last week — for allegedly having raped and tortured several women under the guise of performing exorcisms. Read more
Since 2008, Pismo Beach City Council in California has had explicitly Christian invocation prayers at meetings. In fact, when the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit against them last year, sectarian prayers had been a part of 125 of the previous 126 meetings. The only exception involved the city’s Chaplain Paul Jones reciting the religious Pledge of Allegiance. This wasn’t just a frivolous matter. Remember: The Supreme Court will soon weigh in on the issue of sectarian prayers at city council meetings — that’s how serious it is. The Pismo council members may have gotten away with it if they stuck to a generic “God,” but their goal was to promote Jesus at all costs. (It didn’t help that some of the prayers included David Barton-esque historical revisionism.) Well, there’s now a happy ending to the story. Read more
IF you were to walk into the Warren, Michigan city hall, you would see a Prayer Center, a kiosk of sorts with pamphlets about God, manned by Christians eager to proselytize. So when resident Douglas Marshall filled out an application to set up a personal “Reason Station” to promote freethought and logic, you’d think he’d get a green light, too… Just one problem: Warren Mayor Jim Fouts is a Christian who has made a habit of opposing atheist groups that want the same treatment as religious groups. Read more
In what appears to be a serious piece in The Telegraph, columnist Damian Thompson thinks Richard Dawkins is “leading people to Jesus” because this one friend of his (who clearly isn’t a Dawkins fan) started going to the Catholic Church after opening up a copy of The God Delusion… and some other writer began researching Catholicism after reading his book. (So now we know that the “people” in the headline really refers to just two individuals.) Read more
The War on Christmas has transformed into the War on Easter. And just in time, too. The conservative group Concerned Women for America (always furrowing a brow for Jesus) had placed a display in the Wisconsin State Capitol building this week that included a cross and anti-abortion literature. So the Freedom From Religion Foundation decided to make the most of the Capitol’s apparent free speech party by getting a permit for and installing a sign of their own (albeit with different dimensions than the one below) that read “Nobody died for our ‘sins’; Jesus Christ is a myth”: As you can imagine, some people couldn’t handle that: Read more
Nice picture, eh? Supposedly, this is a group of young kids play-acting the crucifixion during “Holy Week” at an unidentified school in Brazil. Read more
