Creationist Jay Seegert of the Creation Education Center appeared on Creation Today to talk about Creationism. (Got all that?) His revelation may take some of you by surprise: Apparently, scientists don’t really understand evolution. They just assume other scientists do understand it and therefore take evolution on faith. Read more
If you’re a fan of the band Nickel Creek (like I am), and you’re super-excited about their reunion and upcoming album (like I am), then you should definitely check out this just-released song from A Dotted Line (like I did). “21st of May” was written by Sean Watkins the day before Pastor Harold Camping (wrongly) predicted the Rapture would occur — The band jokes on YouTube: “It was a close call but we made it” — and it’s sung from Camping’s perspective: Read more
In 1984, Jack Chick wrote another one of his obnoxious tracts where the Christians are good and the non-Christians are evil and all paths not leading directly to Christ are to be avoided at all costs. This particular tract was about the horrors of Dungeons & Dragons: Yep, that’s what the game will do to you… And now that comic is turning into a (presumably awful) Christian movie called Dark Dungeons: Read more
You don’t expect a lot of surprises in an elected official’s Twitter and Facebook feeds but Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker provided one on Sunday: Philippians 4:13? (That’s the verse that reads “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”) Read more
I don’t think the atheist who called into The Mark Levin Show on Monday expected to be insulted by the host. The conservative radio host got into a verbal battle that backfired because, in short, the atheist was right. The caller took issue with Levin’s comment that the next Republican presidential nominee had to have “faith” (among other things) leading to this conversation: Read more
The last time we heard from Angus T. Jones, the “half” in “Two and a Half Men,” he was making about $300,000 per episode but ready to throw it all away because he was morally opposed to the show’s plotlines, which went against his Seventh-day Adventist values. It wasn’t all that different from what happened with Kirk Cameron during his Growing Pains days after he became ultra-religious: Once he converted to Christianity, he sometimes clashed with his fellow cast members and the show’s producers over what he felt were immoral story lines. Now, a year after leaving the show, Jones is back in the spotlight. He recently spoke at World Harvest Outreach Church in Houston about how he found God: Read more
The polio virus has crippled and killed hundreds of thousands of children. Starting in 1957, the disease was finally, decisively eradicated (thank you, Jonas Salk) — except in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Those countries are plagued by sectarian Muslim violence, and unfortunately, Muslim fundies tend to be anti-vaxers. They’ve gotten it into their heads that polio-fighting programs are really Western-led campaigns to make Muslims infertile. As a result, terrorist groups have waged a long intimidation campaign against medical teams and even against families looking to get their children vaccinated. In recent years, dozens of vaccination workers have been assassinated. Read more
The “Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism” is given out by the Humanist Community at Harvard, the American Humanist Association, and the Harvard Community of Humanists, Atheists, and Agnostics. This year, the award will be given to former Congressman Barney Frank: Read more
Susanne Atanus, the 55-year-old Republican who told a local newspaper that God put autism and dementia on Earth as punishment for marriage equality and abortion, just won her primary for a seat in the House of representatives. She will face off against incumbent Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky this November: Voters in the Republican primary will have two very different candidates to choose from in the 9th Congressional District, as David Earl Williams III and Susanne Atanus vie for the right to face Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the fall… “I am a conservative Republican and I believe in God first,” Atanus said. She said she believes God controls the weather and has put tornadoes and diseases such as autism and dementia on earth as punishment for gay rights and legalized abortions. Party leaders in the state urged her to drop out of the race, but she didn’t. Worked out for her (and maybe the rest of us, too); she came away with a narrow victory over her opponent David Earl Williams III: Read more
Most people have at least a passing familiarity with the 1978 Jonestown massacre. But few have heard of the remarkable similar events that shocked the world 14 years ago today, a continent away, in Kanungu, Uganda. Close to 800 people perished, and maybe more, some 530 of them in locked church that was set ablaze. The rest were stabbed, strangled, beaten, and very likely poisoned to death. The carnage was the handiwork of an all-black Christian doomsday cult that had split off from the Roman Catholic Church, and that called itself the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, or MRTC. (Note: We’ll have to assume that “Thou Shalt Not Kill” had somehow been temporarily suspended when the cult members murdered their prey.) From the get-go, in the late eighties, the Vatican wanted nothing to do with the group, but the MRTC was nonetheless based on Catholic doctrine: members venerated Catholic icons, and the leadership consisted predominantly of defrocked priests and nuns. At the peak of their influence, they managed to attract around 5,000 members. Followers’ dedication to the Decalog was obsessive: Read more
