Is courage piety a death wish stupidity a hereditary trait? One young pastor offers up strong evidence: The newest pastor in the “Snake Salvation” church says he will also refuse treatment if he’s bitten in the same way that killed his father a week ago. Cody Coots says he will also handle the same snake that killed his father during an afternoon service in Kentucky. The pastor says if paramedics come to help him, he’ll send them away, just like his father did. He said: “I will lay right there and say to everyone that it’s God’s will. If it’s good enough to live by, then it’s good enough to die by.” Read more
The Item is a small newspaper in South Carolina that occasionally publishes the thoughts of a faith columnist called Jamie Wilson. In her latest piece, quoted approvingly by the Christian Post, Wilson says that dwindling church attendance can be reversed with more aggressive proselytizing. That’s right. Churchy people need to become more extroverted, gosh-darnit! They should overcome their legendary reticence to yammer on about their faith already! They ought to finally get comfortable buttonholing people, and laying Jesus trips on them! Read more
This is a guest post written by Jonny Scaramanga. … ACE schools don’t have teachers, they have “supervisors” and “monitors.” Most of the week, the children work in isolated cubicles called “offices,” completing worksheets (“PACEs”) that incorporate Bible lessons into every academic subject. If they need help, they raise one of two flags. The Christian flag will bring a supervisor who (in theory) helps with academic questions, while the national flag summons a monitor, who gives permission to do stuff like go to the bathroom or score their work (students mark their own work from answer keys). Since ACE students can’t do anything without permission, monitors are busy. Because they think it’s a great way to teach “responsibility,” it’s common for schools to train older children as monitors. They lured us in by counting it as an extra half-credit towards ACE’s worthless high school diploma, and it had the added bonus of gaining the school a bunch of unpaid staff. Back in my day (1998), monitor training consisted of eight PACEs, which took five days. Training to become a supervisor was exactly the same, except you had to go to an approved training center and attend some seminars. ACE has since made the training process even more super-efficient, and you can now go from an unqualified nobody to a fully recognized ACE supervisor in four days. That’s the only training you need. Or, as they put it in 1980: Although a B.S. degree in education is preferred, the only requirement is a B.A. (Born Again) in Salvation! I can confirm that my supervisors did indeed appear to have degrees in BS. Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, answers the question: Is it child abuse to teach religion to your children? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next! Read more
While not the focus of a recent article in the Columbus Dispatch, the Columbus Coalition of Reason and quite a few of its member organizations are mentioned favorably because of their awesome tradition of doing community service. For example, the Humanist Community of Central Ohio has regular blood drives every eight weeks and Mid Ohio Atheists sponsors collections for the Harmony House shelter in Mansfield, Ohio. This is not necessarily news (but it is still great to hear). However, despite all of the great work that non-religious groups can do, researchers are still concerned that charitable giving will decline along with the decline of church attendance. Some are concerned that soup kitchens and medical facilities (most often funded and run by religious organizations) will close because they won’t have the support they used to. Read more
Words fail, so I’ll just let this speak for itself. It’s the just-surfaced audio of a speech that Jerry Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, delivered at the WallBuilders’ Pro-Family Legislators Conference in November: Read more
![Christian Columnist: Liberal Activists Are Like Men in ‘Trench Coat[s] Trying to Give Candy to a Child’](https://wp-media.patheos.com/subdomain/sites/8/2014/02/GayActivists.png)
The editors at the Kingsport Times-News in Tennessee must be really starved for content. For the third time in the past nine months or so, they’ve published a grossly homophobic column by resident Mark Atkins, who seems to have made it his personal mission to spread as much vitriolic slander about gay people, trans people, and women as possible. In his past writings, he’s said that homosexuality is a disorder and that consensual pre-marital sex will essentially destroy civilization. This time, he’s after anyone who’s okay with gay people at all, comparing them to abusers and pedophiles. Hemant has written about this guy before — here and here — and like Atkins’s previous editorials, this one’s not available online. Here’s a picture of the latest clip: The gist of the piece is this: “Openly gay men will always creep out straight men.” That’s the actual, verbatim thesis statement. Some highlights: Read more
There are legitimate reasons people might oppose Common Core, a national set of standards that 45 states have already adopted. You could say it’s too expensive for cash-strapped districts to implement, or that it doubles down on standardized testing, or that it holds students and teachers to unrealistic expectations… but when certain conservatives complain about it, they jump right to the Crazy Reasons. Like the Alabama woman who claimed Common Core was “anti-Christian, anti-capitalism, and anti-America” indoctrination. Or the Christian radio host who believes Common Core will somehow starve children’s souls. But I’ll admit I’d never even considered Arizona State Senator Al Melvin’s reason: Read more
Thirty-five kids sustained injuries, mostly minor ones, when the floor of a church collapsed in Mississippi the other day. That’s a net win for Jesus. It always is. Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, rebuts a Christian pastor’s article on 5 Bad Reasons To Leave Your Church: You can read more of my response here and Pastor Aaron Loy original article here. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next! Read more
