Suppose you’re religious and your husband dies. And you’re depressed, even a year later. The depression is so bad, in fact, that you’re thinking about committing suicide (by “turning the car on in the garage and just going to sleep inside”) so you can be reunited with him in the afterlife. So you ask some elders at your church for guidance. They don’t suggest seeking out professional help. Instead, they first meet in private to find just the right Bible verses to preach at you. Then they visit your home to tell you how you’re just like Job and how you ought to be an “integrity keeper.” Then they tell you to treat your thoughts of suicide much like you treat thoughts of immorality: by rejecting them entirely (as if it’s just that easy). Then they tell you to repeat the words, “I am an integrity keeper” and memorize some Bible verses to cope with your grief. (“Please find Jeremiah Chapter 29, Verses 11 and 12… will you agree to memorize those two verses?”) This is what Jehovah’s Witness elders are actually taught to do according to a just-leaked video from the “Watchtower-approved” Kingdom Ministry School. It was sent to blogger John Cedars at JWsurvey, who has posted the video (and a couple of other ones) online: Read more
Rubén Diaz Sr. is a Democratic Senator in New York State who is also the pastor of the Christian Community Neighborhood Church in the Bronx. Unusually enough for someone with his party affiliation and a constituency of New Yorkers, Diaz is known for this: In liberal New York City, he is 100% pro-life, one of very few — if not the only — Democrat State Senator to hold to the biblical position. … Pastor Diaz has fought hard for traditional, natural marriage, the only Democrat to stand for one man-one woman marriage in bitterly fought legislative battles year after year. A blogger at the Christian Post calls him “the most courageous pastor in America.” Read more
New legislation filed by Alabama State Rep. Duwayne Bridges (R, of course) will allow for the public display of the Ten Commandments… as long as it’s legal, which is always up in the air. House Bill 45 amends the state Constitution as follows: Read more
Back in August, atheist activist Mitch Kahle, along with his partner Holly Huber, filed a lawsuit against a group of churches in Hawaii. The problem was not that the five churches rented out worship space at public schools — that’s perfectly legal — but that there was evidence that the churches had not paid fair rental price for about six years, thereby shortchanging those schools up to $5,600,000. (One of the schools that was owed more than $3,000,000 could’ve used that money after it had a roof collapse.) If all of that wasn’t shady enough, it turned out Hawaii’s Board of Education chair Don Horner was also a pastor in the New Hope church system, one of the churches implicated by Kahle and Huber… It’s also worth noting that this was a qui tam lawsuit, meaning that Kahle and Huber didn’t have to have standing or prove they were personally affected by the churches’ deception in order to bring about the lawsuit. They (along with their lawyer) did the research, they were helping the government recover lost fees, and a victory meant that they stood to gain anywhere from 15-30% of the money recovered. There’s finally a little bit of good news to report. One of the churches has decided to settle the case instead of dragging it out in court (you can read the settlement decision here): Read more
The Daily Beast met up with naturalist and broadcast narrator Sir David Attenborough, 87, and discovered that these days, he turns a tad ornery when the subject turns to superstitious, anti-science stubbornness: Attenborough has made a career of resisting controversy, often describing himself as “a reporter” with no views of his own. … Once criticized by campaigners for his reticence to address contentious issues, [he] is no longer willing to speak in hushed tones. Sitting opposite the kangaroo enclosure at London Zoo, he told The Daily Beast he had lost patience with the “ignorance” of creationists, polluters, and climate change deniers. “To simply say that you must accept unquestioningly what you learned at your mother’s knee is not the act of an intelligent person,” he said. Creation myths are among the things that can exasperate him: Read more
A lot of kids are taught morals at Sunday School or through watered-down biblical stories, but Matthew Brackney thinks there’s a way to elucidate a lot of those values without religion. It’s kind of like Aesop’s stories, but with a non-religious theme. He’s calling it “The Freethinker’s Book of Fables”: Read more
Noah Lugeons of the Scathing Atheist podcast wrote and recorded this sweet “Love Song for the Scientifically Literate”: Read more
The quiet Dutch town of Laren was the scene of a rather spectacular assassination attempt the other day, when a man named Jeroen van Hasselt was stabbed by a wig-wearing assailant posing as a flower-delivery man. Nice touch: the blade was hidden in a bouquet of lilies — flowers associated with purity and death. Van Hasselt and a few brave passers-by managed to overpower the would-be murderer and turned him over to police. Dutch media report that the attacker, whose name has not been revealed, is a member of the Orde van Transformanten (“Order of Transformers”), a ten-year-old sect of about a hundred people, most of whom live together in a Christian commune in the southwestern town of Hoeven. They claim to emulate Jesus and the original Christians, and try their darnedest to shed “destructive habits” like envy and sloth. Read more
When football superstar Michael Sam came out as gay in the New York Times last weekend, much of the country was ready for it. We started figuring this out when NBA player Jason Collins came out last year, making him the first openly gay male pro athlete ever. Athletes from lower-level leagues come out every day, and especially as we turn our attention to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, we’re more and more attuned to the destructive consequences of systemic homophobia and its effects on the sporting world. On its cover this week, Sports Illustrated juxtaposed two telling headlines: “America is ready for Michael Sam” in bold font, next to a smaller “Is the NFL ready for Michael Sam?” Different people have different answers, but a few outspoken advocates who know their football are pretty sure that welcoming a gay player shouldn’t have any effect on the game. For example, former NFL player Donté Stallworth has tweeted his support for Sam and said that any team afraid to “handle the media coverage” he’ll spark is “already a loser.” Dallas sports anchor Dale Hansen made an even bigger statement criticizing the NFL for welcoming accused rapists and criminals, yet potentially shunning a gay player. The Christian website Charisma News asked some of these questions, too — but they’ve gotten their answers all wrong. Writer Michael Brown is clearly uncomfortable with LGBT people in general, let alone gay athletes, so he doesn’t even know where to start with Michael Sam. He’s got all kinds of questions about how a pro football team could possibly function with a gay player on the field and in practice and (gasp!) in the locker room. His answers to those questions were pretty terrible, so I thought I’d step in and help him out. (His questions in bold.) Read more
