The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, answers the question: What happens when the children of U.S. Presidents are atheists? More on the Ron Reagan situation 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
You are most awesome, God. Also thanks for making my nana special by taking her eyesight, and for giving my 12-year-old cousin brain cancer. I can’t tell you how blessed we all feel! (via God Schmod) Read more
This may be my favorite “David Barton is lying” clip ever. And it doesn’t even involve made up historical facts. It just involves math: Read more
Yesterday, Pastor Mark Driscoll tweeted this: If you are not a Christian, you are going to hell. It's not unloving to say that. It's unloving to not say that.— Mark Driscoll (@PastorMark) January 10, 2014 In the pantheon of things that make atheists convert to Christianity, telling us we’re going to Hell ranks just below quoting Bible passages and just above visiting the Creation Museum. Read more
Is there anything the faithful won’t do if you first make them believe it’s a way to honor God? It looks like South African pastor Lesego Daniel is on a mission to find out. In a wildly unorthodox demonstration of how humans can be controlled by the Holy Spirit and eat just about anything to feed their bodies, a South African pastor made members of his church eat grass. … According to a report in African Spotlight, Pastor Lesego Daniel of Rabboni Centre Ministries had his followers eating grass after explaining in a sermon that Jesus had many other disciples other than the 12 listed in the traditional Bible who were doing new things which were considered unconventional at the time as well. Clearly, grass is not the only thing these folks are swallowing. Read more
Last week, Eve Brannon, the president of the Upstate Atheists in South Carolina, decided to sell her church-going services on eBay so that the highest bidder (presumably a Christian) could get her and her daughter to attend one Sunday morning church service. The money would have been used toward her group’s charity work. But that was last week. And three auctions ago. Read more
Cracked is the Internet champion of the crack-you-up listicle and their latest one caught my eye. It’s titled 5 Seemingly Insignificant Things That Make People Like You. Number 2 on the list: Hide Your Atheism, Even from Other Atheists Author P. Chung correctly (and hilariously) writes about the academic research behind that bit of depressing advice, particularly the studies by Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia. Back in 2011, Gervais and his team showed that prejudice against atheists has us scoring lower in the trust department than rapists; and that most people, if they’d employ atheists at all, would place them in low-trust positions, like waiter, rather than in high-trust ones, like childcare provider. (Makes you wonder whether those folks have never heard of the tens of thousands of child sex abuse cases that occurred — and occur — in both Protestant and Catholic churches.) Still, Cracked’s conclusion won’t get us very far, and I’d prefer that none of us felt compelled to “hide our atheism.” Chung’s advice reminded me of this cartoon: Read more
This May, I’ll be joining a stellar group of speakers in Kamloops, British Columbia for the fourth annual Imagine No Religion conference — it’s very exciting for me personally since I haven’t been able to visit Canada in nearly a decade: Read more
