Last month, Darrin Johnson created a short-but-fascinating documentary about atheists of color and how they’re portrayed in the media. It features rapper Greydon Square, Nicome Taylor of Black Skeptics Los Angeles, and lawyer Frederick Sparks: Read more
Bob Smietana points out something we’ve all known for a long time: When pastors tell you a statistic from the pulpit, you better do some fact-checking of your own. Like these numbers Pastor Mark Driscoll pulled out of nowhere (or, quite possibly, plagiarized from some other liar): What percentage of Americans could be classified as evangelical Christian? The answer is around 8%. There are more left handed people, more Texans, and more pet cats than evangelicals in America. Read more
The first time I heard Robyn Blumner’s name, it was in conjunction with a 2004 column she had written for the St. Petersburg Times (now called the Tampa Bay Times) in which she outed herself as an atheist: I don’t expect to be applauded for these views since they are out of step with the majority of Americans, but neither should I be despised for them. Yet, I will be. I can already imagine the torrent of hate mail, with readers accusing me of all sorts of vile human derangements just because I subscribe to reason and logic to explain the world rather than faith. … America is a country steeped in religion and as such I expect to be bombarded by it. I take no issue with the right of religious people to proselytize, to erect houses of worship on every corner or to broadcast their fervor on television and radio. All I ask in return is a little consideration for the millions of us who don’t join in the “good news.” That column was published the same month that Sam Harris’ The End of Faith came out. While columns like that may be commonplace now (at least online), they sure as hell weren’t a decade ago. She was given an award by the Freedom From Religion Foundation later that year for her piece and the conversation it sparked. Blumner has been a strong advocate for the values shared by many non-theists for years now, having led ACLU affiliates in both Utah and Florida before becoming a columnist. Yesterday, she took perhaps the largest step in our direction, taking on the role of the new Executive Director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science: Read more
The University of Notre Dame, like several Catholic institutions, doesn’t want to provide comprehensive medical coverage for their students so they’re suing in order to get out of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Even though they don’t have to provide access to birth control, the third-party provider they work with does, and the don’t want that either. This week, three anonymous students at the school joined in on a lawsuit to counter what Notre Dame is doing: Read more
The relatives of an elderly Israeli woman have filed a $750,000 lawsuit against the Hadassim Nursing Home in Bnei Brak. The family alleges that the nurses refused to call a doctor when the 85-year-old’s condition worsened. The nursing home’s employees are said to have told the family that calling a doctor would desecrate the Sabbath. Read more
Last November, state authorities raided Knoxville pastor Andrew Hamblin’s Tabernacle Church of God and took into custody the dozens of venomous snakes he kept around for God-pleasing purposes. The state has a law again possessing venomous snakes and Hamblin was violating it — not to mention exploiting it on the National Geographic Channel’s now-canceled show “Snake Salvation.” But Hamblin just got a huge break: Read more
Earlier this week, we learned details about a 10-year-old Afghani girl, Spozhmai Ghafar, whose older Taliban brother had allegedly outfitted her with a suicide vest and instructed her to blow up a police checkpoint. She refused and is now in protective custody. (The Taliban denies the charge.) Now comes the story of another child, a 14- or 15-year-old in Pakistan named Aitzaz Hassan, who did die in a bomb attack — and who is thought to have saved many other children’s lives by doing so. Read more
I’m so excited to announce this: My friend Dale McGowan, who has already written two incredibly popular books on raising children as an atheist parent — Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers — will soon release his third book about atheist families. It’s called In Faith and In Doubt: How Religious Believers and Nonbelievers Can Create Strong Marriages and Loving Families: Read more
A few days ago, the BBC published a news article about the conviction of Colleen LaRose, a.k.a. Jihad Jane, for her plot to murder the Swedish artist Lars Vilks. The writer of that piece roundly declared that despite the plot, and despite the $100,000 reward placed on Mr. Vilks’ head by Islamic militants, Vilks “was never attacked.” Given the two known — and widely reported — attacks on the man, the BBC was wrong, as I wrote here. I e-mailed the editorial staff and asked for a correction and an explanation. So far, no reply. But sometime in the past 36 hours, someone at the BBC quietly scrapped the lie or the error (absent an explanation, we can’t know what it was), and replaced it with the more accurate “But the murder plot went nowhere.” Before: Read more
