Menachem Stark went missing two nights ago, after he left his office in Williamsburg, NY, … from which he ran his seedy empire — which once included the notorious Greenpoint Hotel on Manhattan Avenue, a flophouse so decrepit and drug-filled, the feds seized it in 2005. … Stark’s irate tenants complained of squalid living conditions, and opponents of his development projects indicate he had several enemies. … Read more
How many times have we heard people argue atheists don’t give to charity? Or that we fear death? Or that we’re just rebelling against God’s authority? Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk have heard those false claims many times before and they’ve responded to them (and several other nasty stereotypes) in their new book 50 Great Myths About Atheism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013): In the excerpt below (which has been adapted for this site), the authors respond to the myth that “Atheists want to ban teaching religion to children”: Read more
James Dobson, the one-time poster-boy for evangelical bigotry, now lives in what I can only assume is the sealed-off basement of the Focus on the Family headquarters where he runs his new Family Talk ministry in between rounds of coming up for sunlight. In an end-of-the-year letter to supporters, he asks them to send him money and explains why donations have been pretty stagnant this year: Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, reveals the five stories that I think will most affect atheists in 2014: 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
For some reason, there’s a story making the rounds again about a pastor who tried to walk on water… and drowned: … An evangelist who tried replicating Jesus’ miracle of walking on water has reportedly drowned off the western coast of Africa. Pastor Franck Kabele, 35, told his congregation he could repeat the biblical miracle, and he attempted it from a beach in Gabon’s capital of Libreville. ‘He told churchgoers he’d had a revelation that if he had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus,’ an eyewitness told the Glasgow Daily Record. ‘He took his congregation to the beach saying he would walk across the Komo estuary, which takes 20 minutes by boat. Let’s put on our Snopes hat for a bit… Read more
If you believe Synthia Varela-Casaus, nine-year-old Omaree’s death was an accident. “I was disciplining him, I kicked him the wrong way. It was an accident,” Varela-Casaus [Omaree’s mother] said to reporters on Saturday afternoon as Albuquerque police officers took her into custody. Read more
Karl Giberson (below) has a PhD in Physics from Rice University and once held the title of Vice-President of The BioLogos Foundation, a group that attempts to reconcile faith and science. That blemish aside, you can imagine the trouble he got in when he attempted to teach evolution at a Christian institution. Even though the science he taught was sound, the administration, along with parents and donors, wanted him to lie to the students and teach Creationism instead. He refused to do that and had to leave as a result. In an article for The Daily Beast, he says 2013 was a “terrible year for evolution”, but his story indicates that it was only terrible if you were a professor at a Christian school trying to convince a bunch of people living inside a bubble that they were misinterpreting the Bible at the expense of reality: Read more
Ah, Bryan Fischer, we meet again. In the past, we’ve sparred (rather one-sidedly, I must admit) about gay people, NBA players, abortion rights and tax law, and I think it can be agreed upon that at least a couple of those topics are ones that neither of us are actually qualified to discuss. And yet here we are to discuss another area of mutual expertise: Politics. Today, Sir Fischer decided that those of us who believe in evolution should be “disqualified from holding public office in the United States of America.” Read more
I just learned that the self-described prophet, faith healer, and televangelist Kobus van Rensburg, a fixture on South Africa’s evangelical scene, has joined the choir invisible. His earthly departure is a bit odd for a man who spent his whole adult life preaching that with Jesus on your side, and with enough faith, you’re literally immortal. According to his ministry life and death is a choice, and people can choose to live forever without dying at all. Alhough van Rensburg had been battling cancer for a long time, and his doctors had given up hope, his true-blue followers were convinced that their prophet would never kick the bucket — and that if he did, his faith and their prayers would swiftly resurrect him. Read more
