In 2001, journalist Larry Getlen sat down with comedian extraordinaire George Carlin for the interviews that lasted a total of five hours. It culminated, at the time, into a one-page collection of quotations for Esquire magazine. Now, more than five years after Carlin’s death, Getlen has released an edited book of their full conversation, one that will make you want to revisit his classic bits all over again. The book is called Conversations with Carlin: An In-Depth Discussion with George Carlin about Life, Sex, Death, Drugs, Comedy, Words, and so much more: In the excerpt below, the two discuss Carlin’s early experiences with religion: Read more
Just over a week ago, Joe Beck, founder of the Humanists of the Treasure Coast in Florida, asked if he could deliver the invocation at an upcoming meeting of the Martin County Board of County Commissioners. It’s not just that they told him no that’s problematic. It’s the excuse they gave: Read more
What do you think would happen if you were caught adding figurines such as these to a U.S. nativity scene? I believe your gesture would be, um, underappreciated. But one person’s grave insult is another person’s hallowed tradition, and so it is with the caganer, or pooper — a defecating character that the Catalan people of Spain have been adding to their Christmas displays for hundreds of years. Read more
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the new sign in front of Pine River Elementary School in Leroy, Michigan: It was created by LeRoy High School Class of 1943 graduate Carl Gustafson and initially included the phrase “In God We Trust” on the spine of the book. However, Superintendent Jim Ganger and the board of education decided to remove it after hearing concern from some community members. Earlier this week, the school board decided the concerns were unwarranted so they voted unanimously to bring God back onto the sign: Read more
Last night, Stephen Colbert mocked Fox News’ coverage of the “War on Christmas” (apparently, a Festivus pole is ruining it) and even threw in a little support for a claim made by Dave Silverman that “Christianity stole the season from the solstice”: Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, answers the question: Can atheists celebrate religious holidays?: 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
I don’t know what’s worse: That this guy is pretending to be someone (I sincerely hope) he’s not, or that he’s doing it on behalf of Jesus: Read more
During Monday’s hearing of the Australian commission that investigates child sex abuse, it emerged that Australia’s Catholic Church has paid at least $43,000,000 in hush money to victims of pedophile clergy members. It’s easy to miss the significance. This money wasn’t a settlement. The Church paid it on the express condition that priests’ misdeeds would be kept secret. And not just secret as in “out of the public eye”: In some cases, victims were not even allowed to tell their husbands, wives or children about the secret settlements negotiated through the church’s controversial Towards Healing process. Which doesn’t sound much like “healing” at all. Read more
This is a guest post by Veronica Chenik Gilmore. … “You are so blessed” “You’re an angel” “Are you Catholic?” “Are they all yours?” “God Bless you” These statements are just a sampling of what people say to my husband and me when they find out we have seven children. We have a blended family — three biological children and four who came to us from Tennessee through an interstate adoption program. Strangers and casual acquaintances step into our circle to celebrate our “good deed” as if we’re doing something to please God. These well-intentioned people have no clue that we are hiding something very important from them: our identity as atheists. Most people assume it was our faith that led us to adopt. But after hearing all sorts of mischaracterizations and faulty conclusions about who we are, it’s time for me to speak up. We’re not religious and we’re adoptive parents. Read more
“If religion means anything other than Christianity, we have no way to stop Islam or satanism,” is the title of this video. At 2:30, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, discussing the First Amendment, concludes that “By ‘religion,’ the founders were thinking of Christianity. So the purpose was to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith. It wasn’t about protecting anything else.” Read more
