Before you play this, a warning: Don’t use headphones except at low volume, and don’t turn your speakers up too high. Seriously. Read more
Just before the final presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney last year, American Atheists paid for this ad to be driven around Boca Raton, Florida, where the debate was being held: The ad referenced two doctrines of the Mormon faith — one, that black people were forbidden from entering the priesthood until 1978, and second, that sexually-active gay people are still banned from the church altogether. Let me repeat that first part: Black people were forbidden from entering the priesthood until 1978. 1978! It’s a fact echoed in the lyrics to “I Believe” in the musical “The Book of Mormon”: I Believe; that Satan has a hold of you I Believe; that the Lord, God, has sent me here And I Believe; that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people! You can be a Mormon A Mormon who just believes! It’s one of those things you can’t sweep under the rug. It was blatant racism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has never really owned up to it. Until now, anyway. On Friday, the Mormon church’s website released a statement admitting that the reason for the black priest ban was racism, pure and simple: Read more
Time magazine announced this morning that its Person of the Year was Pope Francis: But what makes this Pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church at all. People weary of the endless parsing of sexual ethics, the buck-passing infighting over lines of authority when all the while (to borrow from Milton), “the hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed.” In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church — the church as servant and comforter of hurting people in an often harsh world — above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were professors of theology. Francis is a former janitor, nightclub bouncer, chemical technician and literature teacher. The Church finally found a way to shine a shit. But is Pope Francis deserving of the title? Read more
Jennifer Michael Hecht, writing for Politico Magazine, wonders whether electing an atheist president is “the last taboo” — and she brings up Barney Frank’s subtle summertime revelation: … while few seemed to care about Frank’s pot-smoking admission, atheists across the country — myself included — were disappointed that he hadn’t acknowledged his lack of religious belief sooner, when it could have made a real difference. We were left wondering why a man who served 16 terms in Congress and who bravely came out as gay all the way back in 1987 felt the need to hide his atheism until he was out of office. Was it really harder to come out as an atheist politician in 2013 than as a gay one 25 years ago? Yes, it was. Polls have repeatedly shown that atheists are the least electable minority group (at least of the ones significant enough to ask about): Read more
Awww. Crèche-crashing cats. Finally this blog can begin cashing in on cat pictures, just like the rest of the Internet. These furry fellows are squatting in a nativity scene in Brooklyn, New York. Read more
It’s a fool’s errand but still amusing: Who’s the most important person in history? Steven Skiena, a professor of computer science at Stony Brook University, and Charles Ward, an engineer at Google, analyzed data from Wikipedia to answer that question. Read more
The floodgates are open and the view is glorious. A week after the Satanic Temple said they wanted to put up a monument outside the Oklahoma Capitol building (in response to a Ten Commandments monument already on the grounds), a Hindu group is following in their footsteps. Activist Rajan Zed put out a press release today saying that his group, the Universal Society of Hinduism, would be applying for a monument of their own outside the Capitol building, this one honoring Lord Hanuman: Read more
David James Tibbetts blasphemes more in two minutes than most atheists do all day. He does it pretty damn well, too: Read more
For 42 years, there was a Nativity scene placed in a local park in Bellevue, Kentucky. But in order to prevent any potential church/state separation lawsuits, the display was moved to St. John United Church of Christ. Which is exactly what they should’ve done a long time ago, though it’s really wonderful that the city did the right thing without an atheist group having to force their hand. There’s also another tradition in Bellevue. Local churches gather around the Nativity scene every year and have a procession with Bible readings and a candlelight vigil. On Friday night, that procession was scheduled to be held at St. John UCC — instead of the park where it had taken place in the past — but the four other churches in the area all declined the invitation. What was the problem? It turns out the UCC church is just too damn inclusive. They have a gay pastor. They welcome LGBT church members. And the other churches want nothing to do with that pesky idea of “tolerance”: Read more
