It’s NSFW for reasons I’m not quite sure I want to explain to you… but it’s kinda worth it for the Taiwanese Animators’ opening shot alone: Read more
The other side of “spirituality”: A French court on Friday sentenced the uncle and mother of three teenagers to jail for raping and assaulting the girls in voodoo exorcism sessions. The uncle, a 28-year-old Togolese man, was sentenced to 14 years for raping his niece in the guise of “chasing out an evil spirit”, as well as for assaults against the girl’s two older sisters. Read more
Rachel Silberstein at Tablet wrote a really fantastic profile of American Atheists’ Dave Silverman in which the question is raised of whether you can really be both atheist and Jewish at the same time. On the surface, the answer is a clear “Yes.” The Pew Research Center released a report in October showing that 22% of Jewish adults weren’t actually religious, a number that jumped to 32% when just looking at Millennial Jews, born after 1980: 6% of Jews, overall, described themselves as atheists. So there’s a lot of history behind the idea of secular Judaism. Silverman, too, called himself a “Secular Jew” at one point, but he no longer feels that way: Read more
This self-described mathematician just added to the stereotype of fundamentalist Christians who are unable to think critically. Read more
The Secular Coalition for America is releasing its “Model Secular Policy Guide” for politicians with a briefing on Capitol Hill today. (For the sake of publicity, they invited runway models — get it? “Models”? — to serve drinks and hors d’oeuvres to the attendees… which sounds like they’re just gift-wrapping critics a reason to denounce them.) The guide, endorsed at least in part by more than 86 non-theistic groups across the country, is “meant to help educate legislators on the views of secular and nontheistic Americans on pertinent issues.” The largest section of the report is devoted to advice on health/safety-related issues. While most of the policy recommendations are no doubt obvious, here’s a rundown of the big ones: Read more
The country of Luxembourg, population just 525,000 (but an international powerhouse of finance), just became the first nation in the world whose top two leaders are openly gay. While I imagine that few local voters care with whom prime minister Xavier Bettel (left) and vice prime minister Etienne Schneider share their beds, one of Bettel’s proposals may ignite controversy: Read more
The author of an opinion piece on Coloradoan.com asserts that By removing God little by little from the public square, the courts — note, not Congress — are in fact establishing the religion of atheism as our national religion. I fond both that snippet and the headline pretty funny: Atheism Becoming National Religion of U.S. Read more
When Jessica Ahlquist filed a lawsuit against her high school, the backlash on Twitter was bad. The threats were worse. The same thing happened to Damon Fowler even though he never actually went to court. When it comes to church/state separation lawsuits, we’ve seen some brave individuals step forward recently and identify themselves. But what if they didn’t have to come out? Couldn’t the cases just proceed based on their arguments without requiring their names to go in the public record? In some states, that’s not allowed. Filing a lawsuit requires initials for minors and names for adults, making them susceptible to threats and revenge from their enemies. In a new paper published in The Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, Professor Benjamin P. Edwards makes the case for why pseudonymous lawsuits should be allowed to proceed and he uses Ahlquist and Fowler to make his case: Read more
The owner of a Colorado bakery faces legal trouble for refusing to provide a gay couple with a wedding cake — and despite his best efforts, his religious beliefs aren’t helping him in court. Last July, Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig approached Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, to bake a cake for their upcoming wedding. The owner, Jack Phillips, told them his religious beliefs kept him from supporting their marriage and he refused to provide the cake. “I am a follower of… Read more
