Since we’re on the subject of hip-hop today, Dr. Monica Miller gave a recent Skepticon talk in which she discussed the Humanism in modern hip-hop. You can see it, paradoxically, through the God talk in the songs, where rappers even refer to themselves as God, but not a metaphysical God. (Think Kanye West’s “Yeezus.”) Miller says this is a kind of “re-altering of authority.” Read more
The Dutch Senate, in a 49-21 vote, agreed today to scrap a 1932 anti-blasphemy law — Article 147 of the country’s Criminal Code. Read more
For the third straight year, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has put up a “natural nativity scene” in the Wisconsin Capitol building: Read more
If you want to have a deep, thorough conversation about the “godliness” of Christian rap and hip-hop music, here’s a suggestion for the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches: Don’t just ask a panel of older white dudes: Read more
Wendy Thomas Russell explains why the secularization of Christmas is a good thing — for Christians, too! … Would Fox News rather we secularists stopped celebrating Christmas altogether? I wonder how Sarah Palin would feel if a quarter of her family and friends stopped showing up to her annual Christmas party? I wonder how all those corporations and business owners and stock brokers would feel if we stopped spending millions of our dollars on colored lights, blow-up Santas and gifts for our loved ones every year? No, Fox News, I won’t be putting the Christ back into my Christmas. Ever. But if my family and friends will let me, I’ll continue to lug home pine trees from the local Christmas tree lot and obscure all but the scent of those trees with a heinous number of Christmas ornaments. I’ll hang the gorgeous, envy-inducing Christmas stockings my mother knitted for each member of my family. I’ll listen to the Christmas carols my grandmother used to play on the piano when I was a child. With my husband, daughter, parents, in-laws, siblings, nieces, nephews and friends always on my mind, I’ll wrap Christmas presents and watch Christmas movies and read Christmas books and bake Christmas cookies and attend Christmas parties. I’ll do it all. And in doing so, I will indeed “protect the heart of Christmas.” It won’t be Palin’s exact version of Christmas, of course. But it will be Christmas just the same. And it will be great. Read more
Ayodhya is one of Hinduism’s seven holy cities in India. It is the birthplace of Lord Rama, and the setting of the epic folk tale Ramayana. It also happens to be the scene of persistent, brutal gun violence between various factions of holy men. Read more
Max Lucado is a Texas preacher and writer with 80 million books in print, including Just Like Jesus and When God Whispers Your Name. Rick Santorum is the über-Catholic former Senator from Pennsylvania who, after losing his bid for re-election in 2006, made a failed presidential run, and then announced he would start a film company to make good old-fashioned, pro-Christian, family-friendly fare. He’s on record as calling Hollywood “the devil’s playground.” Let’s see if these two were made for each other. (No, not that way.) Santorum produced a treacly Hallmark-meets-Dickens period movie, in theaters now, based on Lucado’s The Christmas Candle. Here’s the trailer: The critics have shown themselves somewhere between lukewarm and ice cold. Read more
Back in October, I posted about how the American Legion Post 134 was financially boycotting the Morton Grove (Illinois) Park District because its Commissioner Dan Ashta wouldn’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance at board meetings. Ashta’s sitting down for the Pledge cost the district $2,600 that the American Legion group had been giving them each year. This was never about anyone being unpatriotic; this was always about the right to exercise our freedoms, whether that means sitting or standing for the Pledge. I asked all of you to donate money to the Park District so we could make up for the lost money, at least for this year, and you all responded brilliantly, raising more than $3,000 in just a couple of weeks. That money was raised by a lot of atheists (and Christian allies) who applauded Ashta for his brave stance. On November 12, I sent the park district a check for all the money that I had received at that time (minus any fees taken by the fundraising website). I included a brief message explaining where the money was coming from. After not hearing back from the park district and not seeing the check clear from my bank account, I emailed them Sunday night inquiring about the donation. This is what the district’s Executive Director Tracey Anderson told me Monday afternoon: Read more
Brian Pallister is the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba, and you may recall his recent impromptu holiday greeting to blogger Natalie Pollock: … I wanted to wish everyone a really really Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, all the holiday… all you infidel atheists out there, I want to wish you the very best, also. I don’t know what you celebrate during the holiday season — I myself celebrate the birth of Christ — but it’s your choice, and I respect your choice. If you wish to celebrate nothing and just get together with friends, that’s good, too. All the best. I wrote the other day that it struck me as “sincere-though-somewhat-sarcastic.” Pallister would have been better off avoiding the word “infidel” and not suggesting that atheists “celebrate nothing” — but I didn’t sense any malice. (Though commenters on YouTube and other websites found reason to criticize him.) Yesterday, Pallister half-heartedly apologized for his comments, though he was mostly upset that anyone took him out of context: Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, answers the question: Does it make sense to be a pro-life atheist?: 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
