When the Upstate Atheists in South Carolina wanted to volunteer at the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen this past spring, they were told that atheists weren’t welcome. When the Kansas City Atheist Coalition wanted to deliver meals to the hungry, the Kansas City Rescue Mission rejected their generosity. When the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers wanted to help families in need this Thanksgiving (brace yourself)… the Mount Hebron Missionary Baptist Church welcomed them with open arms. Read more
Last week, we learned that the Capitol building in Oklahoma, currently undergoing a renovation, would be adding a chapel to the second floor: House Speaker T.W. Shannon (R-Lawton) was the architect of that addition: At the time, Shannon’s spokesperson Joe Griffin tempered the outrage by saying the chapel wouldn’t be built if it was illegal: “No taxpayer money has been spent on a chapel other than the ink that is on the blueprints,” Griffin said Tuesday. “If we are able to create a chapel, we would love to. But we are not going to do anything that is not constitutional.” But, you know, that was a week ago. Yesterday, Shannon wrote an op-ed for the Tulsa World explaining why the chapel deserved a spot in the Capitol building: Read more
If your two-month-old infant is hurt in a traffic accident, do you take him to the nearest hospital — or to a church? To one religious couple, the answer was obvious: Read more
In October, Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis put up a digital billboard in Times Square reading “Suck It, atheists” “To All Of Our Atheist Friends: Thank God You’re Wrong.” The Freedom From Religion Foundation quickly responded with a billboard of their own in the exact same location: FFRF, a state/church watchdog and the nation’s largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics), has enlisted “Saturday Night Live” alum Julia Sweeney for its rejoinder. One cube of the billboard features Sweeney’s smiling face, the other her quote: “OMG, there is no god!” FFRF’s message will be displayed on the same digital billboard at the corner of 42nd Street and 8th Avenue as the Answers in Genesis Christian message saying. “To all our atheist friends: Thank God you’re wrong.” Today, Answers in Genesis came back with a new billboard directed, again, toward atheists. The 30-second ad, which will run through Christmas, features the message “To All Of Our Atheist Friends: All He Wants for Christmas Is You” (which, I can only assume, means that Jesus is coming to kidnap your family). It also includes John 3:16: Read more
Liberty Counsel, the Christian group that flips out when anyone says “Happy Holidays,” just released the trailer for its first film. (Yep, they make films now.) It features a washed-up actor from the ’80s, a plotline with evil secular educators, and angsty Christian youth ready to reclaim their faith. In other words, this is exactly like every Christian movie you’ve (n)ever seen… I guess Kirk Cameron was unavailable, though, so they got Erik Estrada: The film is called “Uncommon”: Read more
Today, the Center For Inquiry launched an ad campaign in New York City’s Times Square reminding everyone that atheists, too, can take part in this season of gratitude and giving. The 15-second (silent) video ad includes the message: “Millions show love and gratitude without God” and features a mother hugging her daughter. Read more
In January of 2011, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) went on Real Time with Bill Maher and proudly admitted he didn’t accept evolution or climate change: Based on what he said, he clearly didn’t understand evolution or climate change, either. (“I believe I came from God, not from a monkey.”) I bring this up now because Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski discovered a change in Kingston’s Wikipedia page made over the summer. The section stating that Kingston was an evolution and climate change denier was scrubbed: Read more
“An outrage,” pastor John Culp calls it. “It doesn’t offer any protection!” moral-panics his colleague Dick Lincoln. Why are religious officials in Richland County, South Carolina fuming? They’re up in arms over the county’s proposal to do away with restrictions stipulating that bars have to be at least 600 feet from the nearest church. The change would allow bars to open next door to congregations in some unincorporated areas if a majority of the 11 council members end the minimum 600-foot setback — slightly more than a tenth of a mile. It is aimed at “storefront churches” that are popping up increasingly in traditional business locations like strip malls and near warehouses, said Councilman Norman Jackson of Lower Richland, who proposed the change. That is creating unintended limits on where bars can locate, Jackson said. Read more
A new challenge to the Affordable Care Act is the latest sign that some religious people, with all the power and privilege they already have, just want more. When the ACA went into effect, it exempted religious organizations from having to fulfill the contraceptive requirement. In other words, if you were a pastor of a large church, you didn’t have to provide your employees with birth control if it went against your religious “conscience.” The ACA did not offer the same exemption to public, for-profit companies owned by religious people — as well it shouldn’t have. Just because the owner of a huge company like, say, Hobby Lobby, is an evangelical Christian, should he be able to withhold contraception from those who work for him? Right now, the answer is no. But yesterday, the Supreme Court announced it would hear challenges to that rule. Read more
This is what really happened at Fayette High School in Missouri: Gwen Pope, a math teacher at the school, led Christian devotional prayers in her classroom every Friday morning. These prayer sessions were announced over the loudspeaker for students, in effect, encouraging them to attend. Both of those things are illegal. There’s more: The prayer sessions weren’t part of an extracurricular club. Pope’s husband Michael would attend the meetings. Furthermore, she told her math students that “God will punish them if they are not good” and had religious literature on her desk during the school day: Read more
