A few days ago, I published a little riff on the topic of curiosity, based on a wonderful book I just read. Curiosity, book author Philip Ball shows, was long frowned upon by religious authorities as a sign of insufficient humility. All you were supposed to do was gape in mawkish wonder at the miracle of nature, and prostrate yourself before the Lord, expressing awe and suppressing all natural inquisitiveness. Glad we left that atavistic attitude behind us. Or did we? Pope Francis said this on Thursday: “The spirit of curiosity distances us from the spirit of wisdom because all that interests us is the details, the news, the little stories of the day.” Such a spirit, he warned, brings about dispersion and distances people from God. The Vatican leader further noted that Jesus himself warned against a worldly spirit of curiosity, as it causes confusion and impels people to want to feel that God is “here or there.” Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses the recent controversy involving a Christian conference and how more than 95% of the speakers were male: (For more on the story, read this.) 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
It’s the Christian movie trailer based off the book that was inspired by one child’s overactive imagination and spread by millions of gullible adults. I present to you, Heaven is for Real: Citation needed… Read more
Enjoy the (fictional) Twitter war between Pope Francis and Sarah Palin — as documented on tonight’s “Real Time with Bill Maher”: My favorite part: The fake Palin tweeted back, “Bring back Pope Benedict!” to which the Pope said, “You WOULD prefer the one who quit in office.” (via Mediaite) Read more
In a controversial and not very popular decision, Christian prayer has been kicked out of a public school. Students at Dr. Hamman School in Taber, Alberta, are no longer expected to recite the Lord’s Prayer along with the school’s P.A. system as part of the daily opening exercises. Dr. Hamman School was the last remaining public school in Taber where prayer was still part of the morning routine. The prayer was challenged by Melanie Bell, whose two sons attend Dr. Hamman School and had come home in tears more than once when school officials punished them for failing to participate in the class prayer, which the children had not learned to recite at home. Read more
Another day, another gay waiter getting cheated out of a tip by prayerful Christians. Former Marine Dayna Morales waits tables in a New Jersey restaurant. The other day, a customer scrawled this note on the credit card receipt: I’m sorry I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life. Morales posted a photo of the receipt on Facebook with the following message: Read more
Pastor John Hagee has a habit of railing against things he really doesn’t understand. Like the Harry Potter series and Ouija boards and rock music. In a sermon delivered last weekend, Hagee explained how atheism is intellectually and morally bankrupt… and that it has never cured a disease (implying, strangely, that “Christianity” can): Read more
The Creation Museum’s Ken Ham is super-excited. Someone’s finally listening to him! Someone’s finally taking him seriously! Someone’s finally understanding Creationism as it’s meant to be understood! And that someone is seven years old. Recently I spoke at Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, where I met a remarkable young boy named Reuben. He and his father met me after my talk, and his father proudly showed me his seven-year-old son’s notes from the session. They were incredibly detailed! I thought it would be encouraging to show you Reuben’s notes. It’s apparent that he was listening carefully to what I had to say — which is evidence that our young people are paying attention to what we teach. It’s so important that we teach apologetics and doctrine founded firmly on the Word of God. These are Reuben’s notes, which look like Young Earth Creationism explained in Comic Sans… which is actually pretty damn perfect: Read more
I was talking about science and religion with a Dutch friend yesterday when he casually referred to the Van Schayk affair and asked me what I thought of it. My mind drew a blank, so he filled me in. It’s a bizarre and fascinating story that I thought I’d share. In March of this year, a Dutchman named Onno van Schayk, a professor of medicine and the head of the CAPHRI School for Public Health in Maastricht, the Netherlands, caused a bit of an uproar when he gave an interview to an evangelical TV station. He mentioned his Christian beliefs a few times, and then segued into this remarkable statement: “There have been moments that I’ve seen God’s work directly, up close. It involved a person whose leg was too short, who was being prayed for. And I saw that leg grow. … I concede we have to be careful with that, and that the [stories] in the Bible — they should be tested, examined. We shouldn’t just assume things. We have to apply, very carefully, almost a scientific principle — establish that it’s incontrovertible. And in this case, it was indeed incontrovertible. You could see from looking at the X-rays that [bone] growth had indisputably occurred, something for which there was no normal explanation.” Read more
