Stephen Colbert was one of the headliners at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner on Thursday night — in honor of the former New York governor and Roman Catholic luminary — and his speech was as entertaining as you would expect it to be: Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses the recent controversy where Oprah Winfrey told godless marathon swimmer Diana Nyad that she wasn’t really an atheist because she was awed by the beautiful world around her: 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
A few weeks ago, the Public Religion Research Institute released a report called the “2013 Hispanic Values Survey.” A new graphic from PRRI released yesterday highlights the big changes: Fewer Catholics and more religiously unaffiliated Hispanics than ever before: Read more
At a conference in Illinois earlier this month, conservative neurosurgeon and Tea Party hero Dr. Ben Carson made some bold — though unoriginal — claims about the terror that same-sex marriage will surely bring upon society. Speaking to the anti-LGBT-rights group Illinois Family Institute (IFI), Carson invoked the Biblical notion that the relationship between Jesus and his followers is a marriage. Clearly, he’s not okay with using the same terminology to describe committed, loving same-sex couples. Read more
American Atheists has their big 2014 National Convention coming up next year in Salt Lake City, Utah, and they wanted to put up a billboard to generate some publicity for the group and the event itself. But the Salt Lake Tribune reports on the ridiculous rejections AA has received when it comes to putting up its billboards. It appears that an atheist sign — any sign — will rub Mormon residents the wrong way: AA officials say they called nine Utah companies looking for three to five billboards to promote September’s early-bird rates, but after repeated attempts, only two called them back. [AA public relations director] Muscato said Reagan Outdoor Advertising told him they’d pass, and YESCO, after first rejecting a play on the church’s “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign, then nixed three other submissions that made no mention of Mormons… … In an email to Muscato, a YESCO employee wrote that his ad director signed off on AA’s resubmissions but that the company’s sales director and president declined the contract because “it was deemed to be too controversial for our Salt Lake market.” “Too controversial”? I know AA has a reputation for ads that generate all sorts of hate-mail, but how offensive were these billboards?! Here’s the first one that was rejected, presumably for using the word “Mormon”: Read more
Father Aethelwine Richards, a leader in the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of Europe, recently moderated two panels at an event about discrimination against religious minorities in Europe. He summarized the conversation by suggesting that “secularism could be the new terrorism.” From what I can tell, there were no atheists on either panel to counter the ridiculous claim, but they were the subject of discussion among the religious conservatives who were there, according to Brian Pellot of Religion News Service: Read more
Jaclyn Glenn and Stevie Boebi burn through several common arguments Christians have actually made toward atheists: My favorite rebuttals come at the 0:47 and 2:49 marks 🙂 Read more
When the House of Representatives, after a 16-day standoff, finally decided to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling last night, it was only fitting that more crazy was on tap. As the vote was coming to a close, House stenographer Dianne Reidy, 48, took to the speaker’s podium and started an unprecedented rant about God. On the recording, she can be heard yelling He will nоt bе mocked! This iѕ nоt оnе nation undеr God! It nеvеr was. Hаd it been… It would not have been… No. Thе Constitution wоuld nоt hаvе bееn written bу Freemasons, thеу gо аgаinѕt God! You cannot serve two masters. Praise be God Lord Jesus Christ. She was also heard to say something about the devil before security officers forcibly escorted her out of the room. Read more
