The fallout from Oprah’s ignorant comments toward an atheist guest is still in high gear and I offered my thoughts in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section: Read more
Pastor John Hagee, whose wrath has been directed at Harry Potter readers, Ouija board users, and rock music listeners, has some more wisdom for the people who attend Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. On Sunday, he told his congregation that “America is becoming a pagan society” because of our embrace of Secular Humanism. (Which is news to me, since the fundies keep telling us we live in a Christian Nation.) His evidence? Oh, just listen… Read more
Daniel is back with another montage of some of the awful things done in the name of God over the past month: (via ConversationWithA) Read more
Last week, when the Cannon County Board of Education (Woodbury, Tennessee) held its monthly board meeting, nothing very eventful happened until the board members discussed next year’s school calendar. This is normally a quick, breezy process. Just approve it and move on. But one of the board members was offended by what he saw on the proposed schedule: “What is the possibility of calling Winter Break Christmas Break instead?” [Chris] Blackburn asked. … “I am frankly tired of being pushed around by people that want to take Christ and God and Christmas and everything out of the school system,” Blackburn said. “They want to take prayer out of school and they want to take it out before ballgames. I am in favor of this calendar as long as we call it Christmas break.” What the hell…? Read more
The saga of Pope Francis attempting to win over the gays continues, and once again, it’s quiet, underwhelming, and almost certainly a PR stunt. The Italian Catholic LGBT group Kairos of Florence wrote a letter to the Pope in June, undoubtedly addressing many of the well-known issues that put the Catholic Church at odds with the LGBT community. They reportedly asked for “openness and dialogue” in talking about this rift and stated that a lack of openness “always feeds homophobia.” Hear, hear. Now, months later, the Pope has written them back, according to enthusiastic reports out of the Catholic news world. Unfortunately, though, it’s hard to tell if this is anything significant (spoiler: it probably isn’t) because Kairos has chosen to keep the contents of both letters private. Here’s what they did reveal: Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses the idea that, yes, Christians do wrong, but that doesn’t invalidate Christianity! Or does it?…: 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
This weekend, I’ll be joining a large group of heathens in Chicago for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night walk. We have a number of Secular Student Alliance teams that will be there, but I’m running the Friendly Atheist Virtual Team! If you’re not already walking and would like to chip in for the occasion, your donations would go a long way toward my personal goal of raising $2,500 (and your gift will be matched by the Stiefel Freethought Foundation!), so please consider giving something. Otherwise, if you’re in Chicago, hope to see you Saturday night! Read more
Seth Andrews (The Thinking Atheist) recently sat down with Richard Dawkins for an hour-long conversation about his new memoir An Appetite for Wonder and plenty more. The interview begins at the 7:47 mark: I haven’t had a chance to listen to the full conversation, but if you hear anything notable, please leave the timestamp and summary in the comments! Read more
Usually, when church/state advocates argue against school vouchers, they’re fighting against tax dollars being used to pay for religious schools that may preach Creationism or revisionist history. Alex Morris shows us in the latest issue of Rolling Stone that there’s another concern: LGBT students can be legally expelled from schools that are receiving this government cash: As religious institutions, these schools have the legal right to uphold and enforce any faith-based belief system they please. And parents who enroll their children — if not always the children being enrolled — understand the repercussions of such policies. However, by exploiting recent legislation, Christian schools in Georgia that openly discriminate against gay students have been receiving millions of dollars in diverted public funds as a result of a 2008 law meant to provide funding to help [low-income] children transfer to private schools. Tristan, Jason and Emily, along with about 500 other students, attend a school that participates in this program. It’s not just Georgia — 11 other states now have laws that offer tax credits to those who give scholarships for private schools. Read more
In Tanzania and other East African nations, people with albinism don’t just worry about developing vision problems and skin cancer — common afflictions among those whose bodies don’t produce enough melanin. They also have to keep an eye out for assassins who want to harvest their body parts, says Scientific American. The crimes are motivated … by superstitious beliefs that albinos’ body parts can lead to power and wealth. A rash of more than 100 crimes against individuals with albinism have been reported in the past seven years in Tanzania, according to the Tanzania Albino Society, an advocacy organization. The authorities are trying to crack down on witch doctors who make albino potions and charms, and on the buyers of such wares. Read more
