You’re going to see a few of these coming down the pipeline in the next few days. With the oral arguments for Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court case that could decide the fate of government invocation prayers, taking place in just over a month, pro-church/state separation groups are beginning to file their briefs in support of the Galloway side. (If you need a refresher on what the heck I’m talking about, just check out this post, some of which I’m reposting below.) Yesterday, a joint brief was filed by a number of groups, including the Center for Inquiry, Americans for Religious Liberty, and the various members of the Secular Coalition for America (including American Atheists, American Ethical Union, American Humanist Association, the Institute for Humanist Studies, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, Secular Student Alliance, and the Society for Humanistic Judaism). The focus of the brief in almost entirely on the last Supreme Court case to deal with government prayer: Marsh v. Chambers. [Click headline for more…] Read more
In case you missed it, here’s the extended interview with Richard Dawkins from last night’s episode of The Daily Show. Part One aired on TV (and my response is here), Parts Two and Three are only online. There’s an awkward moment near the middle of Part Two when Stewart asks Dawkins where he goes where he dies. Dawkins hesitates and Stewart takes the opportunity to chime in, “So you don’t know.” Dawkins eventually responds, but it’s disappointing he didn’t have a pithy one-liner ready to go for that. The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook [Click headline for more…] Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, answers the question: What is the God of the Gaps argument? 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
On tonight’s episode of The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart asked Richard Dawkins the following question: Do you believe that the end of our civilization will be through religious strife or scientific advancement? What do you think will, in the long term, will be more damaging to our prospects as a human race? (***Update***: Mediaite has the video.) Dawkins responded by saying “Both.” His argument was essentially that scientific advancement would give us weapons that, in the wrong hands, could be used for evil. And if religious fundamentalists ever got their hands on those weapons, we’re screwed. That’s a fair point. If Dawkins had the chance to elaborate, though, here’s what I wish he would’ve said: [Click headline for more…] Read more
James Dunbar has been working on a rhyming scientific comic book for several years now. It has resulted in three books — BANG!, It’s Alive!, and Great Apes! — which take us “from the Big Bang to evolution to the dawn of human civilization” and now he wants to combine them all into one high-quality edition he’s calling The Universe Verse. I want this. I want to have babies just so I can buy this for them. [Click headline for more…] Read more
I’ve been posting a lot about the “atheist church” that began in London and has since spread worldwide because I think it’s a neat idea for the people who enjoy that sort of thing. If you miss singing as a group, listening to inspiring speeches, or being part of a community, the idea of a non-religious gathering has a lot of value. Some will dismiss the idea wholesale because it’s “too much like religion,” but I don’t buy that. There are no mandatory beliefs, no Gods (or their messengers) to worship, nothing you have to take on faith. The “church” isn’t even about spreading atheism — it’s open to everyone who wants to celebrate life, listen to music, appreciate science, etc. You won’t hear anyone telling you not to believe in God if you attend one of the gatherings. It’s just the sort of thing we need to help closeted atheists transition out of faith — it gives them something that resembles a church structure without all the bullshit that’s said and done within it. And if it’s not for you, then don’t go. It’s that simple. Ken Ham can’t wrap his brain around any of this, though. He read an article about the Sunday Assembly and it’s too much for him to handle: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have been warned by the Saudi Police to not “interpret cases or commit offenses related to the prosecution of women on charges of driving cars” as it is a social, not legal, restriction that women not be allowed to drive cars in the country: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Will Congress be able to avoid a government shutdown because Republicans want to defund the Affordable Care Act? Newsmax TV interviewed Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) to ask him about it and his response was… well… just watch at the 1:43 mark: [Click headline for more…] Read more
In a story broken by Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times, a highly-anticipated lecture by a gay speaker at a Roman Catholic college was suddenly canceled this weekend because it doesn’t align with the school’s “fundamental moral principles.” Dr. John Corvino, chairman of the philosophy department at Wayne State University, has spoken on same-sex marriage at more than 10 Catholic colleges in the country and is a frequent commentator on LGBT issues in religious contexts. He was scheduled to speak at Providence College in Rhode Island this Thursday, an event co-sponsored by nine school departments and programs. But on Saturday, the college’s provost, Hugh F. Lena, announced that the talk was canceled because “Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.” In his e-mail announcing the cancellation, Hugh F. Lena, the provost and senior vice president of Providence College, cited a document produced by the American bishops in 2004, “Catholics in Political Life,” to support the decision. And he said that college policy “dictates that that both sides of a controversial issue are to be presented fairly and equally.” Presenting both sides fairly and equally, eh? That’s not what this explanation seems to say. A portion of the cancellation announcement reads: [Click headline for more…] Read more
I knew very little about Richard Dawkins when I received my copy of the just-released An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. I knew that he was a scientist and an atheist. I’ve seen him debate on YouTube and I’ve read about him on the internet, but I haven’t read The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, or any of his other works. My hope, when I picked up An Appetite for Wonder, was that it would be a good introduction to Dawkins, that it would illuminate his life, and that it would fulfill the promise of its title. The book is structured chronologically, starting with Dawkins’ parents and grandparents and a plethora of other relatives that I struggled to keep straight and quickly forgot. From there, it moves through his childhood in Africa, his time at Oxford and Berkeley, and finally his return to Oxford and the conception and writing of The Selfish Gene. Dawkins is a strong, fluid writer, and his voice here is personal, but restrained; reading the book gives the feeling of sitting with him in a comfortable chair in front of a fire, as he walks you through the details of his life. He mostly stays on track, but draws frequent comparisons between events past and present, and occasionally questions his own memory, which I found oddly appropriate for an evolutionary biologist. If the concluding, quick summary of The Selfish Gene made me curious about the full book, though, the number of graphs and descriptions of scientific experiments in the later part of An Appetite for Wonder (and the struggle I experienced not to just skim these sections) made me rethink that position. Though Dawkins’ voice in An Appetite for Wonder may be warm, it is by no means intimate: there are many anecdotes, but they are rarely insightful, or overly personal. I have many stories I tell of my own life — the time spaghetti was spilled on me as a baby, how I imitated Mae West and Ronald Coleman — but few would be of interest to general readers unless they were woven into a larger thread of meaning. [Click headline for more…] Read more
