KEYE-TV in Austin, Texas offered up this headline yesterday, noting that it was their most popular video at the time: Wow! “Shocking” atheist billboards! What did they say? “God is imaginary”? “Religion is child abuse”? “There is no heaven”? Nope. It said to atheists, “You’re not alone.” Talk about freaking out over nothing… [Click headline for more…] Read more
Rabbi Adam Frank, based in Jerusalem, is a little embarrassed by Judaism’s chicken-twirling tradition. For those not in the know, Kapparot is a Jewish ritual, performed on the eve of Yom Kippur, in which a self-identified sinner swings a live chicken over his head three times, while reciting “This is my exchange, my substitute, my atonement.” What does that do, you ask? It transfers the person’s sins to the doomed bird. I swear I’m not making this up. Afterwards, the chicken is slaughtered — and YHWH, we are left to infer, is just pleased as punch. Frank says that the whole thing bothers him because he’s seen the birds get neglected, starved of food or water, in the days before it’s even time to swing and kill them. Also, he says, “Christianity took the idea of sacrificing a live something for the sake of humanity and Judaism finds that an anathema, and yet kapparot is that very thing — transferring sins onto a chicken and sacrificing it.” Good point. But most of all, I was heartened by this objection of his: [Click headline for more…] 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
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses five stories from the past week that left me shaking my head: 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 is a guest post by Sam Shore. Sam is the Light the Night Team Coordinator for the Foundation Beyond Belief (on which I serve on the board). … In 2012, Foundation Beyond Belief raised a record-shattering $430,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society by encouraging nonreligious communities to get involved with their local chapters’ Light the Night cancer walks. This year, FBB is taking it a step further by organizing Hug an Atheist Week. [Click headline for more…] Read more
The team at Wait But Why put together this amazing snapshot of our lives right now… and then keeps pulling back to reveal where our lives are with respect to the past week, the past year, the past century, the past millennium, etc. [Click headline for more…] Read more
On November 6, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Town of Greece v. Galloway, a case that could decide the fate of invocation prayers at city council meetings. (My summary of the case, the people involved, and the arguments they’ll likely make can be read here.) Earlier today, Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed its official brief with the Court — all 78 pages of it — and they responded to the right-wing talking points right up front: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Dear Richard My background: My name is Elliot and I am a 28 year-old guy living in London, UK. I am a teacher and have considered myself an atheist for the last 8 or so years. I am open but not preachy about my beliefs and encourage my pupils to make up their own minds. However I recently ran into a crisis of “faith”. Last weekend my girlfriend’s 21 year-old brother committed suicide. It was not without warning as he had had over 10 years of mental health issues including chronic depression and had made 4 failed attempts in the past. Despite this it was sudden, and she was understandably devastated. They are not a religious family, however in her grief she asked me: “where do you think he is now?” I was at a loss for words as I have never really had to combine comforting someone with an expression of my views. To tell her that he is nowhere anymore, that he simply has stopped being, seemed callous and uncaring. I went with “he is in a better place” (kind of an an opt out) as I figured that not existing anymore must be better than 10 years of depression. My question is this: How do you convey to someone, about whom you care deeply, that the person they have lost is simply dead? Nothing more? How do you make this sound okay? Religion, despite its delusions, does give people who choose it much peace-of-mind (assuming they are not considering the hell option) and I was wondering how I could convey this through atheism. Any advice would be very welcome. [Click headline for more…] Read more
I’ve written a couple of times about the need for the Secular Safe Zone and why we need to make sure young atheists feel safe and comfortable in their non-religious identities: Just a day after the Atlantic published a story on how some students were bullied for not believing in God, Sam Harris came through with a very exciting announcement: Project Reason, the non-profit group run by Harris and his wife, will be matching all donations to the Secular Student Alliance over the next month, up to $30,000. [Click headline for more…] Read more
