Remember when Texas Governor Rick Perry signed a law making it legal to say “Merry Christmas” in public schools — even though no one ever said it was illegal — and also allowing for religious holiday displays? Now, Alabama State Senator Gerald Allen (R-What else?) is set to to pass a similar bill in his state: Allen said he is bringing the bill to protect schools from litigation. “I’m convinced that there is an undeniable secular progressive agenda to remove all religious freedoms from the public square and that includes our public schools,” Allen said. [Click headline for more…] Read more
The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, answers the question: Why are atheists so angry? 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
Obviously, I can’t verify this, but at Not Always Working (where readers submit stories from work), there’s a story of a sailor who wanted to get married on a Friday afternoon… Asst. Division Officer: *to sailor* “The Div officer said that you are getting married this afternoon. Congratulations! Which church?” Sailor: “Thanks, but no church. We are doing it at City Hall with the Justice of the Peace. The Div Officer said that I could leave right after morning training, so I could get to there before the ceremony at thirteen hundred hours.” Asst. Division Officer: “Well, see me before you go.” Take a wild guess where this is going… [Click headline for more…] Read more
portadosfundos, a Brazilian comedy group on YouTube, just released a sketch about Jesus showing up in the most unexpected of places… You’ll want to watch this (with subtitles): In two days, the video has racked up over 2,000,000 views. (Thanks to Pedro and Fernando for their help!) Read more
The headline pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? A person was struck by lightning on Wednesday while on the zip line at the Creation Museum in Boone County. A call came in from the museum to Boone County Public Safety Communications Center at approximately 1:19 p.m. reporting a person was struck on the attraction, a dispatcher said. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Christian Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile has figured out how to turn the tide of support for same-sex marriage! Forget talking about the Bible — because, let’s face it, no one really cares what the Bible says (or doesn’t say) about homosexuality. Just starting talking about homosexual acts. Graphically. Everyone’s going to gag when they hear it and that’ll force them to stop supporting gay rights! No, really, that’s his brilliant idea. He writes about it at The Gospel Coalition in a post titled “The Importance of Your Gag Reflex When Discussing Homosexuality and ‘Gay Marriage'”: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Back in November, the Freedom From Religion Foundation sued the IRS because of the government agency’s “failure to enforce electioneering restrictions against churches and religious organizations.” Basically, churches were endorsing political candidates from the pulpit and the IRS wasn’t doing anything to stop it. The IRS tried to quash this lawsuit before it could proceed but FFRF just got some good news: U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman of the Western District of Wisconsin has dismissed the IRS’ motion, allowing FFRF to move forward with their lawsuit! [Click headline for more…] Read more
David Powers King and Michael Jensen were in the final stages of publishing their young-adult fantasy novel Woven when they saw a mistake on the back cover. The biographical information for King was fine, but Jensen’s was missing this line: “He lives in Salt Lake City with his boyfriend and their four dogs.” The Acquisitions Editor for publisher Cedar Fort, Inc. told him the reason in an email: [Click headline for more…] Read more
We lost a real hero yesterday in the worst possible way. Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, a 67-year-old anti-superstition activist and Humanist leader from India, was assassinated on Tuesday morning, presumably because of his skeptical beliefs. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Four weddings are featured in the latest edition of The Atlantic’s In Focus column, and one of them just happens to be the Humanist ceremony of Brendan Hastings and Suzy Addis: [Click headline for more…] Read more
