At the Secular Student Alliance conference earlier this month, I spoke about the need for atheists to fact-check the statements and statistics we love to cite (like the atheists-in-prison data) and follow-up with the stories we care about. Video of that talk is now online: Read more
Pablo Stanley created this helpful visual to explain the differences between a/gnostic a/theists: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Right now, Ireland is in the midst of a Constitutional Convention and they’re considering a change to the blasphemy law. Michael Nugent, the chair of Atheist Ireland, makes a strong case for why that law must be repealed in The Journal: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Scientist Dennis R. Trumble believes science offers us more than just great technology and more comfortable lives: It teaches us to unshackle ourselves from preconceived notions by following the evidence and encourages us to think more critically. Trumble believes, as many of us do, that to raise a child to be ignorant of science (a la home-schooling Creationist parents) does far more damage than we might think. His new book exploring this issue is called The Way of Science: Finding Truth and Meaning in a Scientific Worldview (Prometheus Books, 2013): In the excerpt below, reprinted with permission of the publishers, Trumble discusses the lessons we learn from science (Keep reading afterwards for your chance to win a copy of the book!): [Click headline for more…] Read more
There is a technological revolution underway, and it’s happening under the radar of we hip skeptical types: iBibles. Now, I’m not talking about some clunky Kindle-clone that contains only The Word, I’m talking about an extremely popular, cross-platform, nondenominational mobile app, labeled in your app store simply as “The Bible,” but officially known as YouVersion. What’s so special about this? After all, there are hundreds, probably thousands of apps that reproduce the Bible in digital form. YouVersion is notable because it’s an app that contains a huge variety of versions of the Bible, and hundreds of translations in myriad languages. In addition, it offers up the Good Book with an interface that is remarkably, well, Apple-like. Versions and languages are easily accessible, typeface and style are easily customizable, there are audio and video options, note-taking functionality, and the app is generally sharp and pleasing to use. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Last week, volunteers with the Mattie Rhodes Center (a non-profit charity in Missouri) were cleaning up graffiti in the community. But when they arrived at their site on Friday, the garage where they stored all their supplies had been broken into — leaving them without $800 worth of paint and art supplies. The Kansas City Atheist Coalition is trying to help them raise the missing funds, so if you’d like to chip in, you can do so here: [Click headline for more…] Read more
I dropped some things off at Goodwill yesterday and saw this sign… I’m aware that first period looks different from the second one, so it may be graffiti or something, but it made me smile. And people on Twitter seem to like it 🙂 Read more
A lot of people go to church, not because they believe all the religious nonsense, but because they enjoy the community. Why do they love the community? Because, among other things, it’s a great place to meet someone to date… and possibly marry. And what happens when the Internet comes along with JDate and Match and OkCupid and all the other dating sites? You meet a mate online instead. And what happens when you meet a mate online? All those people who went to church simply to find a spouse stop going to church. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Upon hearing that atheists are trying to get Humanist chaplains in the military, the National Post’s Rex Murphy had something of a meltdown. He wrote a long tirade about this is just another hallmark of the “Angry Atheist” brigade: I think the late Christopher Hitchens’ screed against Mother Teresa, his unmanly attempt to pulverize the reputation of the Albanian nun who gave her life to tending Calcutta’s dying poor, was the low point of his otherwise stellar output… … Hitchens’ grim, self-advertising equal, Richard Dawkins, is a very bundle of anger and aggressiveness… … They can be very prickly on this stuff. They have mastered the art of bewailing their discomfort at a breach of that great standby in such matters, their “human rights.” Actually, of course, the comforts of religion, for believers, are not “human” rights at all, but the mercies of a benevolent God… Regarding Hitchens and Dawkins, what Murphy ignores is that the atheists were (and are) more interested in the Truth than they were being politically correct. When the facts lean one way and the majority of people lean the other, of course you’re going to come off as frustrating. I don’t see them as angry. I see them as appalled by how oblivious a lot of people can be. Okay, so Murphy plays the stereotypes and writes a lazy man’s column. But he really goes off the deep end when he writes about military atheists: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Last night, “Religious Left” leader Jim Wallis appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher. While the interview started out alright, I kept finding myself disappointed with Wallis’ answers — Maher kept asking him questions that any atheist interested in the Truth would ask, and Wallis kept dodging them in order to make the point that religion can be used for good (which no one is denying and is completely besides the point): Josh Feldman at Mediaite points out one particular exchange that was really frustrating to watch: [Click headline for more…] Read more
