The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, answers the question: Do atheists drink more? It’s part of a larger series of questions dealing with atheism and morality. Do we swear more than religious people? Do we have more sex than they do? Are those inherently bad things? 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
A few months ago, I wrote about a project that KellyAnne Kitchin and Jenn Gauthier were working on. They were concerned that a lot of the material made for homeschooling parents like them was written from a Young Earth Creationist, the-Bible-must-be-true perspective. They wanted more secular resources for their kids, so they began a campaign to compile and spread materials with actual educational value. Now, Kimberly Winston of the Religion News Service has written about their plight: [Click headline for more…] Read more
True story: One of my work colleagues emailed me the following video, (jokingly) adding, “You’re doing it wrong.” The video shows some crazy atheist barefoot jogger screaming at a preacher at UC Berkeley. In the first minute alone, the unnamed atheist tells the preacher he should be going to prison and calls all religious people (a.k.a. “God-botherers”) anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic, and war criminals… before screaming “Atheism forever!” Later in the video, he yells, “Christians are responsible for slavery!” [Click headline for more…] Read more
The Koran warns followers of Allah that: Islamic law prohibits sexual relations under the broad heading of zina (fornication). … [M]ale and female fornicators are to be flogged 100 times. Those are the parts that the late terrorist (cheer)leader Anwar al-Awlaki didn’t bother reading, I guess. The FBI, in its investigation of al-Awlaki, tracked down a bevy of prostitutes who spent a little quality time with the man. The New York Post has the story, with a picture of al-Awlaki handling a big weapon, under a textbook tabloid headline: Qaeda Ho-ly roller: Terror cleric shot his load with DC prostitutes. When he wasn’t preaching against America, terror-linked imam Anwar al-Awlaki was frequently hiring $400-an-hour hookers at posh DC hotels, newly released FBI documents reveal. Awlaki, who delivered radical sermons at a mosque near Washington and ultimately met his end in a 2011 US drone strike in Yemen, paid thousands of dollars for at least seven hooker romps, according to interviews the prostitutes gave FBI agents. He was apparently a little on the cheap side, too: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Are you an Intellectual Atheist/Agnostic, or an Activist Atheist/Agnostic? Do you identify as a Seeker Agnostic, or are you more of a Ritual Atheist/Agnostic? Are you an Anti-theist or a Non-theist? Researchers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga have identified those typologies in an effort to create “a modest crack in the monolithic ‘religious none’ category,” as they put it. What bothered Christopher Silver (who is active in the Chattanooga Freethought Association) and his research partner Thomas Coleman III, was that …[p]revious research and studies focusing on the diverse landscape of belief in America have continually placed those who profess no belief in a God or gods into one unified category infamously known as the “religious nones”. This catch-all category presented anyone who identified as having “no religion” as a homogenous group in America today, lumping people who may believe in God with the many who don’t. Hence, the six typologies. You can read here about how the researchers describe each group; based on the definitions, you should be able to figure out which typology fits you. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Remember Arizona State Rep. Juan Mendez? He’s the 28-year-old atheist Democrat who delivered a secular invocation on the floor of the House (“I would like to ask that you not bow your heads…”), so enraging some of his colleagues that one of them delivered two Christian invocations the next day. A couple of weeks ago, Mendez spoke at the Secular Student Alliance conference in Las Vegas. Video of his talk is now online: [Click headline for more…] Read more
“Marwa,” an ex-Muslim woman from Lebanon, moved to the United States a year ago. On her website, she’s written an incredible and emotional account of what that transition has been like: [Click headline for more…] Read more
The Springboro School District in Ohio is already in hot water for trying to add Creationism to its curriculum. And if there was any doubt about the agenda of the School Board President Kelly Kohls, who also runs a local Tea Party group, it’s pretty obvious now. The School Board approved a 12-week summer course on the Constitution and here’s the flyer promoting it: [Click headline for more…] Read more
I wanted to headline this post “Child Sexual Abuse: In Defense of the Catholic Church,” but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I suppose the thought of being seen as the atheist version of Bill F. Donohue (I know that F. isn’t his middle initial, but I like to imagine that it is) didn’t exactly sound appealing. But to my point: Consider this story: Yeshiva University chancellor Norman Lamm resigned Monday amidst growing pressure over allegations of sexual abuse at Yeshiva University High School stretching back decades, a scandal that was first reported by the Forward in December. In a letter announcing his resignation, Lamm apologized for his failure to go to police with reports of sexual abuse against high school students. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Normally, I hate hecklers, but this is just awesome: Some unnamed guy saw “faith-healer” Benny Hinn walk through the airport and had something to say about him… at least to a reporter after Hinn (and his bodyguards) had already passed by: Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames. Hinn, who is worth $42,000,000 according to the Christian Post, didn’t seem to care what the guy said. Not surprising given that Hinn pretty much ignores or deflects any criticism thrown his way, like suggestions that he preys on the weak and vulnerable and never actually heals them. Silly science. Why let that get in the way of a multi-million-dollar scam? [Click headline for more…] Read more
