Here’s something you don’t see in the religious world: A group of college students are putting on a free conference dedicated to sex-positivity. It’s called the Sexy Secular Conference and it’ll take place at the University of Akron (Ohio) this October: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Juan Mendez, a 28-year-old Democratic State Representative from Tempe, Arizona, got elected this past November. Somehow, this bit of information on his Facebook page slipped under our community’s collective radar: Say what now?! But if his atheism wasn’t publicly known before, it is now. Earlier today, Mendez did something we’ve rarely seen from any elected official in any state: He delivered an invocation before the House began its afternoon session in which he honored his Secular Humanism: [Click headline for more…] Read more
On today’s Situation Room on CNN, Wolf Blitzer interviewed a woman named Rebecca Vitsmun whose family survived the Oklahoma tornado. At one point yesterday, her husband was driving home and worried that something might have happened to Rebecca and their 19-month-old son Anders, but there was no reason to worry; Rebecca left the house as soon as she heard the weather was getting really bad and everyone is safe. Their house may be in ruins, but their family is intact. Things got a little awkward at the end of the interview, though, when Blitzer asked her if she thanked God that she left her house in time: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Revolution Church, a liberal congregation in Minneapolis, served rainbow-colored communion bread at services recently to celebrate Minnesota passing marriage equality. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Preacher/Theologian John Piper is one of those guys who gets off on telling women that God has a special role for them: to be subservient to their husbands and never in a position of authority. He’s one of those guys atheists salivate over because every time he says something, the pendulum moves a bit closer to our side. So when he started tweeting last night in the wake of the Oklahoma tornado that killed dozens of people (so far), people like Nate Pyle were ready to take screenshots. Good thing, too, because he caught a tweet that has since been deleted: It’s that middle one that raised Nate’s eyebrow: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Last month, NBA player Jason Collins came out as gay. NBA superstar Kevin Durant (of the Oklahoma City Thunder), when asked for comment, said this: “If the guy’s happy, whatever he does, that’s cool with me,” Thunder star Kevin Durant said at Monday’s shootaround. “Jason Collins, playing against him, seems like a great guy. Never got the chance to know him. But if he’s happy, that’s cool. Nobody has any right to judge. He’s his own man. Makes his own decisions. As NBA players, it’s like a big group of guys, kind of like a brotherhood. I know I support him. Like I said, I don’t really know him, so whatever decision he makes is something he really thought was good for him. Nothing nobody else can say about him. As long as he’s happy, it’s cool.” So obviously — obviously — that’s why a tornado just hit Moore, Oklahoma… according to Westboro Baptist Church’s Fred Phelps, Jr. (son of the church’s founder): [Click headline for more…] Read more
This is a guest post by Rich Wilson. *** I recently started reading The Book of Mormon and have found it a very tough slog, even compared to the KJV Bible. So you can imagine my relief when I took a break from that book and starting reading David Fitzgerald’s The Complete Heretic’s Guide to Western Religion Book One: The Mormons. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Just over a year ago, I was celebrating a major court victory that put a stop to virtually non-stop Christian prayers at the city council meetings in Greece, New York. Now, that decision is back up in the air. Here’s the story (pretty much as I wrote it then): The town of Greece, New York had opened board meetings with prayers since 1999 thanks to Town Supervisor John Auberger. While the invocations could be delivered by representatives of many different faiths, virtually all of the representatives were Christian. They still are (PDF): [Click headline for more…] Read more
Yesterday, I posted about what the Foundation Beyond Belief is doing to help the people in Oklahoma and I wanted to give you more of a detailed update. Foundation Beyond Belief will be distributing 100% of the funds raised to Operation USA and the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma (not necessarily a 50/50 split) with more beneficaries added as the nature of the immediate needs evolve. The money will be sent to these groups every 1-2 days for the first week. [Click headline for more…] Read more
A group of priests led more than 20,000 people to attack participants in a gay rights march in Tbilisi, Georgia on Friday, but police refuse to take the incident seriously. The New York Times reports that, in spite of the documented attack — which sent at least 14 people to the hospital after protesters punched them, threw rocks at them, and pulled people from cars — the Georgian police have made no arrests and are showing little signs of investigating further: [Click headline for more…] Read more
