I know we’ve seen more than enough interviews with Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins about their movie The Unbelievers, but this segment on Ontario’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin is worth a listen if for no other reason than Paikin (a gracious host who isn’t trying to pick a fight) questions Dawkins’ “charm” in the film (around the 4:50 mark): [Click headline for more…] Read more
Tulsa, Oklahoma has gone through a major transformation over the past few years. (Or so we’re told, anyway.) Should we credit the investment in infrastructure? The tax breaks that brought in new companies? All the non-profit groups that made a difference? Nope. Mayor Dewey Bartlett and his wife Victoria say it’s none of the above: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Anthony Foxx, Mayor of Charlotte and President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation, issued a proclamation declaring yesterday a “Day of Reason”: So, of course, FOX News Channel was going to talk about it. And who better to talk about it than Anthony Foxx someone from the American Humanist Association the CEO of Concerned Women for America Penny Nance… because that makes sense. She didn’t let FOX News down, either, explaining how the age of reason eventually led us to… well, just watch: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Pope Francis’ pronouncement yesteday on Twitter might come as a bit of surprise: My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost.— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) May 2, 2013 Benedict XVI made similar gestures during his reign, which predated the now-routine practice of official papal tweeting, but this message seems different in tone. I note a distinct absence of appeals to the supernatural; Francis does not claim that unemployment jeopardizes man’s capacity to walk with God, avoid sin, etc. He likely would have expanded on these points in a forum that allowed for elaboration, yes, but the name of the game on Twitter is concision, and careful thought went into the tweet’s precise composition. [Click headline for more…] Read more
After right-wing websites wrongly claimed that Mikey Weinstein (founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation) had been hired by the Pentagon, Mikey appeared on The O’Reilly Factor last night to discuss the religion problem in the military (totally a coincidence, I’m sure): All things considered, they had way more in common than I thought they would. Since Bill O’Reilly kept trying to elucidate exactly which Bible passages the “Jesus Rifles” cited — as if that actually matters — here’s what they said: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Normally, I’d be put off by an album called “The Five Pillars” but rapper Jack of Co.Z and producer The Mad Psyentist are using it as a launching pad for a conceptual EP with secular themes. All five pillars — Pray, Mono, Give, Fast, Hajj — are included in the song below. It took a minute or so for me to get into the music, but I really enjoyed it after that! Just fantastic lyrics (which you can find here): [Click headline for more…] Read more
Sometime last year, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback was interviewed on a call-in radio show. A listener asked him on air if he would ever consider meeting with atheists, and Brownback said he would. Was he just trying to be nice? It didn’t matter. Local atheists worked for months to get that “promised” meeting with him and yesterday a small group of them (along with one Christian) finally met with the Governor: [Click headline for more…] Read more
The city of Chicago — and the whole state of Illinois, really — doesn’t know how to handle money. I know (first-hand) how horribly they’ve handled pensions for teachers and our last mayor left a legacy of throwing away millions of future dollars to fill short-term budget gaps. The latest controversial money-making decision involves asking non-profits in the city to pay for water, which they’re generally been able to use for free. Over the weekend, Mayor Rahm Emanuel put forth a compromise plan that would only require non-profit groups with assets over $1,000,000 to have to pay for water. But churches are non-profit groups, too, and the Catholic Church isn’t exactly synonymous with poverty… so they’re not taking this news well, as they made clear in a press conference yesterday: [Click headline for more…] Read more
At last year’s graduation ceremony for Veterans High School in Georgia, Superintendent Robin Hines went full-force in making sure Christianity was honored along with the students. The event included a formal prayer, the singing of a gospel song (“Find Your Wings” by Mark Harris), and Hines himself spoke to the students about how they needed to “live life with a strong faith in God.” Wes Bryant, an actual veteran who was there to watch his niece graduate, couldn’t believe what he was hearing so he alerted the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which sent the school a complaint letter: “It’s really angering to come back and be exposed to that — to be expected to be a Christian wherever I’m at and not have your beliefs or lack of belief honored in your community,” said Bryant, an atheist, when reached by phone Monday. “(Christianity) is the majority religion, we know that, but it is nonetheless honoring one religion at a public school forum.” … “It alienates everyone else that doesn’t believe the same way, and it does send a message from the school, which does in some way represent the government,” he said. At the time, Hines made no promise of changing anything in the future, and that’s usually a bad sign. You would expect him to keep things just the way they are. [Click headline for more…] Read more
The Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association has just sued Carroll County, Maryland for opening their Board of Commissioners’ public meetings with “Commissioner-delivered sectarian prayers.” In other words, not only do the Commissioners hold prayers at meetings, they praise Jesus like nobody’s business. What’s surprising about this case may be the nature of one of the plaintiffs: [Click headline for more…] Read more
