Earlier this week Brittney Griner, widely considered one of the best female basketball players of all time, did something no one in a major men’s sport in the U.S. has done so far: She came out as gay. Perhaps even more remarkably, no one cared. Maybe it is because there are already out WNBA players (like WNBA great Sheryl Swoopes). Maybe it is because people aren’t surprised that a woman who is athletic is gay. Or maybe it’s because Griner wasn’t in the closet to begin with. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Reuters has a fascinating article about the efforts of Wang Zuoan, head of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, to weed out superstition in order to achieve and maintain state stability. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Back in high school, not long after I began coming out to close friends as an atheist, I was given a Bible by someone I knew. She thought that if I read it, I might learn something. So I began reading it. And I marked up all the questionable passages and contradictions I could find. Then I came across Skeptics Annotated Bible and found out someone had already done all the work for me. Anyone who has ever visited the site knows what a valuable resource it is. What do you want to find? Injustice? Misogyny? Contradictions? Violence? It’s all marked up for you. Creator Steve Wells recently released the book we’ve all been waiting for: an actual annotated Bible: [Click headline for more…] Read more
On Friday night’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher interviewed Brian Levin of the Center for Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. As you might expect, the discussion began with a mention of the religious beliefs (Islam) of the Boston bombers. (There’s no evidence yet, of course, linking their religious beliefs to their actions.) Levin argued that religious extremism, if that’s what this was, isn’t limited to Islam. There are extremists in just about every faith. Maher called that “liberal bullshit” and the argument began: [Click headline for more…] Read more
I saw this eye-popping headline in my inbox and on Twitter the other day: Rabbi bans Orthodox Jewish men from taking blood donated by women, non Orthodox Jews, non Jews The article, which was written by Ryan Lee Hall for YourJewishNews.com, went on to explain that an unnamed rabbi had written about this in a new book: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Foundation Beyond Belief just released the results from the First Quarter of 2013. Check out the donations — $43,855 in total given by atheists — to the following organizations: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Crispian Jago has a helpful flowchart of the conspiracy theories they don’t want you to see. Turns out there are a bunch I didn’t even know existed! Which only means The Man was keeping them from me: Read more
Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently spoke at the Sydney Opera House-hosted All About Women conference about how everyone ought to condemn cultural practices such as honor killings, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation: I haven’t had a chance to watch the whole talk yet, but please leave important timestamps/summaries in the comments. Read more
