A couple of years ago on National Ask An Atheist Day, a high school student’s mother was so offended that atheists were answering questions during lunch periods that she removed her kids from school that day… because nothing scares religious parents more than the thought of kids getting their questions about faith answered by people who aren’t going to feed them the standard church lines. The annual event, taking place this Thursday, is great for giving atheists the opportunity to dispel stereotypes and answer honest questions without being combative or defensive — a scary thought for anyone who thrives on spreading rumors about who we are or what we believe: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Seen on Wellesley College’s Facebook page: Awesome 🙂 In case you missed the earlier story, read this. Read more
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Church’s “goodwill ambassador to secular non-believers,” has big plans for dialogues between Catholics and non-Catholics in early May. He’s bringing his “Courtyard of the Gentiles” on the road for its first-ever Latin American experience at universities in Monterrey, Puebla, and Mexico City. The “Courtyard of the Gentiles” is the name Pope Benedict XVI gave to Ravasi’s dialogue sessions, planned as a tool of outreach aimed at atheists and agnostics. In this particular case, the topic up for discussion will be the problem of drug trafficking in Mexico, and the somewhat sticky problem of traffickers’ devout professions of faith. Atheists are used to being asked whether one can be good without God, but how can some people be so bad with God? These sessions will take a look at that question. [Click headline for more…] Read more
The legendary philosopher and promoter of Secular Humanism Paul Kurtz died last October. He was someone who always cared less about God’s existence and more about what we ought to do with our lives after we’d figured out that God didn’t exist. His final book, published yesterday, is called The Turbulent Universe. In it, he lays out his vision of a global ethics based on universal human rights, free inquiry, and living with exuberance. Below is an excerpt from the book in which he questions the improbable events in our life: [Click headline for more…] Read more
New Zealand’s parliament voted 77 to 44 on Wednesday to pass a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, making the country the first in the Asia-Pacific region and the 13th in the world to embrace marriage equality. The law is expected to take effect in August. New Zealand has allowed civil unions for same-sex couples since 2005, but the new marriage equality law will confer two more crucial rights: couples will be allowed to jointly adopt children, and their marriages will be recognized in other countries. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Thursday marks the annual anti-gay “Day of Dialogue” in which participants can tell their LGBT classmates why they’re going to hell. It’s the Christian response to Friday’s gay-friendly “Day of Silence.” This is the card (PDF) participants will be handing out: [Click headline for more…] Read more
RoundGames.com has created a Vatican-themed video game — try it out here! — that has sparked outrage amongst Spanish Catholics in particular: Players take on the role of a pixelated pontiff, who bears a distinct resemblance to ex-Pope Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The Pope leaps to high balconies to retrieve altar boys, then delivers them to shifty-eyed cardinals who disappear with the youngsters into darkened Vatican rooms. To complicate things, the Pope must avoid or attack roving reporters with cameras and microphones, bent on exposing the scandal. If a reporter catches the pontiff with a boy in tow, it’s game over for the Catholic Church. [Click headline for more…] Read more
It’s incredible that some public high school administrators still haven’t learned how to vet assembly speakers to make sure they’re not spouting religious-based nonsense. In Charleston, West Virginia, George Washington High School recently brought in Pam Stenzel to speak about the importance of making good decisions. Unfortunately, in Stenzel’s mind, abstinence is the only good decision when it comes to sex, and anyone who’s had any sort of sexual contact with someone they weren’t married to is going to pay the price for it. Just check out what she says at the 3:10 mark in her promo video below: If you have sex outside of one, permanent, monogamous… partner who has only been with you… If you have sex outside of that context, you will pay. No one has ever had more than one partner and not paid. Bullshit. Sex, by itself, isn’t a bad thing. You have to be emotionally ready for it. You should know how to protect yourself. You should know that abstinence isn’t a dirty word if you choose to stay that way. But having sex doesn’t make you a bad person. That’s not what Stenzel told the students, though: [Click headline for more…] Read more
It’s one of the truisms of Catholic schools: The students are often more compassionate and wise than the adults who are supposed to lead them. The latest piece of evidence: Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus Ohio recently fired Physical Education department chair Carla Hale. What did she do that was so perverse, so awful, so deplorable? Well, in an obituary for her mother, Carla was listed as a survivor along with her partner Julie. [Click headline for more…] Read more
