Heather Henderson is the lead singer for Penn Jillette’s No God Band and co-hosts two podcasts, Ardent Atheist and Skeptically Yours. She also does a segment called “The News In Religion” for the Skepticality podcast. Read more
Churches are not places to ask questions, we all know that. If you doubt what the church believes, if you challenge the “wisdom” of the Bible, if you poke holes in the pastor’s arguments…let’s face it; you’re not the type of person they’re looking for. So you can guess how things went in Perham, Minnesota when Fikri Rahmat (from Indonesia) and Elshan Mirzazade (from Azerbaijan), both Muslim exchange students, attended a church service featuring speaker Walid Shoebat, a Muslim-turned-Christian who now goes around claiming (among other things) that Islam equates to terrorism. The boys wanted to go because they knew Shoebat is notorious for saying crazy things about their faith. Read more
Kimberly Winston at Religion News Service has an incredible profile of 20-year-old “Samya,” an ex-Muslim woman who grew out of her faith and ran away from her family to avoid being the victim of an honor killing: Read more
Lauren Drain’s father visited Westboro Baptist Church over a decade ago while making a documentary film (which was tentatively titled Hatemongers). When he returned home a month later, he was a different man. He had internalized what they were preaching and eventually moved his entire family, including 14-year-old Lauren, to Kansas to become members of Fred Phelps’ church. Now, Lauren has written a book about her experience with the “God Hates Fags” family called Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church (Grand Central Publishing, 2013). Read more
Back in December, the Iowa State Supreme Court made a unanimous and absurd decision (whether or not there was a legal basis for it). The backstory is this: Christian dentist James Knight worked for over a decade alongside his female assistant, Melissa Nelson. Their relationship was purely platonic, but Knight couldn’t deal with the fact that she was attractive (PDF): Read more
Myq Kaplan is one of my favorite comedians. “A Jewy-ish atheistic vegan,” his humor is intelligent, nerdy, and genuinely funny. (I did an interview with him on this site a couple of years ago.) Read more
You atheists and your sodomaniacal ways… look at what you would do to this sweet family if your wishes came true and gay marriage was legalized: Read more
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A couple of weeks ago, after agreeing to speak at bigoted Pastor Robert Jeffress’ church, quarterback Tim Tebow changed his mind. He said it was “due to new information that has been brought to my attention.” Read more
A billboard company, although they initially refused to run [American Atheists’] original preference of the Rick Perry and George W. Bush designs, changed their tune when CNN contacted them about running a story about their refusal. Read more
After planning to put up a billboard in Austin, Texas featuring a quotation by Sarah Palin — one that she never actually said, though her intent was the same — they’re going to fix the sign so that it properly quotes her. Read more
