You know what’s better than The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide? Me reading The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide to you while you drive. Or run. Or go to bed. Yay for audio books! There’s a sample clip up on Amazon and you can also purchase the audiobook at iTunes. Hope you like it! Read more
Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live aired a trailer for a movie called “Djesus Uncrossed”: If you’re like most people, your reaction was, “That was amusing. I didn’t know SNL still did funny things… or was still on the air.” But let’s be honest about the skit: It was mocking Quentin Tarantino and his love of rewriting history and adding a lot of blood to the mix. It wasn’t actually making fun of the Bible… Read more
You all remember Pastor Steven Anderson’s ultra-offensive and misogynistic sermon on the qualities of a “virtuous woman” (a.k.a. The greatest sermon *ever*). I wrote about it here. The folks at BetterOffDamned created a video response to the sermon — interspersed with their own commentary. It’s awesome. I especially love the bits at 4:50 and 13:42 🙂 Read more
If you’re as obsessed with Survivor as I am, then you definitely have a lot of respect for former contestant Yau-Man Chan. He was smart, clever enough to create the first fake Immunity Idol, and incredibly popular throughout his season. Chan recently filmed a segment for Chris Johnson’s multimedia book about atheists and what gives them joy and meaning in life. Read more
Although 38-year-old Vance Salley of North Carolina is an atheist now, that hasn’t always been the case. With an Islamic father and a Catholic-raised mother, there was confusion growing up. He says now that although he believed in a “higher power,” deist may have been the most accurate description of his beliefs until he reached the age of 15. It was at that time that he became interested in reading about Egyptian, Greek, and Norse mythology. Read more
The New York Times’ Frank Bruni explains why the election of a new Pope has virtually no impact on the lives of many Catholics: Read more
Over the weekend, Richard Dawkins tweeted a set of statements ending with the sarcastic phrase “Makes sense”: Read more
School districts in 45 states have committed to something called the “Common Core State Standards Initiative” — a national standardized curriculum that will revise what students learn in many courses. (A lot of my professional development days over the past couple of years have been devoted to explaining how the Geometry and Algebra classes I teach will change, and how that’ll help the kids, and how this will solve all the education problems *ever*… you get the idea.) … We can debate whether that idea makes sense and there is certainly a lot of valid criticism against Common Core… but I hadn’t heard this complaint until now: Read more
For six years, gay Catholics have congregated at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in London’s Soho neighborhood for their own Catholic mass. But no more: the Archbishop of Westminster has asked service organizers to take their talents elsewhere, and the mass has met for the last time. Read more
