In Rapid City, South Dakota, the City Council always begins meetings with an invocation delivered by a “local minister”: Read more
I got a request from someone at NBC working on a piece about atheist parents who are not necessarily raising their kids to be non-religious: Read more
Jeffery Jay Lowder, the founder of Internet Infidels (one of the first major Internet hubs for atheists), is now on Patheos! His blog is called The Secular Outpost: Read more
It’s an idea most atheists probably find pretty familiar, if not resonant: vulnerable believers, scared and alone, taking comfort in imagining a benefactor or guardian figure, a surrogate parent of fantasy who they come to believe is real. The concept goes literal in Guillermo del Toro’s Mama when two kidnapped children, found living feral in the woods five years later, come to live with their uncle. Psychologists, witnessing the girls’ interactions with their invisible protector, theorize that Victoria and Lily invented Mama to help them cope with their trauma, terror, and abandonment. Read more
Darwin Day is coming up soon and you can find an event celebrating Darwin’s birthday in your area through DarwinDay.org. I was curious to see what other events were happening in my state and I was horrified to discover that the Discovery Institute (the think tank devoted to spreading “Intelligent Design”) was also hosting a Darwin Day event. Some time in the last few days, the post was pulled from DarwinDay.org but the event is still listed on the group’s own website: Read more
Several months ago, I posted about a couple of researchers hoping to speak with atheist teachers. You all responded like crazy and they got what they wanted; now, they’re hoping to expand their base: Read more
Ladies and gentleman, this may surprise you, but I was not always the wildly successful part-time freelance writer you see before you today. There were many years of my life where I made my living waiting tables. I was a server, my boyfriend was a server, my brother was a server, most of my friends have been servers, all of my servers have been servers. I’m surrounded by the noble men and women of the service industry. As a result, nothing raises my hackles quite like bad tippers. Especially passive-aggressive bad tippers who justify their behavior with faith: Read more
Several months ago, I had some conversations with the folks at Hyperink. They publish books, some from scratch and others from previously published content. We talked about putting together some of my favorites posts from the past several years, organized around a few common themes, into a collection. I was hesitant at first, but when I saw that they had also put out books by Robert Scoble and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, I jumped on board pretty quickly. Read more
Now, the San Diego Coalition of Reason is back with a new design (created by graphic artist Bruce Harris) and a new message that’s bound to get all sorts of publicity since it’s modeled after Christians who say they have a “personal relationship with Jesus” Read more
I thought Florist-gate ended a year ago. I was wrong. The backstory: After Jessica Ahlquist won her legal battle to take down a religious banner from the wall of her public high school, the Freedom From Religion Foundation tried to send her flowers as a congratulatory gift. No florist in the Cranston, Rhode Island area would deliver them to her. Including Twins Florist: Read more
