For the past several years, New Humanist magazine has been handing out the Bad Faith Award. The award goes to “the person who has made the year’s most outstanding contribution to talking unadulterated (and often destructive) nonsense about matters of religion.” Recent winners include Conservative MP Nadine Dorries (2011), Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed (2010), the Pope (2009), Sarah Palin (2008) and Dinesh D’Souza (2007). Who should be nominated this year? Let them know! Maybe the entire Republican Party should just… Read more
My friend Gregory Walsh is working on a documentary about a pair of human rights activists in India trying to make things better for the dalits (the “untouchables”) under the caste system. For 20 days, we lived and worked with two of Video Volunteers’ community correspondents, Varsha Jawalkgekar and Mukesh Rajak, producing a pair of short films about their lives and work. During the short time we spent with Varsha and Mukesh, we were privileged to be witness to the… Read more
Erin Williams of The Root interviewed Mark Hatcher about the difficulties of being an African-American living “outside of mainstream historically black religions.” This particular passage stood out: I have at least two long-term relationships terminated simply because of [my beliefs]… I almost feel a responsibility, when I’m interested in someone, to just put it out there. I feel like that’s the responsible thing to do because I feel like I’d be leading somebody on otherwise, and that’s not true, but… Read more
Dave Silverman, the president of American Atheists, gave a talk at the 2012 Secular Student Alliance conference answering the question: “Now what?” This was shortly after the Reason Rally and Silverman was telling the crowd what the Rally accomplished and where we can/should go from here: As always, leave the timestamps of your favorite moments and the summaries in the comments! Read more
Phase Five of the Secular Coalition for America’s plan to create state chapters across the country begins this week with conference calls for people interested in creating the chapters! If you’d like to help be a part of the SCA’s efforts in the Phase Five states, all the details are at the links below. Take note that the calls for Alaska and Utah happen today: Alaska Indiana Nebraska New Hampshire North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Vermont West Virginia Wyoming… Read more
This is librarian James Klise’s take on why he loves celebrating Banned Books Week: I support any person’s right to read anything he or she chooses. In my own library each year, we celebrate Banned Books Week with a showy shelf display and signs encouraging students to check out a “banned book.” In doing so, I trick students into reading my favorite classics, like “Native Son,” “The Color Purple” and “Catch-22.” I confess, my colleagues and I have approached Banned… Read more
Pennsylvania State Representative Babette Josephs (D-Philadelphia) is getting a lot of flak tonight for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance during a House Committee meeting earlier today: The drama unfolded at what was billed as a non-controversial House State Government Committee meeting Wednesday morning. Republican Chairman Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) asked Josephs to lead the group in the Pledge of Allegiance; a rather routine request that became anything but when Josephs refused. “Based on my First Amendment rights and based… Read more
Libby Anne wrote a whatever-the-opposite-of-a-love-letter-is to her purity ring: … Even when I left for college I kept you on my finger, broadcasting my purity to the world. You set me apart as different, special, pure. When I started dating my first boyfriend he told me that he didn’t care whether I was “pure” or not. He told me that what I’d chosen to do with my body before meeting him didn’t matter to him at all. And he was… Read more
Peter Boghossian, a philosophy professor at Portland State University, recently invited Steve Goldman (also a philosophy professor) to give a lecture on the History of Atheism. That lecture was recorded and begins at the 8:00 mark in the video below: As always, if any portions stand out to you, please leave the timestamp and summary in the comments! Read more
