The Kountze Independent School District has been under fire for their decision to stop cheerleaders from holding run-through banners at football games with Bible verses on them after receiving complaints from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. (A judge has overruled the superintendent, allowing the Bible banners temporarily. Last we heard, the Texas Attorney General was lending his support to the district.) In similar cases like this, the church/state separation groups would be demonized and our side would just accept it:… Read more
The Creation Museum’s Ken Ham is so jealous that Bill Nye’s anti-Creationism video has racked up millions of YouTube hits (compared to his group’s fraction of that) that he has doubled-down on his efforts to indoctrinate children: Yesterday, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, we were thrilled to see several hundredkids pouring into North Metro Baptist church for our school assemblies. I just love teaching the children the truth about dinosaurs — that they were made on the sixth day of creation alongside… Read more
The Arkansas Department of Education says that pre-schools receiving taxpayer funding cannot teach religion or pray. That’s a good thing, too, since one of the schools — Growing God’s Kingdom — has received over $2,600,000 over the past several years. Now, they shouldn’t be receiving anything. This is how bad it was there: Staff members are required to “share the love of Jesus” with students, and the school operates with a Christian curriculum that includes a “Bible time” for verses,… Read more
The Ask An Atheist podcast is up for a local award and they need your help! Last year, they took second place. This year, they want to win. They’ve been nominated for “Best Local Podcast” in Evening magazine’s Best of Western Washington — and the winner is determined by online votes… You can support them by going here and voting for them. (You have to “register” but it’s a fairly harmless process. It took me under a minute to vote.)… Read more
Back in 2008, before the elections that year, Focus on the Family put out a futuristic “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America” (PDF) detailing all the awful things that would happen if we let that horrible leftist man take office: … every future “event” described here is based on established legal and political trends that can be abundantly documented and that only need a “tipping point” such as the election of Senator Obama and a Democratic House and Senate to… Read more
The event took place during the Saraswathi Gora Centenary International Conference in India. “This is the first time I performed ‘magic’ on the dais but I do not have stage fear,” [10-year-old Sankalp Gora] declares. “I am an atheist and I want people around me to know the reality, to educate themselves on things which are directly related to their well being,” he says. Read more
This is shocking to me only because it’s the first state to do it, but California has correctly banned the kind of religion-based therapy intended to turn gay kids straight: Gov. Jerry Brown announced Sunday that he has signed Senate Bill 1172, which prohibits children under age 18 from undergoing “sexual orientation change efforts.” The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, prohibits state-licensed therapists from engaging in these practices with minors. “Governor Brown today reaffirmed what medical and mental… Read more
Note: Letter writers’ names are changed to protect their privacy. Dear Richard, I recently moved in with three other girls into a small, one bedroom apartment (we’ve all left home a year early to pursue a very specialized career). Along with the normal problems that accompany living in tight quarters I’ve run into a problem with the music one of my roommates has been listening to- namely Christian rock. She doesn’t wear ear buds and I, raised in a non-religious… Read more
Last Thursday night, the Campus, Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists at the University of Minnesota drew chalk images of Muhammad on campus to “celebrate” Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. These weren’t mean images. Many were stick figures. Some simply alluded to Muhammad indirectly: Still, it didn’t stop the Muslim Student Association on campus from getting upset about it and it didn’t stop certain students from defacing the drawings: The event was sparked by past violent responses to depictions of the prophet and… Read more
It’s a day after International Blasphemy Rights Day, and over the weekend, we learned just how dangerous it can be in certain parts of the world when you criticize the Muslim faith — even accidentally. Here was the scene in Bangladesh: Thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims… set fires in at least 10 Buddhist temples and 40 homes near the southern border with Myanmar, authorities said Sunday. Buddhists?! What did Buddhists do?! What caused all the violence? Get this: A “local Buddhist… Read more
