Seth Andrews, The Thinking Atheist, tackles the right-wing talking point that America is a “Christian nation”… whatever that means: The most important rebuttals begin at the 1:35 mark. Read more
I knew it! My fellow Americans, can I have a moment of your time? It would appear that, following yesterday’s leaking of a video that shows me effectively writing off half the nation’s voters, we can pretty safely say my presidential campaign has come to an end. Oh, technically it may still exist, sure, but let’s be honest with each other: It’s all over. And I have fully accepted that reality. So, with that in mind, I would like to… Read more
Sam Harris’ latest piece, “On the Freedom to Offend an Imaginary God,” has only been up for a few hours, but it’s spreading fast (and crashing his servers, apparently). In it, he denounces those who stress “religious sensitivity” to Muslims in response to the “Innocence of Muslims” video instead of full-blown support for free speech: What exactly was in the film? Who made it? What were their motives? Was Muhammad really depicted? Was that a Qur’an burning, or some other… Read more
It’s been over a week since protests erupted across the Muslim world in response to the “Innocence of Muslims” video. I’ve seen the video in question — it’s bad. Laughably bad. A VHS recording of my very first nativity play circa 1993 has higher quality production. Sadly, the quality of a video is not enough to be banned from YouTube — if that were the case, we might have been spared the deluge of pointless cat videos. The video does… Read more
Recently,Richard Dawkins received the 2012 “Services to Humanism” award from the British Humanist Association. In his acceptance speech, he talked about the importance of science education and proposed a new college degree… … with evolution at the centre, branching out into philosophy, economics, engineering, medicine, agriculture, social science, linguistics, physics, cosmology, computer science, and more… You can watch the speech below: As always, if any moments stand out, please leave the timestamp and sum Read more
When I was twelve years old, I was really concerned about whether or not I could learn and perform all of the dances from Britney Spears’ videos. It was a big deal, and took up a whole lot of my time. And this was before YouTube and DVRs. I was most certainly not writing concerned letters to presidential candidates. Heck, I couldn’t even be bothered to write fan letters. Jackson Ripley thinks Mitt Romney is getting some big things wrong in his campaign,… Read more
This is the last chance to sit on your butt while making a huge difference. Voting for the Chase Community Giving Program ends tonight at midnight and the Secular Student Alliance, Camp Quest, and Foundation Beyond Belief all have a chance at winning lots of money. As of this writing, the SSA is *barely* hanging on to the $50,000 prize… while FBB and CQ are solidly in the $20,000 camp. But all of that can change tonight if we don’t… Read more
Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King has announced the discovery of a 2nd century fragment of papyrus that contains the words “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…'” So what does this mean? Well, it turns out, not a whole hell of a lot: King has been quick to add this discovered text “does not, however, provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married,” she wrote in a draft of her analysis of the fragment set to appear in the January edition of… Read more
A judge in Edmonton (Alberta) has decided against saving the life of a two-year-old girl, over the objections of the parents. It sounds like the decree of a wicked judge, but there’s more nuance to this story. The girl’s parents stand accused of severely abusing both her and her twin sister. The extent of the abuse is horrific: … paramedics arrived at the family’s Edmonton home and found young twin girls emaciated. One was in cardiac arrest. That twin had… Read more
