Paul Fidalgo alerted me to two interesting takes on a recent meta-analysis of acupuncture research. The research wanted to know if there was evidence supporting acupuncture’s usage over no acupuncture and “fake” acupuncture. Let’s see what the Associated Press said about the research in its opening paragraph: Acupuncture gets a thumbs-up for helping relieve pain from chronic headaches, backaches and arthritis in a review of more than two dozen studies — the latest analysis of an often-studied therapy that has… Read more
Annaka Harris has written what looks to be a wonderful children’s book that atheist parents (and all parents, really) will appreciate: I Wonder is about a little girl named Eva who takes a walk with her mother and encounters a range of mysteries — from gravity, to life cycles, to the vastness of the universe. She learns to talk about how it feels to not know something, and she learns that it’s okay to say “I don’t know.” Eva discovers… Read more
S.E. Cupp, one of the hosts of MSNBC’s “The Cycle,” is a self-loathing atheist. Though she oftens touts how she’s Godless and Republican, she repeatedly makes assertions that make you question her atheism. Among her many on-air statements: “I envy religious people… I envy the faithful. I would like to be a person of faith, but I’m not there yet…” … “Speaking of atheists, I find atheists — militant atheists — to be among the most intolerant people that I’ve… Read more
The Illinois Family Institute is back and they’re going after their arch-nemeses: English teachers. Because, as we all know, English departments are stacked with evil liberals who must be stopped at all costs. Here’s what you need to know. The teacher in question teaches an elective “film as lit” class for seniors. In essence, instead of reading and analyzing novels for message, technique, structure, etc., they do it with movies. Ideally, you need to select movies that have a lot… Read more
I stopped watching The Newsroom about halfway into the season… so I missed this gem on how we’re not a “Christian nation”: Will McAvoy: During Tea Party rallys and in campaign speeches, we’ve been told that America was founded as a Christian nation and if the founding fathers were here today, they’d tell us so. Here’s John Adams in the Treaty of Tripoli: “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”… Read more
Pastor Terry Jones, a Christian pastor who specializes in making everyone in the world hate him, recently announced yesterday that today was International Judge Muhammad Day: In the video, Jones refers to “Hussein Obama,” calls Muhammad “Mo,” says Muhammad was a pedophile… the list goes on. Jones was also promoting a movie with a misnomer of a title — Innocence of Muslims — that compares Muhammad to a goat and Muslims to “child-lovers.” Anyway, there are now riots taking place… Read more
In July of 2011, the new head of Focus on the Family, Jim Daly, caused a bit of a stir in the evangelical Christian world when he answered a question about gay marriage in an interview this way: [Question] We’re winning the younger generation on abortion, at least in theory. What about same-sex marriage? [Answer] We’re losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage. I don’t know if that’s… Read more
Is there anything funnier than when you get your words all jumbled up? Like when you try to say “butternut squash” and it comes out “squtternut bosh”?! Classic comedy! Or, like, when you say, “Yeah, I’ve been paying rent to live in this church-owned and tax-exempt house since 2008.” But what you really meant to say was, “No, I most certainly do not pay rent to live in this house.” Tears! I have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard…. Read more
Professor Anthony Pinn filmed a segment for Chris Johnson’s multimedia book about atheists and what gives them joy and meaning in life. In the segment below, Pinn talks about “those who say you can’t live a purposeful life without God”: (via The Atheist Book) Read more
This is pretty awesome: Eli August created a line of vegan soaps (and other hygienic products) and he’s selling them on Etsy. My favorite name from his product line? LavenDarwin Soap: Be part of Chuck Darwin’s theory of “Smellvolution” with this soothing scent. This vegan soap is made with Lavender essential oil. Also for sale on his site? Samuel cLemons Soap, Edgar Allan Potpourri Soap, and Ni-clove-a Tesla Soap. Love it 🙂 (Thanks to Autumn for the link!) Read more