Last February, Lenior City High School senior Krystal Myers wrote an article for the school newspaper called “No Rights: The Life of an Atheist.” The administrators refused to run it because they thought Myers’ exposing the Christian privilege in the school was too controversial. (The Knoxville News Sentinel later ran the full article on their website.) A couple of months later, the school yearbook featured an article by Zac Mitchell called “It’s OK to be Gay.” The administrators were unhappy… Read more
Phase Four of the Secular Coalition for America’s plan to create state chapters across the country begins next 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 Four states, all the details are at the links below: Delaware Washington, DC Idaho Illinois Louisiana Maine Maryland Nevada New Jersey Oregon Wisconsin Be a part of the change and call in if you’re from that… Read more
When it happens, you have to give credit where it’s due. Here’s Christian theologian Caryn Riswold talking about why it was wrong for the Democrats to put God back into their party platform even though the reference wasn’t needed: My beliefs in and about God do not need to be imposed on everyone else. That’s not what a pluralistic democracy looks like. This issue is also what has been at the core of so much of this year’s discussions about… Read more
Bryan Roberts, writing for the magazine RELEVANT, tries to urge his fellow Christians to rise above the hyper-partisan discourse. Among his reminders to other Christians: “Those who argue over politics don’t love their country more than others” and “Thinking your party’s platform is unflawed is a mistake.” Obviously, he has his target audience, but it was this bulletpoint that caught a lot of readers’ eyes: 1. Both political parties go to church. There’s a Christian Left and, perhaps even less… Read more
So much for their “religious liberties” being threatened. United Church of Christ Rev. Emily C. Heath put together a nice quick quiz to determine if your religious liberty is, indeed, under attack. A sampling of the questions: 4. My religious liberty is at risk because: A) I am not allowed to pray privately. B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly. … 8. My religious liberty is at risk because: A) Another… Read more
Bill Nye, eat your heart out. CNN has an interview with Richard Dawkins in which he elaborates on the importance and truth of evolution. He holds nothing back and he’s not in the habit of trying to be politically correct when it comes to science education. So this is fun to watch 🙂 How do you think evolution should be taught to children? You can’t even begin to understand biology, you can’t understand life, unless you understand what it’s all… Read more
Though you won’t see the two major party nominees donning lab coats behind their podiums (podia?) hurling beakers at each other, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney participated in a “debate” on science-related issues. Well, more like their campaigns submitted written responses on science policy questions to the ScienceDebates.org organization, which were recently posted on their website. The good news is that it looks like the campaigns took these questions fairly seriously. In fact, it is Romney’s answers that, on the… Read more
David Hayward (a.k.a. nakedpastor) is giving away five “atheish” t-shirts today. All the details are on his site 🙂 Read more
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard did something you rarely see in American politics: She refused to speak to the Australian Christian Lobby as scheduled after its director made an offensive comment about the LGBT community: In answer to a question from the floor, [ACL director Jim] Wallace said smokers were owed “a big apology” as the lifespan of a gay male was reduced by up to 20 years, half that of a smoker. “The life of smokers is reduced by… Read more
