West Point cadets scheduled to graduate in 2013 have been presented a survey of their leadership traits every year since 2009. That doesn’t sound bad… until you realize the survey includes promotion of spirituality, religion, and faith without accommodation for the nontheist perspective. The Commandant of Cadets distributed the survey with these instructions: “You have been part of a 4-year study to determine the effect of the West Point Experience on development as a Leader of Character… seeking your responses and… Read more
At least something funny has come of this whole “legitimate rape” debacle: The Choose Ryan, Lose Choice Tumblr. Read more
If you’ve been anywhere on blogs today, you may have noticed an increase in nice comments. That’s because today is Anti-Trolling Day, the creation of Mike Mei. According to him, anti-trolling is counter-acting the effects of trolling (or similar behaviors) by commenting or tweeting positive things in response to good work, or to bloggers or activists you appreciate. Mike also took some time to answer some questions about the reasoning behind this event. Why are you doing Anti-Trolling Day (ATD)? I am… Read more
This is Pastor Rick Warren shortly after the Aurora theater shootings: (He claimed there was no connection between the shootings and his tweet… but deleted the tweet, anyway.) This is Pastor Rick Warren saying that acting on one’s homosexuality is a sign of immaturity: This is Pastor Rick Warren incorrectly explaining why you’re an atheist: This is Pastor Rick Warren telling his staffers not to follow atheists on Twitter because… well, who knows why. And this is Pastor Rick Warren… Read more
This has been in the works for a while and it has finally been released. Mark Oppenheimer of the New York Times moderated an informal debate between gay rights activist (and all around awesome person) Dan Savage and the National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown: The video is below. It’s about an hour long. I’m gonna watch this over dinner. If you see anything interesting, leave the timestamps and summaries in the comment section! ***Update***: Having watched it, I was… Read more
When I was younger, I really liked the T.V. show The Monkees. Yes, it was 1995, so I was a bit behind the times, but that show is awesome and transcends time and space. Anyway there was one silly episode called “Monkees Mind Their Manor.” Davy Jones gets called back to England to inherit some mansion but here’s the twist: He has to stay in the manor for 5 years! Hilarity ensues! That old “you get the inheritance if you do this really silly… Read more
Here’s something you probably didn’t know: The Washington National Cathedral has its own magazine. And here’s something you probably did know: Both of the presidential candidates really, really like faith. Cathedral Age has just published a dual Q&A (PDF) with President Obama and Mitt Romney, asking each the same set of questions about their faith and its role in public policy. Their answers will surely not shock you, but they are illuminating in some ways. For example, the President talks… Read more
A new study released by The Chronicle of Philanthropy seems to suggest that the most religious states (especially in the South) are also the most charitable: Donors in Southern states, for instance, give roughly 5.2 percent of their discretionary income to charity — both to religious and to secular groups — compared with donors in the Northeast, who give 4.0 percent. But take a look at that wording: “Both to religious and to secular groups”… In other words, church counts… Read more
This is the cover of the latest issue of The Humanist: Molly Stone illustrated the cover (with design input from Lisa Zangerl) and she describes the process of creating it here. As always, select articles from the issue are available online and on this site. Read more
