The Ottawa Citizen runs a feature each week called “Ask the Religion Experts.” Representatives from religious (and non-religious) backgrounds are invited to comment on general religion-related question. (So, in other words, there’s one expert.) This week’s question: Are monotheistic religions more prone to violence? You get a lot of No, Jesus Christ calls us to be non-violent and Religion isn’t responsible for evil any more than race or ethnicity are and Those who commit violent acts in the name of… Read more
Because Christian Right leader Bryan Fischer knows soooooo much about women’s health: As Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch points out, … rape does not make pregnancy either impossible or unlikely, and there are other types of rape than “forcible rape,” such as statutory rape or cases where consent isn’t offered or is impossible. Even Akin has apologized for what he said (though, if he has his way, he still won’t give women control over their own bodies). But I… Read more
I wasn’t able to go to TAM 10 this past summer, but Dr. Pamela Gay’s talk was one of the ones everyone seemed to be talking about on Twitter. After watching it, it’s east to see why: There are two separate parts worth listening to (though the whole thing is pretty good): At 11:40, she talks about Internet trolls and the abundance of people who love to complain without offering anything of substance in turn. That should be a new… Read more
Note: Letter writers’ names are changed to protect their privacy. Dear Richard, I met my boyfriend little more than a year ago. He is Catholic and I’m an atheist. I wasn’t raised in a religious household and I don’t believe in God. A couple of months ago my boyfriend and l had an argument about religion. He never goes to church and I frankly didn’t think he was very religious. However he told me that if I wasn’t ready to… Read more
Bill Maher makes a throwaway comment during the opening sequences of his “CrazyStupidPolitics” show that suddenly seems very apt. Maher is describing watching from the sidelines as the Republicans go through the process of searching for new leaders over the last few years. He describes the process as illuminating, resulting in the revelation: “There is no bottom, I thought Dan Quayle was the bottom 20 years ago.” I’m sure Maher will do a far greater job than I of tearing into the man trying to make… Read more
At the beginning of school last year, our teachers’ cafeteria was closed… so if we wanted lunch, we had to get it from the same place the students did. That meant longer lines during an already-short lunch period… (not to mention 3289423 awkward interactions with students). But I wouldn’t mind that much if we took a page from a school in Louisiana and found a way to speed up the whole lunch-buying process: Moss Bluff Elementary School in Louisiana is… Read more
In New Zealand, the Associate Education Minister John Banks just made a frightening revelation: He’s a Creationist. … he believes the Genesis account of the start of life on Earth. According to the Bible, God made the world in six days, with Adam and Eve being his last act of creation. … “That’s what I believe, but I’m not going to impose my beliefs on other people, especially in this post-Christian society that we live in, especially in these lamentable… Read more
This is an article by Marco Rosaire Rossi. It appears in the September/October 2012 issue of The Humanist. You can read other articles from this issue and subscribe to the magazine by going to their website. Note: All URLs and images below are my own additions, because I thought they’d be helpful. … The American Atheists’ annual convention held this past March had some surprising attendees. Between the usual suspects in the exhibit area selling secular literature and soliciting memberships… Read more
They weren’t “I’ve found Jesus!” In anticipation of his final book Mortality, to be released on September 4th, his widow Carol Blue penned an afterword which was released online this weekend: I can’t seem to access the full piece at The Daily Telegraph, but you can catch glimpses of it at Google Books. Here’s Carol Blue: His last words of the unfinished fragmentary jottings at the end of this little book may seem to trail off, but in fact they… Read more
