The Times of India reports that an 11-year-old girl, Rimsha Masih, has been arrested for blasphemy, for alleged Koran desecration in Pakistan. In case you were one of the last people on Earth who was under the illusion that these blasphemy laws were somehow about protecting religious feelings or preventing religiously inspired violence, this should change your mind pretty quickly. Writes The Times: The girl was arrested on Friday by personnel from a women’s police station after a man named… Read more
There doesn’t appear to be a high-res version of the Travis County, Texas seal anywhere online. Just small images like this one: I’ve been staring at that picture and others like it for about 20 minutes now… because, supposedly, there’s a cross in the sky. I don’t see it in any of the images online. But it’s there, the people say. Which is why they got angry when a larger version of the seal was created for the county’s Hall… Read more
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In 2006, the Kentucky legislature introduced a law that would force the state’s Department of Homeland Security to declare in its training materials that security is unattainable without reliance on “Almighty God.” American Atheists sued, saying this went against the state and federal Constitutions. A judge agreed with them… but an Appeals Court reversed the ruling on a 2-1 decision. Back in November, AA asked the state Supreme Court to step in and fix the problem. Now, the state Supreme… Read more
When your atheist group is tabling on campus, grab a bunch of Heath bars and fix them like Michaelyn did: (via WWJTD) Read more
Libby Anne has an interesting take on what she considers to be the three kinds of Creationists: 1. The Ignorant: This group consists of those who are creationists because they don’t understand evolution and haven’t seen the huge accumulation of evidence in favor of evolution and the massive amounts of evidence against young earth creationism. Frequently those in this group are ignorant because they have been lied to, intentionally misled by creationist leaders about what evolution involves and about the… Read more
A couple of weeks ago, Missourians passed Amendment 2, which was unnecessary legislation protecting the right to private prayer (which no one has ever had problems with)… and allowing students to use the excuse “It violates my religious beliefs” when they don’t want to learn something. That’s not necessarily the bill’s intention, but it’s now allowed. On NPR, guest host Jacki Lyden spoke with the bill’s sponsor State Rep. Mike McGhee and the Anti-Defamation League’s Karen Aroesty, who fought against… Read more
I love listening to Catholics explain why condoms are evil because their rationale is so out-of-your-mind ridiculous that they’re just begging people not to take them seriously. Like Marc Barnes at Bad Catholic (and 1Flesh): We know that contraception works against the nature of love, which is total and life-giving, and thus violates the natural law. We can quite easily point out the damage the widespread embrace of contraception has done to our culture, to our perception of new life,… Read more
This is neat: Cara Santa Maria of HuffPo hosted a panel of atheists speaking about religion, science, and morality. Why only atheists? Because this wasn’t a debate about god and the supernatural. There’s no proof of any of that nonsense. Let’s move on and talk about things that really matter. Panelists included Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine, Theoretical Physicist Sean Carroll, and Edward Falzon (author of the parody Being Gay Is Disgusting). Also chiming in (albeit from a distance) are… Read more
