This picture has been going around on the Facebooks: Just a few quick thoughts: Inappropriate use “of” quotation marks is one of my favorite things. Really? Tuition is free? What happened to tithing? The “winning souls” thing makes me vaguely uncomfortable. As if I’m the assignment they need to work on. Does anyone spellcheck these things before putting it online? Read more
Here’s something optimistic for your Sunday afternoon: Death! In his talk at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Sam Harris gave a talk on “Death and the Present Moment”: As always, if there are any bits we should pay special attention to, just leave the timestamp and a summary in the comments. Read more
The town of Franklin, Vermont will no longer be saying prayers at their annual March meeting thanks to one courageous woman, Marilyn Hackett. Since 2000, the beginning of the annual meeting has included a Christian prayer like this one: Let us pray together. Lord, we thank you for this day as we come together as a community, and as we share this time together, we pray that you would bless each family, each person that serves in our community –… Read more
Greta Christina’s writing her next book and she wants to know how you came out as an atheist: I want to know: what you said; how you said it; how the person/ people you came out to responded; what the results/ consequences of coming out were; how (if at all) things have changed with time; whether, on the whole, you’re happy you came out or regret doing so Just to be clear, she doesn’t need to know why you became… Read more
Camels With Hammers has put up a powerful series of images of women who have been disfigured by acid in response to comments made on Facebook by Jay Townsend, spokesperson for Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY). Do not click through if you are squeamish. A spokesman for Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) is facing criticism after advocating violence against female Democratic senators in a Facebook post. Jay Townsend, the official campaign spokesman for the freshman representative, went on a vicious online rant… Read more
If only Christians had the courage to question their pastors when they said something that made no sense… You can see how this exchange turns out at Sandra and Woo 🙂 (Thanks to Jennifer for the link!) Read more
Leah Libresco is running her second “Ideological Turing Test” experiment. Here’s how it works: A number of questions were posed to both atheists and Christians. The goal was to respond as atheists. That’s not a problem for the real atheists, but can the Christians imitate us? More importantly, can you tell the difference? There are 13 entries. Read them. judge them. Answers will be revealed soon! Please don’t discuss your answers in the comments — let everyone decide for themselves! Read more
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land has landed himself in hot water for “racially insensitive” comments relating to the Trayvon Martin case, the teenager shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer in February. Land is the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, a post he has held since 1988. Land is a prominent spokesman for conservative Christian causes and hosted a couple of radio shows (“For Faith & Family” and “Richard Land LIVE!”), both of which… Read more
In case you don’t remember the Matthew LaClair story, he was the high school student who recorded his history teacher proselytizing in the classroom — the story made a huge splash when the New York Times covered the controversy (and published the recordings). Filmmaker Vic Losick made a documentary about the whole thing called “In God We Teach” and it’s now available for free online: I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, but I’m going to make the… Read more
I’m no expert on running a company, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to insult your staff if you want them to work hard for you. Tate Publishing puts out Christian books and music. After finding out that the company was going to expand into other countries last week, rumors began to circulate among staff members that they were going to be the victims of “outsourcing.” Good CEOs would probably respond to the rumors head-on — tell employees what’s… Read more
