Manal al-Sharif is a Saudi Arabian women’s rights activist who helped instigate the Women2Drive campaign, as women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive. Over 100 women partook in the campaign last June 17th. Al-Sharif herself has been arrested on a few occasions for driving. In the above video from the 2012 Oslo Freedom Forum, she discusses how she came to lose her religious extremism because of the Internet and how 9/11 changed her view on the world in… Read more
Some excerpts from an interview with Sam Harris in the Jewish publication Tablet: My argument is that no group of people, and certainly no society, has ever suffered because everyone became too willing to hear arguments and data and got too interested in other people’s points of view. The zero-sum contest is between believing things for good reasons and believing things for bad reasons, you know? And it just so happens that science, 99 percent of the time, is on… Read more
The Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in Greensburg, IN apparently is teachin’ em young! This 4-year-old boy is already singing about homos going to hell: I know the Bible’s right, Somebody’s wrong… Ain’t no homo’s gonna make it to heaven Perhaps even worse, he received a standing ovation with hollers, and a proud father shouting, “That’s my boy!” I really have nothing more to say. This is just about the worst thing I have seen in quite some time. If this is… Read more
Christian Alise Wright (who has written guest posts on the site before) explains how her husband’s atheism caused her to lose a few things… and why she’s better off because of it: My assumptions about what atheists think about Christians. Obviously I don’t know all of the atheists in the world, but my interactions with the bulk of the atheists that I’ve met online and those I’ve met in person through Jason have pretty much shattered how I assumed that… Read more
Zack Kopplin, the former high school student (now at Rice University), worked tirelessly to repeal the wrongly-named “Louisiana Science Education Act” — a bill which actually “encourages the state’s science teachers to miseducate their students about the scientific standing of evolution and climate change.” Even though his work didn’t lead to a repeal, he’s now at least getting recognized for his efforts. He’s one of four recipients of the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award: … the award was established… Read more
Religious people often say to atheists that they’ll “come to god” when tragedy strikes. In jail? Break out the Bible. Alcohol addiction? Submit to god. Dying? That’s why Jesus invented death-bed conversions. Jen Keane lost her father to cancer about a month ago. But, in spite of what her family is going through, she hasn’t lost her ability to think rationally: In the weeks since, I have thought often about my own beliefs. As I’m not religious, and have no… Read more
We keep saying church ought to taxed and the New Hampshire Supreme Court has found a novel way to do it… kind of. Here’s the backstory: When the Liberty Assembly of God (now called Destiny Christian Church) opened, they were given the same religious tax exemption all churches get. In 2008, the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals (BTLA) realized that most of this property wasn’t really part of the church — there was a school and dormitory… Read more
Ah the good ole United Kingdom. Those crazy kids are at it again! They are working on medical guidelines (PDF) that prevent doctors from discriminating against their patients! Here is part of the new draft, and it looks nothing like what we’re used to seeing in America: You may have a conscientious objection to providing contraception. However, you cannot be willing to provide married women with contraception but unwilling to prescribe it for unmarried women. This would be a breach of our guidance as… Read more
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK, the ASA released a list of the most “complained-about ads of all time.” Not making it into the Top Ten list: The Ariane-Sherine-inspired ad that began the worldwide atheist billboard barrage: Taking the #4 spot on the list: The response ad put out by The Christian Party: Complainants objected that the strap line ‘There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life’… Read more
The Humanist Community at Harvard — headed by Greg Epstein, with Chris Stedman serving as Interfaith and Community Service Fellow — is about to undergo some big changes. Not only are some new hires coming from Secular Student Alliance affiliate groups, a brand new community is being created at Stanford University headed by Jonathan Figdor (the current Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard). This is very exciting news for anyone who wonders whether there’s a future in the movement for our… Read more
