Landover Baptist Church has released its 2011 List of Banned Christmas Toys: My favorite of the bunch: I plan on being sacrilegious and gifting one to myself, though… Read more
Ten nurses at a New Jersey hospital have filed a lawsuit claiming the hospital’s new policy requires them to assist in performing abortions. They sued under a federal law which prohibits discrimination against any employee for refusing to “perform or assist in the performance of such a procedure or abortion on the grounds that his performance or assistance in the performance of the procedure or abortion would be contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Basically, any institution that… Read more
Right now, the SkepticTV show is hosting a 12-hour benefit show with proceeds going to the Secular Student Alliance. More information is below: Joe Zamecki and Damon Fowler are guests (on the show “Trolling with Logic”), as are several other fantastic skeptics and activists. Tune in, donate to a good cause, and get active! Read more
CNN is jumping on the “Black atheists exist!” bandwagon — their angle focuses on black atheists in the South: Benjamin Burchall first realized how different his experience in the South was going to be while looking for something to watch on television on a Sunday night. “I couldn’t find anything on television but religious programming,” says Burchall, 38, a former Christian minister and agricultural consultant who moved from Long Beach, California, to Atlanta for work in 2010, “And I thought,… Read more
TLC’s All-American Muslim is a reality show depicting five Lebanese-American families in Dearborn, MI. I haven’t seen it, but this review from Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker sure makes it sound harmless: These “characters” are all reasonably appealing, either charming or entertainingly irritating in the tradition of reality TV, though the show is edited at a snail’s pace. All-American Muslim centers on explaining customs and beliefs, and how the people the producers have selected either follow or ignore their religion’s dictums. Despite… Read more
Sam Harris has just announced that February 28th will be the release date of his next long-form essay, Free Will: Free Will follows his previous venture into e-publishing, Lying. That one turned out to be a quick yet provocative read — I hope this essay raises as many questions and thought experiments as the previous one did. In case you want a sneak preview, my guess is that much of the book will be culled from his previous writing on… Read more
Over at ccMixter.org, a music site where remixing is the norm, Kara (better known as Mind Map That) has written a really catchy song called “Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry Christmas” 🙂 You can stream it right here. You have to appreciate a chorus that goes like this: Please don’t wish me a Merry Christmas (ho, ho, ho) Please just skip to a Happy New Year (fa-la-la) Please don’t wish me a Merry Christmas (ho, ho, ho) Though I… Read more
What happens when an atheist reviews the Holy Bible on Amazon? He gives it the lowest possible rating, writes up a hilarious (and spot on) critique, starts up a large discussion thread, and chaos ensues: This book has it all. Cutting off women’s hands for helping to fend off their husband’s attackers; directing the slaughtering of children with a bear attack and by mass murder; genocide galore; human sacrifice and the threat of it; and killing an innocent on behalf… Read more
Now we know the real reason as to why so many atheist scientists are taking their children to church: Read more
And they want you to love it too! The University of Connecticut has started saying the Pledge of Allegiance before the national anthem at its men’s basketball games. I think the Pledge is kind of creepy for a whole slate of reasons, including the fact that I can still be patriotic while choosing not to recite my unflinching loyalty in a glassy-eyed monotone. Some members of the UConn community agree: Those who supported saying the pledge said it was unifying… Read more
