Note: Letter writers’ names are changed to protect their privacy. Hi Richard, I live in a Midwestern suburb in the heart of the Jesus-belt. Our community is predominantly white, predominantly conservative, and predominantly Christian. Every year, on our historical Main Street, there is a month-long Christmas Festival, with dozens of costumed characters (Historic Santas, Dickens Characters, Victorian Carolers, etc.) spreading the excitement and joy of the season to people from all over the world. The event also brings a lot… Read more
Sam Harris’ Project Reason just announced its annual video contest — first prize gets $10,000. You can’t submit videos until June 1st of next year, but if you have any ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments. Maybe someone can get to work and make them a reality! (I promise to demand at most half your prize money.) More information is on Harris’ site and you can see last year’s winner below: Read more
The National Catholic Reporter has put out their fifth survey cataloguing Catholic attitudes and practices in America. We should be throwing a party to celebrate these results. When asked what aspects of Catholicism are important to them, most Catholics fall in line with typical Christian teachings, but they take a Honey Badger approach to what the Vatican tells them. In fact, only 30% of Catholics say “Vatican authority” is important to them. What about priestly celibacy? Not a big deal… Read more
Christmas is near and that means it’s time for American Atheists to reveal their next billboard campaign! (The War on Christmas begins earlier each year, doesn’t it?) First, some background. Last year, AA President Dave Silverman put up this billboard on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel: That caused all sorts of controversy. (I mean, he called Christianity and the Christmas Story a myth! And he said we all KNOW it! With capital letters! Can you believe it?!)… Read more
If you were watching the Penn State vs Nebraska football game yesterday, you witnessed the scene before the kickoff: That was a pre-game prayer for both teams led by Ron Brown, an assistant coach at Nebraska. Lord, we know we don’t have control of all of the events that took place this week, but we do know that you have figured in it all. And we give you the glory that you’re going to protect this stadium, and this town,… Read more
This is a guest post by Rachel Holierhoek. Rachel is a Secular Humanist living in Canada with her partner, Roy, and their four children. … We were different. We were the only ones in our small town who belonged to the Worldwide Church of God, a church founded by Herbert W. Armstrong; a self-proclaimed apostle and prophet. Armstrong was a fundamentalist, end-times-are-coming Sabbatarian who also taught strict dietary restrictions and commanded the keeping of Old Testament holy days, forbidding Pagan… Read more
If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, Greta Christina is compiling a list of reasons people change their minds about religion: I’d love to see some good sociologists tackle this question, and get a good, large, somewhat statistically representative sampling of non-believers to answer this question. But for now, this may at least get a rough idea of some of the methods that can work… … So: If you’re a non-believer in religion, and you used to be a… Read more
The text reads: Dear Evangelical Christians: God here. First, I do not exist. The concept of a 13,700,000,000 year old being, capable of creating the entire universe and its billions of galaxies, monitoring simultaneously the thoughts and actions of the 7 billion human beings on this planet is ludicrous. Grow a brain. Second, if I did, I would have left you a book a little more consistent, timeless and independently verifiable than the collection of Iron Age Middle Eastern mythology… Read more
The Secular Student Alliance affiliate at East Central University in Oklahoma is on a roll. First they held a Blasphemy Bake Sale. Second, they’re advertising their meetings with these hilarious flyers: Other SSA affiliates are already using the template 🙂 Finally, Sarah Erwin, the president of the SSA at ECU, wrote a powerful piece for her school paper responding in an open letter to the vandals who constantly tear down her group’s flyers on campus: A day has not gone… Read more
Michigan state senator (and Democrat) Gretchen Whitmer has already spoken out against her Republican colleagues’ changes to anti-bullying legislation which would allow exemptions for people with “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.” The legislation is now in the House, where it will hopefully be corrected. In the meantime, Whitmer is featured in a new video in which she reads letters from children urging her to get that exemption out of there. Bullying is bullying no matter who does it,… Read more
