This is the religious banner currently hanging in the auditorium of Rhode Island’s Cranston High School West: Our Heavenly Father. Grant us each day the desire to do our best. To grow mentally and morally as well as physically. To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers. To be honest with ourselves as well as with others. Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win. Teach us the value… Read more
Back in July, I mentioned that Dr. Austin Dacey, author of The Secular Conscience, had written an article about how Skeptics need to branch out a lot more when it comes to issues we care about: The titles vary across skeptics meetings, but at the core are the now-familiar topics: psychics, monsters, ghosts, UFOs, creationism, alternative and complementary medicine, popularization of science, and, somewhat less reliably, false memory syndrome, communication with the dead, faith healing, doomsdays prophesies, conspiracy theories, climate… Read more
The Southern Poverty Law Center puts out a magazine called Teaching Tolerance a couple times a year. It’s aimed at educators, letting them know how they can be inclusive and accepting of all kinds of minorities. The Fall, 2011 issue has a wonderful article by Victoria Lim called “The Unaffiliated Unite” — it’s about the plight of secular students like Damon Fowler and Brian Lisco and many other high schoolers who had (and still have) a hell of a time… Read more
Bradley Johnson is a math teacher at Westview High School in the (public) Poway Unified School District in California. He’s been working in the district for decades. You know he’s a math teacher because he’s had these posters hanging in his classroom for decades now: In God We Trust One Nation Under God God Bless America God Sheds His Grace On Thee. … All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their CREATOR They remained in his room for… Read more
In case you missed him the last time he was here, Tim Minchin will be appearing at the Vic Theatre in Chicago on Thursday, November 10th at 8:00p. It is a fully seated show and general admission so you’ll get more choice of where to sit the earlier you arrive. There will be no opening acts so Tim will be on stage at 8pm. Don’t be late! Tickets go on sale this Saturday at 10:00a. They’ll be sold out fast,… Read more
Friend-of-the-blog Cecil Bothwell, an openly atheist City Council member in Asheville, North Carolina, is running for Congress in 2012. He’s also trying to win a scholarship to the Take Back the Dream Conference and he needs your help: Democracy for America and Rebuild the Dream have teamed up to send 30 progressive activists to the Take Back the Dream Conference. The conference is spearheaded by the Campaign for America’s Future in partnership with Rebuild the Dream and Moveon.org. On Oct… Read more
Michael Shermer, author of The Believing Brain, recently answered about 9823423 questions for Mahalo.com. There are too many to list, but you can see his answers to each individual question here or watch the full interview below: I particularly like his answer to: “Is Science a Religion?” Read more
DarkMatter2525 makes some fantastic YouTube videos but he’s also an artist and he’s created some drawings that you can bid on — all proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders. I’m in awe of anyone who has this kind of talent. Here’s the pencil sketch of Lawrence Krauss: There are also beautiful drawings of James Randi and Ashley Paramore. If you have a few bucks to spare, consider bidding on the drawings or donating to Doctors Without Borders directly. Read more
Amanda Marcotte has an article up at AlterNet called “10 Myths Many Religious People Hold About Atheists, Debunked” — none of it should be news to people who visit atheist blogs regularly… or know an atheist or two personally… or listen to anyone other than their pastors. Unfortunately, I suspect some people will actually learn something from this. You can see more elaboration on the site, but here’s the list: There are no atheists in foxholes. Atheists are just angry… Read more
For the past several years, New Humanist magazine has been handing out the Bad Faith Award. The award goes to “the person who has made the year’s most outstanding contribution to talking unadulterated (and often destructive) nonsense about matters of religion.” Recent winners include Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed (2010), the Pope (2009), Sarah Palin (2008) and Dinesh D’Souza (2007). Who should be nominated this year? They’re taking nominations so Let them know! My money’s on the Republicans. Any of them…. Read more
