I can finally announce that I’ll be speaking at the Secular Student Alliance annual conference! It’ll take place July 29th-31st in Columbus, OH, and the lineup is looking amazing… PZ Myers, Dan Barker, Greta Christina, David Silverman, Jen McCreight… And Jessica Ahlquist! (If I could squee, I would.) Edit: More speakers are being announced every week. You can register for the conference here. Do it! Also… what should I talk about this year? I have 20 minutes or so! Must… Read more
One thing we know about the Creation Museum’s Ken Ham is that he pays very careful attention to science textbooks. He wants to make sure home-schooled Christian families have only the best resources for their kids. We took some photographs (this is just a small sample) of the sorts of materials being sold at these [home-schooling] conferences. It is a warning to parents that they need to be extremely discerning, and they need to check out all curricula and books… Read more
You always hear Christians point to Billy Graham as the person who best represents their faith. He’s not political! He’s not corrupt! He preaches Jesus’ message! Graham was asked in his syndicated column this past weekend why there are so many atheists around these days. After saying that there were indeed more visible atheists these days, he proceeded to rattle off a bunch of lies: … atheism has no satisfying answer to the basic questions of life — questions like… Read more
Over the past couple weeks, many students at my high school (and others across the country) took their Advanced Placement exams. Because they need absolutely silence — and because we don’t have enough space for all our students to take the more popular tests in a quiet environment — they took certain exams in other locations. One was a local church. I don’t see that as a church/state violation. It’s a rented area that provides both space and silence. I’ve… Read more
There’s a question a lot of religious people have for atheists: “Are you afraid of death?” Since we don’t believe in an afterlife, are we ok with the notion that this life is it? Physicist Stephen Hawking was asked about death in an interview with The Guardian and answered the question beautifully: You had a health scare and spent time in hospital in 2009. What, if anything, do you fear about death? I have lived with the prospect of an… Read more
Back in high school, my English teacher had us read excerpts from Ecclesiastes. Not because it was religious in nature, but because it was a wonderful piece to analyze and discuss. With younger students, it’s harder to get them to have serious discussions about literature, so some teachers try to analyze different things. Like song lyrics. John Orme, an English and History teacher at Gordon Price school in Ontario, Canada, had his kids read and discuss the lyrics to a… Read more
I loved one of the commercial parodies from Saturday Night Live over the weekend. The setup is this (actual) commercial about high fructose corn syrup. The parody features Kristen Wiig (Mom 1) and Nasim Pedrad (Mom 2). If you can, watch it before you read the transcript below: Mom 1: Wow! You don’t care what the kids eat, huh? Mom 2: Excuse me? Mom 1: That has high fructose corn syrup in it. Mom 2: And…? Mom 1: Well, you… Read more
I know, I know… Last week, I said it was the deadline for sending me your drawings of Muhammad for Friday’s Draw Muhammad Day sequel. So many of you sent me amazing entries, though… The count is currently 44 drawings of Muhammad. It’s seriously incredible. I get the feeling there are more of you who *think* the deadline is over… but screw it. I’ll still accept them through Wednesday. That’ll give me enough time to put together the post. So… Read more
Note: Letter writers’ names are changed to protect their privacy. Dear Richard, I came out as an atheist to my family eleven years ago (when I was seventeen). My family is Reform Jewish, and though I have relatives who had married outside the faith, my atheism caused a rift between me and my family which, while improved, has never been repaired. While I’ve been dealing with the situation for a while, I’m now finding it very hard to cope with… Read more
