Murray Richmond, a Presbyterian minister, hospital chaplain, and current legislative aide in the Alaska State Senate, has a fantastic article up at Salon. The title: “I preached against homosexuality, but I was wrong.” But over the next five years, homosexuality not only became an issue — it became The Issue. Sides were drawn, and those of us in the middle were pulled to either end. I was a biblical Christian, of the “hate the sin, love the sinner” crowd. And… Read more
Our own Jesse Galef is turning 25 today! Wish him well 🙂 This whole post was really just an excuse to post a picture of Jesse. Read more
Dee Wampler is one of those Christian lawyers who thinks separation of church and state is a myth. And, like many Christians who love their revisionist history, he seems to have a lot of influence. Wampler is currently on a mission to have the phrase “IN GOD WE TRUST” posted in every City Hall in the state of Missouri. He recently sent the following letter to one city mayor (and possibly several others): This is that sample resolution (you know,… Read more
In British Columbia, Canada, the cities of Kamloops and Kelowna are getting their first atheist bus ads next week: They’ll be up on April 11th and stay there for a month. The ads, which are 2.5 feet high and 11.5 feet wide, cost $514 to run for four weeks and are being paid for by Centre for Inquiry, of which the Kamloops Centre for Rational Thought is an affiliate. Kamloops director Bill Ligertwood hopes the ads will stimulate conversation about… Read more
Dale McGowan’s daughter came home last month and was gushing about one of her teachers: “We started evolution in science today.” A tickle of dread went down my spine… “And?” “And it’s awesome. He’s teaching all about it, just like you would. He explained what theory really means, and said that the evidence is incredibly strong for evolution, and when kids started saying, ‘But the Bible says blah blah blah,’ he just put his hand up and said, ‘You can… Read more
Sam Harris is now blogging: It’s too early to tell if this will be a worthwhile endeavor for Harris — I would guess that most people stop blogging after only a handful of posts — but it’s a step forward. One of the problems with the popular atheist books is that, as helpful as they are, they can’t address current events. Richard Dawkins may have led you into atheism, but PZ Myers helps keep it at the forefront of your… Read more
(BTW, this post is by Mike Clawson, the very-infrequent-but-still-here Christian contributor.) I know the answer many atheists would likely give to the question in the title of this post is “nothing”. However, that may not always necessarily be the case. At least, not according to studies done by U. Penn researcher Ram Cnaan (who describes himself as nonreligious), who has somehow found a way to monetarily quantify all the benefits the average urban congregation brings to their community. According to… Read more
David Barton is the Evangelical Christian who tries to spread a warped version of American history where our founding is based entirely on Christian values, Thurgood Marshall is de-emphasized in our high school history curriculums because he’s apparently not very notable, and separation of church and state doesn’t exist. Recently, at a “Rediscover God In America” conference, possible presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was introduced by Barton before giving a speech. As a “thank-you” to him, Huckabee praised him… while scaring… Read more
The American Humanist Association is promoting its conference (taking place next weekend) with print ads (PDF) and a billboard featuring Richard Dawkins: As far as a billboard goes, it doesn’t do much for me. Too many words… and not a great accompanying picture. Hell, it looks like Richard Dawkins walked out of a windstorm into the path of the sun. Compare that to the American Atheists’ conference-promoting billboard — which is a designer’s nightmare (according to most of you), but… Read more
How did I not know about Rodrigo y Gabriela until yesterday? They’re freaking amazing. And now I’m in the middle of listening through everything they’ve ever done… What other bands/groups am I unaware of that you’re all keeping from me? (I’m just gonna assume you can all read my mind.) Read more
