This is a guest post by Jonathan Figdor. John (MDiv ‘10, Harvard Divinity School) is the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University as well as a board member of the Secular Student Alliance, an organization that provides support for young atheists, skeptics, and Humanists. on campuses across the country and around the globe. His new blog is called Atheologically Thinking. … As an avid reader of Pharyngula, Butterflies & Wheels, and, of course, Friendly Atheist, I was surprised to see… Read more
Last October, the Freedom From Religion Foundation went live with an atheist ad campaign featuring relatively unknown, local freethinkers from Madison, Wisconson. I thought it was a strong campaign with beautifully-designed billboards. Now, they’re doing it again in Raleigh, North Carolina. This time, 12 billboards will go up on behalf of the Triangle Freethought Society. They went up today and they’ll be there through the end of April (PDF). Here are the new designs: “It worked for the gay rights… Read more
Note: Letter writers’ names are changed to protect their privacy. Dear Richard, I am a life-long atheist and a stay-at-home-mother of two most excellent kids. My oldest, a super smart four-year-old boy, goes to church with my mother most Sundays. He enjoys playing with the other kids and the after-service cookies. Some Sundays he doesn’t want to go, so he stays home, his attendance is voluntary. I am very frank with him, explaining that I don’t go to church because… Read more
by Jesse Galef – You love data, right? Of course you do, how silly of me. Everyone loves sifting through survey data. Well, the Public Religion Research Institute released a fascinating survey last week on the political views of Catholic Americans. One finding getting attention is that Catholics are particularly likely to support marriage equality: Catholics are more supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Americans overall. Nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor… Read more
There’s been plenty of controversy over Pastor Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins and the question of whether or not hell exists (Rob says it does). But it raises an interesting question: How many pastors really believe in hell? Sure, we often hear about those who preach hellfire, but why is it that the concept of Hell seems to disappear when someone dies? Caleb Wilde, a funeral director, puts it this way (emphasis his): I have worked about 3,000 funerals… Read more
To anyone who has ever considered Astrology in making any decisions… (via Rock, Paper, Cynic — thanks to Lauren for the link!) Read more
After posting a lot about schools in which teacher-preachers aren’t really punished, it’s nice to hear about schools where incidents like these are put to rest immediately. Reader Andrew shared this story with me via email. It takes place during his senior year of high school in 2002: I was taking two periods of band, one in the morning and one later in the day… We had a sub in band that day. Usually that meant that we had an… Read more
Canadians in Alberta, what the hell is going on in your education system? It’s not like most American schools are anything to brag about, but at least the notion of secular education isn’t up for debate: The Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division will conduct a survey to determine how many people in Morinville want their children to receive a secular education. … The Greater St. Albert Regional Catholic Division runs all four schools in the town north of Edmonton:… Read more
A few days ago, I mentioned that Trevor Boeckmann (of the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers — UNIFI) wasn’t thrilled with A Week because it was confusing to those outside our movement (and even many in the movement). The point is to be open about your atheism, so why not show your face along with your message? No one outside of our movement knows what the “A” means. Yes, some people will look up what’s going on. Most… Read more
For over a decade, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference has fought to make “defamation of religion” a crime. They wanted to punish you for blaspheming God, Allah, Islam, or a whole host of other religious beliefs some group holds sacred. We already know how much chaos ensued over cartoons featuring Muhammad. So much for free speech. But a new resolution from the United Nations Human Rights Council rightly puts the focus on defending people instead of their beliefs: The… Read more
