I have an aversion to reading academic journals… but there’s a new paper published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (April 2011 37: 543-556) that is a must-read for anyone who has access. It’s called “Finding the Faithless: Perceived Atheist Prevalence Reduces Anti-Atheist Prejudice.” The author, Will M. Gervais of the University of British Columbia, points out that, in most cases, the larger a group gets, the more prejudice there is against them: For example, anti-Black prejudice is… Read more
DarkMatter2525 brilliantly lays out example after example after example of the double standards regarding how people view Christians and atheists: This video contains some insane things I’ve heard. You can see how the ridiculousness of these double standards and assumptions glare when I arrange them side by side. Whatever trait you blame on atheism or attribute to religion, I can point to an abundance of examples to the contrary — and the excuses are usually quite laughable and transparent. Amazing… Read more
Jonathan Rosenberg’s Scenes From a Multiverse gets it just right when discussing just how useless prayer is in times of need: Damn Cornpocalypses. They ruin everything. Meanwhile, Foundation Beyond Belief is actually doing something to help the victims of the Japanese Tsunami/Earthquake. We’re raising money for the Japanese Red Cross and you can help by making a donation. So far we’ve collected over $18,000 from members and visitors! I can’t tell you how amazed our board and staff is about… Read more
I’m off to Portland tonight! Tomorrow, I’ll be discussing what successful campus atheist groups are doing with a group of student leaders at the 2011 Northwest Freethought Conference. And on Wednesday night, I’ll be in Baltimore speaking to the UMBC Secular Student Alliance. Those are my excuses if postings are minimal for the next week. Read more
I haven’t seen too many episodes of Cenk Uygur’s MSNBC show, but maybe I need to start watching. There are other media personalities who will call out Glenn Beck, but very few who do so on religious grounds: All you have to do is claim that God spoke to you and you can say or do just about anything. That goes for Beck, pastors, and everyday Christians. God is just used an excuse for saying whatever it is you’re already… Read more
Remember when American Atheists President Dave Silverman appeared on The O’Reilly Factor to discuss an atheist billboard…? The most memorable part of the interview was this exchange (at the 1:51 mark): O’Reilly: I’ll tell you why [religion’s] not a scam. In my opinion, all right? Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can explain why the tide goes in… Silverman: Tide goes in, tide goes out…? O’Reilly: Yeah, see, the water — the… Read more
This is a guest post by Alise Wright. Alise is a wife and mom. She loves knitting, playing keyboards in a cover band, eating soup, and writing at her blog. … I love to read and I particularly like to read things that are of interest to important people in my life. So when my husband came out to me as an atheist in late 2009, I went looking for something to read so I could better understand his views…. Read more
I just realized that emails sent to friendlyatheist@friendlyatheist.com over the past few weeks have not been getting to me. I think the problem has been fixed… but if you sent me a story tip or email or anything else recently, I probably didn’t receive it. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I wasn’t purposely ignoring all of you. Please try again! Read more
These two headlines fit together nicely… And… Evangelicals want to stop Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign because she’s obviously trying to convince children to stray from the Christian faith! It all makes sense now… Here’s something else that doesn’t make sense: Evangelicals don’t want the government telling people what they should or shouldn’t eat, but they have no problem with the government telling women what to do with their bodies. How do Evangelicals get through the day without constantly feeling ashamed… Read more
My thoughts on Libertyville High School’s Creationist science teacher are now up on the Chicago Tribune’s Seeker blog. Here’s the opening: Beau Schaefer, a science teacher at Libertyville High School, has learned the punishment for preaching creationism in the classroom: Nothing. After a school board meeting Tuesday night in which both sides of the evolution debate — the side that understands science and the side supporting Schaefer — made their cases, the end result was that nothing happened. Superintendent Prentiss… Read more
