The Salt Lake Tribune published an article about atheists celebrating Thanksgiving. It turns out — who knew? — that non-religious people can be thankful, too! West Valley City resident Ken Guthrie and his partner will be at his aunt’s house on Thanksgiving, sharing a table with his grandmother, siblings and cousins — a veritable holiday crowd. But when it comes time to express thanks, Guthrie, a board member of Salt Lake City Pagan Pride, will not be speaking to the… Read more
***Update***: Dan Savage has responded to LaBarbera’s claims here. … Anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera is pissed off at my local public broadcasting station because it aired an interview with sex columnist Dan Savage and treated him like a human being: How dare they respect Dan?! He’s openly homosexual! I think Pete’s just jealous that Dan Savage is far more influential than he can ever hope to be… I saw Phil Ponce’s interview and it was fantastic: Sex positivity, a brain,… Read more
On Friday, the Centre for Inquiry Canada will launch the “Extraordinary Claims Campaign” featuring bus ads and in-person educational events: There’s a wonderfully broad spectrum of foolish beliefs on that list. But this is Canada, not the US, so I wonder how much traction it will get in the media… Still, it’s a campaign worthy of your support. (via Canadian Atheist) Read more
In the Philippines, there’s a Reproductive Health (RH) bill that will be presented to the Congressional Committee of Population and Family Relations next week. It’s a response to the country’s rapidly growing population. The bill, which proposes national funding for, and access to, reproductive healthcare services and products like birth control pills and condoms, has stalled in legislative debate for close to 15 years. Birth control and condoms? Sounds perfectly reasonable… so guess who’s against it? The Catholic Church, which… Read more
Alom Shaha has an important piece in the Guardian about the lack of racial minorities in the organized atheist movement: The atheist and sceptic movements are dominated by white men and I think this is a problem… … These are issues that the white “leadership” of the atheist and sceptic movements have largely ignored because they are not issues that concern them. But these issues should concern all atheists — because if we are to be a “community”, if, as… Read more
***Update***: It turns out Rev. Miller admitted to having a threesome with his wife and a church assistant. I don’t care what he does in his bedroom, but I don’t recall threesomes being endorsed by the Bible as a way to show love to your wife. (And people go to this guy to get marriage counseling…?) … Rev. Cedric Miller is telling church leaders at Living Word Christian Fellowship Church that they need to delete their Facebook accounts or resign… Read more
Thursday morning, Christopher Hitchens will be debating Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas. The debate is mostly for a middle school and high school audience. The church in question has put out a discussion guide for the debate (PDF) — it was sent to me by a reader and it’s worth a look. If you have some time, print it out, grab a red pen, and mark up all the mistakes you can find…. Read more
Thursday morning, the Chester County (Philadephia) Commissioner’s Office will vote on whether to “rescind all private, unattended winter holiday season displays on the Chester County Historic Courthouse property.” Passage of this bill, Resolution 58-10, would mean private groups could not put up any holiday displays. That may not seem like such a bad thing, but it seems clear why this bill is up for a vote right now: In the past, the local Freethought Society has put up a Tree… Read more
Usually, when I hear religious people say they’re going to pray for something, two thoughts go through my mind: 1) That’s not gonna help. 2) At least it’s for a good cause. The prayers come after a disaster or when someone is sick… so even if it’s ineffective, at least the sentiment is positive, right? In Detroit, members of the New Destiny Baptist Church are coming together to pray on Thanksgiving. Familiar with both the resurrection story and the one… Read more
Philip Carlo, the biographer of a couple notable mass murderers, recently died. At his funeral, the priest did what so many priests do in those occasions: He talked about the Bible. A lot. That apparently made actor Tony Danza very upset… A source at Thursday’s wake at Peter C. La Bella Funeral Home in Bensonhurst said the priest — “who said he was a substitute priest from a federal prison, which made some people smirk — started to ramble on… Read more
