Atheist activist Michael Newdow was recently in a Boston federal appeals court. Along with people who had legal standing in the matter, he wanted the court to rule that the words “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance were a religious statement and therefore unconstitutional. If they won, New Hampshire would no longer be saying the Pledge in public schools. Unfortunately, the decision in Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Hanover School District came out against Newdow. You can read the… Read more
Texas A&M just had anti-abortion protesters come their way, followed by campus preachers. But members of the Agnostic and Atheist Student Group (AASG) were ready for them 🙂 The Rally to Restore Sanity mindset was clearly present. Keri Bean, the president of the secular student group, explained it this way (with pictures of group members interspersed): … I got together about 10 of the students in AASG and decided to do some Pastafarian/atheist outreach on Thursday with the intention of… Read more
Richard Dawkins agreed to answer the most popular questions for him at Reddit. They were asked and voted upon, and now Dawkins has responded with this video: Hatemail sounds so much cooler when read with a British accent 🙂 Read more
The British edition of The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas is available for the Kindle for only $1.01. Get it now! (via Pharyngula) Read more
Wow. Another story about an extremely generous atheist donor. That’s #3 this week! A couple days ago, I mentioned a $15,000 matching offer from software entrepreneur Ron Verstappen to the Secular Student Alliance. This comes right after Todd Stiefel’s six-figure contribution to the American Humanist Association’s “Consider Humanism” campaign. (Which is on top of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation’s $50,000 gift to the Secular Student Alliance to promote high school atheist groups.) Now, PalmPilot creator Jeff Hawkins and partner Janet Strauss… Read more
When you hear the phrase “atheist professor,” maybe this often-forwarded, untrue email comes to mind. Dr. Hector Avalos is an atheist professor and an overall good guy — an educator who isn’t biased against religious students, a Bible scholar with several books to his name, and the faculty sponsor of the Iowa State University Atheist and Agnostic Society. The campus paper wrote a glowing profile of him this week that’s worth a read: What had begun as a cold progressed… Read more
Jordan Elias has a short-but-excellent open letter to America about being an atheist in a foxhole: You will not vote for me for public office, but you will let me fight your battles. You will not let me teach your children, but you will let me protect them. You will not listen when I speak, but expect me to hang on your every word. You will question my morality, call me a sinner or worse, but will not see moral… Read more
How do you keep Christians busy for a long, long time? Get some ink and paper, print this massive PDF collection of biblical contradictions, and have them explain it. Courtesy of Sam Harris’ Reason Project: (Thanks to everyone for the link!) Read more
***Update***: Here’s a clip of the segment (Thanks, Pengui!): … On his show Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly discussed the American Humanist Association’s Consider Humanism campaign with Juliet Huddy. Here’s how it went down according to the O’Reilly Factor website: Juliet Huddy came in to look at some attention-getting videos. One of them was a commercial from The American Humanist Association, an atheist group. The Factor actually defended atheists: “I don’t think most Americans of faith look at atheists as immoral. I… Read more
Sikivu Hutchinson writes about the L.A. Black Skeptics’ first “Going Godless in the Black Community” roundtable. Fifteen atheist/humanists from a broad array of backgrounds, ages and world views attended. The discussion ranged from critiques of the influence of hyper-religiosity in the African American community to practical strategies for developing humanist resources and social welfare institutions… … During the Going Godless discussion participants focused on the importance of instilling black youth with an appreciation for critical thought and free inquiry. Reflecting… Read more
