Wynne LeGrow was the openly atheist doctor running for a House seat in Virginia’s fourth congressional district. The results are in and he has lost to Republican incumbent Randy Forbes. LeGrow, 65, is a retired physician from Emporia who said during the campaign he disagreed with Forbes on “just about everything” -– including religion. He is an acknowledged atheist, a rarity in American politics. Forbes has pledged to work to repeal the health care overhaul or to withhold funding for… Read more
I hate the opening line, but the rest of the article is a nice profile of the atheists in Uganda, a country where only a small percentage of people don’t believe in a god. Some people think religion is a force for good? Here’s evidence to the contrary: Miracle-healer televangelists are all too readily embraced as saviors, Onen [a former Christian] complains, and prayer is often invoked as a substitute for taking action to fix everything from the capital’s glaring… Read more
A few days ago, I posted about a Gallup poll which said that religious Americans have a statistically significantly higher level of wellbeing than nonreligious Americans. Jeff at the blog Inquiry, Blasphemy, and Magic Missiles offers a different take on the results and explains why they may be misleading: I would argue that those of us under the “Atheist” subgroup may be higher than the general non-religious group. Now this isn’t an entirely unfounded claim… an Atheist tends to have… Read more
Penn Jillette has a quotable line about tolerance and respect in the Toronto Star: “There’s a big difference between tolerance and respect. Tolerance is you saying something crazy and me smiling and saying ‘that’s nice.’ Respect is when you say something crazy and I say ‘you’re out of your f—ing mind.’ Direct confrontation, direct conversation is real respect. And it’s amazing how many people get that.” It sounds all well and good, but that type of “respect” will shut down… Read more
There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Bill Brady for Governor of Illinois. The video captures some of the important ones… and it doesn’t even mention his belief in Creationism: Wherever you live, please go vote for the non-crazies. There are still a few of them out there. They’re not perfect, but they’re progressive, and the alternative at this point is much more frightening. Read more
Jim Swilley was a megachurch pastor in Georgia for over two decades. According to one reader (via email): They’re located right on I20 and you can’t miss the sign [for the Church in the Now] if you’re headed east out of Atlanta. The place looks insane; like a casino had sex with a WalMart. I’ve heard stories about how they supposedly have ATMs in the lobbies… But that’s all about to come to an end for Swilley now that he’s… Read more
I know it’s Asheville, North Carolina and not a city in the Deep South, but I’m still very encouraged to see an editorial like this in the Citizen-Times… and very troubled to know who’s running for the state House of Representatives in Buncombe County: When asked whether the General Assembly should be involved in the issue of teaching creationism or evolution in public schools, not one of the five candidates who attended would say flatly that creationism should not be… Read more
Speaking of the Rally to Restore Sanity, the Washington Post On Faith blog asked panelists: Are “reason” and “sanity” the opposite of religious belief? An excerpt of my post is below: Not completely. There are religious people in just about every field imaginable — including academia and science. It’s possible to be sane — ridiculously smart, even — and still believe in fairy tales. Just ask Francis Collins. Religious belief does not require abandoning all reason. It does, however, require… Read more
Note: Letter writers’ names are changed to protect their privacy. Dear Richard, I am an atheist and I attend a state funded university. My family is not poor, nor are we rich, we are just in the middle. My mom has inherited too much money for us to qualify for any financial aid or scholarships. I went through an existential breakdown in high school causing my grades to not deem me fit for any “good student” scholarships or anything of… Read more
