How do you know you’re an atheist? You watch Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Bill Maher and realize there’s nothing here you haven’t heard 3208423 times before. I think my reactions mirrored Maher’s the whole way through. Really? That’s the argument you’re going with? It’s so overused… It’s not even worth my time to give you a more nuanced answer, so I’ll give you a clichéd response right back. Anyone else feel the same? Read more
The Metro State Atheists in Colorado recently held a Food for Freethought drive in which people gave them non-perishable foods (to be donated) in exchange for banned books. The Denver Post’s Electa Draper wrote an excellent article about the event: It’s not enough that a national survey released Tuesday found atheists were the highest-scoring group on basic religious knowledge — now members of Metro State Atheists are being regular goody-two-shoes. The group began a three-day campus food drive Tuesday dubbed… Read more
The Center for Inquiry is making news… but it’s not positive publicity. The New York Times has a story in Saturday’s paper about the CFI rift that’s been happening for a while now and isn’t much of a surprise to people who know the players. It’s only disappointing because instead of focusing on a lot of the good work the CFI has done historically (and recently, under Ron Lindsay), reporter Mark Oppenheimer is focusing on the clash between Lindsay and… Read more
I post cartoons by David Hayward on this site all the time. He’s a wonderful critic of the church, though, make no mistake, he’s a proud Christian. He just released his first book, nakedpastor 101 and I encourage all of you to pick it up. You can buy it as an eBook or paperback right now. Signed copies will be coming soon. Congratulations to David — I’m so excited for him 🙂 He has a message a lot of Christians… Read more
Now that the Pew Forum has said atheists know more about religion than the religious, atheist Michael Tracey — current editorial intern at The Nation and former adversary of Mike Huckabee — argues that we need more religion in public schools. My proposal: courses in world religions should be mandatory for all public school students, with a focus on Christianity as the most prevalent domestic faith. These courses would examine the philosophical and sociological features of religion, without teachers’ needing… Read more
***Update***: Justin has started a website about the “Ft. Bragg Freedom Festival” — it includes a potential line-up of speakers. … There’s been an uproar lately about how an Evangelical Christian event took place at the military base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The problem is that military leaders were using their positions to promote this event, and that’s simply unconstitutional. Americans United for Separation at Church and State explained the problem this way: The “Rock the Fort” event at… Read more
I recently mentioned that the Secular Coalition at Eastern Kentucky University — now the Secular Student Alliance at EKU — held a special event to draw attention to their group: Hug An Atheist Day. Somehow, this was controversial. The students chalked the campus with phrases like, “No God? No Problem” and “THOU SHALT NOT… Haha, just kidding!” Now that the event is over, it looks like some religious groups on campus have learned a lesson — when chalking, make the… Read more
(Hemant’s note: This is a guest post by Kelley Freeman. She’s a sophomore Art major/Russian minor at the University of South Carolina who can crochet like a fiend. She is currently the co-humanist outreach director for the Pastafarians at USC.) On September 30th, the Pastafarians at USC hosted our first huge fundraiser: Stone-A-Heathen. We partnered with Amnesty International and raised money to fight stoning in Iran and other countries where stoning still unfortunately exists. The idea was that to ‘stone’… Read more
I’ve been seeing a special ladyfriend lately. But I haven’t met her parents yet. The other day, we had a conversation that went something like this… Her: I’m running a 5K on Sunday! Me: Sweet! I’ll be there on the sidelines to support you. Her: With signs? Me: With signs. [Scribbles: “Congratulations! You just finished a 5K! No wait, you still have 1.5 miles to go.”] Her: Hmph. Oh! And my parents are coming, too! Me: So the first time… Read more
