Maybe certain religious beliefs are silly, but Buddhism’s ok, right? I’ve heard that line several times before… The problem is that Buddhism is still rife with superstition: Just as with Jainism, we’re talking about a religion/philosophy that buys into karma and reincarnation. Neither one is violent, to be sure, but they’re still making up stories for what they don’t know and pretending that they’re true. (via Atheist Cartoons) Read more
A couple months ago, I was among the delegation from the Secular Student Alliance at a meeting with White House officials. A couple days ago, the SSA’s Executive Director August Brunsman was there again, this time to discuss interfaith service projects on college campuses. (Greg Epstein, Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain, was there as well.) “Our inclusion in today’s meeting is a welcome acknowledgement that secular students have been working to make a positive difference in the world,” said Brunsman. “As more… Read more
I’ll be honest… if any of my students presented this to me, I’d probably honor it: (via Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) Read more
***Update***: Edits have been made to this piece since the original posting. … This has nothing to do with atheism; it’s just really cool. While at the American Humanist Association conference, I saw my friend Leyan Lo, who is a Rubik’s Cube world champion. (He taught me how to solve it… I can do it in about three minutes now.) Here’s him in action after Jafsica scrambles up the cube: 15.46 seconds. The Rubik’s Cube: the way to impress the… Read more
I’ve written a couple posts about Mayor Bill Knight of Greensboro, North Carolina and his decision to have prayers before city council meetings. Students from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Atheists/Agnostics/Skeptics have already spoken out against this absurd rule. Another group pushing for the mayor to reverse his decision is the Greensboro Atheists Organization. Last week, president of the group Heather Spealman spoke out against the invocation at a city council meeting: The transcript: Good Evening. My name… Read more
The cover for Sam Harris’ new book has just been revealed: Nice. Plain. Powerful. If this were a Christian book, we’d see Harris’ face right there on the cover… In any case, it’s better than the Christopher Hitchens yellow-themed books, I say. The Moral Landscape will be published October 5th. Read more
If you received a parking ticket in Toronto, it’s not a problem if you’re religious. All you have to do is get a note from your pastor and you don’t have to pay the fine. That’s one of the revelations discovered when the Toronto city council “voted to release the holy grail of how-tos: the Parking Ticket Cancellation Guidelines.” Here’s the portion in question: So atheists are out of luck. You’re stuck with your parking ticket. It’s Canada, so someone… Read more
A couple weeks ago, a bizarre story hit the media — something about how two teachers sprayed an atheist teacher with holy water in the classroom. I’ve read countless stories about this case and still don’t have a clear understanding of what happened — just a few somewhat-similar accounts that don’t make any sense. In any case, there’s an update: The Christian teachers will be returning to their classrooms. Two teachers who were removed from their classrooms after they were… Read more
Last week, I mentioned Mohamed Nazim, a man who openly declared he is not a Muslim in a place where that is illegal. That was incredibly courageous — considering he could have faced a death sentence. Nazim seems to have changed his mind, though… “… And as that action was very much related to the feelings of all Maldivians, I believe that it was an agony for the Maldivian people. I deeply apologise for that to all the Maldivians. Along… Read more
Pat Condell doesn’t want to see a mosque built at Ground Zero. … Building Mosques on conquered sacred ground is standard practice, its what Islam has always done to assert its supremacy and that is whats happening here. And of course they know how insulting it is, how offensive it is; are you kidding? Why do you think they chose this site as close as possible to ground zero? Or do you think that that was just an accident? And… Read more
