You’ve probably seen this type of poster/billboard coming from the pro-life movement: PZ Myers says that information may be true — the “non-functional primordia of those organs” exist at 28 days — but the picture is misleading. If they wanted to be accurate, the poster would look more like this: All of their billboards are like this, listing a known developmental landmark, the earlier the better, and showing a picture of a post-natal infant as if that has any relevance…. Read more
Saturday night, I visited the Moody Church (a typically conservative place) in downtown Chicago to participate in a dialogue with members of a youth group there known as The Venue. This is the third in a series of events where they invite people to speak to them about communities that Christians don’t have a great relationship with. For example, a couple weeks ago, they brought in a gay-friendly Christian who talked about what Christians could do to communicate better with… Read more
A few months ago, I was emailing back and forth with a student named Michael Tracey at The College of New Jersey about possibly speaking there over my Spring Break since he’s the president of their Secular Student Alliance chapter. We were unable to find a day that worked so we put the talk on the backburner. Last week, I heard a story about how Republican presidential candidate and FOX News Channel host Mike Huckabee spoke at the same school… Read more
Edward Current knows that Jesus would have been a teabagger: I love Current’s hat and t-shirt; I, too, am opposed to socalism. The ending is also entertaining 🙂 Read more
The Brigham Young University women’s rugby team is complaining. They are a highly-ranked team that could go far in the postseason. This weekend is the quarterfinal matches — the top 16 teams will play each other in 8 games, with teams playing today and tomorrow. Even if the BYU team wins, though, they say this is the end of the line because their religion sees Sunday as a day of rest: [Team captain Kirsten] Siebach said all 35 team members… Read more
The Plum Line recently reported that Focus on the Family would not oppose a gay/lesbian Supreme Court nominee: “We agree with Senator [Jeff] Sessions,” Bruce Hausknecht, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, which was founded by top religious right figure James Dobson, told me a few minutes ago. “The issue is not their sexual orientation. It’s whether they are a good judge or not.” Their sexual orientation “should never come up,” he continued. “It’s not even pertinent to the… Read more
Last weekend, I was a guest on The Drew Marshall Show, a Canadian radio show that deals with religion. You can listen to our conversation here. On the same episode, Drew also interviewed David Hayward (a.k.a. nakedpastor), who’s still on a roll with his cartoons: I love it. The question is: Who’s getting strikes? Who’s getting splits? Who’s going straight into the gutter? Read more
Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why NASA is so vital to America’s future and why we shouldn’t be underfunding it: Damn, I love that guy. There is good news to report: President Obama has issued a revamped Space policy which will (among other things) increase NASA’s budget. (via Bad Astronomy) Read more
Dear Richard, What advice would you offer to a young freethinker about to start her first year of middle school? Best regards, A Freethinking Mom Middle School Too soon, too soon, childhood dies, Too far away adulthood lies. The long, perplexing in-between Can be so tender and so mean. No longer boy, but not yet man I’d left the “can’t” but still lacked “can.” “I’ll never make it!” I would think. Now looking back, it was a blink. Dear Freethinking… Read more
We know Christians are divided. There are a lot of Christians who probably agree more with secular values (like separation of church and state) than they do fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Jim Wallis and the folks at the group Sojourners recently released a “Covenant for Civility” that calls for all Christians to come together despite their differences: As Christian pastors and leaders with diverse theological and political beliefs, we have come together to make this covenant with each other, and to… Read more
