Dale McGowan, the author of Parenting Beyond Belief, recently conducted an unscientific poll of atheist parents to get their thoughts on religion, humanist communities, and their children. The results were very surprising to me. Here’s just one example of what Dale found. The question: “In general, how religiously observant is your extended family?” I know Richard Wade often hears from atheists who have to deal with notoriously religious extended families. I get emails from people frequently telling me about conflicts… Read more
If you’re like me, when you see headlines like this, your ears perk up: Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI What does that article say? Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he… Read more
Yesterday, I mentioned that Chicago Tribune article about college atheists, but it was a different level of excitement altogether when I saw it was the cover story in the Tribune magazine. How cool is that?! And yay for pull-out quotations: I saw my mom today after she had read the article. She could sense I was happy. And she wasn’t pleased. Mom: “I don’t know why you’re smiling. You’re making the whole world godless.” Me: “I know. That’s why I’m… Read more
When I was in seventh and eighth grades, I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee and attended Farragut Middle School. I *loved* it there and was eager to start life at Farragut High School. But my family moved to Chicago the week before high school started. I’ve mentioned before that that move was what initially got me questioning the existence of a god in the first place. I clearly missed out on all the fun. Kurt Zimmerman is the father of a… Read more
What happens when you combine the words of Christian Tea Partiers with paintings of Christ? Tea Party Jesus! All the pictures on the site link to a source citing the Tea Partier who said the words. It’s an important point to drive home: The Tea Party members who are Christians say things that would sound just plain silly if they were said by Jesus. Are they smart enough to see that disconnect…? Brilliant concept. (Why didn’t any of you think… Read more
The latest on the Catholic Church Childraping scandal is that the Pope didn’t do anything about the problems when he had the chance: The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including “the good of the universal church,” according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature. Matt Taibbi asks an interesting (and very Taibbi-esque) question: What’s it going to take for them to get rid of this… Read more
Chicago Tribune reporter Nara Schoenberg has a wonderful article about being “young and atheist” in today’s paper — she literally writes about “new atheists.” It’s one of the most positive mainstream pieces I’ve read about the college atheism movement. Twenty years ago a public meeting of atheists and their allies at a large public university — attended by a friendly Methodist pastor, no less — would have been almost unthinkable. Even five years ago it would have been highly unlikely…. Read more
The last time Constance McMillen attended an alternative prom, it turned out to be a big joke on her since just about everyone else besides her was at the *real* alternative prom. Why the deception? Originally, Constance wanted to bring her lesbian girlfriend to Prom and the school refused to let her come. When an alternative prom was planned, they lied to Constance so she wouldn’t go there. But now, her supporters are putting together an *amazing* prom that is… Read more
Courtesy of FMyLife: Today, after church, my 5-year-old son asked me about God, so I answered his questions in full. We talked about God for over 2 hours. At the end of it all, he pondered for a moment, before saying to me “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. You’re dumb.” FML Heh. Though, before you enjoy that too much, remember: 5-year-olds are fickle and there’s a good chance he’ll just change his mind the next day. (Thanks to… Read more
Others can take aim at the methodology and conclusions, but a study published by Baylor University researchers finds that “Priming Christian Religious Concepts Increases Racial Prejudice” (PDF). The gist of the experiment: They subliminally primed one group of students with neutral words like “butter” and “hammer” and another group of students with Christian words like “gospel” and “heaven,” each of which flashed on a computer screen for half a second while the students were performing a task. Then the researchers… Read more
