The New York Times has an update on Ohio teacher John Freshwater, the public school teacher who doesn’t even try to keep his Christian beliefs to himself, opting instead to hinder their education with it: Mr. Freshwater, an eighth-grade public school science teacher, is accused of burning a cross onto the arms of at least two students and teaching creationism, charges he says have been fabricated because he refused an order by his principal to remove a Bible from his… Read more
by Jesse Galef – About a week ago I had the pleasure of attending a talk on the nature of secularism entitled “Belief and the Public” given by Michael De Dora Jr., executive director of the CFI-NYC chapter. He started by arguing for the importance of opening religious beliefs up to scrutiny. That part didn’t surprise me and I agreed wholeheartedly. I was, however, surprised when I realized that he was arguing against what I consider a secular government. I… Read more
Note: When letter writers sign with their first names instead of a pseudonym or nickname, I randomly change their name for added anonymity. Dear Richard, I’ll try to keep it short. My 10-year old daughter has started complaining about her being picked on in school because she does not subscribe to the majority religious views. I cannot blame the school for this, since it’s coming from her peers, not staff. I could only advise her to go away from the… Read more
After the New York City atheist ads made such a media splash, Christians in the area are coming back with this ad: That ad is on around 1,000 subways cars as of Friday. Looks pretty, but there’s little substance to it. And I suspect it won’t raise a lot of attention. It’s a pretty bland ad when it comes right down to it. Nothing we haven’t seen hundreds of times before. But I don’t mind Times Square Church for doing… Read more
This Sunday (the 24th), the Canadian TV show Test the Nation is going to be pitting several different groups against each other next week to see who has the higher IQ. Two of the groups: Atheists and Believers. [Picture removed] I believe that’s us on the right. In case you’re curious about the show, sometimes they quiz viewers on things like sports trivia or Canadian history. This is only the second time they’ve tested a demographic group’s IQ. My friend… Read more
1) Provide the U.S. military with Jesus Rifles: Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found. The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the… Read more
The server may still act up for a bit and run slowly, but feel free to resume commenting. A new system will likely be put in place next weekend (with threaded comments)! Thanks as always for reading. Read more
The Secular Coalition for America’s executive director Sean Faircloth will be speaking in Chicago at the end of the month at a meeting of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago. The Secular Coalition for America lobbies for secular policies in Washington, D.C. Secular Coalition Executive Director Sean Faircloth will discuss how the values of our nation’s founders directly connect to the values of the secular movement and how theocratically-based injustices in American law are not a historical artifact — but… Read more
Moving the site over now. Should take a few hours. Comments made between now and the server switch will not be transferred. So please do refrain from posting. Thanks for bearing with me. Read more
I know Alabama suffers from politicians who win votes by saying they believe every word of the Bible, but at least we know all hope is not lost in that state. Amanda Gulledge has a beautiful piece up at Salon about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Gulledge also happened live across the street from Gov. George Wallace. Eddie was Wallace’s “helper.” Eddie was also a black man. I would sit and watch Eddie cut the grass. I would also “enhance”… Read more
