As the Chicago Coalition of Reason billboard went up last week, I thought about how many different atheist bus ads and billboard campaigns have gone up in the past year. Some have achieved a ton of media attention. A few have slipped under the radar. So, I wondered: How much stronger would all the various publicity campaigns for atheism have been if all the ads had appeared during the same week? It would be difficult to coordinate such a massive… Read more
More than two years after The New Humanism conference at Harvard and coinciding with the release of Humanist chaplain Greg Epstein’s new book, Good Without God, the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University is putting out a new online magazine: The New Humanism is an online magazine meant to explore and help pioneer new ways of bringing Humanists, atheists, agnostics and the nonreligious together to build a movement that can make a lasting and far-reaching positive impact. In short, we are… Read more
There’s some good news for California teacher Jim Corbett, who was accused by his former student Chad Farnan of making anti-Christian comments during history class. The clerk’s office in federal district court in Santa Anna, California has determined that nearly $20,000 in court costs should be borne by high school student Chad Farnan… The fees are to be paid by Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a Christian legal group that represented Farnan pro-bono. The school district and teachers’ union, whose… Read more
Yesterday, The Boston Channel featured several segments on the topic of being “Good Without God.” The first segment focuses on Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein. The second, on the Boston Atheists. The third, on Bostonian Woody Kaplan (Advisory Board chair for the Secular Coalition for America and the focus of the Kay Hagan campaign controversy during last year’s senate race). The fourth, on the Boston University Atheists and Secular Humanists, an affiliate of the Secular Student Alliance. I love how… Read more
Reader Stu would just like to remind everyone who doesn’t have a Halloween costume yet that if you can provide your own beard and robe, you can totally go as Jesus riding a dinosaur: I wonder if they have adult versions of that… In any case, it would make Ken Ham and other Creationists very proud. You have to get inspiration from somewhere: (Thanks to Stu for the link!) Read more
This post is by Jesse Galef — Two days ago, Hemant posted the interview in which Scientologist spokesman Tommy Davis walked off set instead of answering a question about his belief. We can criticize him for being unwilling to admit his own beliefs, but it’s not as if he’ll suffer much. His stunt has gotten him and his church more attention. Most of the publicity is negative, and yet some people are still convinced. Publicly revealing someone to be a… Read more
Hello and thank you for your time. I grew up a christian and was raised in a baptist home (yikes). I am divorced and I have two children ages 11 and 7. I have only been an atheist for 3 years. My children were exposed to christianity from birth and still attend church with their mother, which scares the proverbial Hell out of me. They do not know of my change in ideology. My question is, when do I talk… Read more
I don’t know whether I’m more offended as a vegetarian or as someone who is anti-superstition. The 2010 World Cup — arguably the biggest sporting event in the world — is set to take place in South Africa. So what are South African leaders doing to prepare the stadiums for competition? South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual animal slaughters to bless stadiums for the 2010 World Cup tournament ahead of the start of the showcase event next June,… Read more
A few weeks ago, I posted about the cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School in Georgia and their pro-Christian banners: No doubt the banners were inevitably going to lead to a lawsuit. A parent complained and the cheerleaders were told to stop their proselytizing. It was the right decision. The Christians who thought they were being “victimized” by following the law here had an easy way to counteract this if they chose to — students could just bring their own… Read more
