In Moscow, Idaho today, a billboard placed by the American Humanist Association was vandalized: It’s really incredible what little you have to do to offend someone. This particular billboard was simply saying there are those out there who are good without a god. What sort of person do you have to be to see that as a slap-in-the-face to your own religious beliefs? At least the AHA has a sense of humor about it: “I knew there would be some… Read more
This post is by Jesse Galef — Here’s an interesting twist on a common question. I’ve been asked several times whether I could date a religious girl. I can speak from experience (though with a sample size of one) that it didn’t work out well. She told me that her faith was a big part of who she was, and asked that if I didn’t respect her faith how could I respect her? (For the record, an uncomfortable silence ensued… Read more
This post is courtesy of Ron Gold. Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, has been extra busy lately. In the last few days, he’s thrown his ire–or, as Hemant put it, thrown a “shit fit”–at The Simpsons and comedian Sarah Silverman for alleged anti-Catholic bigotry. But Donohue has really topped himself with a column titled “America’s secular saboteurs,” which was published in The Washington Post’s “On Faith” section. His argument is that secular liberals want to destroy American culture, and starts by claiming: There are many ways cultural… Read more
I’m not a Biologist, but I’m still thrilled to hear that Richard Lenski has a new paper in Nature that talks about his 21-year-long (and still going!) experiment. Lenski, Hannah Professor of Microbial Ecology at MSU, started growing cultures of fast-reproducing, single-celled E. coli bacteria in 1988. If a genetic mutation gives a cell an advantage in competition for food, he reasoned, it should dominate the entire culture. While Darwin’s theory of natural selection is supported by other studies, it… Read more
And with the click of a button and the help of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (blessed be His name), I now have a new desktop image for my laptop: (created by Milek, via Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) Read more
Robert Marus & Ken Camp of the Associated Baptist Press ask a very interesting question in a recent article: “What does virtual rumor-mongering say about Christians?” It seems Christians are prone to sending out those wacky emails that say ridiculous, untrue things. Madalyn Murray O’Hair is trying to ban religious programming on television. (She was killed over a decade ago and never tried to ban such programming during her lifetime.) Barack Obama is a Muslim. (No, he’s not.) Al Gore… Read more
Mike Clawson here… I just wanted to call your attention to an interesting set of articles I recently encountered. This one by Lauren Sandler cites a few scientific studies (including one highlighted by Richard Dawkins, and another conducted by Michael Shermer) to suggest that women are more religious than men because they are evolutionarily, biologically, or psychologically conditioned to be more emotional or social and therefore less rational than men. This response by Jessica Glaser at Emerging Women, on the… Read more
It’s not the picture of Jesus on a toilet door in an IKEA that made me laugh. It was the caption…: Jesus, or possibly Gandalf, as spotted on the door of the gents’ toilets in a Glasgow branch of Ikea Photo: JOHN GUNION — THE SUN Beautiful. Though I don’t get how the image is supposed to be Jesus. I think it looks more like Muhammad. The reporter, Tom Chivers, seems to understand why this whole story is ridiculous. He’s… Read more
In Italy, the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR) are planning their second annual Debaptism this Sunday. Last year, over a thousand people filled out the forms declaring their intent to no longer be listed on the Catholic Church rolls. UAAR is hoping for even more this year. In a loose translation, this posting reads: “The debaptism phenomenon is in constant growth — explains Raffaele Carcano, national secretary of the UAAR — and is attracting the growing attention of… Read more
Today, the Chicago Coalition of Reason premiered our billboard in the heart of the city, on the corner of LaSalle Blvd. and Grand Ave. in River North: (Photo courtesy of Dan Fester) I don’t know if it’ll be controversial. Why would it be? Unless you’re deluded enough to think goodness only derives from belief in God, this should be a matter-of-fact statement. Still, I hope it gets people talking 🙂 We’ll see what happens. … ***Update***: Here is the press… Read more
