There was a great profile in the Rutgers FOCUS about Barry Klassel, the Humanist Chaplain at the school. Klassel, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Columbia University, and a master’s degree in theater from the University of Pittsburgh, grew up in a Jewish household and gravitated to Humanism in college. “It started with a sincere effort to try to understand what it is that human beings can know and cannot know,” he said. “My conclusion was that this… Read more
Sarah Silverman offerer her solution to the hunger crisis on last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher: I would thoroughly enjoy eating my Vatican-bought pizza 🙂 Read more
A couple weeks ago, the News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) published an article about how Catholics are making certain sacrifices in the wake of the H1N1 virus. They’re not taking sips from the same Cup of Jesus’ Blood. They’re not shaking hands to greet each other. Bottles of Purell hand sanitizer now rest upon the altar. Silly rituals aside, the precautions make a lot of sense. That led a Raleigh citizen to write a letter-to-the-editor in which she accused Church… Read more
This post is by Jesse — I really shouldn’t be on the computer; I should be packing for my trip up to New York for a wedding. But I wanted to say two things. Like Hemant and PZ Myers (as well as countless others, no doubt) I read all the comments on my posts. There was quite an unexpected reaction to my last post, so I looked back and realized I was unclear about my position. That’s my mistake; I… Read more
Today is the day that hundreds of atheists in Poland are staging a coming out march: What is the significance of this march? “We want to show that there are non-believers living in Poland,” Ewelina Podsiad, the chief organiser of the march, told the Krakow Post. According to the MAiA website, the non-theist minority needs to be recognised because “in a situation when a minority is not visible, it is easy to discriminate against it, to exclude its interests and… Read more
Richard Dawkins appeared on The O’Reilly Factor last night (in a taped interviewed). It was pretty much what you would expect. Dawkins makes good sense. Bill O’Reilly thinks he’s right because he yells and he has Jesus on his side. I think these screen captures explain the interview completely. The beginning: The middle: The end: Here’s the actual interview. With the slight time lag between O’Reilly yelling something and Dawkins hearing it, it’s quite entertaining to use the extra second… Read more
Reader Doug happens to be on the mailing list for Answers in Genesis. So he’s been getting their newsletter for a little while now. A recent article stood out to him. It was about Camp Quest, the summer camp for children of atheist parents. You can read the article by clicking on the images below or just go here for the online version: Gotta love the comic on the second page… It’s notable that the article contained some glaring errors…. Read more
Recently, a capital bill was signed by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (i.e. the guy who replaced Blagojevich) which would give more than $11,000,000 to various religious projects. $1,000,000 of that was going to go to Pilgrim Baptist Church — this was something that had been in the works for over a year. When atheist Rob Sherman filed a lawsuit against our state last year over this illegal earmark, it resulted in an infamous exchange with State Representative Monique Davis during… Read more
After attacking opponent Dan Barbour about his ties to atheism during the campaign, newly re-elected Albuquerque city councilperson Don Harris must have had enough of your emails. Instead of a canned response, he finally issued a real response to reader Gareth. It’s the response Harris should really have delivered days ago: Thank you for taking to time to write to me. I appreciate your very thoughtful comments. I will not bring up Atheism in any future endeavor, as I have… Read more
Less than I year ago, I wrote about the charity Kiva: Kiva Microfunds is an organization that allows people to lend money via the Internet to microfinance institutions in developing countries which in turn lend the money to small businesses… Kiva allows you to lend money in groups, and the Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious group has been among the most generous teams for the past year. I am now able to say the following with… Read more