The Los Angeles Times managed to get it both right and wrong with yesterday’s editorial. They were commenting on the Capitol Visitor Center and the potential engraving of “In God We Trust” inside of it. FFRF is suing to stop that from happening. So where does the editorial team stand on this? This is another case that calls for reasonableness rather than stridency. Although there is an understandable rationale for keeping phrases like “In God We Trust” in places where… Read more
What happens when you put a Catholic priest, Father Jonathan Morris, on FOXNews and let people ask him religious questions? Entertainment. Puzzlement. Confusion. Were you expecting anything different? This is a great clip to watch 🙂 He doesn’t know the answer… so he asks to use a lifeline. (It’s not like the Pope would know any better.) My favorite line from Morris is this: You know… the fact is that we don’t know *exactly* how things happened… And yet, religious… Read more
In Cambridge, MIT opened the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values this past spring. It’s a bit of an old story, but I’m just coming across it now. The Dalai Lama had some interesting soundbytes in the piece: “The majority of the 6 billion people on earth, I think, we can categorize as non-believers,” he said. “So we must find a way to promote ethics and values with these nonbelievers … We need promotion of secular ethics through… Read more
A few million years of evolution shown in two minutes of animation. The point is to show how microevolution, added up over time, can really lead to what we define as different species. The author points out that this isn’t necessarily how our species came to exist, but it’s theoretically how it could have happened. (Thanks to David for the link!) Read more
We already know the horrors that occur due to belief in superstition in Africa. This story just adds to the problem. Albinos are getting killed and mutilated for their body parts. Witch doctors believe their organs “bring good luck in love, life and business.” One man in the video explains how his brother Daniel was murdered by another family member — Daniel’s arms and legs were chopped off. The body parts were later sold for $240. This is what can… Read more
The question to famed Christian evangelist Billy Graham: How can I know whether a certain religious group is Christian or if it’s a cult? Because we all know it’s either one or the other… Anyway, Graham’s response: … Cults often claim that they, and they alone, have the truth about God, and they often dismiss other churches as wrong or misguided. They also may claim that God gave their founder a new revelation that “corrects” the “errors” of others. Someone… Read more
You’ve already seen te fantastic God Trumps card from New Humanist magazine. Crispian Jago offers his version of Celebrity Quack Trumps. Below, we have anti-vaxer Jenny McCarthy and pro-cupper Gwyneth Paltrow: He has plenty of other entertaining cards at his site. (via Science, Reason and Critical Thinking) Read more
Saskatchewan can teach religious Americans a lesson: Your religious beliefs are not an excuse for you to avoid doing your job. Marriage commissioner Orville Nichols was asked to perform a marriage for “M.J.” When he discovered that M.J.’s partner was the same sex, Nichols backed away, because he believes that “God hates homosexuality.” M.J. filed a human rights complaint, won the case, and was awarded $2,500. Nichols appealed, and last week, the ruling was issued: Nichols was wrong; religion is… Read more
Atheist YouTuber Thunderf00t recently debated banana-man Ray Comfort. I’m not a fan of these debates because the Creationist side never has anything relevant to say, and Ray Comfort is no exception. By debating his kind, we are merely giving Creationists the satisfaction of thinking they have something valuable to offer, when in fact they don’t. Let’s see the tape: You want proof this type of debate is useless? Here’s a brief excerpt: Comfort: So what was in the beginning? How… Read more
If newspapers are in danger of going out of business, this is certainly one way to draw in the eyes of readers. Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article poking fun at Governor Mark Sanford’s recent comments about how “God will make him better.” It’s called “God is not your bitch.” After all, if much of organized religion and nearly every conservative/fundamentalist adherent thereof are to be believed — and they most definitely are not — God… Read more
