The site switched servers today. We should be back up and running at full speed by tomorrow. The forums are currently down, but they should be back up by tomorrow night as well. Thanks for your patience. Read more
If only I had known babies now come in jelly/gummi form… Ironically, as a vegetarian, I would probably choose not to eat these. Because of the gelatin. The baby-ness is perfectly ok. (Thanks to Mikel for the link!) Read more
Let’s say you’re married and male. I understand it might look a bit suspicious if you’re hanging out with single women… but hopefully, there’s some trust built into your relationship and you’re not cheating on your wife. Laura has a story dealing with that situation that I find appalling. The setup is that she worked at a Christian summer camp several years back — Joel was one of her co-workers and Corey was her boss. It was late, very dark,… Read more
A new atheist student group has formed at the University of Oregon. They have the most pleasant name I’ve heard in a long time: The Alliance of Happy Atheists. Lucy Gubbins, the group’s recently elected president, says the group’s goal is not to be anti-religious. Instead, the group is focused on being courteous, tolerant, and supporting atheism and atheists. “I think the Alliance of Happy Atheists creates a community for people to come to,” said Gubbins, a University freshman. “I… Read more
I was sitting in my classroom yesterday while my students were taking a quiz. I wanted to look up something on the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign website (I’m still pumped they’re running ads on Chicago buses). This is what I saw when I went to their website: My school has the site blocked because of a “Malicious Web Reputation.” Man… The Internets are always talking smack about atheists… Read more
I love this picture, courtesy of brexians: What it really needs is a good promotional caption. Something like “The OUT Campaign: We need all of you to come out to complete the atheist tapestry.” Or something far less cheesy. You get the idea. Who are the marketing gurus out there? What can you come up with? (via toomanytribbles) Read more
The 2008 Clergy Voices Survey involved surveying senior clergy from the seven largest Mainline denominations of Christianity — United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Baptist Churches USA, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) — on a variety of issues. The findings are not what you might expect: On a range of policy issues, Mainline Protestant clergy are generally more supportive of LGBT rights than the general population, and… Read more
Soren is a six-year-old boy who didn’t believe in the Tooth Fairy (“What would a fairy do with all those teeth anyway?” he asked). But once he discovered there was an exchange of money for his baby teeth, he bought into the fiction completely. Here, we have a story that is obviously irrational, but once an incentive is thrown in, the boy buys into the story entirely. Is this a metaphor for religion? Children are able to sacrifice rationality and… Read more
The LA Times published Charlotte Allen’s anti-atheist rant last Sunday. Yesterday, editorial writer Jon Healey tried to defend the paper’s decision to run the piece. He failed. Allen isn’t the first to take the gloves off, or to use hyperbole as a way to get readers to sharpen the edges of an issue. Although we’re not exactly Provacteurs Inc., we regularly run pointed material from the likes of Bill Maher. Nor do theists have a monopoly on our page. In… Read more
Not that there’s any good news to be found when a young girl dies because of her parents’ religion, but at least a bit of justice has been served on behalf of Madeline Kara Neumann. Her mother was found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide. The crime is punishable by up to 25 years in prison. No sentencing date was set and Neumann remained free on bond. Neumann declined to comment after the verdict was announced. … Prosecutors said a reasonable… Read more