This guest post is by Jesse Galef, who works for the American Humanist Association. He usually blogs at Rant & Reason. I want to express how grateful I am to be allowed to contribute here. Not only do I enjoy reading the site, but Friendly Atheist has a great community of commenters. In fact, reader Primenumbers raised an interesting point in comments for my earlier post: Good works are not good works if you’re doing them for a bad reason…. Read more
Advice for new teachers: Make sure you run through a lesson yourself before presenting it in a high school classroom. Here’s essentially how my Geometry lesson went the other day. Me: Class, what is the name of this polyhedron? Class: A square pyramid! Me: Very good. And what polygons do you see when a square pyramid is pulled apart and we make a two-dimensional “net”? Class: A square and four triangles! Me: Very good. Now what is the name of… Read more
Atheism Examiner (and contributor to this site) Trina Hoaks had a chance to interview Richard Dawkins over the weekend at the American Atheists conference. The lead-up to the interview is almost as good as the interview itself! It’s very exciting — even from the sidelines — seeing such a huge Dawkins fan get a chance to talk to him in person 🙂 There are three parts here. Part 1 — The prelude Part 2 — The man behind the image… Read more
Churches take in tons of money each week, and they don’t have to pay taxes on them. But because of the recession, they’re not taking in as much as they used to. Therefore, they have to lay off some of their staff members. And the tax exemption is coming back to bite them in the ass: Take Granger Community Church, a nondenominational megachurch with 60 staff members. With its annual revenue down a half-million dollars since 2006, the church found… Read more
You try to guess the underlying message in the following video (brought to you by the same group that began the Creation Museum): (via The Daily Dish) Read more
The George Washington University, like many other schools, has an invocation prayer during graduation ceremonies. Of course, there’s no reason for prayers to be said by school officials at a public school ceremony. John Beers, an atheist at the school, tried to put an end to that: Beers spoke up during last week’s SA senate meeting, saying he finds the University’s practice of conducting an invocation and benediction during Commencement “extremely disheartening.” “It doesn’t seem right to me to be… Read more
Major-General Patrick Crawford died a couple months ago. Yesterday, I was sent his obituary from reader Clare. The Times Online (UK) piece documents his heroism and incredible career: Tall, tirelessly energetic and inquiring, Patrick Crawford was just the effective and good-humoured doctor a crisis demands and, for that matter, to address problems from which others tend to shy away. His career as a regimental medical officer began with the Army in Malaysia, where he rescued an officer from a helicopter… Read more
An entry from the 2009 Twin Cities Creation Science Association (TCCSA) science fair: Essentially, this tells us that goldfish should be fed twice a day… because Genesis says we have dominion over them. I think. The notes to presenters tell you everything you need to know about what TCCSA sponsors think a scientist should be doing: Five things to remember: 1. Know your material. 2. Be confident. 3. Communicate well. 4. Be thorough. 5. Pray your exhibit will witness to… Read more
I wasn’t at the American Atheists’ Convention so I really hope AA releases video of this. Here is an excellent writeup about Nate Phelps’ talk at the AA Convention. Phelps is the son of Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps — but Nate managed to escape from the family’s craziness. hambydammit was there: Nate’s speech, which lasted for around forty minutes, was sometimes painful to listen to. He spoke of horrible, despicable acts of abuse, both physical and mental, and of… Read more
You would think a church mired in sex scandals would want to avoid association with a guy who has recently been involved in a sex scandal… And since when do Catholics try to emulate the cheesy “we-know-pop-culture-so-we-must-be-relevant” element of so many Christian churches? As if we needed another reason not to attend church… (via Unreasonable Faith) Read more
