Julian Baggini is the author of Atheism: A Very Short Introduction so you would think he supports anyone who defends the idea of atheism. And you would be wrong. Baggini feels the whole New Atheism movement — and its proponents/authors Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens — is destructive. So in my book, I tried to articulate the grounds for this [atheist] view with as little reference to the religious alternative as possible. The new atheism, however,… Read more
Mike Clawson here… My wife has a new post up at the God’s Politics Blog (Jim Wallis’ organization) on a recent Washington Post editorial by Robert McElvaine suggesting that there ought to be a way for Catholics to impeach the Pope. She uses it as a springboard to talk about whether and how more progressive Christians should stand up to the extremist voices in our own religion that are giving all of us a bad name. She gives a shout… Read more
There was a nice article from the Associated Press yesterday that talked about Humanist “congregations”, focusing on Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein One part of the article raised a point about the words we use when describing our atheist communities: Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard University, is building a God-free model of community that he hopes helps humanists increase in numbers and influence. … Epstein wants to plant local humanist centers nationwide that perform many of the community-building… Read more
We suck at Science. According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences: Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time. Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water. Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly. … “There… Read more
Texas has enough problems of its own when it comes to Science standards. This doesn’t make it any better: A Texas legislator is waging a war of biblical proportions against the science and education communities in the Lone Star State as he fights for a bill that would allow a private school that teaches creationism to grant a Master of Science degree in the subject. State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) proposed House Bill 2800 when he learned that The Institute… Read more
From a high school reader from a small town in North Dakota: In my English class, we’re supposed to write a persuasive paper. I’ve decided to “persuade” my religious teacher, religious classmates, and religious school that God is a theory… I know my paper is going to cause quite a commotion,so I want it to be as factual as possible. Do you have any main arguments that I could present, or have an idea for a good way to start… Read more
In my experience, a lot of older Christians may think this is completely misrepresenting them. I wonder, though, how often this applies to younger Christians who grew up in the church and have not been challenged about their beliefs very much: Is it accurate or not? Is it offensive? Keep in mind it was drawn by a pastor… (via nakedpastor) Read more
Dr. Ellery Schempp is the man who, as a boy, played a major role in getting forced prayer out of public schools. As I’ve mentioned before, he’s a freethought hero, if ever there was one. He’s going on a speaking tour in the Virginia/Washington D.C. area in a couple weeks. All the events are free and open to the public. If you get a chance to hear him, go! You won’t regret it. A nicely formatted schedule of events is… Read more
I’ve mentioned before that I am working on a book proposal for my summer project. I could use some help on a couple big questions… What would be a good title for the potential book? The premise is that I would live with a Christian family for the summer and explore faith from that perspective in a variety of ways. (They are paying me to live with them.) I would love a catchy, humorous title, but I’m having a hard… Read more
As if you needed another website to get addicted to. This one is called (The Customer Is) Not Always Right and it’s full of hilarious conversations between employees and their customers. In the following conversation, the customer service person (“Me”) is talking to one disturbed caller (“Customer”)…: Me: “All right, just a moment here while I bring up the info…” Customer: “Just hurry it up, will you?” Me: “OK, it’s coming up now…” Customer: *sneezes* (About 10 seconds pass in… Read more
