Hi, Ron Gold checking in. The debate surrounding fertility drugs was rekindled when Nadya Suleman, better known as the crazy octuplet lady, gave birth to her litter in late January. We now know that she is single, unemployed, already has six children, and is rumored to have unhealthy psychological urges to have many children. The thought of her having one more baby is frightening, let alone eight. To top it off, her father made this remark in an interview with Oprah: “I say to… Read more
Hi. Good Saturday morning to you all. Trina here, bringing you a little Saturday morning silliness. Just two weeks ago, I told you all that there was a knock at my door. Well, this fine, brisk Saturday morning, my doorbell rang. I handled the people on my stoop in much the same way I handled the last pair of God’s children who summoned me to my door on a “lazy” Saturday morning (I was working at the time). All the while, of… Read more
The campaign to get atheist buses in Ottawa, Canada came to a standstill when the ads were rejected. Apparently, it’s too offensive to say “There’s probably no god.” Meanwhile, ads featuring Bible verses are perfectly fine in Ottawa. However, reader Marlowe writes me with some positive news: The good news is that City Councillor Alex Cullen will be moving to repeal the decision at the Council’s March 11th meeting. I’ve asked him what I could do to help and he… Read more
Mike Clawson here… I’m going to try something new. In addition to the typical posts I usually put up, I’m going to start occasionally just throwing out a quotation from something I’m reading or have encountered, sans commentary, and just invite any and all of you to comment, critique or reflect on it as you so desire. No agenda on my part, just stuff that I thought would be interesting to hear others’ thoughts on. So here’s a Betrand Russell… Read more
You may have read a number of stories about Jeremy Hall, a military atheist who filed a lawsuit that was unsuccessful. He spoke about his experiences at last year’s Freedom From Religion Foundation convention — the speech is now available online: … The first time [my atheism] ever became an issue was Thanksgiving 2006. I was with a bunch of soldiers, and there were non-commissioned officers at that table. I had been invited to this table and had accepted their… Read more
Hi, all… it’s me, Trina. So, as I am sure many of you have heard, Ray Comfort has joned the Examiner as the “Creationism Examiner.” Of course, I haven’t seen much along the lines of creationism in his articles so far, but we shall see. Anyway, I am not here to talk about Ray’s new column… no, no. But I am here to talk about Ray. It seems he has issued a challenge to Richard Dawkins. He is offereing him $10,000 to… Read more
The Secular Student Alliance is a group I’ve worked with for years. We help create, maintain, and support atheist student groups across the country. Every now and then we get requests from student groups in other countries who would like our help. We do what we can, but it’s tough to give them the support they need. That’s why I’m thrilled to hear about the launch of The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist & Secular Student Societies (AHS). It’s an… Read more
Is “I” a bad word? No, of course not. How about “Choose”? Nope. “Hell”? It refers to an imaginary concept — a scary one — but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. Its meaning depends more on the context of how you use it. Which is why it’s strange to hear that filmmaker George Kalman’s company “I Choose Hell Productions” had its name rejected “because [Pennsylvania] state law prohibits names that ‘constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing or that profane… Read more
The kids I help coach on my high school’s Speech Team made it to the state tournament (woo!) — as did others on our team — so I’ll be in the middle of Belleville, IL (i.e. two minutes from St. Louis, on the other side of the fence) from Thursday until Sunday. Updates from the tournament can be found here. Have a wonderful weekend! Read more
Mike Clawson here… Atheists may think they have the corner on baby-eating, but I was just recently reading a Christian text from the early third century that addresses some of the many accusations that Romans tended to make against Christians, and I noticed this: The notoriety of the stories told of the initiation of new recruits [to Christianity] is matched by their ghastly horror. A young baby is covered over with flour, the object being to deceive the unwary. It… Read more
