Salman Rushdie won the first “Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism” from Harvard University. Lead singer of Bad Religion Greg Graffin won the second one last year. This year, the award will be given to Joss Whedon, creator of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. … The ceremony will take place on Friday April 10 at 8pm, in The Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. Preceding the presentation of the award, Mr. Whedon will give a short speech about his… Read more
The social network Atheist Nexus just got itself a facelift — the website looks brand new. If you haven’t seen it in a while, it’s worth going back to check it out. And if you’ve never seen it before, it’s free to join and use 🙂 The new changes will hopefully make the site easier to use and navigate. While you’re there, you’re welcome to join the Friendly Atheist group! Read more
This is neat. Stare at the following image for about 30 seconds. Then look at a white wall and blink a couple times to see the afterimage. The image was created by Rob Jenkins and Richard Wiseman. You can also see how they created the image. (via Jewelisms) Read more
Imagine a conversation featuring Pat Robertson and bananaman Ray Comfort that features this snippet: Robertson: Tell me about the essentials of Darwinism. What have you understood that Darwin taught? Comfort: Well, Darwin was a very bitter man… That would make you go crazy, right? Why is one ignorant man asking a more ignorant man about a subject neither one knows much about? Then you may not want to watch this: Comfort also shows evolution is false by asking random people… Read more
Thanks to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, buses in Madison, Wisconsin will be displaying the following ads over the next two months: I’ve never said these words before, but I think I have a sudden urge to ride public transportation in Wisconsin. Read more
By jumping the shark is a variety of ways, says David Ng at McSweeney’s. He makes exploitative prime-time-television cameos Darwin appears as the “man in need of a haircut” in an episode of Gossip Girl, and is the first contestant voted off Survivor: Galápagos. Eventually makes Barbara Walters’s list of most fascinating people of the year. Cries during interview. … Joins the Ice Capades Darwin is hired for small part in a Lion King–themed ice show. Takes skating lessons and… Read more
The first Richard Dawkins book I ever read was The Ancestor’s Tale. (It’s still my favorite by far.) I think I became his fan within the first couple pages. That’s because Dawkins referenced this iconic picture of “evolution in action”: Dawkins wrote about a major flaw with the image. It showed: … man as evolution’s last word (and in this context it always is man rather than woman); man as what the whole enterprise is pointing towards; man as a… Read more
Greta Christina says that when Sam Harris wrote about the myths and truths of atheism a couple years ago, he spent a lot of time attacking religion. Don’t get me wrong — I think religion deserves criticism. But here, I think it’s inappropriate. If you’re writing a piece saying, “Here’s who we are and why the myths about us are incorrect,” you shouldn’t go off on a “here’s why the rest of you are losers” tangent. It’s not persuasive …… Read more
It used to be the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act — a mandatory moment of silence that was really a way to sneak forced prayer into Illinois public schools. After atheist high school student Dawn Sherman successfully filed a lawsuit against the Act, it was changed to the Student Silent Reflection Act. Not mandatory and no mention of prayer… in other words, something completely unnecessary. [The Act] Allows a teacher to conduct (instead of requiring a teacher to observe)… Read more
If you’re in the Bloomington, Indiana area and you’d like to see atheist buses in your area, there’s a meeting this Friday night to discuss how to make this happen! … We want to put an slogan that will present the positive face of atheism while encouraging discussion about the topic on public transit. This is a campaign in-the-making, so if you want to be a part of it come to the meeting! More information is on the Secular Alliance… Read more
