A New York-based magazine writer would like to speak to high-school aged atheists who have Creationist parents: We generally don’t hear much about this side of the story. I expect most kids just get along as they can until 18, and then flee. But the pressures facing these kids have to be extraordinary, and I’m deeply interested in learning more about how they cope — how they manage to separate their belief from their parents, how they go on living… Read more
It’s nothing you haven’t already heard, but The New York Times is publishing an article tomorrow on the isolation of atheists in our political culture. Only one of the 535 members of Congress, Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California, publicly identifies as a nontheist, according to the Secular Coalition of America, a lobbying group based in Washington. For that matter, the coalition has existed for only three years and runs with two staff members and an annual budget of about… Read more
Congressperson Pete Stark accepted the 2008 Humanist of the Year award this past summer. An edited transcript of his speech is printed in the latest issue of The Humanist. Before you get to that article, though, there is a brief introduction explaining how Stark became the only openly non-theistic Member of Congress: In the fall of 2006 the Secular Coalition of America announced that they would award $1,000 to the person who identified the highest-level atheist, humanist, freethinker, or other… Read more
For those of you Sage users, this site’s RSS feed should be working again! (Thanks to Adrian for all his help!) Read more
He doesn’t like it. The actor was promoting a movie on the show when a screaming fan ran towards Wahlberg and had to be pulled off him by security guards — and the star fears her intentions might not have been altogether good. He explains, “The only thing that was a bit disturbing was she had a pin (badge) on that said ‘God is not real’ and that was upsetting to me. But I still pray for her to this… Read more
***Update***: Audio of the event (MP3) is now available! … The event at Kensington Community Church went wonderfully. I’ll post audio when it’s available. The evening was structured so that I would be interviewed by the pastor on stage about the eBay auction and my thoughts about the Christian church (about 20-30 minutes), followed by another 30 minutes or so of questions from the audience. The questions were submitted on pieces of paper while the first half of the conversation… Read more
Pop quiz. Who is depicted in the following statue? If you said Jesus, you win! Even the artist, Rosalind Cook, says so: This sculpture depicts Jesus with the children… I have depicted Christ more to show His character qualities. He is a bit larger than scale to signify His deity. I have shown His compassion and His love. He is strong and well built, wearing the typical attire of Biblical days and yet the children are contemporary children showing that… Read more
I received an email from Americans United for Separation of Church and State with the following banner image indicating how much money the following Christian Right organizations take in annually (click for larger version): Most atheist organizations wouldn’t appear on this list. Only a couple would crack the very bottom of it. We have a long way to go before politicians and society as a whole care about our concerns. With less money, it’s harder to advertise what we’re fighting… Read more
Dale McGowan just announced the winners of the First Annual “Parenting Beyond Belief Column Competition.” One of the winning entries was a terrific piece by Blake Evans about his decision of whether or not to circumsize his newborn child. “I’ve decided to let you decide whether or not to circumcise.” Sally said this to me one night, about six months into her pregnancy. “Only if it’s a boy, though, right?” One side of her mouth turned up. “Yes. Only if… Read more
