While it’s easy to think all Christians are fawning over Sarah Palin, not all of them are huge fans. The progressive Christian group Matthew 25 Network put out a press release calling on Palin to be kinder, more honest, and — in so many words — “more Christian”: The Matthew 25 Network is extremely disappointed in Sarah Palin’s address last night at the Republican National Convention. We call on her not as a political figure but as a prominent Christian,… Read more
The FLorida Atheists and Secular Humanists (FLASH) and the Center for Inquiry Community of Ft. Lauderdale are raising funds for their Darwin Day public education events next year. If you donate $50 to their cause, you will be entered in a raffle to win a trip for two (for 7 days/6 nights) to the Galapagos Islands! Only 250 tickets are being given away, so the odds are in your favor… at least as much as they can be this side… Read more
Blog-supported Democrat Kay Hagan is beating Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in the race to be one of North Carolina’s senators. From a survey conducted by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner: Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole is trailing her Democratic challenger, Kay Hagan, 50 to 45 percent. Less than half of voters (46 percent) are familiar with Hagan, while Dole receives troubling marks from voters—just 38 percent approve of the job she is doing as Senator, and voters are divided on… Read more
Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation, published an opinion piece on Sarah Palin in the Los Angeles Times today: McCain has so little respect for the presidency of the United States that he is willing to put the girl next door (soon, too, to be a grandma) into office beside him. He has so little respect for the average American voter that he thinks this reckless and cynical ploy will work. And it might. Palin’s nomination has… Read more
There are always many dumb things to choose from. But we’re going for “recent” here. Chris got a lot of entertaining responses. I’m sure readers here can top them 🙂 (via Cynical-C Blog) Read more
Granger Community Church near South Bend, Indiana recently surveyed their members. They wanted to know the actual beliefs of the congregation. Among the surprising results were the following: 57% of attendees do not believe in the authority of the Bible. 56% of attendees do not believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life. 47% of attendees do not believe in salvation by grace. There are a variety of explanations for these results, and I’d love to know why… Read more
Last time, I ran this contest: Atheists were not invited to the Democratic National Convention’s Interfaith Gathering. What other events are atheists not being invited to? Why not? Here are the Top 3 events (with submitters): 3| Ecuador’s 11th Annual Curved Yellow Fruit Enthusiast Convention: too many atheist attendees experiencing horrendous nightmares. (Anthony) 2| Baby shower. No idea why not. (Spook) 1| Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan’s school of Jihad potluck and ice cream social. (Awesomesauce) … Congratulations to the winners! The… Read more
I know you stay up late at night asking: What religion is Amy Winehouse? You can go to bed now. She’s a Buddhist. A source said: “One of her musicians introduced Amy to Buddhist chanting. She chants for ten minutes in the mornings and just before she sleeps. “Amy has also been watching the interview clip of TINA TURNER chanting on YouTube and she reckons it’s already affecting her in a positive way. “She has a string of Buddhist beads… Read more
Adding to the Bristol Palin onslaught, I know. But I found the picture funny. That is all. (via Reddit) Read more
In Italy, a group called the Italian Union of Rationalists and Agnostics (UAAR) has taken it upon themselves to help people get debaptized. As I wrote last year, “If you’re Catholic, you need to send the Church a formal letter (the ‘actus defectionis’) in order to officially leave the faith.” A sample copy of this letter has been downloaded thousands of times from the UAAR website. All this really does is let ex-Catholics formally leave the Church. Somehow, the Christian… Read more