Friend-of-the-blog Ken Jennings jokingly writes that David Archuleta lost to David Cook on the American Idol season finale because Archuleta was a practicing Mormon: You remember those Romney poll numbers showing how many Americans wouldn’t vote for a Mormon president –- do we have higher or lower religious standards for our reality show winners? Maybe Mormons and beat-boxers are the last two okay-to-hate minorities. Look in the mirror, America! Would you vote a beat-boxer for president? I bet I could… Read more
Back in the Middle Ages, sex was frowned upon. “Carnal relations,” even with one’s wife, were considered filthy. Intercourse for procreation was tolerable, the holy fathers begrudgingly admitted, but anyone who indulged in sex because they were in love or seeking physical pleasure was on a fast track to damnation. In fact, this attitude eventually led the Church to legislate on the most intimate details of married life: In 1215, the cleric Johannes Teutonicus was the first to announce that… Read more
This video gets blasphemous… it’s about religion at its worst. But it’s in French. Which softens the blow. (Right…?) English subtitles are there if you can read them. It’s by Salvatore Pertutti: Anyone catch the unintentional reference to Pastafarians? (via 1 2 3 Religious Comics) [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
What do you do if you’re a Latina woman who doesn’t believe in God but lives in a spiritual city? If you’re Anna De Luna, you write a one-woman show about it. Her show, ¿Chicana Atheist?, is playing at the SAY Sí Black Box Theatre in San Antonio, Texas this weekend (through Saturday night). Here are some thoughts Luna shared in an interview: … What I realized was that I would always tell people a lot of stories about my… Read more
For a high school English project, recent graduate Peter had to come up with a creative response to the following question: What does it mean to be human? Here’s what he did and what he observed: … I interviewed 100 people on the street, and, interestingly, very few of them chose to define themselves by religion. I think it’s pretty cool that there are so many people who understand that they don’t need religion to give their lives meaning. I’m… Read more
One of my favorite podcasts is NPR’s program, Speaking of Faith, a conversation on “religion, meaning, ethics and ideas”. Each week the host, Krista Tippett, interviews scholars and practitioners from a stunning variety of religious backgrounds – evangelicals, Muslims, atheist humanists, Mormons, Catholics, Buddhists, Jews, even a Haitian Vodou priest with a PhD. Recently I also read Tippett’s personal memoir from the show, also titled Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It. In it she… Read more
Word on the street is that John McCain is meeting with potential running mates this coming weekend. Among them: Mitt Romney… Governor Charlie Crist of Florida… and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. I’m worried. Not because I think McCain will have a strong enough ticket to beat Barack Obama. But because of that third option. Of all the names being mentioned as McCain’s potential running mate, Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, the 36-year-old first-term governor of Louisiana, is not only the youngest… Read more
Bored? Then go to Google and see what happens if you type in: will of god… Oh boy. I wonder what other unintentional religious search results there are… (via Reddit) [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
I don’t know whether to be angry or not. Eddie Walker, principal at Irmo High School in South Carolina, is resigning at the end of the next school year. Why? Because a Gay/Straight Alliance group is being allowed to form at his school and he can’t deal with it. In a letter sent to the student body and faculty, and obtained by WIS News 10 Columbia, Irmo High School Principal Eddie Walker wrote, “The formation of this club conflicts with… Read more
