You want drama? Here’s some drama. American Atheists’ Manager of Office Improvement Projects Arthur Brenner posted a long comment about why (according to him) Ellen Johnson was fired from her position as President of AA. In doing so, he displayed a lot of animosity toward the AA Board of Directors. You can read his post here. I’m not re-pasting it. It should be noted, though, that this comes from one staff member who disagrees with the decision and who has… Read more
A couple months ago, I wrote about The Clinton School of Public Service (at the University of Arkansas) and its new publication Frank. In the first issue, Joseph Ballard interviewed Richard Dawkins. That interview is now available on the magazine’s website. Perhaps more interesting is a recent interview with Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core. (I spoke at an IFYC event late last year.) Patel speaks of the two sides of the faith divide. Not… Read more
A collection of thoughts/links that I’m just clumping together on account of being tired: According to the list of how people found this website, this is a real Google search that led here (though I don’t show up on the result page at the moment). Quote of the day: “When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death By Black Hole Why Intelligent Design undermines Christianity,… Read more
Our friends at Landover Baptist Church cannot stand the abomination that is legal gay marriage in California. They’ve somehow scooped the biggest political blogs out there and obtained a list of the Department of Faith’s proposed Constitutional amendments pertaining to marriage: I believe these amendments, if adopted, would ban every potential marriage in the world. You better run to the altar while you have the chance! [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
It’s a question that’s been asked time and time again. Peter Singer takes the common responses and rebuts them in The Guardian (UK): Christians usually respond that God bestowed on us the gift of free will, and hence is not responsible for the evil we do. But this reply fails to deal with the suffering of those who drown in floods, are burned alive in forest fires caused by lightning, or die of hunger or thirst during a drought. Christians… Read more
According to Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, God hates the Chinese. Just when you thought they couldn’t get any more vicious (PDF), they add racism to their repertoire: Lovely. Just makes you want to receive Christ in your heart, doesn’t it? [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
An American soldier used a copy of the Quran as target practice. He’s since apologized (via a letter) and been relieved from duty in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, apologized to the Radhwaniya tribe for the staff sergeant, who was a sniper section leader assigned to the headquarters of the 64th Armored Regiment. He also read a letter of apology by the shooter. “I come before you here seeking your forgiveness,” Hammand said to… Read more
The host of This American Life, Ira Glass, did an interview with Beliefnet in anticipation of the upcoming second season of the Showtime TAL show. The topics of religion (obviously) came up quite a bit: How do you tell a story well? There is a kind of structure for a story that was peculiarly compelling for the radio. I thought I had invented it atom-by-atom sitting in an editing booth in Washington on M Street when I was in my… Read more
A collection of not-so-angry atheists: Most of them aren’t out and out “Godless” (they don’t make an issue of it, anyway)… but it’s nice to see some happy heathen faces. (via TooManyTribbles) [tags]atheist, atheism[/tags] Read more
Here’s one more item you can add to the list of things you wish you came up with first: Stuff God Hates. For example, God Hates Asia: … I mostly try to smite Asians as much as I can. I’m always smiting them with tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanoes and plagues and small penis. Why, just last week I hit up China with a ‘quake and Myanmar with a Cyclone. Even still, I only managed to kill a measly 120,000… Read more
