Margot Carmichael Lester has a article about interfaith relationships at the MSN Dating & Personals website. She offers the following pieces of advice (all expanded upon in the article) to those who wish to avoid religious conflicts around the holiday season: Start a dialogue Practice acceptance Manage expectations Spread the good word Give a little Not surprising advice. But good advice, nonetheless. I especially like the “spread the good word” bit: “The person that you are dating may understand very… Read more
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) is “the nation’s premier civil rights coalition” and “has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.” They have now admitted the Secular Coalition for America into their ranks. This is a big deal. It’s an acknowledgment that the rights of non-believers need to be protected, just like those of disabled Americans, gay Americans, and religious Americans, among others. From an SCA press release: Recognition that… Read more
Jeopardy!’s Ken Jennings second guessed himself saying “Merry Christmas” today: At the store this morning, I was appalled to feel deeply conflicted saying “Merry Christmas” to the cashier. I was suddenly seized by the suspicion that it’s starting to be impossible to wish someone merry Christmas without sounding like a good ideological soldier. I love Christmas–sometimes I say “merry Christmas.” Sometimes I say “happy holidays,” especially if I suspect the recipient is more likely to be celebrating Hanukkah or Ramadan…. Read more
The latest Gallup Poll is in. The Economist graphic below tells the story: That’s slightly below 50% who would vote for a qualified atheist candidate. No real change since last time… [tags]atheist, atheism, gay, homosexual[/tags] Read more
The Western Colorado Atheists recently put up a pro-atheist display in a local library. Basically, it explained some basic facts and cleared some misconceptions about atheism. You can see the posters that they created here (PDF). Seems pretty innocuous. But this is Colorado… There was an editorial in the Grand Junction Sentinel newspaper a couple weeks ago: A prominent public display about atheists in December? Well, what better way to get into the holiday spirit than with an homage to… Read more
The American Humanist Association seems to be taking a page out of the Richard Dawkins’ Foundation’s OUT Campaign playbook. They’ve started the “Humanist Identity Project.” As this email I received (kind of like a chain letter sans the superstition) says: THE HUMANIST IDENTITY EMAIL I’m not going to suggest that forwarding this email to five friends will cause a miracle to occur in your life. Nor will you be met with a streak of bad luck if you don’t forward… Read more
Rod Dreher, a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist, writes this almost excellent piece on religion and politics, focusing on Mitt Romney and Mormonism. We get such nuggets as this one: There are plenty of good reasons for conservative Christians not to vote for Mr. Romney, but his religious beliefs are not among them. Do Christians want to be in the position of rejecting a candidate whose political views and moral values they agree with, solely because they don’t like his… Read more
Germany To Ban ScientologyGermany’s interior minister called the Church of Scientology "an unconstitutional organization" and said the nation is seeking to ban the group. What do you think? I like the last one 🙂 [tags]atheist, atheism, Tom Cruise, Scientology[/tags] Read more
Things I learned from reading this article that I did not know previously: I earned “untold riches” from my book. I live in a mansion. Your choices are: My soul or new church: “How can we spend money on a building while the soul of Hemant Mehta suffers?” Asked [Reverend Thomas] Lexington [of Bolingbrook’s 7th Church of the True Christ]. “His soulless body may have untold riches from his book, ‘I Sold My Soul on eBay,’ but it is unearned… Read more