Patrick Henry College is the ultra-conservative Christian college. They groom students to serve in the US government. Hanna Rosin has spent a lot of time (over a year and a half) there writing about the school and its students. An article she wrote for The New Yorker a couple years ago was particularly compelling. Rosin now has a book out about the school called God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America. She has an illuminating discussion… Read more
From My Confined Space: This seems to be true for the more conservative denominations. Not so much the other ones. Is that your experience, too? [tags]atheist, atheism, fundamentalist, conservative, Christian[/tags] Read more
Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers, a Democrat, is suing God. Just to prove a point, though. First some background: Chambers is the longest-serving state senator in Nebraska’s history, having first been elected in 1970. He’s also the only African-American in Nebraska’s legislature. Earlier this year, after Pete Stark came out as the first non-theist member of Congress, Chambers followed suit. According to Wired (why are they my source for political news?): The suit (.pdf), filed in a Nebraska district court,… Read more
I posted this link Sunday night. It made it onto the front page of the social bookmarking site Reddit. (By my count, it peaked at #14 — a new record for this site!) My Bluehost-provided shared servers couldn’t handle it. My apologies to those of you who came to the site and were greeted with an overload/suspended error. Hopefully, it’s all better by the time you’re reading this. [tags]atheist, atheism [/tags] Read more
Cailin beautifully explains an atheist’s sense of awe in the world: For me, the incredible existence of this amazing galaxy and everything within it becomes dulled and somewhat less incredible when someone claims it to have all been created by the will of some macro-being. What could be more wondrous and remarkable than existence without initial intervention by an outside source? A universe which may have always existed in an eternal cycle of birth and destruction without end. One might… Read more
The funny thing is that this cartoon is put out through Answers In Genesis. They find it funny. So do I. For completely different reasons… (via Scientia Natura) [tags]atheist, atheism, Creationism, Evolution, National Geographic, After Eden, Dan Lietha[/tags] Read more
There’s an abortion clinic being built outside of Aurora, IL (near Naperville, where I work). It’d be the largest one in the country. You can guess where this is going. Protests. Pro-lifers. And quotations we don’t even have to take out of context to make the person sound crazy. “Satan has been able to creep into our gospel. Jesus said that this is my body, take and eat from it. Now, we hear people say that this is my body,… Read more
In a lesson plan for Christian middle schoolers, Christian graduate students in Education have a specific purpose: Purpose: By the end of this lesson, students will have a better understanding of Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There are basically two religions competing for the minds, hearts, and loyalties of intelligent man. One of the religions is Christianity; the other religion is evolution. Students will be equipped to defend their Christian belief in… Read more
Brian Flemming has a nice summary of Creationist/felon Kent Hovind’s attack on the Rational Response Squad and anyone who speaks badly of him: The facts as I’m able to determine them: 1. Kent Hovind, an evangelist for the crackpot Bible-based pseudoscience called creationism, distributes many videos advocating his position. 2. Hovind repeatedly and explicitly states that his videos “are not copyrighted” and encourages free distribution of them. 3. Critics of Hovind use his videos in a quotation context to build… Read more
There’s a soon-to-be-released documentary called “The Separation on State Street.” I haven’t seen it, but the synopsis looks right up this blog’s alley: Anonka, the creator of a museum dedicated to the witch trials, awakened a wasp nest in her conservative, Christian town when she decided to ask the county commission a very simple question: “Why is the Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn?” A longer synopsis is after the jump. The film is the work of award-winning filmmaker &… Read more
