Earlier in the month, Texas inserted the words “Under God” in the state’s Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge is mandatory for schoolchildren to say, and if they want to get out of it, they need a note from home. This was around the same time that Texas was forcing children to have a moment of silence in the classroom. It all just reinforces the moronic, backwards-thinking stereotype of Texas. At least one couple is doing something about it. David Wallace… Read more
The latest issue of Wired magazine (September, 2007) has a brief list of the “World’s Lamest Social Networks” on page 52. On that list? The Richard Dawkins Social Network: What It Is: A place for fans of The God Delusion’s author to meet and greet Who You’ll Meet: Humorless atheists What’s Annoying: Don’t these people realize the earth is only 6,000 years old? Humorless?! Someone seems to have the impression that atheists are constantly pissed off… absurd, I tell you!… Read more
Reuters reports: … the Vatican [recently launched] the world’s first airline for Catholic pilgrims. … The Vatican aims to serve 150,000 pilgrims a year on its chartered Boeing 737, run by Italy’s Mistral Air. Destinations range from the shrine of Fatima in Portugal to Mount Sinai in Egypt, where Moses is said to have received the 10 Commandments from God. Of course, the in-flight movies will be religious in nature. The best part of this story comes via Ryanair, “Europe’s… Read more
Atheist Hussy has a creation for us all: Yep. Everyone feels uncomfortable around us. Actually, I’m sure there are *lots* of comparisons we could make… [tags]atheist, atheism, homosexuality, gay, lesbian[/tags] Read more
PZ Myers at Pharyngula was getting sued for a variety of reasons by pissed-off author Stuart Pivar. But it looks like the lawsuit has been dropped. Good riddance. PZ’s raging red horns must have scared Pivar away 🙂 Well, that, or Pivar realized the utter stupidity of what he was trying to do… [tags]atheist, atheism, Lifecode[/tags] Read more
PhillyChief strings together a lot of interesting thoughts in this post: Bring up mormons and most christians say they’re not “real” christians. Bring up the Inquisition and catholics will argue it got out of hand by twisted people who “lost their way” whereas born agains and other protestants will say “well that’s the catholic church for you”… Muslims are also on the defensive having to argue that people like al quaeda who fly planes into buildings are extremists and not… Read more
A lot of people rushed to get tickets to September’s Atheist Alliance International convention in Washington D.C. the moment they became available. No one expected that level of interest and no one knew that so many “atheist luminaries” would be able to speak at the convention. It sold out in a hurry (so did a second batch of tickets) and there are still over 500 people currently on the waiting list to get in. But now, you can watch the… Read more
Michael Vick. Allow me to just quote Dan Savage, who put it so well: How come no one ever finds Jesus before they get caught doing something criminal? … Why is this I’ve-found-Jesus detail trotted out, uncritically, in news reports? If a close reading of the news tells us anything—and I’m hoping that news reporters read the news closely—it’s that people who’ve made a big public fuss about “finding Jesus” are no less likely to commit crimes than people who… Read more
Here’s another survey courtesy of the social bookmarking site Digg (See question number 9). That poll has atheists at 43.2% of the responders. (And who knew there were more Pastafarians than there were Jews?!) It’s still not scientific, but it’s probably more reliable than the Larry King Live poll. And if it’s even remotely accurate, it explains a lot about who visits those bookmarking sites and why certain links get voted to the Digg front page (as well as its… Read more
I received this email recently. I did send some of my own suggestions to the parent, but I told her I’d also put the message on here and see what others have to say: After struggling with issues of faith for a while, my husband and I have recently “de-converted”. Our boys (ages 10 & 12) have been raised in the church and are true (fundamentalist) believers. For example, I recently heard my son say that evolution was stupid, so… Read more
