Amber Mangum, a seventh-grader from Greenbelt, Maryland, was “threatened with discipline” at her school. What was her offense? Reading her Bible at lunch. (more…) Read more
Ben Franks is the Democrat running for a seat on the 6th Court of Appeals in Texas. Now the Republicans are using his supposed atheism against him as reason alone not to vote for him. (more…) Read more
Larry Darby is back in the news… so something disturbing must be happening. Darby, the former atheist and current Christian, was defeated earlier this year in the primary to become Alabama’s Attorney General. Why did he lose? It might have something to do with his white-supremacist, Holocaust-denying views, but who’s to say… still, he received 43% of the primary votes. Nice work, Alabama. What’s he up to now? Trying to run for Governor. He sent this letter to the heads… Read more
An atheist, Eliza, over at Conversation at the Edge shares an interesting encounter attending a religious class offered by a local Lutheran church. Her writeup suggests that either she’ll be getting hilarious responses from the pastor, or they will just cancel the class altogether. I mean, really, who are these skeptics who dare to ask questions…! [tags]Conversation at the Edge, Lutheran, atheist, church[/tags] Read more
On CBS Evening News last night, in response to the Amish school shooting, Katie Couric’s FreeSpeech segment showcased a father who lost his son at Columbine. Brian Rohrbough spent the segment trying to answer his own question: Why did this happen? Here’s what he said: I’m saddened and shakened by the shooting at an Amish school today and last week’s school murders. When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, I… Read more
Not every atheist/Christian debate is as interesting as I would like it to be, but the atheist’s opening statement from this debate in Australia sounds like I missed a good one. [tags]atheist, debate, Christian[/tags] Read more
The Brights Web site was updated and I’m proud to be included as an “Enthusiastic Bright.” For some more background on the Bright movement, and how it’s progressed in the past few years, see the posting from last month, which includes some helpful links. [tags]Brights, Bright[/tags] Read more
Is there an atheist running for public office in Texas?! Is he qualified? Will his supposed atheism be used against him?! Yes. Yes it will. According to the Republican Party of Texas, Candidate for the Sixth Court of Appeals, Ben Franks, is reported to be a professed atheist and apparently believes the Bible is a “collection of myths.” During debate over a plank in the State Democrat Platform, members of the Platform Committee debated dropping “God” from a sentence on… Read more
Harold Ford, Jr. is the Democrat running for the Senate seat currently held by Bill Frist, who will retire after the midterm elections. He’s running against Republican Bob Corker. Ford’s latest campaign ad takes place inside of a church. Does this blur the line of separation of church and state? Or is it just Ford letting people know who he is? According to one article, Gesturing to the pews behind him, Ford in the ad says, “Here, I learned the… Read more
Next Saturday, October 7th, I will be speaking about the eBay auction and the upcoming book at the meeting of the Southeast Wisconsin FreeThinkers (SWiFT). If you’re reading this, and live nearby, I hope you can make it! More information can be found here: http://swift.humanists.net/calendar.htm. [tags]atheist, eBay, Hemant Mehta, Southeast Wisconsin FreeThinkers[/tags] Read more