Greenwood High School Valedictorian Eric Workman Stands Up For Separation Of Church And State

Thanks to Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist, here is a portion of  the inspiring speech from the valedictorian of Greenwood High School, where the school administration let the students vote that they could have a graduation prayer, only to have this plan challenged by the class valedictorian, with whom the courts sided: You may not [...]

120 New Jersey Clergy Petition In Favor Of Marriage Equality

via Rosi Efthim, Pam’s House Blend, and Friendly Atheist: 120 Clergy from 19 Faiths in the State of New Jersey Monday, January 4, 2010Senate President Richard J. Codey Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr. The State House Trenton, New Jersey 08625 Dear Governor Codey and Speaker Roberts: We are 120 clergy members across New Jersey from [...]

The Perils Of Unrequited Love

Richard Wade’s new column is typically sage, this time  as he soberly and accurately advises someone who is unrequitedly in love with a friend: When a friend learns that their friend loves them romantically, but they don’t have that kind of love to return, they often feel a tension because of an odd quirk in [...]

Atheism, Albuquerque, And “Weird Al” Yankovic

Recently Hemant Mehta did an excellent job of mobilizing criticism of Albuquerque city councilman Don Harris for creating campaign literature that attacked his opponent for, among other things, being an atheist and contributing to a “Charles Darwin” scholarship.  Harris, to his credit apologized for trying to exploit his opponents views on religion in  the campaign, [...]

My Thoughts On Blasphemy Day

(I’m moving this post written for “Blasphemy Day” to the front page today as its basic themes relate to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” which occurs today.) So today is “Blasphemy Day.”  Here’s what it’s about: Blasphemy Day International is an international campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a national day to promote free speech [...]

Tesco: A Company With Subtle Theological Spokespeople

Daniel Jones, 23 year old founder of a 500,000 member Jedi church, felt emotionally humiliated after employees at a Tesco forced him to remove his Jedi hood and mocked his beliefs after he gave them a business card which proved his religion. Mr Jones, from Holyhead, said his religion dictated that he should wear the [...]

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Corruption Of Children’s Intellectual Judgment

Earlier today, I challenged Rod Dreher’s recent post wherein he lamented the difficulties we have in overcoming our minds’ propensities for rationalizations.  In that same post he had argued from the experience of his own loss of Catholic faith that the intellect was an insufficient ground for religious beliefs and that the will needed to [...]

Liveblogging The Creation Museum Tour Twitter Feed Highlights

Camels With Hammers pares down the first 5 hours of the twitter feed of visitors to the Creation Museum and offers you the highlights.  Start reading from the bottom of the thread for chronological flow and then join the real time discussion at #cregozerg.  Once you’ve read this thread be sure to check out my [...]

Psychotic Reasoning, The Will To Believe, And Religious Interpretations Of The Mentally Ill

Yesterday morning, The Friendly Atheist’s Hemant Mehta analyzed stories of mothers who murdered their babies under religiously interpreted delusions with a critical eye towards the religions which put certain fantasies in their heads.  In reply to criticisms of his making this connection that came from skeptigirl (in this terrific post on psychosis you should read), [...]

Absurdities And Atrocities

This story is beyond horrific: The scene was so gruesome investigators could barely speak: A 3 1/2-week-old boy lay dismembered in the bedroom of a single-story house, three of his tiny toes chewed off, his face torn away, his head severed and his brains ripped out. Officers called to the home early Sunday found the [...]

South African Judge Candidate On His Atheism

Really interesting statement in response to ridiculous questions put to him: An Eastern Cape candidate judge caused a stir before the Judicial Service Commission when he told members he left priesthood for the law because he concluded that there is no God. Senior Counsel Torquil Paterson told the JSC: “I left the church for a [...]