The Rise Of Islamo-Erotica

(Image: “God Is Great” by Makan Emadi) Betwa Shermer has a really interesting piece about Muslim artists in America who incorporate nudes into their art.  Defenses of nudity in art as permissible by Islamic standards: The Lebanese-born artist, who now lives in New York, insists that the taboo stems from a conservative society and not […]

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Should Church Vandalism Be Considered A Hate Crime?

That’s essentially what New York state senator Jeffrey Klein is arguing when he explains proposed legislation to make vandalizing a house of worship a felony. And I agree with him.  Desecrating the grounds of institutions that represent specific subset communities is not simply attacking the specific owners of that property but sending a threatening message […]

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Lars Vilks, Recently Attacked At Speech, Joins “Kill Lars Vilks” Facebook Group

After he drew Mohammed with the body of a dog, an Al-Qaeda front organization put a bounty on Lars Vilks’s head: $100,000 for killing him and $150,000 if it’s a death by slit throat.  He was recently attacked at a talk he was giving when he showed photos of his controversy riling drawings. Now he […]

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Angry Atheist Debate About A Mosque Near Ground Zerosts

Saturday I put together a large post highlighting a spectrum of thoughtful and/or provocative opinions on the recently approved plan to build a mosque a couple of blocks away from the former site of the World Trade Center in New York.  That day, for the sake of balance, I wanted to find someone who could […]

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8: The Mormon Proposition

8: The Mormon Proposition, a new movie out in theaters next Friday and available on DVD in July, explores the way that a tax exempt organization has waged a “secretive, decades-long campaign against gay rights”: Thanks to Richard for the link. Your Thoughts?

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ZJ Defends “Everybody Draws Muhammad Day”

Your Thoughts?

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Teachers Suspended For Sprinkling “Holy Water” On Atheist Colleague

Last weekend I discussed the incident in which a teacher accused two other teachers of bullying her over her atheism by threatening to sprinkle her with “holy water” (in the form of a bottle of perfume).  I agreed with the atheist teacher’s assessment that she was being bullied but did not think the passive aggressive […]

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Should Religions Be Exempt From Laws Otherwise Applicable To Others?

ProfMTH explores the issue with a wealth of information, siding against such exemptions: The second video is chock full of legal information.  The most interesting bit in here is where he discusses Antonin Scalia’s strong case against religious exemptions and Sonia Sotomayor’s general support for them. 1. Regarding Christian Legal Society v. Martinez– –the decision […]

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Teachers Accused Of Bullying Atheist Colleague

South Florida News reports: The district is looking into whether the women at Ely High School tried to bully the counterpart into becoming a believer. “The students whom I interviewed said that’s absolutely untrue,” said Fort Lauderdale attorney Johnny McCray, who represents both teachers, Leslie Rainer and Djuna Robinson. He says the two didn’t have […]

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Nigerian Witch-Hunter Tries To Silence Critics

Below is the just the first two parts of the British documentary “Saving Africa’s Witch Children”, which exposes the horrendous child abuse carried out in Africa under the pretense of exorcism, followed by today’s New York Times article relaying the denials and excuses offered by Helen Ukpabio, a dangerous promoter of these heinous practices: [Helen] Ukpabio’s critics […]

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Frenchwoman Rips Off Muslim Convert’s Burqa

The Telegraph calls it “burka rage”: A 26-year-old Muslim convert was walking through the store in Trignac, near Nantes, in the western Loire-Atlantique region, when she overhead the woman lawyer making “snide remarks about her black burka”. A police officer close to the case said: “The lawyer said she was not happy seeing a fellow […]

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The Simpsons On South Park’s Mohammed Depiction Problem

via Your Thoughts?

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Atheist In Liverpool Sentenced To 6 Months In Jail For Blasphemy

In late 2008 Harry Taylor was arrested for putting anti-religious leaflets in a prayer room in the John Lennon airport in Liverpool.   The specific charge was an Anti-Social Behaviour Order.  Here are a few of the images for which he would be going to jail for 6 months were his sentence not suspended for […]

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Justice Stevens and the Separation of Church and State

The Center For Inquiry pays tribute to retiring Justice John Paul Stevens for his record of affirming the necessity of a wall between church and state: He was a stalwart defender of church-state separation, and through his persuasive powers he was often able to garner a Court majority to support a proper reading of the […]

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Hate Crimes Demonstration: The “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!” Edition

So last month fundamentalists were lying that extending hate crime protections (which already protect religious people to no complaint from anyone, including those so afraid of “thought police”) to gays would result in arrests for anti-gay remarks in sermons.  Dan Savage had an ingenious idea for showing the lie that this claim was.  The idea […]

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Obama Administration Supports UN Exceptions To Free Speech Protections In Cases Of Religious Speech

Upsetting: Around the world, free speech is being sacrificed on the altar of religion. Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to […]

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Geert Wilders Arrives In UK

The story: From Wilders’s press conference: Here was Pat Condell’s response last winter when the UK banned Wilders from visiting: Your Thoughts?

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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 […]

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On The Symbolism Of Book Destruction

Over the past few days we’ve been discussing creationists Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron’s plan to freely disseminate 50,000 copies of a new version of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species which they are putting out and which contains a deceptive, creationist introduction filled with bad science and false history.  RichardDawkins.net and Pharyngula have encouraged people not only to […]

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Does Religious Misogyny Get A Free Pass?

Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom have a book out called Does God Hate Women? Nick Cohen quotes it thusly, Well, what can one say. Religious authorities and conservative clerics worship a wretchedly cruel unjust vindictive executioner of a God. They worship a God of 10-year-old boys, a God of playground bullies, a God of rapists, of […]

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Disturbing First Hand Account Of Our Christianist Military

Via Unreasonable Faith, comes this piece written by an Army Officer and West Point graduate.   Reading this has boiled my blood like nothing in a long time: During my second year at the West Point, my Squad Leader for summer training expressed disapproval on numerous occasions with my being Jewish, and, during one mission, […]

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Judge This: Are The Guns At The Protests And Town Halls A Form Of Terrorism?

David Sirota makes the case: In early August, a protester came to a raucous Tennessee congressional forum packing heat. Days later, President Obama’s healthcare event in New Hampshire was marred by a protester posing for cameras with a pistol and sign reading, “It is time to water the tree of liberty” — a reference to […]

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Religious Extremists Appeased Again

Disgraceful: Yale University and Yale University Press consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous: The book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” should not include the 12 Danish drawings that originally appeared in September 2005. What’s more, they suggested that the Yale press also refrain […]

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Des Moines Pulls Bus Ads

Via Friendly Atheist, this is perhaps the most inoffensive atheist bus ad one could possibly come up with, and yet it’s been pulled: Members of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers are being asked to help out: We would like our members to please contact DART either via telephone or email. They can be reached at 515-283-8111 […]

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The First “‘Nuff Said” Award

I love posters who disagree with me and through doing so open up whole new questions and angles to pursue, so everybody please keep your thoughtful and insightful challenges and contrasting opinions rolling in in the comments section. But every now and then there’s a different delight reading your comments and that’s the one that […]

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