On The “Compassion” In The Catholic Bishops’ Letter To Congress Against Gay Rights

Recently, United States bishops petitioned Congress to not protect gays from being fired for their sexual orientation.  Andrew Sullivan already precisely attacked the bishops’ immoral political calculation by which they explicitly committed themselves to a perverse moral contradiction whereby they simultaneously concede that homosexuality is to a significant extent not a choice and argue that […]

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Daily Hilarity: A New Pope In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

The absurdity of religious ceremonial pretensions are clarified a bit: Thanks to Heather for the link. Your Thoughts?

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Daily Hilarity: Dave Allen On Religion

Hilarious and insightful stuff: Thanks to Bruce for the link! Your Thoughts?

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How And Why To Defect From The Catholic Church

If the Catholic Church baptized you and you have neither personally defected nor been formally excommunicated, they still count you in their numbers when they quantify the scope of their influence by citing how many Catholics there are.  If you do not want them considering you Catholic, here’s what you should do: Your Thoughts?

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A Roman Catholic Church “Fixer” Speaks Out

Ex-Benedictine monk, Patrick Wall (Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2,000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse), recently provided a revealing, disturbing, angering, and heartbreaking 12 minute radio interview describing his role in helping to make clerical abuse scandals go away. Here are some of the things he said: I was a company […]

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U.S. Bishops Argue Employers Should Be Allowed To Consider Being Gay A Fireable Offense

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote a letter addressed to the United States Congress people opposing ENDA, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act For the sake of clarity, permit us first to state two basic tenets of Catholic Church teaching on this issue. First, persons with a homosexual inclination “must be accepted with respect, compassion, […]

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The Roman Catholic Lady Gaga On Religion And The Church

While intuitively it makes a lot of sense to me that Lady Gaga embraces Roman Catholicism—she’s Italian, she has a lavish, theatrical aesthetic inherited inevitably in part from the most tangible, sensuous, and theatric form of Western Christianity, she’s a self-conscious transgressor who needs to some extent to think in terms of traditional binary logics […]

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More On Sister Margaret McBride, The Nun Who Approved A Life-Saving Abortion

This is mostly previously reported information, but it does include an appearance by Canon lawyer Kevin O’Rourke, a priest who both sides with Sister McBride and admits that the Church’s policy of automatically excommunicating anyone who permits an abortion but not automatically excommunicating pedophile priests “doesn’t look good”: My views on the ethical issues raised […]

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The Dalai Lama Or The Pope?

Can you tell which quote comes from which religious leader? Thanks to Butterflies and Wheels and Jessica Your Thoughts?

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52% Of Americans Now Judge Gay Relationships Morally Acceptable

Not that moral correctness requires popular approval, but moral admirableness of the populace does require morally correct opinions, and so this is a heartening development which sees America finally starting to get it right, with its first ever clear majority (52%) judging gay relationships “morally acceptable”: Andrew Sullivan analyzes the data: A large part of […]

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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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Are Noble Lies “Blasphemous”?

Renegade Roman Catholic Andrew Sullivan is harsh with his condemnation of those who think we should “insincerely support religious faith because it is good for others or for society is”, calling this a “profound blasphemy” and cynical, and saying he respects us atheists and agnostics who outright reject faith more than both those noble lie […]

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Women’s Ordination: Another Route To Automatic Excommunication

Not only does approving an abortion necessary to save a woman’s life in a case where her fetus would die in either case get you automatically excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, but so does seeking ordination while being female.  Lifelong Catholic Janine Denomme this week was denied a Roman Catholic burial for having the […]

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Moral Actions, Moral Sentiments, Moral Motives, and Moral Justifications: More On The Nun Excommunicated For Approving A Life-Saving Abortion

In reply to my post on the story of Sister Margaret McBride whom the Catholic Church “automatically excommunicated” for helping to give the go-ahead to an abortion claimed necessary for saving the life of an 11 week pregnant mother, I have already received two interesting replies.  The first challenged the medical argument for the necessity of […]

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Legalism Over Life: Nun Supports Life-Saving Abortion And Gets Excommunicated

Feministing: Sister Margaret McBride has been demoted from her position at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ after participating in the approval of an abortion for a critically ill patient in 2009. McBride was part of the hospital ethics committee that approved an abortion for a patient with pulmonary hypertension, which can be […]

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An Atheist Blogger Reports From The British Blasphemy Sentencing

Ed The Manic Street Preacher, (the blogger, not to be confused with the band) offers us this firsthand account of attending Harry Taylor’s sentencing for leaving provocative anti-religious materials in an airport prayer room: Aside from the bare facts of the sentencing, I would like to add that Mr Taylor seemed like a perfectly rational, intelligent and […]

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The Catholic Church’s Struggles With Sex Abuse Scandals Down Through The Ages

An unusually historically informative short video, via Unreasonable Faith. On edit, back at Unreasonable Faith, PsiCop argues the video is factually challenged: This video has some factual flaws, and even in addition to that, it’s anachronistic. The “pedophilia” referred to in early documents like the Didache and at the synod of Elvira very likely alluded to a […]

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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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Heaven As Weapon

Johann Hari details some of the pernicious ways religions exploit the desire for heaven: Even some atheists regard heaven as one of the least-harmful religious ideas: a soothing blanket to press onto the brow of the bereaved. But its primary function for centuries was as a tool of control and intimidation. The Vatican, for example, […]

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Arrest The Pope?

Johann Hari argues that London should do just that. The interesting discussion in which he makes this case takes place in the entire first video and the beginning of the second video: Your Thoughts?

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Pat Condell’s Case Against The Catholic Church

After a tasteless joke early on, he’s justly scathing and deserves to be heard: Christians are too blithe when they distinguish the evils perpetuated by Christian institutions from those same institutions’ claims to moral and spiritual authority as founded by God or, at least, to their being the church of God at all. How in […]

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Daily Hilarity: Tom Lehrer’s Vatican Rag

A pretty funny video a friend passed along to me: Your Thoughts?

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Ross Douthat Claims Arguments Against Gay Marriage Lose Because They’re Just “Too Abstract”

Ross Douthat half admits to the intellectual bankruptcy of his opposition of to same-sex marriage and then tacitly demonstrates it with his pathetic reply when pushed to address the topic last month at the New School: “I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public.” Mr. Douthat indicated […]

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The Catholic Church Sacrifices Charity At The Altar Of Bigotry

ZJEmptv goes after the Catholic Church in DC for threatening to abandon services in the district rather than follow a proposed law that would demand they extend benefits to the partners of gay employees in same-sex marriages: Your Thoughts?

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Is The Catholic Church A Force For Good In The World? (And Do The New Atheists Persuade Anyone?)

Do New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry turn off more people than they persuade?  I always emphatically argue no and the video below is solid evidence that I’m right.  Before this debate the audience was polled on whether they wanted to support the motion, “The Catholic church is a force for good in the […]

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