The myth-making machine is chugging away, full steam ahead. One thing I’ve learned these last few years is that atheists are damned gullible, and all you need is a small number of people repeating the same crap endlessly (and oh, twitter is such a perfect medium for repetition), and there’s a solid chunk of the atheist community that will promptly just believe, because they want to have faith in their leaders.

Case in point: there is a rump of delusional atheists who have faith that a legal document is proof that Ben Radford is not a serial harasser. It’s sad to see. It’s too bad Radford didn’t save a lot of money and spend just $100 on some gold leaf and a sheepskin and get a certificate declaring that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ, because that would have at least gotten those atheists tithing to him.

Do read this clear-headed perspective at Dubito Ergo Sum on the matter if you still believe a civil case cleared out of court is indisputable proof of innocence. You clearly aren’t cynical enough to be a good atheist.

[Read more…]

It’s nothing personal. It’s just that you’re doing a lousy job of teaching your children, and unfortunately for them, they aren’t getting the basic knowledge they need to succeed in the 21st century. I know that some of your kids are smart enough to see beyond the drivel your teachers promote, and I really feel for them — they’re going to have to work twice as hard to get past Louisiana’s reputation.

Zack Kopplin has been doing a danged thorough job digging through records to find out what Louisiana kids are actually being taught. In way too many classrooms, the book of Genesis is being taught as a substitute for biology.

[Read more…]

We’ve been waiting for this. After the murders of multiple secular bloggers in Bangladesh, there has been a mad behind-the-scenes (because no one wanted to alert the murderers) scramble to get our very own Taslima Nasrin, who was on the execution list for these Islamist fanatics, to a place of safety. She’s out! She’s currently in the US!

Now comes the hard part, though. She needs a long-term commitment to her safety, and CFI is setting up an emergency fund to support her and other threatened secularists. That last bit is important; Taslima is not the only one trying to survive under a death sentence.

If you want to help out, donate to the Freethought Emergency Fund.

Molly Worthen attended Sunday Assembly, the church for atheists, and came away with the wrong idea, and a few right ones.

Is this what secular humanism — the naturalist worldview that many nonbelievers embrace and religious conservatives fear — looks like in practice? In one sense, secular humanism is a style of fellowship intended to fill the church-shaped void, but it is also a strand of the liberal intellectual tradition that attempts to answer the canard that godlessness means immorality.

There is no “church-shaped void”. I also don’t have a Jesus-shaped hole in my heart. I don’t even believe that most Christians feel that way — people aren’t sitting around pining for an opportunity to sit on a bench and go through a boring ritual for an hour or three on Sunday morning. People like connecting with other people more generally, and church has been the opportunity and obligation for that. It’s a mistake to confuse the substance of human interaction for the trappings of a particular and peculiar institution.

[Read more…]

Why do so many ‘spiritual’ people seem like dishonest sleazeballs? Because they’re trying too hard. It’s a competitive game, this ‘spiritual’ life.