Lyle Denniston gives a good summary of the oral arguments presented today at the US Supreme Court in the Greece prayer case. (You read the transcript of the proceedings here.) The upshot seemed to be that the judges were skeptical of the reasoning in the precedent-setting 1983 Marsh v. Chambers case that historical practice could be used to justify ceremonial prayers at government meetings. That reasoning had led to some confusion in interpretation by the lower courts, which may be why the US Supreme Court took up this case, hoping to arrive at a clearer ruling. [Read more…]

Today is the day when the US Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the case of Greece v. Galloway, in which two women in the town of Greece, NY (Linda Stephens who is an atheist, and Susan Galloway who is Jewish) challenged the city’s practice of beginning its meetings with a prayer. The city had begun its meetings with a moment of silence until 1999 when it started using prayers that were exclusively Christian. When the practice was challenged in court in 2008, the city kept the practice but broadened the prayer givers and have since had Jewish, Baha’I, and Wiccan prayer leaders, though the overwhelming prayers are still Christian. The city argues that since it allows people of various faiths to pray, it is not sectarian and the fact that most prayers have been Christian is an incidental fact because of the religious composition of the community. [Read more…]

Psychologist Susan K. Perry writes that books like Heaven for Kids by Randy Alcorn with Linda Washington that make heaven seem appealing can be dangerous. (Alcorn is described on the book jacket as ‘a leading authority on heaven’, which prompts the question of how anyone could earn such a title.) [Read more…]

YouGov has a new poll that says that only 76% of Americans believe in a god. Why do I say ‘only’ when it is a large majority? Because it really is quite surprising that a quarter of the public in America say they do not believe in a god. Recall that previous polls have put atheists and agnostic in the single digits and that the ‘unaffiliated’ groups at around 20% but the last number may include people who believe in a god but do not belong to any religious denomination. [Read more…]

Via reader Norm, I heard of this story from France where a young woman was subjected to a crucifixion-style exorcism by her former boyfriend and three others, all members of the Seventh Day Adventist church, because they thought she was possessed by the devil. [Read more…]

I have been invited to be on a ‘religious’ panel organized by students at our university to represent the atheist point of view. Now I know of course that atheism is not a religion but we still haven’t found a good umbrella term to cover religion and non-religion and so are stuck with terms like ‘inter-faith’ that misrepresent the nature of atheism. [Read more…]