The rise of the religiously unaffiliated (referred to as the ‘nones’) in the US to about 20% of the population has already been widely noted and commented upon. These are people who say that they do not identify with any particular religion or religious institution or heritage, although they may not consider themselves to be atheists or agnostics.

But there is another group that has not been as closely measured and that is the group that may still belong to some religious denomination but are not committed at all to the doctrines of that institution. Such people have now also been given a label (because as a society we love giving people labels) and are called the ‘nominals’, “people who claim a religious identity but may live it in name only”. [Read more…]

Sometime ago I wrote about how creationist Ken Ham teaches children to ask “Were you there?” to anyone who says that some event happened much earlier than the 6,000 years that the Bible is supposed to say that the Earth has existed. The idea behind this question is that when you say of course you were not there, they will say that you cannot assert that as a fact any event to which you were not a witness. [Read more…]

Today (September 30) in International Blasphemy Day in which skeptics are encouraged to engage in acts of blasphemy in order to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of gods and religion and show disdain for the silly taboos that religions have about their founders and prophets. [Read more…]

Pakistan has terrible blasphemy laws in which a person can get the death sentence for “desecrating the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad, mosques or Islamic beliefs.” Because these are pretty loose definitions, it means that the law can be used to settle personal scores and to target one’s enemies by finding the most trivial issue and making it into a blasphemy charge. [Read more…]

My office recently received a flyer to advertise a program to combat violence. It was labeled as “Women of Faith: Voices Against Violence” and the program was described as a “Consciousness-Raising Multi-Faith Service and Ceremonial Walk Celebrating Women’s Power and Presence”.

The flyer described who was being invited to take part: “We are Baha’i, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Hare Krishnas, Humanists, Muslims, Sikhs, Unitarian Universalists, and more.” And it had separate comprehensive lists for the various ethnicities and professions. [Read more…]

The world of religion is agog over the extensive interview given by pope Francis to various news outlets. In the interview, he did not announce any changes in policy on the core social issues of ordaining women, celibate clergy, abortion, and contraception, but he definitely signaled that he wants to see a change in focus of the church, away from these divisive issues, saying: [Read more…]

By making it into a dumb phone and disabling its internet and call-making capabilities.

From time to time I have been having fun at the expense of religious institutions that try to find ways of getting around the restrictions that their religious rules place on them. Orthodox Jews are the most source of fun, both because of the Byzantine rules that they have as well as for the convoluted logic used to get around them when they become inconvenient in this day and age. But this latest move is one of the most absurd. [Read more…]