I had thought that on domestic matters involving its Jewish population, and especially when it came to issues involving women, the state of Israel was quite enlightened and egalitarian, except of course for the ultra-Orthodox segments of the populations who are hopelessly sexist. [Read more…]
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has been busy fighting the practice of local governments beginning their sessions with prayers. Now they have taken on the town of Chico, CA where they are backing the local Coalition of Reason which is petitioning the city council meetings to stop beginning their meetings with a prayer, even though these prayers were not exclusively for one religion. [Read more…]
I wrote last year about a lawsuit that was brought by the group Freedom From Religion Foundation to require the IRS to enforce its current rule against religious organizations that engage in direct politicking and revoke their tax exempt status if they were found to be engaged in blatant politicking. [Read more…]
The provincial government of Quebec is reportedly moving forward on legislation that would ban the wearing of some religious apparel by public employees. [Read more…]
In writing the earlier post about the Freedom From Religions Foundation’s lawsuit, I happened to browse their site and looked up the Honorary Board of that organization and came across this photograph of them, along with their names: Jerry Coyne, Robin Morgan, Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Ernie Harburg, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Susan Jacoby, Mike Newdow, Katha Pollitt, Steven Pinker, Ron Reagan, Oliver Sacks, M.D., Robert Sapolsky, Edward Sorel, and Julia Sweeney. [Read more…]
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, sued the government saying that a controversial tax break that allows ‘ministers of the gospel’ to clam part of their salary as a tax-free housing allowance gave undue privileges for religion that was denied to leaders of non-religious organizations, and thus violated the neutrality requirement of the Establishment Clause. [Read more…]
Commenter Reginald Selkirk alerted me to this news report in which ex-pope Benedict says that god told him to resign.
“God told me to do it,” the Zenith agency quoted Benedict as saying to a visitor to the convent in the Vatican gardens where he is living out his retirement in near isolation. [Read more…]
Those who have never been really involved in religion sometimes do not realize how intense discussions can be about what seems (to outsiders) like trivial matters over the meaning of words. A recent example is the controversy over the decision of the Presbyterian church to reject a popular new hymn for inclusion in its official hymnal because the song’s authors objected to a change in the wording. [Read more…]
Those who have lived in majority Buddhist countries know that being a follower of that religion does not make one more peaceful. But people in the west have this image of Buddhists as meditative and contemplative people who do not resort to violence. But the Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand seem determined to destroy that image and it looks like they are succeeding, as this NPR report suggests. [Read more…]