Inspired by the work of Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola who studied the situation of Christian clergy who become atheists and created the Clergy Project, a support group that enables these late unbelievers to secretly share their experience with others going through the same transition, Paul Shrell-Fox, a clinical psychologist and researcher at Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, realized that there must be rabbis in the same boat. So he put out a call for them, and finds that their experience is similar to that of disbelieving clergy. [Read more…]

Opponents of same-sex marriage argue that it is wrong to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. But Hannah Ridge writes that that major authority on the usage of words, the Oxford English Dictionary, has announced that is going to do just that and include same-sex marriage in future definitions. A major French dictionary is doing the same. [Read more…]

It used to be that Protestants and Catholics were at loggerheads over various doctrinal issues. It is hard to imagine that in the early days of the American republic there was deep hostility towards and prejudice against Catholics, with some even arguing against them receiving full citizenship because their allegiance to the pope made their loyalty to the new nation suspect. [Read more…]

A US District Court judge has ordered a North Carolina county government to stop having an opening prayer at its official meetings.

These prayers were not the usual generic appeals to a higher power. They were pretty much over the top in terms of its overt Christianity, referring to the virgin birth, the resurrection, and that salvation was only through Jesus.

Recall that the US Supreme court has already agreed to hear a case during its 2013-2014 term about the constitutionality of opening prayers at the Greece, NY city council meetings. I discussed the history of such opening prayers, the defining 1983 case Marsh v. Chambers, and the case of Greece here.

The military has broadened its views quite a bit when it comes to accommodating a wide variety of religions, including the choice of what religious symbols are allowed to be put on tombstones in their cemeteries. Yet when it comes to chaplains, the catch is that atheists, humanists, and other non-believers are not yet fully included because of the requirement that chaplains be endorsed by at least one of about 200 recognized groups, and non-believers (and Wiccans) are not among them. An army chaplain who wanted to change from Pentecostal to Wiccan (his would an interesting story to hear!) lost his position and some other chaplains who have become humanists are fearful of revealing their change for fear of meeting the same fate. [Read more…]

The Vatican’s first envoy to Malaysia (a country that is 60% Muslim) has created a controversy by saying that he saw nothing wrong with Christians using the word Allah to describe god. Some Muslims are protesting, saying that this is a way to convert Muslims to Christianity which, incredibly, is a crime in many Islamic countries. They have called him an ‘enemy of the state’ and asked that he be recalled. [Read more…]

When I said that one of the main problems with religion is that they are killjoys who frown on anything that gives people joy and pleasure, I was too sweeping in my judgment.

It turns out that at least one religious group, the Rabbinical Council of California, is bucking that perception and has granted kosher certification to ‘personal lubricants’. Don’t know what they are or why it was felt that they needed to be kosherized? See the fascinating details here.

Let’s hear it for the Rabbinical Council of California for realizing that religion can be fun!

Update: Sad to say, the RCC has changed its mind and yanked the kosher certification. They explain that they had misunderstood the ‘intended uses’ of the product.

It has been well established that there is little correlation with being moral and law abiding and being religious. (Via reader Norm, I learned of an interesting post by Hemant Mehta on some recent data on the self-reports of religious affiliations of the prison population.) But how can religious people, who believe that there is a god who not only knows everything that they do but can actually read their minds and is able to mete out horrendous punishments for evildoers, commit really awful crimes? Why isn’t the wrath of god or hell a deterrent? [Read more…]

Because you may become the topic of his next sermon.