The Encinitas school district in California got a grant to teach children yoga. Seems harmless, right? Wrong. A group of parents is threatening to sue to stop the practice, arguing that yoga is derived from Hinduism and thus these classes are a violation of Establishment Clause prohibitions against public schools sponsoring religion. [Read more…]
It has become routine in the wake of some major tragedy for some religious idiot to say that it was punishment from god for something or other. The only question is who will enter that swamp first. This time Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association and Republican huckster Mike Huckabee who do the honors, saying that god did not prevent this unspeakable tragedy because of the fact that school-sponsored prayer and Bible readings and the Ten Commandments are no longer permitted in public school classrooms. [Read more…]
When I assert that modernity will undermine religion over time, I often get pushback from people who, while sharing my views about religion, think that I am hopelessly naïve and optimistic and that some religions are so deeply entrenched that they will never budge. [Read more…]
In a post yesterday, I said that science is clearly incompatible with religion. In the comments, Beth questioned that assertion, saying that some religions might be compatible. [Read more…]
The UK has released the results of its most recent census of England and Wales and it shows a sharp drop in the number of people who call themselves religious (from 72% in 2001 to 59% in 2011) and a corresponding rise in those who ticked the ‘no religion’ box, from 14% to 25%. [Read more…]
There is never any shortage of people telling atheists how sensitive the feelings of religious people are and that we need to be careful about what we say to them. The reasoning behind these pleas is based on the belief that if we tell such people directly that science contradicts religion, they will retreat to religion and reject science. [Read more…]
What with the hustle and bustle of this time of year, I had completely forgotten that the world is due to end on December 21 as the Mayans predicted. [Read more…]
Via Machines Like Us, I learned of a new survey that Gallup released last week that found that the number of Americans who self-identify as ‘nonreligious’ is an astounding 31%. This is much larger than what a Pew survey three months ago reported of 20% for self-identified ‘nones’ and that caused such consternation in religious circles. [Read more…]
One of the Republicans being touted as a candidate for the Republican national ticket in 2016 is Florida senator Marco Rubio. Hence I was interested to read that his religious background was not simply Catholic as I had assumed but that he has been quite the religious chameleon. [Read more…]