Pakistan’s slide into theocracy

Pakistan is a country that seems to be standing at the intersection of secular and religious currents. One leads to a modern state that could become a powerful force in science, technology, and commerce. The other leads to a backward looking theocracy. Although modernism will eventually win out, as it always does, the signs are not hopeful in the short run. There are many signs that the craven political leadership is giving in to the clerics and religious fanatics. [Read more…]

Alexander Aan’s blasphemy

Reader Mark of the Cleveland Freethinkers has asked me to try and rally support for Atheist Alliance International’s new scholarship fund for imprisoned Indonesian Alexander Aan who was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and a fine equivalent to US $10,600 essentially for denying the existence of god on his Facebook page. The news report says that “Ana [sic] was accused of writing ‘God doesn’t exist,’ and posting links to explicit cartons showing the Prophet Mohammed having sex with a maid, and being sexually attracted to his daughter-in-law.” [Read more…]

How did Adam and Eve’s kids have kids?

I have written before about Jonathan Morris, a Catholic priest who is a Fox News favorite and a member of the infamous Legion of Christ order. (See here and here for more about that odious group and its disgusting founder.)

In one call-in program titled Father Knows Best, someone asks Morris “How did Adam and Eve’s kids have kids?” Morris actually seems taken aback by this question, as if it had never occurred to him before. He flounders around, going off on tangents about other mysteries to which we have no answers such as whether Adam had a belly button and then riffs for a while on original sin. It is obvious to even his co-hosts that he is not able to answer the question. It is quite the spectacle. [Read more…]

Fire-walking gone awry

The main shtick of so-called motivational speakers is to persuade people that if only they think positively enough, they can achieve great things. One such speaker named Tony Robbins provides a practical demonstration of this principle by borrowing a practice that is fairly common in India and Sri Lanka during Hindu and Buddhist religious festivals, and that is ‘fire-walking’ which involves people walking across a bed of coal embers to show their devotion to their gods whom they believe will protect them from burns. [Read more…]