Well, I freely admit that I was wrong when I speculated, before the last election, that Barack Obama was an atheist. I wasn’t going on much, to be sure, but over the last few years he’s shown no signs of heathenosity. In fact, his goddishness seems to be increasing, as we can see in the […]
Christ has risen, and so has the bile of Nathan Lean, author of a particularly nasty bit of atheist-bashing in Salon, “Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens: New Atheist flirt with Islamophobia.” It’s so over the top that it made me wonder about the guy who wrote it. Lean, it turns out, is a graduate student at Georgetown […]
National Geographic put up this video two days ago on Good Friday; it shows a Filipino man who, every year, allows himself to get crucified (nails driven through the hands, not the feet) to fulfill a promise he made to God when his wife and baby daughter survived a dangerous episode of childbirth. (Warning: very […]
It’s Good Friday, and we’ll celebrate with two things. First, a recycled Jesus and Mo: And a still from the Simpsons (note the time):
There’s been some discussion on this site and others whether it’s even useful to ask if there can be evidence for a god, given that the very notion of God is incoherent. I’ve maintained that there can indeed be evidence that would provisionally convince at least me of the existence of a divine being. But […]
This 5-minute video was posted to YouTube three days ago, and oy, is it funny—and true (especially the part staring at 2:35): Who says we shouldn’t mock religion? Satire like this is far more powerful than any “militant” anti-Catholic speech.
What kind of mother would send her young son off to die in a suicide bombing of children—knowing he would die—and then rejoice and pass out candy after his death and the deaths of other innocents he took with him? What kind of mother would lobby her other sons to become “martyrs,” too? A religious […]
The many theories for the origin and persistence of religion fall into two classes: those that think that religion piggybacks on some aspect of human nature, usually evolved (credulity, need to attribute agency to natural phenomena, tendency to accept what parents or elders tell you, and so on), and those claiming that religion is “hardwired,” […]
Reader Aidan Karley called my attention to the Irish comedian Dave Allen (1936-2005; real name David Tynan O’Mahoney). He seems to be a forerunner of Dara O’Briain, sans the profanity. Here’s Allen recalling his initiation to Catholicism at the age of four. It’s hilarious, but the hilarity comes largely from his befuddled encounter with religious […]
Mississippi always ranks poorly among American states: close to the poorest in education, at the top in religiosity, and home of America’s most obese people. It’s also conservative and largely Republican. The combination of religiosity and conservatism has led to one of the stupidest things I’ve seen states do to circumvent the Constitutional First Amendment […]
