- The Selective Wall
The Rotunda • May 31, 2007
Last December, I wrote about a controversy in Albemarle County, Virginia, where right-wing Christians who sued for and won the right to distribute literature through the public schools' "backpack mail" program were shocked - shocked! - to find out that there were other religions which then wanted to use that program for the same thing. [...]
- The Golden Mean
The Rotunda • May 30, 2007
When the history of our era is written, there is much that will be said about the failures of traditional, mainstream media organizations. One of the most disappointing is the media's ritualized exaltation of "balance", which in practice means giving equal time and attention to both sides of a debate regardless of whether one side's [...]
- On Being Uncontroversial
The Garden • May 28, 2007
As the so-called "New Atheists" like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens attract increasing media attention, they've come under fire for supposedly being too sweeping in their denunciations of religion, too "extreme" in their criticism. Defenders of the established order, many of whom are religious liberals, pour scorn on these outspoken nonbelievers for daring [...]
- The Spiral of Sin and Salvation
The Loft • May 26, 2007
Since his spectacular public disgrace last year, the once-powerful evangelical preacher Ted Haggard has not returned to New Life Church, the Colorado megachurch he founded. However, a few days after confessing that the allegations laid against him were true, he arranged to have a letter read to his former congregation in which he admitted his [...]
- On the Morality Of...
The Library • May 24, 2007
Today I'm launching yet another new post series on Daylight Atheism, and yet another that I've had in mind since creating this weblog. I've often made it known that I get somewhat annoyed at religious apologists who claim that atheists have no morals (and what atheist wouldn't?). Although I've sharply criticized people making this insulting [...]
- Atheist Charity
The Garden • May 23, 2007
"Let's see, we have scores of Baptist Hospitals, Method[ist] Hospitals, Jewish Hospitals, Catholic Hospitals, etc., etc.. Each of these have 'outreach' programs both here and in the most dismal places on earth, staffed with dedicated medical doctors and nurses. Where oh where are the Atheist's hospitals, or soup kitchens?"
—quoted by Jonah Goldberg for National Review [...]
- How to Think Critically II: Salience
The Observatory • May 22, 2007
"Just another day in the city. A sidewalk grate, the kind that millions of feet trod upon every day, gives way, sending a woman tumbling into the hole and landing her in the hospital. Downtown, a 15-foot pipe falls off a 40-story skyscraper, crashing through a firehouse nearby, injuring two.
In densely packed Manhattan, with so [...]
- Banning the Bible
The Rotunda • May 21, 2007
A very entertaining story has come out of Hong Kong recently. After the Hong Kong goverment's "Obscene Articles Tribunal" censored a Chinese student magazine as "indecent" for publishing a sex column asking if readers had ever fantasized about incest or bestiality, over 800 residents protested by calling on the government to classify the Bible as [...]
- Inducing Superstition
The Observatory • May 20, 2007
The human brain is a belief-forming machine. It is what defines us as a species: we guide our actions by creating mental models of the world and using those models to hypothesize about what will happen under a given set of circumstances. Our ability to create such models far surpasses that of any other species, [...]
- Religious Earmarks
The Rotunda • May 18, 2007
An article in the New York Times this week, "Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects", gives some troubling details about the growing trend of religious groups seeking - and receiving - no-strings-attached federal grants disbursed by a direct act of Congress, usually called "earmarks", to fund their pet projects. Sometimes these grants are [...]
- Jerry Falwell Dies
The Rotunda • May 15, 2007
Jerry Falwell, prominent Christian conservative and for many years the standard-bearer of America's religious right, has died of an apparent heart attack. He was 73 years of age.
Falwell was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1933, and graduated from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri in 1956. That same year, he was ordained and founded the [...]
- Smoothing Out the Rough Edges
The Loft • May 14, 2007
Normal people don't start new religions.
This seems like an obvious thing to say, but there's an important point behind it. Most people, both in the present time and in past eras, are conformists who are far more likely to follow the trails paved by others than to blaze their own. Theists in general seem content [...]
- Book Update
The Foyer • May 13, 2007
I've finished the second chapter of my book, which deals with the argument from scriptural atrocities and draws on my Ebon Musings essays "A Book of Blood" and "Infinite Punishment for Finite Sins".
As before, any regular commenter who's interested in reading the chapter and offering feedback is welcome to do so. E-mail me or [...]
- Poetry Sunday: Credo
The Foyer • May 13, 2007
Today I'm proud to introduce another new feature to Daylight Atheism, Poetry Sunday. While we atheists see no need to attend church, every human being's life could use a touch of beauty and artistry now and then. And what better time to celebrate human creativity, and appreciate the perspective on the wide world it gives [...]
- Reaching Out
The Garden • May 12, 2007
In the first years of the 21st century, atheism, nonbelief and freethought are resurgent all across the Western world. In the United States, by far the most religious of the industrialized democracies, the number of religious fundamentalists is dropping, while the number of nonreligious people is growing with each generation. Even ethnic groups coming from [...]
- Theocracy Watch X: The National Day of Prayer
The Rotunda • May 10, 2007
I failed to mention previously that last Thursday, May 3, was the "National Day of Prayer" in the United States. Believe it or not, the nation that created the First Amendment has such a day. The bill creating this national observance was signed into law in 1952 by President Harry Truman, and another bill fixing [...]
- Little-Known Bible Verses VI: Slavery
The Library • May 9, 2007
Of all the civil rights movements that have swept across America in its history, none is so intimately connected with religion in the popular consciousness as the struggle against racism. Civil rights leaders like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were famous for their use of biblical allusions to demand liberty for all human beings, [...]
- Do You Really Believe That?
The Observatory • May 7, 2007
Noah's Flood
Today I'm introducing a new post series on Daylight Atheism, "Do You Really Believe That?" The purpose of this series is to highlight religious claims that are so extravagantly bizarre, so manifestly at odds with everything we know about the universe, or so just plain ridiculous that even religious believers shouldn't be able to [...]
- You Do Not Deserve Hell
The Garden • May 5, 2007
I've recently been reading a wonderful blog, Sailing to Byzantium, a passionate, honest account of one person's journey from religion into searching, into skepticism, and finally (in just the last week or two) into atheism. The author, Kullervo, was born and raised Mormon, but after a long struggle, has decided - and not lightly - [...]
- Atheists Are Moral: Why It Matters
The Rotunda • May 3, 2007
In the aftermath of the recent Virginia Tech shootings, the lowest and most contemptible specimens of religious fundamentalism have been crawling out of the woodwork to blame atheism for this horrible tragedy, without presenting a shred of evidence. I castigated some of these vile fanatics in my previous post, but since then, yet more of [...]
- A Failure of Imagination
The Loft • May 1, 2007
In the comment thread to my recent post "A World in Shadow IV", theist commenter Jarrod expressed the following objection to the atheist argument from evil:
I have nothing to say against the point that there is much horrible suffering going on; take that and run with it, if you want. But I don't think we [...]
