- What Comes Next For the Middle East?
The Rotunda • February 28, 2011
The last few weeks in the Middle East have been a story of extraordinary courage and heroism. With dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia lying in ruins and the democratic revolt now spreading to Yemen, Bahrain and Libya, it's not too early to start thinking about what will come next.
The omnipresent fear in Western [...]
- Walk Like An Egyptian
The Rotunda • February 27, 2011
No Simo to be seen in Cairo, and God's Son has no place in Madison
By Sarah Braasch
In loving memory of my baby brother, Jacob Michael Braasch (01/28/86 – 02/02/10)
I am sure that most of you are aware of the massive grassroots demonstrations that have been taking place at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison in [...]
- A Milestone for the Foundation Beyond Belief
The Garden • February 25, 2011
[Editor's Note: In the past, I've written about how it will advance the atheist movement for those of us who have the means to make charitable donations that serve as a positive, collective expression of our worldview. Specifically, I've written often about the Foundation Beyond Belief, a clever and worthwhile meta-charity, to praise their work [...]
- Stepping Across the Is-Ought Gap
The Library • February 24, 2011
Sam Harris' book The Moral Landscape has fallen among the atheist community like a cannon shell, and I for one couldn't be happier. This is an important and long-overdue project for us to begin: to take morality out of the hands of religionists, to rigorously define it as the achievement of human well-being rather than [...]
- Wednesday Link Roundup
The Foyer • February 23, 2011
I may write more about some of these stories over the weekend, but in the meantime, I just had to make quick mention of them:
• Prominent evangelical pastor John MacArthur, whom Daylight Atheism readers have heard about before, has a new pearl of wisdom to bestow on us as regards the democratic revolutions currently sweeping [...]
- Your Weekly Catholic Scandal Update
The Rotunda • February 22, 2011
It hasn't been a good few weeks for the Catholic church. Every time you turn around, it seems, new repercussions of its conspiracy to protect child molesters are piling up somewhere in the world. Even I've had trouble keeping up with it all, so here's a post to collect the latest news.
First, there's the Netherlands, [...]
- The Language of God: Questions for Atheists
The Library • February 20, 2011
The Language of God, Chapter 7
By B.J. Marshall
The next part of Chapter 7 shows Collins' poor understanding of atheism. He starts by differentiating between "strong" and "weak" atheism, but then he makes the baseless claim that for the majority of atheists, strong atheism is "generally the assumed position" (p.161). He makes this distinction so that [...]
- Exploring the Gender Disparity on Daylight Atheism
The Foyer • February 19, 2011
As part of my fifth anniversary post, I included a survey where I asked readers to list their gender and their age, mainly just to satisfy my own curiosity. The results of the age poll, to my pleased surprise, formed a very neat bell curve (I have more computer-savvy older readers than I had guessed!).
This [...]
- Movie Review: The Nature of Existence
The Library • February 18, 2011
(Author's Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site's policy for such reviews.)
Summary: The documentary equivalent of World Religions 101. Not much new ground is broken in this broad survey of the world's major belief systems - although there are a few interesting surprises - but what made me [...]
- Fighting Creationist Pollution of Science Classes
The Observatory • February 16, 2011
This past weekend was Darwin Day, an international celebration of science and reason in the name of the one person who did more than possibly anyone else to clarify humanity's position in the natural universe. Alas, the great man's legacy is still threatened by religious ignorance:
Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently [...]
- The Religious Right Hates Women
The Rotunda • February 14, 2011
Last month, I wrote about the awful callousness of Catholic hospitals when a woman arrives needing an emergency abortion. As long as there's a fetal heartbeat, the clergy-run ethics committees of these hospitals often deny doctors permission to operate, even if the woman is hemorrhaging and dying before their eyes. Some doctors end up struggling [...]
- The Language of God: A Flurry of Fallacies
The Library • February 13, 2011
The Language of God, Chapter 7
By B.J. Marshall [...]
- Will the Real Deity Please Retweet This?
The Loft • February 12, 2011
My friends, I have to confess: I'm having a crisis of faith.
You see, as an atheist, I've always maintained that if God were real, he would communicate with us clearly and directly and wouldn't leave human beings to guess blindly at his wishes. Well, honesty leaves me no choice but to admit it: my prayers [...]
- Book Review: Trusting Doubt
The Library • February 11, 2011
(Author's Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site's policy for such reviews.)
Summary: An outstanding analysis of the flaws of evangelical Christianity, written from an insider's perspective by a former believer. My only complaint is that I wish she'd provided more information about what the next step is!
Although there [...]
- Daylight Atheism: Anniversary #5
The Foyer • February 10, 2011
As of today, I've officially been doing this blogging thing for five years. Hard to believe, isn't it?
An anniversary seems like a good time to reflect on statistics, so here are some numbers. Since February 2006, Daylight Atheism has had 1,265 posts, 42,573 comments, and 7.8 million total views, representing about 1.2 million unique visitors. [...]
- Compiling the Apologist's Handbook
The Loft • February 9, 2011
Last summer, I had a long e-mail conversation, spanning several months and thousands of words, with a thoughtful, intelligent, but strongly committed conservative Christian named Daniel who came across my site. There was one exchange we had that I found illuminating and that stuck in my mind, and I want to talk about it today.
I [...]
- Help Bring Freethought to Prisoners
The Foyer • February 8, 2011
The United States of America is the prison capital of the world, incarcerating far more people than any other nation (including China, which has over four times our population and is a repressive dictatorship). And most atheists already know that Christian proselytizing is rampant in prisons, with programs that both skirt the Constitution and blatantly [...]
- The Language of God: Intellectual Dishonesty
The Library • February 7, 2011
The Language of God, Chapter 6
By B.J. Marshall
Collins begins Part III of his book, entitled "Faith in Science, Faith in God," by trying to wrap his mind around why evolution is so difficult for some religious people to get. He recalls an experience where he was at a men's dinner at a Protestant church discussing [...]
- Movie Review: Into Eternity
The Observatory • February 6, 2011
This weekend, my wife and I saw Into Eternity, a gripping documentary by the Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen. It's well worth a wider audience, so here's a review of it that I hope will provoke some interest.
Every nuclear power plant in the world produces several tons of high-level radioactive waste each year. In total, there [...]
- On Taking Offense, and the Easiness Thereof
The Garden • February 5, 2011
I wanted to point out this comment from an ongoing discussion, because it's such a perfect example of the kind of Christian privilege that American believers take for granted:
Well, I guess you atheists are more easily offended than me. I do not see how a statue of the Ten Commandments makes anyone a second-class citizen.
It's [...]
- Fading Faith: The Rise of the Secular Age
The Garden • February 4, 2011
By James A. Haught
[Editor's Note: I'm proud to feature the writing of James Haught on Daylight Atheism. Mr. Haught has been an editor and columnist for the Charleston Gazette for over fifty years, as well as an eloquent and prolific freethinker and author of books like Holy Horrors. I've been a fan of his ever [...]
- Women Take the Helm in Egypt
The Rotunda • February 3, 2011
I wrote about the massive uprising in Egypt earlier this week, but events are moving so fast that I have to write again, and by the time you read this post, it may well be outdated. The latest development is that the Mubarak administration is apparently sending armed and organized gangs of thugs out onto [...]
- The Beginnings of an Arab Enlightenment?
The Rotunda • February 1, 2011
I've written recently about the vicious, dispiriting murders of human-rights advocates in Pakistan and Uganda. I'm an optimist by temperament, but stories like these are enough to drive me to the edge of despair. In my worst moments, it makes me wonder: is it possible for liberal, secular democracies to survive over the long term? [...]
