Thanks to Rev. El Mundo, I learned that on Up with Chris Hayes on the day after the Reason Rally, the host talked about the impact of atheism on public life with a variety of people, some of whom had been speakers at the rally. Hayes also casually let it be known that he was an atheist too. I hope that this may encourage other prominent figures to also casually mention it. [Read more…]
Every Friday, many Muslims around the world will attend their mosques. The next day, Jews will follow suit into synagogues, and on Sunday many Christians will attend church. We know that some of the people in these houses of worship will be those trying to hold on to their belief in a god despite their increasing doubts. Some of them will be people who are fighting to prevent the voices of doubt entering their minds while for others that battle has already been lost and now the only thing that keeps them returning is because they do not know how to make a clean break without alienating their family and friends and perhaps the only real sense of community that they have known. But even they may not suspect that leader of the congregation is also one of them, a doubter or even an outright nonbeliever. [Read more…]
On the eve of his visit to Cuba, the pope said that “It is evident today that Marxist ideology as it had been conceived no longer responds to reality.”
Should we really be getting lectures on what constitutes reality from someone who worships an imaginary figure who supposedly tells him what to do? It would be as absurd as a supposedly lifelong celibate laying down rules on contraception and sexuality. Hey, wait a minute…
I attended a portion of the Reason Rally yesterday in Washington DC. It drizzled or rained gently most of the time, which cast a bit of a damper on the proceedings but people were in good spirits. The crowd that attended should dispel the notion that the nonbelievers movement consist of old, white guys. It was gratifyingly diverse in all categories (gender, age, and ethnicity) with the large majority being young people. I felt like an old fogey and that was great, just as it should be. [Read more…]
I will be attending part of the Reason Rally on the National Mall in Washington DC tomorrow and so blogging will be light over the weekend. The national media have started covering the event. (See here and here and here.) [Read more…]
Jason Rosenhouse makes a point that I too have noticed in my discussions about religion with both sophisticated and fundamentalist believers. The former will pooh-pooh the whole idea of evidence for the existence of god and say that religion is based on faith and is a different way of knowing and thus is exempt from the normal demands of evidence and reason that we apply to every other aspect of our lives. They will argue that as a result these are two non-overlapping worldviews and that applying the standards of science to religious beliefs makes no sense. [Read more…]
One of the bizarre turns that this election campaign has taken is the assault on women’s rights by the Republican party. It seems crazy for politicians to advocate steps that could alienate potentially 50% of the electorate. Valerie Tarico argues that this is merely the flip side of their desire to appeal to their fundamentalist religious base. [Read more…]
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williamson, the head of the Anglican church, is stepping down at the end of the year. I could not quite figure the man out. He seemed a nice enough sort but wishy-washy. He epitomized the dilemma of the liberal Christian, trying to make nice with science and modern liberal sensibilities on issues of women and gays, while at the same time constrained by the absurdities of the Bible and his own institutional traditions that set limits on how far he could go. [Read more…]
The Republican-led legislature in Arizona is nearing passage of a bill in which “Women in Arizona trying to get reimbursed for birth control drugs through their employer-provided health plan could be required to prove that they are taking it for a medical reason such as acne, rather than to prevent pregnancy”, because we all know that there is nothing that any woman likes more than discussing the most intimate details of her life with her employer. [Read more…]