Push for Humanist chaplains in the military

The military has broadened its views quite a bit when it comes to accommodating a wide variety of religions, including the choice of what religious symbols are allowed to be put on tombstones in their cemeteries. Yet when it comes to chaplains, the catch is that atheists, humanists, and other non-believers are not yet fully included because of the requirement that chaplains be endorsed by at least one of about 200 recognized groups, and non-believers (and Wiccans) are not among them. An army chaplain who wanted to change from Pentecostal to Wiccan (his would an interesting story to hear!) lost his position and some other chaplains who have become humanists are fearful of revealing their change for fear of meeting the same fate. [Read more…]

Important development on same-sex marriage in Ohio

[UPDATE: You can read the full text of the judge’s ruling here. It is pretty strong stuff. This was not a full trial but a request for a restraining order against the state and thus applies only to this case, but the wording of the reasoning suggests that the judge thinks it should hold widely.]

A federal judge in Cincinnati has ruled that even state officials in Ohio must recognize the rights of same-sex couples that were legally married in other states. This is a significant expansion of the US Supreme Court ruling in the DOMA case where the federal government was told that it had to recognize those rights. The judge’s ruling is a major development because Ohio still has on its books the constitutional amendment passed in 2004 that says that marriage is between a man and a woman only, and steps are currently underway to repeal that provision. [Read more…]

So much for everyone worshipping the same god

The Vatican’s first envoy to Malaysia (a country that is 60% Muslim) has created a controversy by saying that he saw nothing wrong with Christians using the word Allah to describe god. Some Muslims are protesting, saying that this is a way to convert Muslims to Christianity which, incredibly, is a crime in many Islamic countries. They have called him an ‘enemy of the state’ and asked that he be recalled. [Read more…]

Righteous lubes

When I said that one of the main problems with religion is that they are killjoys who frown on anything that gives people joy and pleasure, I was too sweeping in my judgment.

It turns out that at least one religious group, the Rabbinical Council of California, is bucking that perception and has granted kosher certification to ‘personal lubricants’. Don’t know what they are or why it was felt that they needed to be kosherized? See the fascinating details here.

Let’s hear it for the Rabbinical Council of California for realizing that religion can be fun!

Update: Sad to say, the RCC has changed its mind and yanked the kosher certification. They explain that they had misunderstood the ‘intended uses’ of the product.

The puzzling silence over Carter’s remarks

In my post on former president Carter expressing support for what Edward Snowden did and adding that “America has no functioning democracy at this moment”, I expressed surprise that there has not been a huge outcry over the remarks. Indeed, while Carter said this at a closed-door function in Atlanta, it was a German magazine Der Spiegel that first reported it. I wondered if Carter would walk back his statements but he has not done so, so we have to assume his stands by his remarks. [Read more…]

How criminals use religion to excuse their acts

It has been well established that there is little correlation with being moral and law abiding and being religious. (Via reader Norm, I learned of an interesting post by Hemant Mehta on some recent data on the self-reports of religious affiliations of the prison population.) But how can religious people, who believe that there is a god who not only knows everything that they do but can actually read their minds and is able to mete out horrendous punishments for evildoers, commit really awful crimes? Why isn’t the wrath of god or hell a deterrent? [Read more…]