We know that Mary, the mother of Jesus, likes to show up in unlikely places such as toast, water stains, and the like. But it is not always a clear-cut identification, especially since we have no idea what Mary, or even Jesus for that matter, even looked like. So what should you do if you think Mary has appeared on some item of yours to make sure that it is the real deal before you start worshipping it, telling your friends about it, or flogging it on eBay? [Read more…]

A recent post about accommodationists and new atheists revolved around the question of whether science and religion were incompatible and if so, what one should do about it. The question of what constitutes religion and incompatibility perhaps needs to be clarified a bit. [Read more…]

In response to my two earlier posts where I condemned the practice of circumcision (see here and here), commenter TGAP Dad took issue with my response to a comment in the second post in which I said that “The only reason people do it is because parents want to indelibly mark their religious beliefs on the child”, pointing out that in his own experience growing up in an almost exclusively Christian community, circumcision was still routinely practiced, disproving my statement since Christianity does not require the practice as a religious identifier. [Read more…]

In an article in Salon titled Don’t Trust the Godless, Jesse Bering says that even though he is an atheist, he trusts religious people to do the right thing more than the godless. As an example, when he looks for a cab in a strange city, he prefers to take one that has prominently displayed religious icons such as crucifixes and Bibles over those that don’t. He seems to have swallowed whole the idea that belief in god makes people behave better because of their fear of divine retribution. [Read more…]

Via blog reader Tim, I learned that yesterday about 150 Mormons in Salt Lake City publicly declared that they were leaving the church. They committed a mass symbolic act of filling a basket with formal letters asking that their names be removed from church rolls. [Read more…]

Those who defend the practice of circumcision tend to fall into two camps. The first argue that to forbid it is to violate the religious freedom of the groups (mainly Jews and Muslims) who practice it. This is absurd. No one is saying that people should be forbidden from getting circumcised. What we are saying that circumcision should not be forced on anyone else. If any adult wants to get circumcised, they should be allowed to do so. But to allow parents to mutilate their babies to satisfy their own religious beliefs is simply wrong. You shouldn’t be allowed to establish your bona fides with god by mutilating your children. [Read more…]