International Business Times
On Darwin Day, Atheists Get A New News Website, But Will It Evolve Into A Must ...
International Business Times
Maggie Ardiente, another senior editor (as well as AHA's communications director) added that the website is an effort to serve “[m]illions of humanists and atheists [who] are absorbing information about the secular movement through the Internet.” The ...
Humanists Launch 'Godless Media Hub' As Landing Place For All Things Non ...Huffington Post

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Deaf Pastor Who Turned Atheist Is 'Vengeful, Pathological Liar' Who Needs to ...
Christian Post
After claiming in an explosive CNN article Monday that he began losing his faith in God after being overworked and underpaid at a church run by a tyrannical, golf-loving pastor who made $80,000 a year, deaf pastor turned atheist, Justin Vollmar, is ...

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They intentionally turn a blind eye to their sins.

For decades, students at Bob Jones University who sought counseling for sexual abuse were told not to report it because turning in an abuser from a fundamentalist Christian community would damage Jesus Christ. Administrators called victims liars and sinners.

But wait! Then they hired a Christian consulting group to independently help them grapple with the problem. That’s a step in the right direction.

But wait again! Now they’ve fired their consultants, because they were going beyond the originally outlined intentions, that is, they were coming up with criticisms and answers they didn’t like.

This is how BJU handles assault complaints.

Erin Burchwell said that when she accused a university employee of sexually assaulting her in the late 1990s, “their idea of an investigation and counseling was to ask me what I was wearing and whether it was tight, and to tell me not to talk to anyone about it because it wouldn’t look good for me.” She said university officials alternated between “saying it never even happened and saying I was a willing participant.”

I doubt that I have many readers among the student body at BJU, but in case there are any, here’s my advice: get out while you can. Transfer to a real college.

The Twin Cities Creation Science Association is hosting their annual science fair again this weekend, at the University of Northwestern St Paul, 3003 North Snelling, Roseville, Minnesota, in Maranatha Hall. At least it’s being done at an appropriately Christian college.

Every year I note this thing, and every year I fail to attend. It’s just too depressing to see the sad little displays and the cheerful kids who are being detoured into failure. I always feel like I should go, though, just to witness it.

So I was thinking, maybe if I had a little more incentive…is there anyone else in that part of Minnesota who’d like to meet up, take a tour through the tackiness, and then get together to restore our faith in humanity with a beer or lunch? Let me know in the comments. I’d probably aim to get there around 10am, when it’s all set up and judging is going on, and be off by early afternoon. If anyone can recommend a good pub or something in that area, even if you can’t make it, it would be appreciated.

Let me add: if you look at the photos of last year’s fair, you’ll see that these are fairly typical of even secular science fairs — the only weird bit is the required inclusion of a Bible verse, and every once in a great while someone trots out some nonsense about a young earth or whatever. If you think this is an opportunity to get together and poke fun at some kids, stay home, OK?

Help me wrap my brain around this tweet. I can’t grok it.

Philosophers' historic failure to anticipate Darwin is a severe indictment of philosophy. Happy Darwin Day!

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) February 12, 2014

Philosophers’ historic failure to anticipate Darwin is a severe indictment of philosophy. Happy Darwin Day!

John Wilkins isn’t helping.

@pzmyers @RichardDawkins Likewise, scientists’ failure to anticipate The Beatles is a severe indictment on science.

— John S. Wilkins (@john_s_wilkins) February 12, 2014

Likewise, scientists’ failure to anticipate The Beatles is a severe indictment on science.

Don’t you mean Pink Floyd, John?

Also, since Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus was a philosopher and poet, and since his work did anticipate (incompletely) evolution, couldn’t we say that a philosopher actually did anticipate Darwin, and he was a Darwin too? We could also declare that the poets got there first.

And since Darwin considered himself a natural philosopher, couldn’t we also say that a philosopher did more than anticipate, but actually came up with Darwin’s theory of evolution?

Darwin appreciated philosophy, but also thought it essential to include experiment and observation. In his Autobiography he actually praised his education in philosophy.

Again in my last year I worked with some earnestness for my final degree of B.A., and brushed up my Classics together with a little Algebra and Euclid, which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did whilst at school. In order to pass the B.A. examination, it was, also, necessary to get up Paley’s Evidences of Christianity, and his Moral Philosophy. This was done in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that I could have written out the whole of the Evidences with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and as I may add of his Natural Theology gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the Academical Course which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the education of my mind.

He also respected William Whewell, a philosopher (and a theologian. Christ, we’re screwed here!).

Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several occasions I walked home with him at night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh he was the best converser on grave subjects to whom I ever listened.

Whewell is also the guy who invented the term “scientist” to describe practitioners of a specific branch of…philosophy. I guess it was a philosopher who anticipated scientists.

And, apparently, Darwin’s shipmates on the Beagle called him “philosopher”!

The first Lieutenant, however, said to me: “Confound you, philosopher, I wish you would not quarrel with the skipper; the day you left the ship I was dead-tired (the ship was refitting) and he kept me walking the deck till midnight abusing you all the time.

So I am confused. How can anyone use Darwin Day as an excuse to indict philosophy? It’s as if I used my birthday as an opportunity to cuss out my dad.

University Herald
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Huffington Post UK
In a move beyond parody, London South Bank University's Student Union removed posters from its Atheists Society depicting a god on the grounds that they were offensive. The god in question was the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a deity invented as satire in ...
Union apologises for censoring atheist 'Spaghetti Monster' posterPolitics.co.uk
Atheist Groups Unhappy with Removal of Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam ...University Herald
Free speech outcry as images of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are banned from ...The Independent
24dash (press release) -The Guardian -Index On Censorship
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I thought I’d include a picture of the young Charles Darwin, since we are celebrating his birthday today. That’s him in 1816, when he was 6 or 7 years old, with his younger sister, Emily Catherine Darwin. And then I started wondering about that other person in the picture. Darwin’s sisters were an extremely important influence on his life, and I don’t know a heck of a lot about her; Darwin had four sisters and one brother, Erasmus, and most of the biographies say quite a bit about the older brother who preceded him to university, but the sisters seem to be background noise. It seems Catherine’s life was mainly about caring for her father’s household, and she married late in life, at age 53, only to die a few years later. You can read some of Catherine’s correspondence, and she seems to have been a lively and intelligent person.

According to Darwin’s autobiography, she was also the smart one.

I have been told that I was much slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I was in many ways a naughty boy. Caroline was extremely kind, clever and zealous; but she was too zealous in trying to improve me; for I clearly remember after this long interval of years, saying to myself when about to enter a room where she was-”What will she blame me for now?” and I made myself dogged so as not to care what she might say.

Roughly the same age, roughly the same intelligence, but Catherine Darwin didn’t have the opportunity to go to college or to sail on the Beagle. It makes the picture even more interesting: foreground and background, different fates, different choices, different chances. We know what will happen to those two children — Darwin will die in 1882, Catherine in 1866 — history does this odd thing of telescoping complex lives into just a few events, and I don’t know, but it makes me sad.

I am now resisting the temptation to pull out the old photos of my kids from that box in the closet.

TheBlaze.com
Atheist Who Attempted to Auction Off Her Church Attendance Finally Visits a ...
TheBlaze.com
After a public war of words with eBay, the popular bidding company, a South Carolina atheist who tried but failed to auction off her attendance at church to the highest bidder has officially attended service at a local house of worship — and she says ...

Adam Smyth
London Review of Books (subscription)
The Atheist's Bible: The Most Dangerous Book That Never Existed by Georges Minois, translated by Lys Ann Weiss Chicago, 249 pp, £21.00, October 2012, ISBN 978 0 226 53029 1. One of the ways in which literary texts are capacious is their ability to ...

ChristianToday
Atheist ' would love to go back to church after faith swap experiment
ChristianToday
A Christian and an atheist have shared their experiences of swapping lives for one month. In January, friends and comedians Simon Capes and Bentley Browning each gave up their respective belief systems in favour of the other's, in the hopes of ...

This is a very rude song. It’s not safe for work, either.

Gosh. My feelings are hurt now.

'Jesus Christ Was...': Deaf Pastor Who Revealed He's an Atheist Has a Big ...
TheBlaze.com
Pastor Justin Vollmar's revelation that he's now an atheist captured a plethora of attention Monday. So far, the ex-preacher said that reaction has been “explosive,” with Christians lamenting his de-conversion and atheists expressing their excitement ...
Online Preacher for the Deaf, Justin Vollmar, Comes Out as Atheist; 'God is an ...Christian Post
Deaf pastor signs a mighty surprising messageCNN (blog)

all 8 news articles »

Catholic Hospital Receptionist Tells Couple That Atheists Shouldn't Be Allowed ...
Huffington Post
Terry Firma on the Friendly Atheist blog delved deeper into the story, getting further details from Scott (last name withheld), who is user chuckyourface. Scott explained that the hospital was the only one nearby, and he and his wife didn't have good ...

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Atheist Who Auctioned Chance to Visit Church Attends Worship Service Years ...
Christian Post
The leader of a South Carolina atheist organization attended a United Methodist Church service last weekend after launching an eBay auction to visit the church of the highest bidder. Inman United Methodist Church in Inman, S.C., donated an undisclosed ...

Atheist on Why She is Pro-Life: “We're Not Dealing With Tissues or Blobs”
LifeNews.com
Kelsey Hazzard is the head of the pro-life group known as Secular Pro-Life. She's an anomaly — a pro-life atheist in a world where most pro-life people are staunch Catholics or evangelicals. Anyone attending the March for Life in Washington D.C. has ...

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The best part of this interview with James Taranto is watching the expressions of the women doing the interviewing. You can tell they’re struggling to maintain a professional attitude while dealing with this lunatic hunk of slime.

The social purpose of marriage is to control men.

I’m actually quite fond of women. You can call me Tarantosaurus sex.

Women can have sex without the fear of pregnancy, just like men can. And this is a bad thing?

Excuse me. I have to go drink a quart of epicac right now. I could just go read the Wall Street Journal, I suppose, but guzzling a potent emetic would have the same effect, and be less painful to my brain.

(via TBogg.)

There was an accident at a suicide bomber training camp: an instructor set off a vest loaded with explosives, killing himself and 21 other terrorists-in-training, wounding 15 more, and 8 were arrested in the aftermath. Laugh, everyone! Bad guys are dead! And ironically so!

Of course, imbedded in the story are details we might otherwise try to forget.

Iraq is facing its worst violence in more than five years, with nearly 9,000 people killed last year and almost 1,000 people killed last month. On Monday, a roadside bomb in Mosul, in northern Iraq, targeted the speaker of Parliament, Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, security officials said. Six of his guards were wounded, but Mr. Nujaifi was unharmed, they said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria evolved from its previous incarnation as Al Qaeda in Iraq, but recently Al Qaeda’s central leadership disavowed the group, which has taken on an increasingly important role in the fighting in Syria, as well as in Iraq.

Along with the increase in attacks on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other Sunni extremist groups have captured territory in western Anbar Province, and for weeks they have controlled the city of Falluja and parts of Ramadi, the provincial capital. Other areas of the country have also become strongholds of the Islamic State and of Al Qaeda.

Terrorist training camps have been set up in the mountainous areas of Diyala Province. Northern Nineveh Province has become a gateway for jihadis traveling from Iraq to Syria. Mosul, Nineveh’s capital, has become a center of financing for militant groups estimated by one Iraqi official at millions of dollars a month, generated by extortion and other schemes.

Democracy! Whisky! Sexy!?

Mission Accomplished!?

Man, we fucked that place up. Are you still laughing?

Should atheists proselytize? Thoughts on 'The Young Atheist's Handbook'
Religion News Service
I tore through The Young Atheist's Handbook: Lessons for Living a Good Life Without God shortly after it was published. In it, Alom Shaha—an ex-Muslim, science teacher, and active member of the British Humanist Association—offers important ...