Atheist Monument Rejected, Atheists Win
Religion Dispatches
Last week, county officials rejected a proposal to build an atheist monument in front of the courthouse in Bronson, Florida. The Bronson courthouse already features a monument of the Ten Commandments. The atheist monument would have been identical to ...

It’s terrible. It’s nothing but loaded question after loaded question, with no opportunity for nuance. The Australian Christian Lobby is begging for you to tell them to kick Christianity out of the curriculum. These are the kinds of questions they ask:

Faith-based school communities and families who homeschool should have the flexibility to teach creation alongside evolution and the big bang theory.

Let us teach nonsense in the classroom!

While sustainability, Indigenous and Asian themes may be interesting and important, the current curriculum emphasises these issues at the expense of other important themes that should also be addressed by the Curriculum.

We’re teaching too much crap about non-white people!

You know, there should be some instruction in general religion in schools — I consider it to be along the lines of telling kids not to eat poison. But this survey is all about teaching only a biased, emphatically fundamentalist position to them as good. How about giving them a secular education instead? Is that too much to ask?

Hmmm. I know some people who might provide a counterbalancing perspective.

I am getting many complaints about recent changes. In response to the DDOS attack (Jason has all the details), there have been some new problems caused by the repairs: RSS is down, and there are apparently some slightly annoying javascript additions. We have Top Men working behind the scenes, it looks like we might be getting a security company to tighten us up, and also, coming down the track is a complete redesign of the site. Patience.

Years ago when I was running this place off my own server, one of the reasons I happily leapt aboard the Scienceblogs ship was that they’d take care of all the techy fol-de-rol needed to keep it running. Now that I’m on a different network, I’m constantly grateful that we have people like Ed to handle management, and Jason to futz with the guts, and another person lurking in the black bowels of the machine who I will not name, all juggling all the balls all at once.

And then, we hope, they go after the rest. A British court is accusing the Mormons of fraud.

A British magistrate has issued an extraordinary summons to the worldwide leader of the Mormon church alleging that its teachings about mankind amount to fraud.

Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been ordered to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London next month to defend the church’s doctrines including beliefs about Adam and Eve and Native Americans.

A formal summons signed by District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe warns Mr Monson, who is recognised by Mormons as God’s prophet on Earth, that a warrant for his arrest could be issued if he fails to make the journey from Salt Lake City, Utah, for a hearing on March 14.

The judge cites the belief that Native Americans are the lost tribe of Israel, that the Book of Mormon was ever written on gold plates, yadda yadda yadda. Sure. I’ll be more impressed when a British court summons the head of the Anglican church to answer for their lies.

The Mormons, by the way, call the totally true allegations “bizarre” and Monson apparently has no plans to travel to London. The court order is kind of a futile gesture, so that seems reasonable — I’m more interested in the fact that “God’s prophet on Earth” has admitted that common Mormon beliefs are bizarre.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Poster Removed From London South Bank University ...
Huffington Post UK
A poster which replaced the image of God from the Sistine Chapel with a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been removed after with a row with a London University. The South Bank University Atheism society created the graphics for their ...

Guardian Liberty Voice
Why Atheist Church Is Dumb
Guardian Liberty Voice
Lately, I've been getting a lot of notifications on my Facebook newsfeed about a new, dumb idea called “atheist church.” Every time I see it, I just shake my head in disgust. Atheist church is dumb, and here's why. First and foremost, atheist church is ...

Christian Post
Creationist Presents the Banana as 'The Atheist's Nightmare' to Prove ...
Christian Post
In this video, evangelist Ray Comfort introduces what he calls "The Atheist's Nightmare," the banana that we all know and love. He argues that the form of the fruit, conveniently sized for human in an easy-to-open package, is proof that it was created ...
Interview with a “de-convert” from Christianity to AtheismPatheos (blog)

all 2 news articles »

Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup ...
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 ...

He does not let go.

Online Preacher for the Deaf, Justin Vollmar, Comes Out as Atheist; 'God is an ...
Christian Post
Justin Vollmar, a pastor who has been running the Virtual Deaf Church online for the last four years, made a shocking announcement to his followers Friday declaring he has become an atheist because there is "NO GOD" and Christianity is "all nonsense.".
'Jesus Christ Was...': Deaf Pastor Who Revealed He's an Atheist Has a Big ...TheBlaze.com
Deaf pastor signs a mighty surprising messageCNN (blog)

all 8 news articles »

The Independent
Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup ...
Huffington Post UK
It's hard to hear this and not laugh but this is the funny tip of a very serious iceberg - universities are increasingly turning to silencing atheist and Humanist students for fear of upsetting religious sensibilities. In banning images of the Flying ...
Atheists' 'offensive' Flying Spaghetti Monster poster ban 'ridiculous'24dash (press release)
'Spaghetti Monster' poster banned for being offensive to religionPolitics.co.uk
Flying Spaghetti Monster Banned from London University GroundsReason

all 7 news articles »

New Yorker
When did faith start to fade?
New Yorker
In Tom Stoppard's 1970 play “Jumpers,” the philosopher hero broods unhappily on the inexorable rise of the atheist: “The tide is running his way, and it is a tide which has turned only once in human history. . . . There is presumably a calendar date—a ...

Photograph by Marschal Fazio. Photography contest, Honorable Mention. Sterna antillarum browni – California least tern. Mr. Fazio writes, “This species is listed as endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act. It nests along the California coast on sandy shorelines; as humans have encroached, the tern has lost much of its nesting habitat and now nests in overcrowded sites or mudflats, making them more prone to predation.”... Matt Young http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung

Administrators at London South Bank University have taken steps to protect the religious sensibilities of their student body, banning blasphemous portrayals of deities and important religious figures. Followers of those beliefs can’t possibly be expected to deal with ridicule, so the offensive portrayals must be taken down.

You might be wondering whose image is being redacted. Mohammed? Jesus? Buddha? L. Ron Hubbard?

Nope. A flyer that committed sacrilege by using the holy figure of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been prohibited.

I can understand how Pastafarians might be up in arms over any portrayal of a tangle of noodles and a pair of meatballs — we have an Italian restaurant in Morris, and sometimes I too am shocked when I see a plate that has spontaneously ordered itself into a perfect simulacrum of the one true god. It’s why I’m always careful to segregate the pasta from the meatballs, to make sure no untoward activity takes place on the plate. Also, because as we all know, while meatballs are particularly blessed, pasta must always know its place as inferior and subservient (it’s so pliant, and always so seductive).

I am pleased to report, however, that London South Bank University did exactly the right thing in silencing those heretics emphasizing the silliness of the divine. It’s just as well, too, or Pastafarians around the world might have been motivated to riot. Or set sail to live a pirate’s life, with a yo-ho-ho.

Oh, wait. I have just been informed that the Pastafarians weren’t complaining, it was other religious groups trying to suppress the expression of other beliefs.

Never mind.

Wait, wait, that last post was just too cheerful and optimistic. We can’t have that! So now that you’re feeling all happy about a peaceful response to oppression, let me bring you down to earth with this site, My Duty to Speak, in which military personnel recount their personal tales of getting raped while serving their country. That description is enough that I don’t have to say, “trigger warning”, right?

(via Bateman on rape in the military. Also pretty intense. OK, just don’t read any of this article or anything it links to. Go back to the dance video. Although…dancing won’t fix this problem.)

Flying Spaghetti Monster Poster Removed From London South Bank University ...
Huffington Post UK
A poster which replaced the image of God from the Sistine Chapel with a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been removed after with a row with a London University. The South Bank University Atheism society created the graphics for their ...

An Islamist religious radical in Tunisia declared that dancing is debauchery and moral decay that can’t continue. So you know what the people in that country are doing now?

Dancing.

Hey, wasn’t this the plot of Footloose? Only with Christianists, instead.

Being young and atheist in Iraq
Orlando Sentinel (blog)
Coming out as an atheist – or non-believer – in Iraq, or any other Muslim-majority society for that matter, isn't as easy as in the West. Although a largely secular society since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1932, the major religion in ...

and more »

Gary’s Chicaro, a restaurant in Enid, is a Nigger-Free Zone — it says so right on their official t-shirt. It also prohibits faggots and welfare queens.

It’s been in business for 44 years.

It’s finally making the news because a white guy, Matt Gard, was denied service — he’s in a wheelchair. See, they also hate the handicapped! I am cynically amused, though, by the fact that the white-guy whistleblower was a regular at the restaurant for years, and only woke up to the nastiness of the place when it finally affected him directly.

The article on the Daily Kos about Gary’s Chicaro also sets up another contrast: it quotes from libertarians who argue that we don’t need civil rights laws imposing the heavy hand of the government, because the Magic Power of the Marketplace would shut down racist establishments that exclude a significant fraction of their customer base.

Still in business after 44 years, while serving only healthy heterosexual white men with jobs — good ol’ boys. In this way is libertarianism refuted.

Look! Even the stinkbugs are ready to hatch!

HHMI