Is this a sign of moderation by Muslim theologians? Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed was a journalist in Mauritania who was accused of apostasy and of criticizing the prophet; a preacher, Abi Ould Ali, then chipped in and announced that he would pay €4000 blood money to anyone who would murder Ould Mohamed. Surprisingly, the preacher was condemned!

His call was immediately denounced by theologians and journalists in the north-western African country formally known as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

This would be a more promising development if Ould Mohamed hadn’t already been arrested by the state, which has a law making it a death penalty offense to criticize the prophet. I’m not hearing much condemnation for an unjust and evil law — although I do suppose it’s progress when they shut down vigilanteism.

Meanwhile, Ould Mohamed is in jail awaiting a possible death sentence.

When I heard about Eben Alexander’s I-died-and-went-to-heaven story, my first reaction was dismissive: I’ve heard these stories so many times, and they always turn out to be confabulation. When the brain is rebooted after trauma, especially if the process is prolonged as in Alexander’s case, it tries to reconstruct the continuity of experience by building memories (heck, even in normal healthy brains, memories are constructed). What I would have condemned Alexander for is extreme gullibility, unforgivable in a highly trained neurosurgeon.

I did not assume he was making stuff up for a payday. But not so fast; an Esquire reporter did some digging into Eben Alexander’s background, and also checked the details of his claims in his book, and it looks like we ought to be more suspicious.

When Alexander got sick in late 2008, he hadn’t practiced surgery in a year and faced a $3 million malpractice lawsuit. He now has a best-selling book and a movie deal.

Not just a malpractice suit, which are fairly common, but a whole string of malpractice suits that made him the subject of the highest number of such suits in his state. He’d similarly faded out of practice in Massachusetts, first, and then moved to Virginia to restart, where he then lost his surgical privileges at his hospital after a succession of screwups in spinal surgery…and after altering surgical records to cover his tracks.

Whoops.

Oh, well. When you’re a venal fuckup, you can always find a loving home in the Christian community by lying about Jesus a lot.

Atheist Sunday Assembly Sees 'Church' Split Due to Ideological Differences
Crossmap
Months after it launched its '40 Dates and 40 Nights' roadshow, the atheist 'church' known as Sunday Assembly has experienced a split from one of its congregations, which decided to form their own group due to ideological differences.

and more »

Oooh, do I smell a book deal! NPR today ran an interview with a Christian pastor who supposedly made a New Year’s resolution to live for a year without God. Ryan Bell was the pastor of a Seventh-Day Adventist congregation but was asked to resign when he expressed doubts about God.... Matt Young http://www.mines.edu/~mmyoung

I just got back from the town grocery store, which was packed with students — classes start again tomorrow, so I guess they’re stocking up for the semester. About half of them had their parents with them, which was totes adorbs. It wasn’t that long ago I was that parent.

But no more! My kids are expected to save up their pennies now so that in a few years they can handle the bills for adult diapers that they’ll be getting from my retirement home.

PJ Media
Thanks to Our Atheist, Agnostic, and Liberal Friends for Their Help in the ...
PJ Media
Thanks to Our Atheist, Agnostic, and Liberal Friends for Their Help in the Liberty Wars. They have the integrity to defend free speech and freedom of religion unequivocally because they know how quickly political and cultural tides shift. by. Paula ...

Actually, I could turn on the TV right now and find a dozen pseudo-authorities who don’t deserve to be in the spotlight. S.E. Cupp is just particularly annoying to me because she presents herself as an atheist (a self-loathing one, though) and intellectual, yet as Amanda Marcotte says, she may be the dumbest pundit working.

I think we have a winner in the Dumbest Pundit Alive Olympics. At least until Ross Douthat starts thinking about vaginas again.

David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, Glenn Beck, anyone associated with Politico, Richard Cohen, Peggy Noonan, Erick Erickson…jeez, we can’t possibly crown just one. It’s like a whole dumb hack circus out there. I can’t even turn on the TV on Sunday morning ’cause I can’t afford to replace it after I throw my tea mug through it.

And not just Sunday morning. One of the things I can’t stand about Bill Maher is that he uses his show to give these clowns a forum.

A nice short documentary featuring several of our colleagues at Black Skeptics.

One interesting bit was the focus on media portrayals of black people: they’re all supposed to be religious, and black atheists are shunned, as several clips show.

Atheist Sunday Assembly Sees 'Church' Split Due to Ideological Differences
Christian News Network
Months after it launched its '40 Dates and 40 Nights' roadshow, the atheist 'church' known as Sunday Assembly has experienced a split from one of its congregations, which decided to form their own group due to ideological differences. As previously ...

and more »

This is brilliant: a fish that catches birds on the wing. That takes some impressive calculation to be able to snatch a flitting swallow out of the air.

Now…does anyone have any video of a fish catching a cat?

A chemical plant in West Virginia, for a company called Freedom Industries (there’s a name that screams last refuge of scoundrels for you), spilled about 5,000 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol into the local water table. It turned the water in the rivers blue-green and reeking of licorice. The safety sheet for this chemical has a few cautions.

36: Irritating to the eyes
37: Irritating to the respiratory system
38: Irritating to the skin

26: In case of contact with eyes, rinse immediately with plenty of water and seek medical advice
27: Take off immediately all contaminated clothing
28: After contact with skin, wash immediately with plenty of … (to be specified by the manufacturer)
29: Do not empty into drains
30: Never add water to this product
33: Take precautionary measures against static discharges
35: This material and its container must be disposed of in a safe way
36: Wear suitable protective clothing
37: Wear suitable gloves
39: Wear eye/face protection

I like how the treatment suggestions include rinsing immediately with water. What do you do when the water is tainted with this stuff?

But don’t panic! The director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute is telling everyone not to worry.

Even at its current concentrations, however, the chemical is unlikely to cause any serious harm, Ziemkiewicz said.

“You’d have to drink something like 1,700 gallons of water to even approach a lethal dose,” he said. If a person drank a glass or two of tainted water, “I would be astonished if that caused any serious problems.”

Seriously? They’re simultaneously telling everyone to not drink the green water, don’t bathe in it, don’t wash your babies with it, and hey, the green stinky chemical contaminants coming out of your tap are just fine? Perhaps Ziemkiewicz would like to define “serious”. It seems to be something along the lines of “you’re not dropping dead, your glass of water is just making you vomit.”

Our expectations of what it means to live on a habitable planet seem to be dropping. I don’t think the head of an institute dedicated to researching clean water ought to be downplaying the toxic effects of the coal industry on water quality in the region. But that’s just me.

At least we aren’t getting the Ayn Rand approach to environmentalism yet, which would argue that the chemical tint to the water increases its scenic value, and that that odor is the scent of prosperity.

And we’re only getting a little bit of an effort to tie environmental disasters to biblical prophecy.

Scenes from a Multiverse

So sure, it could be worse. The whole planet could be exploding, but all we’re doing is soaking it with toxins. You could be melting and dying in agony right now, but really all that’s happening is that you’re drinking a slow poison.

Relax.

All misery is relative.

Don’t let the little things bother you, like dilute chemical irritants in your drinking water.

Shut up.

Go fight the big problems, like exploding planets and melty death. Let the little ones slide.

Really. Hush. It’s a little problem.

You can trust a company called Freedom Industries, can’t you?

Salon
Atheist Blogger's $3K Donation Finally Accepted by Food Pantry
Christian Post
Teacher and atheist blogger Hemant Mehta finally found a home for his rejected $3,000 donation this week when the Niles Township Food Pantry agreed to accept the money. The donation was previously rejected by the Morton Grove Park District and the ...
Atheist's donation of $3000 finally finds a homeChicago Tribune
An atheist finally finds someone to take his moneySalon
Food Pantry Accepts Atheist's Check After Two Others Rebuff ItPatch.com
Opposing Views -God Discussion -NEWS.GNOM.ES
all 10 news articles »

I knew I wasn’t alone in this. The most common dismissive argument I get from the men’s rights crowd gets repeated to me on a daily basis. It’s tired and old and stupid, and is a prime example of projection. Ally Fogg gets the same thing.

So what is this rancid little snotbubble of idiocy? It’s the tedious cliche that says any man who says or writes something which could be perceived to be sympathetic to women or feminism must only be doing so in the hope of getting a shag.

My critics usually follow up with something about how I’m also fat and old and have a beard and am boring and look hideous. Apparently, I’m so desperate because of my appalling unattractiveness that I’ve had to stoop to feminism to try and get laid.

It’s all wrong. Well, not the old homely part, but the rest is stupidly false. I’m not interested in having sex with anyone but my wife — I have, surprisingly, had a few outside invitations which I have politely, respectfully, and with much appreciation turned down. I have a good strong relationship with my wife so such suggestions only make me uncomfortable. It’s like I have been dining every day on gourmet meals prepared by an attentive chef, and someone offers me a delicious pastry on the side…I’m not at all hungry, it’s pretty easy to demur.

But feminism is good for one thing. It may not get you a quicky shag, but it turns out that respecting another human being as a person and treating them as an equal might sometimes get you into a long term mutually happy relationship.

I also like to point out that with 7 billion people on the planet, half of them women, you’re going to have sex with an infinitesimal fraction of them, no matter how much of a Don Juan you are. If you only see people through the lens of your penis, you have lost sight of the overwhelming majority of human possibilities.

Salon
15 ways atheists can stand up for rationality
Salon
I've often wondered how the term “New Atheism” gained such currency. It is a misnomer. There is nothing new about nonbelief. All of us, without exception, are born knowing nothing of God or gods, and acquire notions of religion solely through ...
Former Pastor Decides To Spend A Year Without GodNPR
Gambling with God: Ryan Bell's Atheist BetReligion Dispatches
Seventh-day Adventist preacher going atheist for a yearGod Discussion
CNN (blog)
all 21 news articles »

I know most of my readers are Americans, and the United States media will not have much to say (other than to sound an occasional note of triumphalism), but if you’re at all informed about the world, you should be thinking about WWI this summer — it will be the centenary of the beginning of World War I on 3 August. That’s a really good long read, by the way, that summarizes the early events of the war and explains why Germany, France, Russia, and Great Britain still care about the bloody price they paid in that deadly wasteful war.

More than 60 million soldiers from five continents participated in that orgy of violence. Almost one in six men died, and millions returned home with injuries or missing body parts — noses, jaws, arms. Countries like France, Belgium and the United Kingdom are planning international memorial events, wreath-laying ceremonies, concerts and exhibits, as are faraway nations like New Zealand and Australia, which formed their identities during the war.

Sit down with your cup of tea or coffee and read the whole thing.

Salon
Gambling with God: Ryan Bell's Atheist Bet
Religion Dispatches
Christian pastor Ryan Bell was all over the media this week for a project he has just undertaken: spending a year without God. Without having lost his belief in God, Bell wants to explore atheism as an alternative faith system in order to see what ...
15 ways atheists can stand up for rationalitySalon
Former Pastor Decides To Spend A Year Without GodNPR
Open Letter to Atheists From a Megachurch Pastor: Don't Go! (Part 2)Christian Post
Care2.com -CNN (blog) -God Discussion
all 24 news articles »

Featured Creature

See it live around the 2 minute mark here:

Amy Parker grew up with an all natural lifestyle: avoiding processed food and sugars, an active outdoor lifestyle, eating local organic foods, the whole crunchy natural lifestyle. She was also never vaccinated…and remembers her childhood as a succession of flattening diseases. Now she’s all grown up and is very sensibly vaccinating her own kids and eschewing the woo nonsense, and is happier and healthier than ever. It’s a positive story all around.

Oh, and the good line I’m going to have to steal:

If you think your child’s immune system is strong enough to fight off vaccine-preventable diseases, then it’s strong enough to fight off the tiny amounts of dead or weakened pathogens present in any of the vaccines.

Christian Professor Gets Fired for 'Trying on Atheism'
Care2.com
At the end of last year, Ryan J. Bell, an adjunct professor at Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary and a former pastor of a Seventh-day Adventist church, decided to “try on atheism” for a year. According to his piece in the ...
Seventh-day Adventist preacher going atheist for a yearGod Discussion

all 3 news articles »

The double bill at the Morris theater had me concerned about you guys.

As for Minnesota, it’s wonderful! It was -2°C outside, so I went for a nice long walk. Hatless. Gloveless. I unzipped my coat, even. If I’d done another mile, I might have stripped down to my underwear and danced all the way home.

It’s still a downer that Nebraska is suffering so.