Religious Privilege and Grievance-Based Catholic Identity Politics on Full Display

February 7, 2012 By 12 Comments

In a column last week, Melinda Henneberger criticized the Obama administration’s refusal to exempt the Catholic Church from requirements it provide for its employees health insurance which would cover birth control at organizations it runs which have secular functions. The column is an extraordinary exemplification of religious entitlement, identity politics, and anti-secular, anti-democratic demands for [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Feminism, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Law, Law, Law & Politics, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Rape, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

Christians Sexperimenting

January 12, 2012 By 8 Comments

One of the myriad indicators of Christianity’s falsehood is the distinctly religious neuroses it regularly creates around something as natural and as good as sex. In the video below Lisa and Ed Young, authors of Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse, discuss how they asked the married couples in their church to have [...]

Filed Under: Christianity, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Religion 8 Comments

How Christian Sexual Ethics Can Mess Up A Marriage

January 11, 2012 By 3 Comments

A few weeks ago, Amanda at Friendly Atheist fisked a new book on marriage, Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together by Grace and Mark Driscoll. In the book an arrogant preacher and his wife detail their first unhealthy decade of marriage, spent treating each other and sex terribly, before giving marriage advice based [...]

Filed Under: Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Sex 3 Comments

The Dangers of Religion Itself

January 8, 2012 By 44 Comments

Salvaging Religion In this post I am going to explore the dangers of religion. For some context, I have written often that I think that there are good things that go by the name religion that atheists should try to salvage from authoritarians, irrationalists and bigots. I am generally optimistic about the idea that we [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Islam, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism 44 Comments

A Few Christian Replies to Hitchens's Death Worth Noting

December 17, 2011 By 6 Comments

Shortly before Christopher Hitchens’s death, Andrew Sullivan movingly reminisced about him and gave a sense of how their friendship was so strong despite such differing views on faith:

Filed Under: Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, God, God, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Religion, Religion 6 Comments

Full Video of Republican Theocratathon

November 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

Last weekend the Republican candidates met for the “Thanksgiving Family Forum” where, except for Ron Paul, they each tried to prove they were the holiest Christian and, therefore, the most deserving candidate for president of our theocracy democracy. The actual discussions with the candidates do not start until 36 minutes in. And, as Jerry Coyne [...]

Filed Under: Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State 2 Comments

Calling Out And Debunking William Lane Craig's Smears Against Infidels and Apostates

November 21, 2011 By 17 Comments

Is William Lane Craig a philosopher? Some atheists seem to want to dismiss him as strictly a theologian and in no way a philosopher but sometimes he clearly attempts to make strictly philosophical arguments. By strictly philosophical arguments I mean ones whose premises make no necessary appeal to any presumed religious authorities but theoretically could [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Personal, Secularism, Why I Am Not A Christian, Why I Am Not A Christian Tagged With: , , , 17 Comments

Maryam Namazie Attacks Shari'a And Defends Muslim Immigrants Against The Far Right

November 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A great lecture and Q&A my estimable Freethought Blogs colleague Maryam Namazie: . An important excerpt from the Q&A: Look, George Bush says he attacked Iraq for women’s rights and I’m a women’s rights campaigner, but I don’t believe him. It’s possible that a politician will say something, that they’ve done something for a reason and, [...]

Filed Under: Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Feminism, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Islam, Islam, Koran, Koran, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues Leave a Comment

Before I Deconverted: Ministers As Powerful Role Models

October 30, 2011 By 4 Comments

To commemorate my 12th year anniversary of leaving Christianity, I am finally getting around to chronicling my Christian youth and my deconversion from biographical and philosophical perspectives. In my first post I described being a Christian kid and talked a bit about Christian camp. In this post, I explore the powerful influence upon who I [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Personal, Religion, Religion, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Why I Am Not A Christian, Why I Am Not A Christian 4 Comments

Before I Deconverted: My Christian Childhood

October 30, 2011 By 9 Comments

12 years ago today, on October 30, 1999 as a 21 year old college junior majoring in philosophy and minoring in religion at religiously and politically super-conservative Grove City College, I stopped being a Christian. Below the fold, for those interested in these sorts of narratives, is the first installment of a series of posts [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Why I Am Not A Christian, Why I Am Not A Christian 9 Comments