Bullying or Debating? Religious Privilege or Freedom of Speech?

Jaime: Did you see the Republicans just endorsed the right to bully in schools as long as it’s done in the name of religion. Kelly: They did not. Jaime: Yes. They did. They perversely added to anti-bullying bill the right to bully as long as such bullying was based on “sincerely held religious or moral convictions.” [...]

TOP Q: “How Is It Fair To Question Other People’s Identity-Forming Beliefs While Demanding Respect For One’s Own Belief-Formed Identities?”

I always tell my students as they start studying philosophy that it is crucial that they not associate their ideas too closely with themselves.  They need to get used to not taking criticism of their ideas personally. I warn them that if they cannot disassociate from their ideas when they fail, they will never be [...]

On Gary Bauer’s Claims That American Muslims Get Better Treatment Than American Christians

Gary Bauer makes the ludicrous case that left wing “elites” and Muslims have a common cause of destroying Judeo-Christian culture and so have conspired together to make America more hospitable to Muslims than to Christians: If Muslims were treated like Christians, Muslims would be mocked by late night TV talk show hosts and lampooned in [...]

On The Uses And Abuses Of Religion In Art: The Lines Between Expression, Tolerance, Respect, Fear, and Torture

Gary Bauer thinks Christians aren’t treated as well as Muslims in America because there are greater quantities of art works which use Christian symbols in ways that offend Bauer’s sensibilities than there are ones that use Muslim symbols in ways that would offend Muslim sensibilities: in a variety of contexts, American Muslims are treated better [...]

How Christian Beliefs And Values Are No More Creditable With America’s Founding Than Islamic Ones

Gary Bauer displays a hilarious sense of grievance in his article “If Christians Were Treated Like Muslims”. I want to take a few posts to fully dissect all of its self-absorbed, phony, distorted victimhood. The first three sentences merited a full post themselves, so here we go. Bauer starts out with the following falsehood: Few [...]

Penn Jillette On Magic, Atheism, And Libertarianism

A really enjoyable video, especially for his remarks on magic, other magicians, and why magic on TV isn’t real magic. And I really appreciated his stress on the importance of having “out” atheists to identify with. In his case he discusses being joyed, inspired, loved, and comforted by having famous atheists like Martin Mull, Randy [...]

Are Legal Burqas A Security Risk?

Now in Australia, a senator is making this argument: Tasneem Chopra comes off most impressive. Your Thoughts?

Smug Atheists?

Andrew Sullivan, whose blogging I usually admire and emulate a great deal as he’s really my blogging hero, had an astoundingly nasty post about the fact that atheists dared to meet up together to listen to Daniel Dennett mock the emptiness of apophatic theological gobbledygook last weekend. They’re really charming, aren’t they? It is as [...]

Ted Kennedy At Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist College In 1983

via Atheist Media Blog Your Thoughts?

Pat Condell Excoriates The Left For Not Standing Up To Islamism

There is a lot to chew on in this latest rant from Pat Condell on the need for the tolerant to be more intolerant of intolerant religions than they are intolerant of denouncers of intolerant religions.  While Condell’s  attack on multiculturalism is too broad and at times his rhetoric is cringe-inducingly counter-productive, I do share [...]