On Tolerating Intolerance

February 15, 2013 By 45 Comments
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Zinnia Jones at Freethought Blogs had a great post last week exposing Matt Moore, an evangelical and so-called "ex-gay" who loudly boasted that Jesus had cured him of homosexuality. It turns out the cure wasn't exactly complete, since Moore had an active profile on the gay hookup site Grindr. When confronted with the evidence of his hypocrisy, Moore admitted the account was his, claiming that he had been "disobedient" and that Jesus had already forgiven him for it (a clear example of … [Read more...]

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Weekend Coffee: October 21

October 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Some links from the last week: • As you may have heard, my good friend and awesome secular activist Greta Christina was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. It's fully treatable, but she needed some help to cover her living expenses while she recovers, and the atheist community came through in spades, meeting and exceeding what she had hoped to raise in barely 24 hours. • Dinesh D'Souza, the well-known Christian apologist, showed up at a conference last week with a much younger woman … [Read more...]

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Little-Known Bible Verses: Preachers’ Kids

April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of my favorite features of the old site was "Little-Known Bible Verses", a regular series highlighting frequently overlooked passages from scripture that are immoral, bizarre, or contradict well-established parts of Christian belief. In the past, I've discussed verses saying, among other things, that true Christians should greet each other with a kiss (try that one at your church!), that they should be communists who reject private property, that they'll be able to do better miracles than … [Read more...]

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Weekend Coffee: April 7

April 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Here's what's in the news this week: • In these troubled economic terms, the Russian Orthodox church seems to be sensitive about their patriarch wearing a watch that costs 30,000 euros, which is why they tried to doctor a photo of him to hide the evidence. Unfortunately for them, they forgot to also edit out a reflection of the watch on his wrist. As I've said before, it's fortunate that most censors are unintelligent, unimaginative people. • In a story I definitely want to return to … [Read more...]

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The Ingratitude of American Theocrats

August 26, 2010 By 21 Comments

When America's founders ratified the Constitution, they created something that arguably had never existed in the world before: a republic where freedom of religion was explicitly enshrined in the charter, where toleration wasn't just the whim of a benevolent ruler but the immutable law of the land. As George Washington wrote in his famous letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport: It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that … [Read more...]

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Christianist Professor Calls for Religious McCarthyism

July 8, 2010 By 48 Comments

Although I've learned not to expect much from the right-leaning Supreme Court, I've been pleasantly surprised by some of their recent decisions. First was Holy See v. John Doe, in which the court upheld a ruling that the Vatican isn't immune from lawsuits over its protection of pedophiles. The second was Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, in which a Christian student group sued a California law school to demand - what else? - the legal right to discriminate against gays. The law school has a … [Read more...]

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An Unserious Response to the Theist’s Guide

April 28, 2010 By 28 Comments

I've received another response to my essay on Ebon Musings, "The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists", which challenges theists to explain what they would accept as proof that their religious beliefs were mistaken. For the record, I'll point out that this essay has been publicly available since June 2001, almost nine years, and in that time - counting the response just received - I've gotten a total of three replies. What's ironic is that this latest response underscores, rather than … [Read more...]

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Holding the Pope to Account

April 15, 2010 By 25 Comments

Every time I think we've seen the worst of what the Roman Catholic church and this pope are capable of, they come up with a way to sink lower still. Back in January, when Benedict reinstated a misogynist, Holocaust-denying bishop, I could never have imagined that that would be the least offensive and disgusting thing they'd have done this year - yet it seems like that may very well be the case. The newest evidence of this comes via this story from the AP. I previously detailed a case where the … [Read more...]

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CAP Alert Reviews IV

October 25, 2007 By 13 Comments

Recently, while I was looking over my list of especially ridiculous items culled from the CAP Alert site, I noticed an interesting trend. Namely, many elements of movies which the CAP reviewer condemns can also be found in the Bible. Consider the following examples: The 13th Warrior: "'Your fate is fixed'" Romans 9:21: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" (In the middle of a long argument for … [Read more...]

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Armor of God

October 9, 2007 By 12 Comments

"Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil... Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith..." —Ephesians 6:11-16 Among the fundamentalist Christian set, it's a common tenet that faith in Jesus offers the believer some sort of literal supernatural protection against those who … [Read more...]

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