The Hitch is back with more on the Pope, this time with a well thought out article in Newsweek entitled 'Bring the Pope to Justice'. I feel like a lot of the writing out there regarding this whole scandal haven't done a great job of pinning down just how shamefully complicit the Vatican has been in all this. Well, it doesn't get more obvious or well laid out than this: In 2002, I happened to be on Hardball ...

Remember Harry Taylor, the British man who was tried and found guilty of 'religiously aggravated harassment' for leaving some flyers making fun of religion in the prayer room at an airport? He was just sentenced today and got an Anti-Social Behavior Order along with a six month suspended sentence. The ABSO - a creepy little UK legal order basically allowing courts to make legal things illegal - means Taylor ...

I haven't put much effort on the podcast into hiding the fact that I thought The Invention of Lying was a bore of a flick despite a pretty amusing anti-religion side plot: one of the lies the main character tells is that everyone goes somewhere awesome after death, which then led to lies about God, rules, and all that jazz. Hilarity ensues (or so I thought it would). I've heard many atheists enjoyed the mov ...

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Who says Americans get to have all the political fun? At a federal election debate held at a Sudbury high school, independent candidate David Popescu shared some of his extreme religious views. From the Edmonton Sun: Popescu introduced himself with a public prayer, blaming environmental damage and economic unrest on the wickedness of society. His comments were met with silence as some students grimaced and ...

Yep, it's banned book week, and one person who has an opinion on the subject is author Philip Pullman, whose book Northern Lights (turned into the movie The Golden Compass) is high on the list of books in the crosshairs of religious institutions. Here are his thoughts on the subject, care of the Guardian: In fact, when it comes to banning books, religion is the worst reason of the lot. Religion, uncontamina ...

We talked a little bit about the Temple of Science a few weeks back, and now Wired has an interview with the creator. Artist Builds Temple of Science | Wired Science from Wired.com Keats' conception of that idea took shape as a two-story building complete with stained-glass windows patterned after cosmic microwave background radiation and a liturgy based on the sounds of the Big Bang. The Atheon opened Sept ...

We mentioned a while back that John McCain and Barack Obama were answering questions relating to science and technology on a website called Science Debate 2008. Obama released his answers a few weeks ago and now John McCain has responded as well. You can now read the two candidates' responses side by side here. ...

From the EFF: Over a period of twelve hours, between this Thursday night and Friday morning, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology. Clips included footage of Australian and German news reports about Scientology, A Message to Anonymous/Scientology , and footage ...

Jake caused quite a stir with the concept of atheism as an organized religion (a much better article than my random link posts). Now an artist in San Francisco is converting a building into something of an atheist church as part of an exhibition for the Judah L Magnes Museum. From Boing Boing: Instead of telling the story of baby Jesus, the Atheon's stained glass windows will show cosmic microwave backgroun ...