As some of you may know, I decided to invite all of you to share your stories about being an atheist. I hate to admit it, but my own story is just not that interesting. Atheist parents and their wisdom to let me chose for myself what I would believe made me the man I am today. But not every atheist life is as plain. I think there are compelling stories that have yet to be told, and this new section is inten ...

I want to send out a clear message today about the Catholic Church. I know many Catholics are feeling persecuted, brow beaten, and tired of all of the bad press they've been getting recently. It doesn't help matters when your Pope quotes a Byzantine Emperor who claimed that Islam was spread by holy war. If you think that's bad, you need to sit down to hear this staggeringly horrible piece of news: Pope Bene ...

A couple of podcasts ago, I asked my listeners to send in their mailbag questions, and invariably, a vast majority of the responders sent in not only questions, but also a little blurb about their own experiences in the sectarian world. I found all of them to be compelling, and I've realized atheism isn't only about my story, but the story of every person who's ever chosen not to believe. I'm asking any of ...

Ryan sent me this link from The Daily Dish, which I found more than a little disturbing. It's a lawsuit brought on by 35 people who were abused by their priests and are suing the Catholic Church for using their remote villages as a dumping ground for pedophiles. The suit numbers over 300 victims, the majority of which happened between the 1960s and 70s. It seems as though these locations were targeted becau ...

This video, from Crooks and Liars, sums up nicely what kind of man Rick Warren is. At first you might be outraged that he is inspired by Nazi Germany to get his followers to be as dedicated as they were. He defends this statement only by saying Hitler is the personification of evil, and to him, it's enough. No further discussion needed. What Rick doesn't realize, and what most people seem to forget, is the ...

There's a secretive branch of the Catholic church's court called the Apostolic Penitentiary that has everyone talking these days. It dates back to the 11th century, and oversees issues involving the forgiveness of serious sin. Since Catholicism places so much importance on the forgiveness of sin, there had to be a list of the worst ones, and who could forgive them. Since this is a fairly ancient organizatio ...

Here is an interesting article over at sciam (Scientific American) about a telephone that can apparently communicate with the dead. Well, by apparently, I mean 'not fucking likely', but hey, I'm just one of those annoying skeptics who just tries to ruin everything, aren't I? It was featured at a Paranormal conference held by Ryan Buell. If that name sounds familiar, it's because I ripped him a new one in on ...

Well, it turns out a biblical scholar wrote a book trying to answer this pointless question, and concluded the diet expounded in the Bible isn't a very healthy one. He argues that although the Israelites did not consume much meat, they didn't eat a lot of vegetables and fruit either, and their diet lacked essential vitamins and minerals. It seems silly to us anyone should really care about this, but his boo ...

When you read this phrase, undoubtedly, like me, the first thing that comes to mind is "why would you hold a public hearing on evolution? And why would you do this in Texas of all places?". I personally loath these joke hearings meant to ask the public what they want taught in their schools. It's not really up to them. Strange as that may seem to some, education standards are not decided by the general publ ...

Believe it or not, there is a science to cuteness. Sure, when you see a small panda bear, there is a part of you that is compelled to nurture it. The characteristics of animals that we consider cute typically resemble human infants. Konrad Lorenz, a Nobel Prize winning zoologist and animal psychologist, described the phenomenon as a natural instinct that developed in order to allow human beings to develop a ...