Many readers on this site may be too young to remember televangelist Peter Popoff. The only reason I know of him is due in no small part to magician and skeptic James Randi. Popoff was a faith healer who achieved fame by making startling predictions about people's ailments during his church services. He was even able to recite their address, as though God had given him a cosmic phone. Obviously skeptical of ...

A recent article on BBCNEWS reports a tiny Christian minority in Pakistan is facing dire threats to convert to Islam or face annihilation. The group has asked the government to provide protection, though it feels not enough is being done to keep them safe. I just feel the need to ask: just what exactly is the point of converting these people? Evidently you cannot force someone to believe what you do, partic ...

I had a random thought this morning, one I thought I might share with you concerning an article I read about NASA's discovery of widespread evidence of Antarctic melting. It's no mystery many global warming deniers are conservative religious folks in the so-called heartland. I have no doubt a significant portion of these individuals also contend the earth is not billions of years old, but rather a paltry s ...

Big news today in the world of politics and religion; a certain televangelist, Jerry Falwell, collapsed and died yesterday afternoon, presumably from cardiac arrest. Now, with a man like Falwell, there's quite a bit to say, most of which is unflattering. For most of you unfamiliar with him, this is the same man who declared AIDS was a punishment from God for the immorality of homosexuality, pagans, the ACLU ...

A slightly ironic story appeared on NBC's website today concerning an Alcoholics Anonymous group being banned from holding meetings in a Presbyterian church in Rockville, Maryland for sexual misconduct. Church officials complained the group was operating like a cult. Now, I'm no fan of AA. In fact, I'm very much against the organization; Alcoholics Anonymous is indeed a religious cult, forcing members to de ...

It's funny how kids sometimes have a way of showing us just how foolish we can be. In 1996, Emily Rosa of Loveland, Colorado, was a regular 9 year old girl looking for an experiment to conduct for a science fair. While watching TV, she saw a report of the practice of therapeutic touch, a technique where nurses 'manipulate' the supposed energy fields (often called auras) of patients to treat various ailments ...

Remember the Spanish Inquisition? Not exactly a shining moment for Christianity. Luckily, we can confidently say such shameful barbarism as immolation and torture over something as stupid as practicing magic are relegated to the past, right? Well, no actually. It seems an industrious and rather poorly educated mob in India decided an innocent elderly couple had to be burned alive. Why? Well, apparently they ...

In December of last year, I began work on a book entitled The Good Atheist. The reason for wanting to write this book was a reaction to the events happening all around us; from the violent sectarian uprisings in the Muslim world, to the growing Christian fundamentalist movement in America. I wanted to try and combat the problem of growing religious intolerance and hatred. The problem of growing fundamental ...