It's hard for individuals unfamiliar with Orthodox Jewish culture to fully understand the scope of isolation in that community. For starters, a large number of Orthodox denominations were a direct response to the assimilation of Jews in society near the end of the 19th century. Believing integration with society was leading to impiety, Orthodox Jews adopted a rather extreme position when it comes to the out ...

Divorces, job loss, and unadulterated pot smoking: what do these all have in common? Well, if you don't attend some form of church service according to these fools, your life is going to go down the tubes. You'll be a jobless, pot smoking divorcee without a pot to piss in. Why not instead go every Sunday to be told what a sinning piece of shit you are, followed by the customary tithing of your hard earned i ...

This is it folks! The 300th Episode of The Good Atheist Podcast. Ryan joins me as we reminisce about the long history of both our websites, and give you a tour through time. Now, if you're confused as to why the last episode was 199 1/2, be sure to listen and your questions will be answered. For those of you who want to leave a question in the comments for the DVD, please do so, and you could win a TGA cup! ...

Ok, I'll admit I think the Twilight series is terrible, but is it evil, sinister, or sick and twisted? It reads more like the kind of book you might expect a desperately lonely fat high school girl to write, with the added murderer/rapist fantasy thrown in. While you can argue about the merits of the story, you can't argue with the sales figures: Stephanie Meyer's series has sold over 116 million copies wor ...

You have to admire American Atheist president David Silverman for trying to confront the beast that is Bill O'Reilly on his own show. It's a bit like trying to take on Grendel's mother in her own cave: unless you've got the strength of Beowulf, you're probably going to get chewed up. The problem with appearing on Bill's show is that his interview style goes a little something like this: "Shut up and say exa ...

You can watch the video above, but I don't recommend you do if you're easily annoyed I can't stand TV sitcoms. Maybe it's the fact their predictability is only surpassed by the insipidness of their jokes. Who knows. Generally speaking I tend to ignore the crap out of them and call it a day. One of the chief perpetrator of nauseating trash on TV is the show Two and a Half Men. You might remember former star ...

Oh, so this totally isn't religious indoctrination? Thank God! I'm beginning to think it's totally impossible to do anything secular in America without some religious jackass accusing us of waging a "War on Christmas". This pathetic attempt to make Christians appear marginalized has the effect of making them all look like old fools, if you ask me. When there's any kind of story that exploits this fear monge ...

Ok, here's the deal, folks; before you read this article, I have to warn you that you're not going to like reading some of the details of this story. I've written a lot about male genital mutilation (colloquially known as 'circumcision') in the past, but for some reason, this one story sent visuals in my head that I can't shake off. So, you've officially been warned. The story begins in Manchester, where a ...

I hate the Salvation Army. First off, they aren't a charitable organization. They are registered as a church, which means while some of the money and goods people give to them do go to the needy, they still run it like it is a business, buying expensive real estate, and more importantly, being exempt from needing to show where it uses its money and for what. Don't believe me? Take a look at their mission st ...

Odds are if you hang around in the skeptical community, you've run into a few of these guys: Truthers. While we are loath to share the moniker of skeptic with them (since they seem so poor at it), they are skeptics nevertheless, albeit crappy ones. While many present themselves as logical and objective, they cannot see past their own prejudice against government and other powerful institutions and how this ...