I've heard a lot of tortured explanations from the Catholic Church over the years as to why so many priests are sexually abusing children. Pope Benedict XVI claimed it was increased secularization that somehow made their theists behave so immorally. Homosexuality has also been blamed, despite the fact that as many female children are abused as males. Finally, though, one pedophile priest by the name of Davi ...

If you've never heard of The Blaze (like probably 99% of the population), it's a creation of Glenn Beck and his conservative production company, Mercury Radio Arts (the irony of naming your production company after a metal that makes one insane is probably lost on these people). If the site isn't regularly scaring people into buying gold, it feeds them pseudo information that plays into people's fears and p ...

I'm all for expressing one's opinion (I wouldn't be doing this web shit if I didn't), but I feel it's my duty to remind young people that the Internet never forgets, and it has a tendency to shame your ass whenever you say something stupid. Do you honestly think the opinions you express as a teenager will carry on to adulthood? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm kind of glad the Internet and its am ...

With conservatives still freaking out over the fact their president is still black, you can expect some of the nuttier flavors of the Religious Right to step up their rhetoric. Glenn Beck, straight off his prediction God had promised the White House to a Mormon, has advised his aged listeners that the world will soon end, and their only recourse is to buy plenty of farmland and guns. Inflation is coming, th ...

I wonder if Pat Robertson remembers this little gem from back in January, when he claimed God told him in advance that Obama was going to lose the election...which he of course did not. If I was him, I'd just pull the same stunt Mohammed did whenever he was caught making a bullshit prediction: just blame it on the devil. He's the go-to guy for all your lame excuses: did you cheat on your wife? The devil mad ...

This week, my special guest is Dr. Andy Thomson, author of the book Why We Believe in Gods, and a psychiatrist with his own private practice in Charlottesville, VA. When he's not also teaching students at the University of Virginia, he's also a forensic psychiatrist and writes on evolutionary psychology. We talk about his book, Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK conspiracy, and the future of psychology. Don't mi ...

Here are some of my favorite ridiculous tropes: 1) Harvard University is Jesus' #1 enemy, because there's learnin' going on there. 2) America apparently elects people that like killing babies (he may be referring to abortion, but I think their ICBM's do a better job. 3) You can't be a good Christians unless you can instantly kill somebody with a gun. 4) Secular progressives have abandoned God (that's why th ...

One of the most aneurysm-inducing quotes of 2012 had to be faux-atheist S.E. Cupp's comment that she would never vote for an atheist president. Believing she had a point by saying she couldn't trust anyone who didn't have God as a moral compass, what Cupp and her similarly minded ilk fail to realize, however, is that beliefs predicated on violent nonsense have the tendency to reflect Bronze Age barbarism. M ...

I dislike religious historians. I can't for the life of me fathom how any of these men and women can take their profession seriously when they have so much invested in their beliefs. Who among them is willing to question the historicity of their own God? Even if they are, can we trust the blinders of faith won't simply make it impossible for them to be objective? For an example of what I'm talking about, ta ...

Truly there is no greater comedic bastion than Facebook. It's the only place you can find such a high concentration of crazy outside of the Phelps compound. The combination of free expression and ignorance is a constant reminder that as a species, we still have a long way to go. Every once in a while, someone crafts an argument so brilliant, you just have to stand back in awe at the inspired mind that came ...