I received a message to check out a story floating around the bloggersphere about a huge wedding involving hundreds of child brides in Gaza (I thought it a bit weird that the mainstream media had missed that big story). Naturally I wanted to know more, but as I dug a little deeper, I realized the real story was the deep distrust of Muslims in general, and powerful Islamophobia that exists on the web. OK, ma ...

Here's an article from Christopher Hitchens on Yale University Press and their decision to censor their own book out of fear of Islamic violence. Yale University Press announced last week that it would go ahead with the publication of the book, but it would remove from it the 12 caricatures that originated the controversy. Not content with this, it is also removing other historic illustrations of the likene ...

When I was originally writing my book, I had a substantial chunk of it done before I realized that it was not the direction I wanted to go. Apparently, this is quite common when writing books. Still, it would be stupid not to at least share some of it with you guys, especially the patrons, who have been generous enough to fund this crazy project we call The Good Atheist. Every week, I hope to be able to sho ...

You can always tell how confident a religion is by the amount of laws they throw around to 'protect' their faith. Blasphemy laws represent perhaps the most obvious example of the cowardly nature of organized religion: they are created specifically to punish anyone who questions the power of these organizations and their masters. The latest casualty in the fight against religious tyranny is Iranian singer Mo ...

If you live in a country without bullshit blasphemy laws, consider yourself fortunate. Islam Samhan, a 27 year old Jordanian, is facing up to a year in jail and a 10,000 Jordanian Dinar (14,000 US dollar) fine for his poetry book. The government claims he was blasphemous, but Islam contends the real reason he is being prosecuted is because of his unkind words about Arab rulers. Clearly, these guys don't see ...

Whenever you hear the words 'Sharia' and 'Court' uttered in the same sentence, you can bet something fucked up is about to happen. In Somalia, a radical Muslim group known as al-Shabaab has seized control over much of southern Somalia, and they have instituted Sharia Law in that region. Yesterday, 300 onlookers, mostly women and children, watched on as 4 men had their right hands and left feet amputated for ...

France sure thinks so; President Sarkozy is backing moves to make it illegal in his country, and according to this article, Britain should follow suit. Saira Khan is a devoted Muslim woman who says the burqa not a religious tradition, but rather an ultra fundamentalist practice originating in Saudi Arabia that has no place in modern society. She believes these outfits are a type of female oppression, robbin ...

According to four former high ranking church members, their leader David Miscavige is a violent bully who randomly and viciously attacks members of his own organization. They claim that on dozens of occasions they witnessed him attacking someone for 'violations' ranging from looking at him funny, to not answering questions fast enough. Miscaviage's huge legal team denies these allegations. Personally, if th ...

Khyra Ishaq was, by all accounts, your typical happy-go-lucky 12 year old living in Birmingham. Her mother, a recent convert to Islam, pulled her from school and began to isolate all of her children away from the outside world. Her excuse was they had been bullied in school over their attire, but no official complaint was filed with the school, and many of the house's windows were boarded up. One neighbor, ...

A man in San Diego is in critical condition after he was shot five times after an argument over religion. He's expected to pull through, but I'm thinking the next time he feels the need to debate over the merits of Christianity over Islam, he might be a little more careful who he debates with. This is the same reason why I avoid talking about religion when alcohol is involved. Religious wackos already have ...