Mother Nature can be a cruel, nasty bitch. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids; honestly, I could spend the whole day listing the many ways humans can be crushed, burned, drowned, blown away, or fall to their deaths. When these kinds of senseless tragedies occur (well, senseless to us as natural forces interact), people who still cling to Bronze Age beliefs can often find themse ...

Here's an old presentation from Neil some of you may not have seen yet. In the talk, Neil discusses the history of Intelligent Design, and why it still persists in society. While I've always liked Neil, and I'm fascinated by his idea that we should carefully study why some scientists are religious, I think at the end of the day, the answer will be quite dull and not very informative: mainly that when you're ...

It's not enough that religious folks are always shoving their religion down our throats; they also now want to enforce the 'crime' of not believing in their invisible friend. If you can believe this (and trust me, I'm still in shock), the state of Kentucky has effectively declared war on non-believers, threatening jail time for anyone who fails to "recognize the primacy of the Christian God": In Kentucky, a ...

Jake: Today I have a very special guest, someone who is going to join me to talk about the problem of child witches in Africa as well as the conflation of religion and superstition in that region. I wanted to ask someone who has had their feet on the ground here, because, you know, I am an isolated blogger and I want to make sure that I am not just saying false information and with this in mind, I invited L ...

A few weeks ago, Pastor Sean Harris learned two important lessons: 1) enticing any kind of child abuse publicly is a stupid idea because, 2) the Internet forgets nothing. So, with these important life lessons now firmly in mind, he's issued a non-apology for saying fathers should give their gay sons a "good punch" for acting like girls. "I was telling them in strong words that were not careful. What did I l ...

Imagine you get physically assaulted for speaking your mind, and when it was time for your attacker to face justice, he's sent merrily on his way by a Judge who shares his specific religious convictions. Would you not regard this as a gross miscarriage of justice? Well, that's exactly what happened to fellow non-believer Ernest Perce, who was assaulted last October during a parade. Representing the Pennsylv ...

Yet another quality video from YouTube sensation QualiSoup, and this time, he focuses on some of William Lane Craig's arguments that only a God can allow for objective morality. I haven't had time to read Sam Harris' new book, so I can't pretend to know what his arguments are, but I've always been suspicious of the idea that objective morality exists. That's not to suggest that we should all throw our hands ...

If you don't remember Kent Hovind, it might be because you've come into the atheism scene a little late. He's currently in jail for failing to pay taxes on a number of his enterprises, including a religiously themed amusement park called "Dinosaur Adventure Playland". This bastion to ignorance features not only depictions of humans and dinosaurs co-existing, but also a replica of the Loch Ness Monster. It's ...

The Evangelical world may not be as coherent and homogeneous as some would lead you to believe. For one thing, they can't seem to properly contain the apostasy of Pastor Robert Bell, who has been preaching from Mars Hill a theology that takes special efforts to exclude Hell. Bell credits a conversation he had about Ghandi. When a parishoner kindly reminded him he was slowly roasting in the fires of Hell, so ...

If you're a regular podcast listener, you might remember a show I did a few weeks back on The Lorne Trottier Science Symposium, and I talked at length about one speaker, Dr. David Gorski (who looks a lot like the guy with glasses from ER) who's busy fighting superstition on his blog, Science-Based Medicine. David specializes in breast cancer, and over the years has constantly battled the dangers of pseudosc ...