If you've ever spent time reading tarot cards, playing with a Ouija board, or working for a psychic hotline, I suggest you avoid Saudi Arabia as a travel destination. Recently, Amnesty International has been trying to pressure the government to release a man by the name of Ali Hussain Sibat, who was sentenced to death in November 2009 for the supposed crime of "sorcery". Sibat had a show on a Beirut satelli ...

So, according to this guy, atheists are a plague; a bunch of unimaginative accountants of rationalism, unable to appreciate the beauty of a Picasso because we have yet to surrender our reason to dogma. Likewise, the audience that Greg Craven tries to appeal to (disgruntled Catholics who feel attacked by "new atheists") believe every single nonbeliever is a crusty curmudgeon hell bent on ruining everyone's " ...

You know that argument you're always having with religionists over whether or not religion is a force for good in the world? It seems like no matter how much misery, pain and suffering is caused in the name of religion, someone is always on hand to tell you that if it wasn't for Bronze Age tribalism, the world would collapse into chaos (I'm so worried about that, you should see how nervous I am about that p ...

If you've never read Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark", do yourself a favor and pick it up. One of his chapters deals specifically with the Inquisition, and the slaughter of an estimated 100,000 women at the hand of the Church. Although the West has generally stopped prosecuting women for the crime of "witchcraft" (the last person convicted was in 1944), in Africa, the ...

I love listening to this guy. In case you haven't heard of Bill Donohue, he's the president of the Catholic League; an organization devoted to trying to get everyone to stop being mean to Catholics. Bill's not a big fan of Penn and Teller (especially after getting totally ass-raped during the show they did on Mother Tereasa), and he's now freaking out about their season finale. It sounds like P&T made t ...

You hear this kind of news all the time; an independent or strong willed woman is deemed to be possessed, and an exorcism ceremony is performed, usually resulting in tragedy. Here is such a tragic tale, this time coming out of New Zealand. 5 people were arrested and found guilty of the manslaughter of Janet Moses, but not one of these people will be facing any jail time. They were given 300 hours of communi ...

Continuing our coverage of the messed up situation in Nigeria, here is a video care of Unreasonable Faith showing a mob of Christians faithful to Helen Ukpabio disrupting a humanist conference. The main issue they were going to discuss was the huge problem of abused children suspected of "witchcraft". The humanists (dressed in white) try in vain to calm everyone down, but in the end they can just sit and wa ...

I've written many times on the issue of child witches in Africa. Every year, thousands of kids are abandoned, beaten or killed because their parents or family members suspect them of being witches. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that in Nigeria alone, over 930,000 children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and often their remaining family members believe these children were responsible for their parents' d ...

Hard core Christians hate Harry Potter. They detest any form of witchcraft, which they consider to be the tool of the devil. Evangelicals are not only forbidden from seeing the movies; they usually actively campaign against them, discouraging other more moderate Christians from going. I can only imagine their reaction now that Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) has come out as an atheist. Radcliffe describ ...

A few months ago I wrote about the plight of Nigerian children who are accused of being witches. These kids are often beaten, abandoned, or killed because their parents or members of the community accuse them of being possessed by Satan. The problem is only getting worse, with an estimated 15,000 kids in Nigeria alone accused of being witches. Even though there are a number of organizations working to undo ...