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 ...

I haven't put much effort on the podcast into hiding the fact that I thought The Invention of Lying was a bore of a flick despite a pretty amusing anti-religion side plot: one of the lies the main character tells is that everyone goes somewhere awesome after death, which then led to lies about God, rules, and all that jazz. Hilarity ensues (or so I thought it would). I've heard many atheists enjoyed the mov ...

It was bound to happen; a number of conservative blogs are already complaining that Avatar is anti-American leftist propaganda, glorifying the Na'vi and showing humans as the bad guys. The main character's choice to stand by the Na'vi is seen by the right as the ultimate treachery to both God and capitalism (two things that conservatives seem unable to disassociate). The problem with life on earth is not Ca ...

I received this email, and I wanted to share "B"'s story with everyone (he asked that I not include his name, since he works with the boy Scouts and would like to keep his job). This past summer I staffed a Boy Scout summer camp. I just wanted to share some of my experiences.Before every meal shift, since a scout is "reverent," we had a volunteer say a "non-denominational" grace. They usually were just spee ...

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 ...

When I was a kid, the show everyone was talking about on Monday morning was the Simpsons. There was no doubt in my mind it was my generation's quintessential program, and it practically defined our sense of humor. My friends and I would often quote lines from episodes if the situation was appropriate. Of course, the show isn't what it used to be. The characters are now stale; the writers have lost their fun ...

Some people love the Bible. They receive a form of comfort every time they read a passage they like, and for the most part, it's a fairly innocuous habit. We should not forget, however, that the Bible, when taken as a whole, is an inadequate moral guide for modern society. Kenneth Cummings Jr. learned that lesson only too well, as he lay dying in his home in Pearland, Texas. His murderer, Mark Magnum, who h ...

As the plot thickens after the arrests of 4 men suspected of trying to blow up fuel tanks at JFK airport, a number of experts have come forward explaining their terrorist plot would not have had the desired effect they were seeking: the complete destruction of JFK Airport. At best, these men could have set off a dangerous blaze, though nothing that would have endangered the lives of JFK's daily commuters. I ...

TED.com is a website devoted to sharing ideas and concepts. On it you'll find tons of videos about all sorts of ideas, amongst them varying viewpoints on religion. This particular video is a 30 minute video lecture by Richard Dawkins recorded in April 2002: The session was titled 'The Design of Life', and the TED audience was probably expecting remarks about evolution's role in our history from biologist Ri ...