The Quebec government has threatened legal action against a group of Mennonites who operate a small school in the little town of Roxton Falls. The school, which does not teach the theory of evolution, and which relies heavily on the Bible for all of its classes, has no accredited teachers, and their programs have not been provincially approved. The religious group has therefore decided to uproot themselves, ...

A few days ago, I posted a letter I sent to my Christian counterpart. Here is his reply, and my answer to him: Dear goodatheist, Thanks for replying. I just read everything you said and I agree on some issues with you. I also can understand why you became an atheist. If I was probably in your position I would become one too because of the bad experience and of the education the Greek Mythology class. I also ...

If you want any solid proof that a Pope is as flawed, ignorant, and uneducated as the rest of us, look no further than Benedict XVI. When he isn't busy making controversial statements about Islam, he likes to take a breather by trying to dismantle evolution by means of Natural Selection by perpetually pointing at dusty old tomes. His latest blunder comes care of an off collar remark asking: "[h]ow many of t ...

As a writer, the appeal of discussing atheism stems largely from the fact that although its definition may be simple, the philosophies surrounding it are not. There are so many different responses to atheism that some have begun to call it a religion. But is this true? Is atheism a religion, and if not, does it emulate any of the elements of it? As I will show in this article, the answer to that question no ...

I remember Archie comics fondly as a kid. Although the storylines were always predictable and innocuous, I had a deep appreciation for such familiarity. Looking back, however, I couldn't help but notice that the quaint vision of life in America was a product of the pining for simpler times, when teenagers worried about who they would take to the big dance, and drug, violence, and sex was never an issue. Th ...

Just when you were hoping Intelligent Design had gone the way of the Dodo bird, a small town school board always seems to become mired in the controversy. This time, it's the Chesterfield County School District in Virginia, which, in its school memoranda, has decided that it wants students to 'expand their knowledge through research, to debate the concepts as presented, and to develop their creative and ind ...

By now, we've all heard of cases where religion has tried to insert its alternative, often deleterious, truths into science classrooms and textbooks in the US. If this hasn't confused students about the facts, it certainly has presented a perplexing message about how to uncover truths. On the side of evolution, we find an appeal to relentless observation and questioning, whereas on the side of creationism, ...

If you're unfamiliar with Ken Ham, the relatively famous (or is it infamous) creationist, you will know him soon enough. Ham is part creator and director of a new Mecca for young earth creationists, a 27 million dollar facility designed by Patrick Marsh, whose visual flair helped engineer the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal theme park. The museum hopes to attract a quarter million visitors each ...

I'm no fan of tyrannical dictators, particularly men like Saddam Hussein, even so I can't help but feel a certain regret that Iraq is now far worse in his absence. A scary story appeared on CNN.com today concerning the growing trend of violent rhetoric being expressed by kindergartners in Iraqi schools. One child was quoted as saying "I'm going to bomb, bomb, bomb the school with everybody in it," while ano ...

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 ...