It's a really, really big "if."
The BBC reports on a paper recently presented at the American Physical Society meeting here in Dallas which makes claims about a decreasing level of religiosity in some parts of the world. The paper, entitled “A mathematical model of social group competition with application to the growth of religious non-affiliation,” suggests that religion will effectively be … Read more
Over at Religion Dispatches Levi McLaughlin, a professor of religion who specializes in East Asian traditions, writes about Tokyo’s governor Shintaro Ishihara describing the tsunami that struck Japan as “divine punishment.” Ishihara, a prize-winning novelist, stage and screen actor, and a populist hero of the Japanese right, has gained notoriety for his willingness to court … Read more
The video of TamTamPamela thanking God for the Japanese earthquake was all over the web yesterday. I’m kind of disappointed in how willing people were to buy it without question. Not because it’s a skepticism fail per se (I fall for Poes often– that’s the point of a Poe), but because they were so ready to believe … Read more
The Amazing Meeting has announced its list of speakers for this year, its ninth meeting. There are a lot of them, and quite a few– at least ten, from what I can tell– are people who can speak to the topic of how and why people believe weird things. Or rather, why everyone isn’t skeptical … Read more
From The Daily Caller: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin clarified remarks posted on Twitter this week in response to a Supreme Court ruling in favor of a church that demonstrates at military funerals, saying she was making a point about a double standard on free speech, not that the group shouldn’t have the right to … Read more
So Rock Beyond Belief has apparently been canceled. All of that time and effort put into creating a secular concert and expecting the military to honor its agreement to support the show to the same extent that it supported a Billy Graham evangelical event before, and it’s not going to happen. “It’s heartbreaking,” said Sgt. … Read more
Umm, both your and Westboro’s wacko pronouncements in the public square (such as, for example, this very tweet) invoke God’s name on a regular basis. They got sued for it; you didn’t. It appears their liberty to be religious in public is more in danger than yours is. First Amendment and irony comprehension fail. But … Read more
The Supreme Court ruling on Snyder v. Phelps was issued this morning– 8-1 in favor of Phelps, saying that the First Amendment protected the WBC’s right to protest the military funeral. I couldn’t have imagined it going any other way, but there was still a niggling worry that it might. The opinion, authored by Roberts … Read more
Sue Blackmore is one of the go-to voices in the UK on matters of religious thinking and consciousness. She is, believe it or not, an atheist with a PhD in parapsychology. Â Originally a firm believer in the paranormal, she reached the conclusion in the course of her study that it doesn’t in fact have any … Read more
A secular-type person? Going to be anywhere near North Carolina on April 2nd? Then consider attending: From a statement by the Military Associations of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) on how the event originated: On Sep 25th, 2010, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association held a concert on the Fort Bragg Main Parade Field. Attendance was projected by … Read more