Freedom From Religion Foundation Blog
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Current Blog Entries
“Don’t know much about history" – The Pennsylvania House
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is overly fond of wasting time and money on resolutions that deliberately exclude and offend all non-Christians. In the past 18 months, they declared a Year of the Bible, for which FFRF sued them (and the Judge gave them…More »
Easter Challenge
"Leave No Stone Unturned" An Easter Challenge For Christians I HAVE AN EASTER challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened…More »
Is There Life After Death?
Last night (Thursday, March 7) I did a debate on “Is There Life After Death?” at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. (See video of the debate) The event was sponsored by the Windsor/Essex County Atheist Society and Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. More than 400 More »
Should I participate in a Male-Only debate?
Should I participate in a Male-Only debate?The Argument Of The Month Club (AOTM), a Catholic men’s organization in St. Paul, Minnesota, invited me to debate Leroy Huizenga, a Catholic theologian, on the topic “Do The Gospels Give Us The Real Jesus?” on February 12. They…More »
Walker anti-abortion proclamation shameful, untrue
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has declared Jan. 22 — the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade — as "Protect Life Day."The opening line of his pandering proclamation is blatantly untrue. He states that the U.S. Supreme Court decision "legalized abortion for any reason for the…More »
Miracles: Completely and totally underwhelming
Cindy Jacobs believes in miracles. The televangelist recently recounted some of the awe-inspiring, tremendous miracles god’s omnipotent hand has bestowed upon her. (Click here to view the video.) “We believe we’re moving into a supernatural season, where if needed, God will multiply food. I have seen…More »
Bill O’Reilly is not a Catholic, and neither are you!
Bill O’Reilly of Fox News recently startled his viewers by claiming that Christianity is not a religion, but a philosophy. (Click here to watch a video clip.) “Christianity is a philosophy. You don’t have to believe Jesus is god in order to admire his view…More »
Catholic Church's heavy hand weighs down the Irish
Last week I wrote a blog about the heavy hand of the Catholic Church upon women in the Philippines. Two days later came news of the horrifying and unnecessary death of a young, professional Indian woman living in Galway. Savita Halappanavar died after an incomplete…More »
“This house does not believe in God”
OXFORD DEBATE FFRF members Steve Aldred (left) and Daniel Saiz (right) joined FFRF Co-President Dan Barker (center) for a post-debate reception. I have done more than 100 debates as an atheist, but this was one I was really looking forward to — my first visit to…More »
Catholic Church's heavy hand weighs down the Philippines
Dan toured Manila, including some of its festering slums, as part of an atheist conference in April. He was saddened and horrified by the Manila garbage dump (nicknamed the Smokey Mountain, because trash is always burning). Many Filipino families and small children live in “trash…More »
The “nones” have it
Will political candidates ever catch up with the changing demographics and start to woo us — the “Nones” — the secular voters? This has been the question for more than a decade, since the number of nonreligious adults matched the hardcore Religious Right vote. The…More »
Not-So-Civil Disobedience: Pulpit Freedom Sunday and Voter Coercion
This past Sunday, Oct. 7, was “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” a day when rogue pastors around the country intentionally dare the IRS to enforce the U.S. tax code by endorsing political candidates. This year almost 1,600 pastors participated. The Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly Alliance Defense Fund)…More »
Thumbs-up for torture?
Watch a Muslim imam giving thumbs-up when I talk about nonbelievers being tortured in hell. From my talk at Colorado Christian University, December 10, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J35Y-QRlwcw The “thumbs-up” happens at 7:08 At 6:22, I start talking about coherence: “Second, there is not even a coherent…More »
What if they gave a political party and ‘god’ forgot to go?
One of the reasons the Religious Right has power so disproportionate to its numbers is because its targets — especially politicians — often cede it this destructive power. Case in point yesterday: One insignificant Christian Broadcasting Network blogger nearly brought the Democratic National Convention to…More »
Women's Equality Day — Ever Elusive, Especially in Bangladesh
Watch Annie Laurie Gaylor's timely talk on the history of women and freethought. Click here to view the embedded video. Today's New York Times bears a heartbreaking photograph on its front page showing a row of abject women garment workers in Bangladesh. The accompanying story…More »
The end of an era?
One of FFRF’s volunteers/officers, Phyllis Rose, came to my desk for a visit yesterday. “First Hitchens, then Cockburn, now Vidal. It feels like the end of an era,” she remarked. The death of three sharp pens in eight months is a tragic loss. Gore Vidal…More »
Did You Know?
The next time you receive one of those "Did You Know?" emails that claims that the Ten Commandments are prominent at the United States Supreme Court and are therefore the basis of American law, you can reply with this: Is American Law Based On The…More »
Atheist candidates face religious test in U.S.
A recent Gallup poll shows that while more than nine in 10 Americans would vote for a “well qualified” black, female, Catholic, Hispanic or Jewish presidential candidate, only 54% would vote for a similarly qualified atheist presidential candidate. (By comparison, a “qualified” Muslim candidate would…More »
Let your imagination run wild...
Fiction writers love to imagine a cabal of minority religionists orchestrating events from a faraway boardroom. Typically, the minority religionists are Jews, not atheists — the fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion is still dredged up by anti-Semites from time to time. Dan Casey’s…More »
Don’t ‘discount’ civil rights
‘Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out,…More »
The "God Particle": One Less Place To Hide
Well, I guess now that the “God particle” has been discovered — or very nearly confirmed by a majority of physicists — I need to decide what church to join. We atheists, after all, have been devoutly demanding evidence for the hypothesized intelligent designer holding…More »
The "God Particle": One Less Place To Hide
Well, I guess now that the “God particle” has been discovered — or very nearly confirmed by a majority of physicists — I need to decide what church to join. We atheists, after all, have been devoutly demanding evidence for the hypothesized intelligent designer holding…More »
Speaking for Atheism and New Atheism class at evangelical Catholic university
The blog below is a submission from FFRF member Justin Vacula. I received a unique opportunity from Dr. Sebastian Mahfood [a professor who holds a Master's in philosophy and a doctorate in post-colonial literature and theory] of Holy Apostles College and Seminary -- a fully-accredited…More »
Julia Sweeney TV spot gets responses around the country
The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s great experiment to storm the “Bishops’ Bastille” in our unprecedented TV ad campaign countering the Catholic Bishops’ war against contraception has been illuminating! The 30-second spot featuring personable Julia Sweeney is running approximately 1,200 times over a two-week period on…More »
Is a religious experience evidence for God?
God is imaginary. But imagination is real. So . . . the religious experience is a real experience. It happens to many believers in all religions. It happened to me. It can STILL happen to me. Even as an atheist, I can make my mind…More »
Just in Time for Father’s Day: My Real Dad
[Editor’s note: FFRF archaeologists recently unearthed this letter, written from Jesus to Joseph. It looks pretty old so it must be genuine. We translated it into English using a magic seeing stone and hat. According to the signature and word choice it was written by…More »
‘Contraception kills’
FFRF'ers counterpicket in Madison, Wis. (Photo: Andrew Seidel), Pennsylvania nun (Photo: Justin Vacula) Did you know “contraception kills”? That’s what an intrepid coterie of FFRF’ers was told by true believers when we counterpicketed a June 8 rally conducted by the Roman Catholic Church at the…More »
Newsweek’s Christianity in Crisis and Andrew Sullivan’s Crisis of Faith
In his recent cover story for Newsweek, “The Forgotten Jesus” Andrew Sullivan admits that he believes “in Jesus’ divinity and resurrection.” Sullivan relies heavily on the faith underlying this belief, causing him to make some critical errors that must be addressed. First, Sullivan claims that…More »
He is Risen -- Trick or Treat!
It’s that time of year again: Ghosts and zombies, graveyards, disguises and spooky stories. That’s right. Easter is upon us, the season that celebrates the revivification of an executed corpse, a story so fantastical that it makes Halloween look like child’s play.More »
What I Learned at the Reason Rally
FFRF knows how to put together a table The FFRF staff, and particularly Jackie Douglas and Katie Daniel, know how to set up a table that draws a crowd. The FFRF table was beautiful. We had tons of free rally signs, stickers, debaptismal certificates, bookmarks,…More »
Anthony Comstock lives
It is outlandish that in the 21st century, women are being forced to re-defend the long-won right of contraception. The right to contraception, first secured as a constitutional right of privacy by the Supreme Court in a 1965 decree, Griswold v. Connecticut, was a done…More »
A Central Purpose
I just switched to a different life insurance company and am in that grace period when my previous policy, though cancelled, is still in effect for a few weeks. For a couple of minutes yesterday, I thought I was going to actually use the More »
Just a thought… Pat Robertson and the 700 Club are Jealous of Wiccans
Pat Robertson and his co-host on the 700 Club, Kristi Watts, are not afraid to say whatever “thought” pops into their heads — no matter how ridiculous they sound. Right Wing Watch posted a clip of a recent episode in which Robertson and Watts More »
South Dakota Legislature Wants to Bring Children to Atheism
The South Dakota Legislature is on a mission to convert as many schoolchildren to atheism as possible, and they want to use the public schools to do it. To further their atheistic goals, the legislature adopted a resolution “supporting and encouraging the academic study More »
How (and when) God arrived to bless America
Given that America is a Christian nation founded solely on Judeo-Christian principles (a false claim that Christians would have you believe), U.S. presidents have always ended their State of the Union speeches with "God bless America," right? Wrong. As noted by Robert Schlesinger, opinion editor of More »
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