The Freedom From Religion Foundation is pleased to announce that our blog is now being hosted by Patheos, a blogging website dedicated to providing a credible dialogue about religion and nonreligion. FFRF’s blog, Freethought Now!, will be part of the Atheist Channel on Patheos, which hosts 40 other popular atheist blogs, such as The Friendly Atheist. Patheos itself hosts more than 500 other religious blogs and is accessed by millions of readers every month.
FFRF hopes this new venture will increase its visibility and membership. Most Patheos traffic comes from social media and some of its blogs get millions of hits a month. In addition to exposing FFRF’s writing, activism and vision to a new audience, it will generate a modest income for our nonprophet nonprofit.
For now, our former blog site, ffrf.org/news/blog, will still host our blog archives, and will carry a link to the Patheos site. If you are signed up to receive notices of FFRF blogs by email, you will continue to receive a “teaser” of the blog that will take you to the Patheos website.
FFRF’s news releases and action alerts will remain at http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases and http://ffrf.org/news/action.
Please visit FFRFs new blog site at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/
“Antidotes to pope-mania: Enjoy irreverent cartoon and “Stay-Away Pope Polka” courtesy of FFRF”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation would like to share secular antidotes in the form of two artistic responses to Pope Francis’ upcoming visit and congressional address: an irreverent cartoon by Mike Konopacki, and the words and music to Dan Barker’s equally irreverent and unforgettable “Stay-Away Pope Polka.” View and listen for free on the blog.
“Religious affiliation should not trump patient health: Catholic Hospital denies life-saving tubal ligation to pregnant woman”
FFRF Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel examines the case of Jessica Mann, a pregnant woman with a condition that could make additional pregnancies fatal, yet her Catholic hospital is refusing to tie her tubes. Unlike the medical profession, which is committed to patients and patient care above all, Catholic hospitals are committed to church doctrine above all. Read the blog here.
“Why the Ten Commandments had to go”
FFRF Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel explains why the Connellsville School District was likely to take down the Ten Commandments monument even though the judge didn’t order the monument removed. Hint: the school board officials themselves might have had to pay for any future litigation. Read the blog here.
“Lawsuit challenging religious slaughter of 50,000+ chickens in NYC dismissed for now”
FFRF staff attorney Andrew Seidel examines the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the religious slaughter of thousands as a public nuisance. Seidel discusses the immorality of vicarious redemption in this ritual and in Christianity. Read the blog here.
“The utter inanity of eruvs, using magical wires to trick the Jewish god”
An eruv is a geographically enclosed area that, through the magic of religion, allows certain Jewish sects to violate the sabbath rules of their religion. FFRF Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel lampoons the eruv in this blog as “a religious rule foisted upon the public and strung across public property so that religious individuals can trick their god into thinking they are not violating one of his rules.” Read more here.
