Blog Archives for May 2012
The Morning Heresy 5/31/12: As Long as it’s Blue
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 31, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
It's true, a CFI Living without Religion billboard was defaced in Indiana. As far as I know, we don't know who did it or what their motivations were, though I presume the imagination reels.
CFI's Michael De Dora eviscerates the claims to morality made by Rep. Paul Ryan about his budget proposal, and the very notion religiously-motivated legislation
The Morning Heresy 5/30/12: Heat Death of the Cosmos
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 30, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
You may not have noticed it, but yesterday, with his mainly ceremonial victory in the Texas primary, Mitt Romney passed the 1144-delegate threshold and became the first Mormon nominee for president by a major party.
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The Morning Heresy 5/29/12: Tax the Gambling Korean Monks
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 29, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
CFI on Campus need folks to help provide travel grants for students to be able to attend our leadership conference, and Richard Dawkins really wants you to chip in. At his site, he writes:
For the growth of secularism there is no more fertile ground than college and university campuses. The leaders who will shape not just the secular movement, but all of tomorrow’s policies and politics, our businesses and culture, are coming into their own right now. In the long term there can be no greater cause for us, who believe in science and reason, than to make sure we cultivate and nurture these leaders now, before they take their rightful places, making the future.
The Morning Heresy 5/25/12: Born Outside the Fence
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 25, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
CFI-LA's Jim Underdown goes toe-to-toe with some alleged psychics on the Dr. Phil Show today! The drama! The suspense! The credulousness! I can hardly stand it.
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The Morning Heresy 5/24/12: Poke Your Dog with Needles
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 24, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
CFI chief Ron Lindsay looks at the real implications of victory for the Catholic Church's legal action against the Department of Health and Human Services, using a possible news headline of the future about a hypothetical Supreme Court case to make a troubling point (and Roberts and Thomas don't come out looking so great).The Morning Heresy 5/23/12: Your Bare Ankles Endanger My Immortal Soul
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 23, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
There's still a lot more digesting of the Women in Secularism conference in the atheosphere. One piece you're just going to have to read in its entirety is CFI chief Ron Lindsay's on his prime takeaway: we need more of these. I'm not going to blockquote it because you should read all of it. I know he's my boss and all, but it's true.
The Morning Heresy 5/22/12: The Antidote
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 22, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
We're only at the beginning of The Great Content Generation I predicted would be spurred by the Women in Secularism conference. Here are a lot of great reactions from bloggers around the atheosphere. See yesterday's Heresy for more immediate roundups, and the Twitter hashtag #wiscfi continues to spring up with reactions, photos, and witticisms.
The Morning Heresy 5/21/12: A Deep and Undulating Whoop
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 21, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
Now that was a conference!
This was no egg-headed snoozer, this was no reiteration of why we like Darwin so much (not that there's anything wrong with those). The Women in Secularism conference was as fantastic, fulfilling, and enlightening an event as we could ever have hoped. Once a glimmer in Melody Hensley's eye, it brought together an excellent mix of thinkers and personalities that had everyone opening their eyes to new perspectives. (Oh, and Jennifer Michael Hecht gave a poetry reading -- how cool is that?) There's a lot already, as you'll see below, that's being said about this past weekend, and I'm sure it's only the beginning.
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The Morning-ish Heresy 5/18/12: Bio-Adjusting Mattress
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 18, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
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The Morning Heresy 5/17/12: Un-liked
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 17, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
First things first. As our Facebook followers know, we uploaded a bunch of photos yesterday from the Castles along the Rhine cruise ("It went well, thanks," reported our boss), and while this usually is a non-event where all the images happily snuggle together in one fell swoop in a photo album, something went terribly pear-shaped with our program, and every single photo went into folks' news feeds individually, littering people's Facebook homepages with pleasant-yet-relentless images of happy secularists and scenic European vistas.
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The Morning Heresy 5/16/12: Tugging on My Kuiper Belt
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 16, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
Urgent new action alert: The House version of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act strips away crucial protections based on sexual orientation, religion, and nationality. We need you to take action right now to oppose this version of the bill, and to tell the House to take up the Senate version, which CFI supported.
The Morning Heresy 5/15/12: They Can’t Burn Our Internet
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 15, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
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The Morning Heresy 5/14/12: Share the Meat
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 14, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
CFI's suit to allow secular celebrants to solemnize marriages in Indiana is sparking more attention.
Indy Star columnist Erika Smith looks at the state of marriage equality in Indiana, and says:
What Obama said was inspiring and what the Center for Inquiry is doing is amazing.
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The Morning Heresy 5/11/12: Bottomless Chum Bucket
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 11, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
CFI-Indiana director Reba Boyd Wooden and member John Kiel do a great job being interviewed on WSBT television on CFI's efforts to end religious privilege in solemnizing marriages in Indiana. Reba says, "We shouldn't be forced to portray ourselves as religious. We should be able to [solemnize marriages] under a secular certification."
Obama and Marriage Equality: The Inspirational, the Cynical, and the Practical
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 10, 2012
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The Morning Heresy 5/10/12: Cortical Gyrification
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 10, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
While millions celebrated yesterday what was a huge move forward, symbolically at least, for LGBT marriage equality, CFI championed marriage equality of another kind in Indiana.
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The Morning Heresy 5/9/12: You and the Bus
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 09, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
She of the Heated Phone Interview, Greta Christina, talks to AHA's Roy Speckhardt, who was part of the hiring committee that chose Edwina Rogers to head the SCA.
Hearing Roy's thinking on all of this reinforces for me what I noted in my reactions to Greta's interview with Rogers herself, that the emphasis here is on raw realpolitik.
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The Morning Heresy 5/8/12: Six Commandments, Fourteen-Foot Beaver
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 08, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
Greta Christina posts her audio interview (mp3) with new SCA chief Edwina Rogers, as well as a transcript
Prime takeaway from my perspective: Rogers seems adamant that there is more of a pro-secular attitude within the GOP than almost anyone else believes, and leans heavily on the idea that there's not sufficient research on the question (she says, "I don't agree that the Republican Party is pro-life," which is really hard to square, but she insists that there is supportive research). I have to wonder whether this is somewhat a moot issue, because it seems to me that the question that is plaguing movement atheists is whether Rogers is truly "one of us" given her history, and while not totally irrelevant, the secularity of the wider GOP is not necessarily central to answering that. In other words, her own record and coming work will be a far better barometer than that of the Republican Party as a whole.
The Morning Heresy 5/7/12: Fruitloops Goonybat
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 07, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
Welcome to the work-week, folks. I just bought a bicycle yesterday, and it's the first time I've ridden one in almost 20 years, so as you can imagine, it's a whole new world for me (the whole gear-shifting thing was explained to me, but I only pretended to understand it). Perhaps to avoid hurting myself too badly, I should have taken my new bike to Milton’s Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Massachusetts, where they were blessing bicyclists and motorcyclists with holy water from a bike helmet. It actually looked like it was kind of fun!
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The Morning Heresy 5/4/12: Woonsocket in My Pocket
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 04, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
The Morning Heresy 5/3/12: Secular Coalition of Dubstep
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 03, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
Happy National Day of Reason! In celebration, I will do some algebra problems. Kidding! I kid!
Herb Silverman in WaPo on the big day:
Here’s one final difference between the National Day of Prayer and a National Day of Reason. Many secular groups plan to observe the National Day of Reason by advocating and performing community service projects or other good works.
Oh, and there's something going on with Herb's organization, but I can't remember what it is.
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The Morning Heresy 5/2/12: Void on its Face
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 02, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
The Romney campaign, pilloried by the religious right and its veto power over the GOP, is forced to let go of its openly-gay foreign policy spokesman who resigned yesterday
Sarah Posner says the move is less about the advisor's orientation on its own, and more about the right's mistrust of Romney's anti-gay bona fides
Ed Brayton on CFI's suit against the atheist-unfriendly Michigan country club that broke its contract with CFI-Michigan:
The fact is that if this was a Christian group that had this happen, no one would doubt that it was illegal. It is no less so here.
The Morning Heresy 5/1/12: Too Long, Didn’t Read
The Morning Heresy with Paul Fidalgo
May 01, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
Oakland Press reports on CFI suit against Wyndgate for religious discrimination breach of contract, includes sentiment from CFI's Jeff Seaver and Steven Fox
Kylie says the latest Point of Inquiry with M.G. Lord is even worth almost getting into a car accident to listen to (Note: please don't get into a car accident)
Full video of Jacoby vs. D'Souza from CFI-Michigan
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