Laugh or Cry? I Can’t Decide
May 17, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Women in Secularism 2 kicks off today! To judge by the tweets of attendees, there is an enthusiasm for this conference that I've not seen for an event at least since the Reason Rally. And not for nothin', but the WiFi in the hotel lobby is great, and the hotel Starbucks employees are really nice, so things are already looking up. For live updates, images, and bad jokes, watch the Twitter hashtag #wiscfi (knowing that it will also have its share of detractors in the stream) and the official CFI Twitter account @center4inquiry...which is me!
Matthew Brown at Deseret News (who does a lot of great church-state coverage) looks at the "softening" of the White House faith-based initiative, as emphasis moves from money to the sharing of information and being generally helpful.
Lawrence Krauss joined CFI's Office of Public Policy in sending a letter to Rep. Lamar Smith, chair of the House Science Committee, asking him to scrap his ill-advised proposal to hamper NSF funding:
These requirements represent a serious misunderstanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and discovery and, if approved, would not facilitate, but instead obstruct productive scientific research.
$100 Trillion Per Light-Second
May 16, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Must-read: Ken Chitwood at the Houston Chronicle reports on the state of women's equality in the skepto-atheosphere, providing background for the Women in Secularism conference (starting tomorrow!), and talking to CFI's Melody Hensley.
(Speaking of the conference, yes, there will still be a Morning Heresy tomorrow, hopefully going up around its usual time.)
Amanda Marcotte, one of the WiS speakers, relates a heartening geek culture anecdote to the situation within skepto-atheism.
Two-thirds of Canadians are Christian in some way, but that about a quarter are "nones."
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Paul Fidalgo is Endorsed by Optimus Prime
May 15, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Persecuted Bangladeshi atheist bloggers Subrata Adhikari Shuvo and Russel Parvez are released on bail.
From our Office of Public Policy, we're on board with 70 other groups pushing to keep abortion restrictions out of the congressional appropriations process.
A lot of Point of Inquiry action. . .
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Comprehensive Broomstick Reform
May 14, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Minnesota will soon be the 12th state to allow gay marriage.
CSICOP.org starts a new column by Kyle Hill on what the real-world implications would be if some paranormal claims were true. To kick off: Magnet people -- how do they work?
Guys! It's cool. The Catholic League says there is no sex abuse crisis. Whew!
Too Many Popes!
May 13, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Apparently, some plants are communicating with each other. Call Peter Singer! (Or, as Ron Lindsay said in response on Twitter, "Clearly the only morally acceptable stance is to limit oneself to drinking Ensure.")
Too many saints! Pope Francis dubs literally hundreds of new saints from the "Martyrs of Otranto" - Italian Catholics beheaded in 1480 for refusing to convert to Islam.
Ack! No wait! Too many popes! Francis, Ratzinger, and Egypt's Coptic Pope were all in the Vatican at once!
Last Friday, Ben Radford dished on the disaster that is fake-psychic Sylvia Browne on CKNW's Simi Sara Show (scroll to the bottom for the "Hour 2" section) and KIRO's Seattle's Morning News (I can't find a link, but trust me, I heard it, he was on).
Disavow the Holy Spirit, Get 10% Off
May 10, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
There's lots more reaction coming in regarding fake-psychic Sylvia Browne and her super-wrongness about Amanda Berry being, you know, not dead.
Joe Nickell, outraged over Browne's fake predictions, notes that it's not the first time she's been wrong in almost the exact same way.
At Discovery News, Ben Radford looks at how psychics "play the odds" and are given enormous latitude . . .
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The Tidy-Up God
May 09, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Well here's a thing. Jessica Ahlquist just won herself a First Amendment Award. Oh, let me clarify: She's won the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award.
You can't make this stuff up: Three folks found guilty of breaking into a National Security Complex, including an 83-year-old nun:
The trio spent about two hours inside the Oak Ridge facility in July, cutting through fences to reach a facility known as the “Fort Knox of uranium.” Once there, they painted slogans, chipped off a part of a wall with hammers and splattered human blood on the exterior.
The Most Dangerous of All Possible Delusions
May 08, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Stop whatever you're doing. Like, don't even read the Heresy right now. Because Point of Inquiry has a special video edition this week with both hosts (swoon!) and! And! Guest Jared Diamond (double-swoon!), author of books like Guns, Germs, and Steel and The World Until Yesterday. Go now! Click! Watch!
Oh, Sylvia Browne. Being a fake psychic is not paying off like it used to. After determining with her magical mind powers that kidnap victim Amanda Berry was dead, Browne isn't talking to anyone about how her super-magic-brain could have been so entirely, ridiculously, and thankfully wrong.
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Mostly False
May 07, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Whoa! Eugenie Scott is stepping down as head of NCSE! Oh no!
Here's an interview I did with Scott before last year's CSICon. She was awfully nice.
PZ Myers declares his disaffiliation from the skeptic movement (so he is now only an atheist, and not what I call a "skepto-atheist"). Massimo Pigliucci will not miss him, but sees trouble within the movement:
I think the primary problem with the skeptic movement — of which I am and remain a proud member — is that too many people, both among the “leaders” and the rank-and-file, seem to be in it for the sheer pleasure of calling others out as idiots.
I Just Squirm Untelegenically
May 06, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Washington Examiner interviews CFI chief Ron Lindsay on his beliefs regarding religious freedom:
On the one hand it's clear from our constitution the founders wanted the government to stay outside of church internal affairs. We don't want the government deciding who should be a bishop, don't want the government deciding religious dogma, etc. I definitely agree with that position...
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