Not the Overwhelming Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Phenomenon That You Thought it Was
May 24, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Kimberly Winston gets some atheists' reactions to the pope's suddenly not condemning we godless to the fires of Hell.
However! A Vatican spokesman puts the whole "infallible pope" thing into question by saying, no, atheists are going to Hell.
(But you know what the Church is okay with for real? Eating alligators.)
Now you can help out Rebecca Vitsmun by buying up "Actually I'm an atheist" t-shirts.
Portlandian Bodily Fluids
May 23, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Horror in London, as a man identified as a soldier is hacked to death by what seem to be Islamist militants, who film the attack in broad daylight.
In a tweet, Reza Aslan seems to know what happens next:
Alright Muslims. You know the drill. Some Muslim somewhere did something crazy. Get out there and start apologizing for it.
Read more… | 2 Comments
Francis and the Accidental Exorcism
May 22, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
The anti-blasphemy machine rolls on: Turkish writer Sevan Nişanyan is sentenced to 58 weeks in prison for “insulting the religious beliefs held by a section of the society.”
GOP Lt. Governor nominee E.W. Jackson of Virginia (Democrats are a "coalition of the godless") says that anyone who criticizes his hard-right positions "is attacking every church-going person, every family that’s living a traditional family life, everybody who believes that we all deserve the right to live." Chaser:
I would just say people should not paint me as one-dimensional.
You're making that hard, dude.
The Wise Old Goat in a Flock of Sheep
May 21, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Obviously, most Americans' hearts and minds are concentrated on the victims of the tornadoes in Oklahoma and across the Midwest. We'll have a formal statement soon, and in the mean time please consider donating to help those affected.
Wowie-wow-wow-WOW. The already-loathsome Daily Caller outdoes itself by harrassing and insulting one of our own. Read about the saga of SCA's Lauren Anderson Youngblood and the "Dick pic" email from Christopher Bedford. You rock on, Lauren. <communications directors' secret high-five-handshake>
Ryan Koronowski dismantles the gee-that's-really-wrong WaPo op-ed on climate change by House science chair Lamar Smith.
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If You Threw Yourself in Front of a Train
May 20, 2013
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
The conference was great. It had a high bar to meet with last year's huge success, but it was easily cleared. Talk to talk, panel to panel, and the amazing freaking voice of Shelley Segal, it was a real and substantive pleasure to be at Women in Secularism 2.
We, of course, had our controversies. CFI chief Ron Lindsay has posted the prepared text of his opening remarks that caused an enormous amount of debate and very strong feelings, reactions to which can be found all about the interwebs.
I know, many, many folks are itching for video of the conference talks. While you wait for us to crank up the movie machine, sate your desire with videos from last year's conference.
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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. . .
Read more… | 6 Comments
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).
