We have a good selection of Christian (protestant-evangelical-charismatic) evangelism tracts here in the office, and I spent a portion of my lunch break perusing them. They are all written by the same author, and they target a wide range of religions–everything from Islam to “unsaved” Catholics to the Bahá’í Faith.
Just one of the tracts is [...]

A recent post on Pharyngula (worth reading) has me thinking about standards of evidence. So many theist/atheist conversations could be truncated if the two parties declared at the outset exactly what is required for them to accept any given claim as “true.” Unspoken assumptions about these standards end up frustrating both sides of the debate.
For [...]

Last week I finally got around to reading Kevin Roose’s excellent book The Unlikely Disciple. If you are at all interested in evangelical subculture, pick up a copy of the book at Borders or Barnes&Noble. In short, Roose is a secular college student from Brown who takes a semester to study at Liberty, America’s “holiest” [...]

For the past few days, I’ve been meaning to write down some thoughts on the murder of Dr. George Tiller, a late-term abortion doctor who was shot in his church last Sunday. The murder was, of course, reprehensible; but I’d like to take a brief look at how pro-life/anti-choice/anti-abortion groups have responded to the news.
Abortion [...]

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been receiving regular e-mail updates on the status of a friend’s friend who had an accident that left her essentially paralyzed. Naturally, it’s a very sad situation, and the doctors are doing everything in their power to minimize or reverse the effects of the accident.
The e-mails I’ve been getting [...]

It was last March that I became an “out” atheist, and the past year has been an interesting one. I’m a sucker for anniversaries, so indulge me in a few observations.
The biggest surprise of my experience as an atheist has been the response of my close Christian friends. I’m not entirely sure what I expected, [...]

One Thing, Real Quick: Sarah Palin’s irrational beliefs are absurd. In this article (another version here), she tells James Dobson from Focus on the Patriarchy that “the election rests in God’s hands.”
Dobson asked whether Palin was discouraged by polls showing the GOP ticket behind. “To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder,” [...]

A recent comment on the blog asked an important question: What is Secular Humanism, and why do you adhere to it? One of our CFI-Pittsburgh members, Victor Benard, wrote an excellent essay about Secular Humanism, and I’m reprinting it here with his permission. Enjoy.
What is Secular Humanism? One Humanist’s View
It is a common pastime among [...]

Welcome back to Logical Fallacy Thursday: a brief look at inconsistent reasoning in moderate-to-well-known popular figures. This week, I’d like to examine a few quotes from David Ray Griffin, a leader in the 9/11 Truth Movement and author of two popular books on a supposed government conspiracy behind the September 11th terrorist attacks. I’m going [...]

I saw one of these in my neighborhood yesterday, and the plate frame prevented me from realizing it wasn’t a new kind of PA plate:

Thank the gods it’s Indiana–so far. Does anyone have specific thoughts on these? I understand that there are two major schools of thought about church/state interaction (the neutral view and the [...]