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Festivus, Atheist Santa, and the Invention of Blasphemy

By Anita Little

…And then there’s the Christmas tree, which comes from pagan traditions in Europe, but has become a sacred symbol. The controversy over the Starbucks cups is the perfect example of how we made something that has no religious connection into a sacred thing. It becomes sacred without religion. It becomes a collective agreement that we’re going to think of Christmas trees and reindeer and lights as a sacred thing. These visuals become so ingrained th…

Decoding Scalia’s Secret Hunting Society, From Jägermeister to Medieval Heresy to Buddhist Legend

By Joseph A. P. Wilson

…d likely also St. Christopher. These stories were all translated into most European languages, and were ultimately bound together in Jacobus de Voragine’s late medieval bestselling novel, The Golden Legend. Thus several of the most popular saint’s biographies of Medieval Europe were translations of Buddhist Sanskrit! Why does this matter? The great popularity of Buddhist Jātaka narratives is not confined to any particular sect, because as models o…

Secularism in the US is Larger, More Diverse and More Dynamic Than Ever, But You Wouldn’t Know it From the Media

By Chrissy Stroop

…s as mostly atheists and agnostics when they clearly are not (although the numbers of atheists and agnostics are rising as well), the subtext that the nones haven’t fully thought through their choice to disaffiliate from religion is offensive—and it’s a prime example of how journalists talk over nones instead of to us. Bolling, by contrast, works directly with students, which gives him valuable insight into their mindset and decision making. “Some…

The Religious Right and the Tea Party on “Education Choice”

By Julie Ingersoll

…e open to anyone who wishes to attend, though there will be a limit on the number of schools (no more than ten in the next decade) and the number of students enrolled. Opponents see charter schools as quasi-privatized schools (and also fear that this is a first step toward further privatization). They see even these limited charter schools as a threat to funding for public education—especially in these difficult budget years where public education…

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…nt and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, an organization I have worked with a number of times (I recently accepted an invitation to join their Speakers’ Bureau) and whose “Living Without Religion” campaign I greatly admire. In his blog, Lindsay wrote that “it’s nice that some politicians are finally willing to acknowledge our existence, but are we so desperate for acceptance that we’ll allow others to condescendingly misdescribe us as adherents of a…

American Jewish Leaders Get Gaza Wrong

By Sarah Posner

…by the Al Qassam Brigades). Yousef Munayyer provides some history of the numbers from Gaza at Open Zion: For example, in 2011, the projectiles fired by the Israeli military into Gaza have been responsible for the death of 108 Palestinians, of which 15 where women or children, and the injury of 468 Palestinians, of which 143 where women or children. The methods by which these causalities were inflicted by Israeli projectiles breaks down as follow…

Death Without Religion

By Gordon Haber

…ble assertion to make in such a tendentious book. Perhaps there is a small number of Americans losing their lives at the hands of hasty harvesters; even a very small number would be too high. But I had a hard time summoning any outrage. In the end I learned much more from Kagan—ironically because his aims are in a way more modest. He wants to convince you of his physicalist stance; however, he doesn’t want to tell you how to reconcile with death….

Catholic Sex Teaching is No Laughing Matter

By Marian Ronan

…inhuman and degrading punishment” for same; indeed, it opposed an earlier European Union move to decriminalize homosexuality. And even if the Vatican were to oppose the criminalization of homosexuality, it’s still hard to argue that the language it uses doesn’t encourage violence against LGBT people. A good example is the 1995 document Persona Humana: Declaration On Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, issued by the same Vatican office tha…

As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon

By Katherine Kelaidis

…de against Albanian Kosovars in the late 1990s. The fact is, a significant number of Serbs, and even a large number of others from traditionally Orthodox backgrounds, continue to harbor a great deal of anger about Western intervention in the Kosovo War, which they see as a failure by the West to comprehend the historical role-reversal that’s taken place, including the persecution of Orthodox Christians by Albanians and other majority-Muslim ethnic…

Good News: Religious Outreach Works On Vaccine Hesitancy. Bad News: We Need It.

By Daniel Schultz

…them and for everyone around them. The good news here is that significant numbers of the hesitant and resistant respond to faith-based approaches. And although PRRI estimates that about 13% of all Americans are “generally agreeable to QAnon theories,” those same people respond the best to those approaches. The study names six such techniques: A religious leader encouraging vaccine acceptance A religious leader getting a vaccine Religious communit…