7th Nov 2009 : In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Russell Blackford explains the need for 50 Voices of Disbelief.

6th Nov 2009 : Civility has its uses, but we should not be afraid of satire and mockery as weapons against religious power

6th Nov 2009 : The billboard went up Sunday on eastbound Memorial Boulevard near Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

5th Nov 2009 : Two hundred years after Darwin’s birth, scientists still can’t agree on whether evolution and religion can happily coexist

5th Nov 2009 : The Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, has stirred up controversy in the German media with his All Saints’ Day sermon, in which he compared the ideas of Richard Dawkins to those of the Nazis.

5th Nov 2009 : Lord Sacks said that Europe was the world?s most secular region and the only one experiencing population decline

5th Nov 2009 : Having lost the power of the gun in the West, apologists of religion have a new weapon: being offended.

5th Nov 2009 : In a nation in which millions go bankrupt and/or die from not having health care insurance the decision to include prayer healing into the insidiously partisan healthcare deliberations is an outrage.

4th Nov 2009 :

4th Nov 2009 : European court of human rights rules crucifixes that hang in classrooms violate religious and educational freedoms

3rd Nov 2009 : Creationism is growing in the Muslim world

2nd Nov 2009 : Egyptian Clerics Encourage Martyrdom in Gaza

2nd Nov 2009 : There's a schism alright, and I seem to find myself on the unfashionable side of it.
The question: Is there an atheist schism?
[UPDATE] - links to articles by PZ and Jerry Coyne

1st Nov 2009 : Can people be good if they don't think Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist in the English language?

1st Nov 2009 : Celebrities and news-makers are grilled by Matthew Stadlen in exactly five minutes in a series for the BBC News website.

31st Oct 2009 : I had intended to leave this subject behind, at least for a while, but Josh Rosenau has a lengthy post up that I think merits a reply

31st Oct 2009 : Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State & Pat Robertson's demonic threats of Halloween.

30th Oct 2009 : Dan Dennett talks about purposely-confusing theology and how it's used. He also describes his new project interviewing clergyman who secretly don't believe anymore, and introduces a new term: "Deepity."

30th Oct 2009 : Many of the beliefs held by religious moderates -- smart people who respect science and the separation of church and state -- are as untenable as the dogma of fundamentalists.

30th Oct 2009 : This is an article/book from 1994 on the Phelps family and Westboro Baptist Church that was made available on the web after the author ran into difficulties getting it published.

30th Oct 2009 : Video in which dubbed lines from Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler explain their atrocities and have two analysts conclude that these were crimes in the name of atheism.

30th Oct 2009 : Austin Dacey is former representative to the United Nations for the Center for Inquiry and the author of "The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life."

30th Oct 2009 : PORTUGAL: Bible Is "A Catalogue of Cruelties," Says Saramago

29th Oct 2009 : Why is Richard Dawkins, promoting his new evolution book, regularly being asked about his atheism, and why he is “strident,” “polarizing,” etc?

29th Oct 2009 : Time was when science was considered a value-neutral pursuit. That seems like an eternity ago.

29th Oct 2009 : As a new member of the UN Human Rights Council, the US must persuade other countries not to go along.

29th Oct 2009 : How governments decide whether a religion is real or not.

29th Oct 2009 : "Good Without God?" posters in the Boston subway.

28th Oct 2009 : Richard Holloway's `third way' approach has riveted the U.K.

28th Oct 2009 : A rebuttal to the Dvir Abramovich article from a few days ago.

28th Oct 2009 : Mr. Deity and Jesus try to figure out their relationship

28th Oct 2009 : Jerry Coyne's post on the book 50 Voices of Disbelief (released yesterday 26-Oct in the US) by Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk

27th Oct 2009 : What I've learned from debating religious people around the world.
[UPDATE] Fox & Friends YouTube video of Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson.

27th Oct 2009 :

27th Oct 2009 : The Paul Haggis news has gone viral. (Scientology)
[UPDATE]links to a few more news articles added

26th Oct 2009 : Norman Levitt (1943-2009)

26th Oct 2009 : What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world?

26th Oct 2009 : British Council poll finds UK adults overtake Americans in wanting science teaching in schools to include intelligent design.

26th Oct 2009 : She takes a series of statements about god that she says need rethinking, but her thinking is a complete mess.

26th Oct 2009 : Jason Ball, President of the University of Melbourne Secular Society and one of the coordinators of the Global Atheist Convention

25th Oct 2009 : A flurry of books bashing religion are making best-seller lists and grabbing a lot of attention — so much so that anti-religion publications seem to have become a lucrative genre all their own.

25th Oct 2009 : ...The pope has parked his tanks on the Church of England’s lawn; Rome has made a hostile takeover bid for Canterbury....

25th Oct 2009 :

25th Oct 2009 : “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to remove collective worship from all non-faith schools.”

24th Oct 2009 : This isn't Beatrix Potter here. It's more like "Dangerous Liaisons" by way of Quentin Tarantino. With tents, sand, and sheep.

24th Oct 2009 : 'It is business as usual," said the Archbishop of Canterbury at the press conference announcing the Vatican's latest attempt to poach disaffected Anglicans. And how right he was. The Roman Catholic Church is a giant multinational corporation, differing from its business equivalents only in that they pay their taxes.

23rd Oct 2009 : Last month, atheists marked Blasphemy Day at gatherings around the world, and celebrated the freedom to denigrate and insult religion.

22nd Oct 2009 : Let's move beyond faith versus reason.

22nd Oct 2009 : So we may soon have ourselves a conservative Bible. Besides Fox News, I mean.

22nd Oct 2009 : The leading creationist in the Muslim world.

21st Oct 2009 :

20th Oct 2009 : I have just witnessed a rout – tonight’s Intelligence Squared debate. It considered the motion “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry,...

19th Oct 2009 : Atheism is coming to the subway — or at least subway ads promoting it are.

19th Oct 2009 : The author who is being sued for libel, says bloggers and scientists are increasingly reluctant to write anything critical for fear of ruin

19th Oct 2009 : Ayaan Hirsi Ali has put her life on the line to defend women against radical Islam.

18th Oct 2009 : His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse.

17th Oct 2009 : A convicted murderer faces execution in Texas after jurors consulted the Bible while deliberating on his sentence.

17th Oct 2009 : Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, to the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

17th Oct 2009 : [UPDATE]- important video links
From 5-10 July 2009, in its 800th anniversary year, the University of Cambridge hosted a major international Festival to mark 200 years since Charles Darwin's birth and 150 years since the publication ofOn the Origin of Species.

17th Oct 2009 :

16th Oct 2009 : Tribunal rejects claim that far-right Dutch politician's presence could 'lead to inter-faith violence'

16th Oct 2009 : This is approximately the talk I gave on October 3rd at the Atheist Alliance International convention.

16th Oct 2009 : Problem of Evil held at the University of Melbourne last month. Speakers: Russell Blackford, Barney Zwartz, Peter Adam, and Lyn Allison.

16th Oct 2009 : All right, England, enough is enough. Every Christmas, those people over there get some fabulous secular midwinter celebration, and what do we godless Americans get?

16th Oct 2009 :

15th Oct 2009 : A science writer who is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association is to fight on after a preliminary judgment against him was overturned on appeal today.

15th Oct 2009 : The anachronism of slaughter without stunning has no place in the modern world and should be outlawed

15th Oct 2009 : Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society of the UK, here is interviewed about contemporary secular issues

15th Oct 2009 : The anti-Mormon backlash against Proposition 8 supporters is analogous to the treatment of Southern blacks during the civil rights movement, said a high-ranking leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Tuesday

13th Oct 2009 : Celebrities and news-makers are grilled by Matthew Stadlen in exactly five minutes in a series for the BBC News website.

13th Oct 2009 : ...two philosophers, Russell Blackford from Australia and German-born Udo Schüklenk have co-edited a book which seeks to solve recent problems for the modern non-believer. 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We are Atheists, was published recently...

12th Oct 2009 : Mr. Deity is told that his design for the humans leaves something to be desired.

12th Oct 2009 : ...There is no "scientific evidence" of the existence of an intelligent designer...

12th Oct 2009 : Although their number remains insignificant and most of them hid their identity, the fact that some people are leaving Islam and becoming atheists is a troubling news in conservative Iraq.

10th Oct 2009 : ...we've compiled some of our best ideas as well as a few places to find and share more ideas...

8th Oct 2009 : I was looking for a Hallmark card with that on the cover (and also, preferably, a sad-eyed puppy dog) to send to Josh Rosenau and Chris Mooney, but they didn't have one, so I had to settle for a blog post.

7th Oct 2009 : A “triumphalistic, self-righteous atheism” inspired by the work of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris is winning a following among American young people, leading to “atheist clubs” in high schools, according to Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.

7th Oct 2009 : Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Presented by the Sydney Opera House and the St James Ethics Centre, Australia

7th Oct 2009 : The Freedom From Religion Foundation is using quotes from famous atheists to spread the message in its national billboard campaign.

6th Oct 2009 : Basava Premanand, one of the greatest rationalists and skeptics of our time, passed away earlier today at Podanur in India.

5th Oct 2009 : Taking its “life begins at conception” charade from State Legislature to State legislature, one of the most dangerous political forces in the U.S. is stepping up its crusade for the “rights” of the unborn.

5th Oct 2009 : ...I wanted to post a brief report on the AAI meetings...

5th Oct 2009 : Film Review: The Invention of Lying (3 stars)

4th Oct 2009 : The author, journalist and literary critic, Christopher Hitchens is in Sydney for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas

4th Oct 2009 :

3rd Oct 2009 :

2nd Oct 2009 :

2nd Oct 2009 :

1st Oct 2009 :

1st Oct 2009 : While religious faith remains one of the most significant features of human life, little is known about its relationship to ordinary belief at the level of the brain.

30th Sept 2009 : Andrew Brown is wrong: atheism isn't about class. Anyone can join our club if they don't believe in God

30th Sept 2009 :

29th Sept 2009 : As you may know, Richard has been invited to present AAI’s ‘Richard Dawkins Award’ at their convention in Burbank this weekend.

29th Sept 2009 :

29th Sept 2009 : The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was "busy cleaning its own house" and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger.

29th Sept 2009 : Subversive US cartoonist Robert Crumb, whose take on the Bible is about to be released worldwide, says people are "totally nuts" for taking the book so seriously for so long.

28th Sept 2009 : Who needs theology? That was the question raised last month by Bob Russell in a letter to the editor of the Free Press. In it he quoted well-known atheist Richard Dawkins, who asked: "What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody?"

28th Sept 2009 : Update - Open letter from DI

27th Sept 2009 :

27th Sept 2009 : The Charlotte Pop Fest '09 is a music festival taking place in Charlotte's Myers Park area this weekend. The event features some well-known local and national bands.