Creationist Comfort Hits North American Campuses with “Amended” Version of Origin of Species
Today is November 24th, 150 years to the day since the publication of Charles Dawin's "On the Origin of Species".  And unfortunately it is also the day when Ray Comfort, who famously referred to the banana as an evolutionist's greatest enemy for its obvious intelligent design as the perfect food for humans, is striking again.  This week thousands of copies of an amended version of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" are appearing across 70 North American university campuses in the US and Canada.  Th

Muslim Secularists of Kuwait. Ahmad al-Sarraf
MUSLIM SECULARISTS OF KUWAIT: 3. AHMAD AL-SARRAF. The third of our secularists from Kuwait is the liberal journalist, Ahmad [Ahmed] al-Sarraf. In two outspoken interviews he gave in March and April 2009, he spelled out his ideas defending secularism [Memri Dispatch: Nos 2306 and 2373]. He deplored the role of Iran in the Middle East, and in any case, he rejected the very notion of "a religious scholar as a head of state. This is unacceptable..... I have nothing against religion or religious thought. I am against the practice of those who like to act as God's representative on Earth. They tell me how to drink, how to get married, how to enter the house, how to enter

Pakistan Pushes Irish Blasphemy Law Language at the UN
This July the Irish Parliament shocked the world by passing a law that imposes criminal penalties and heavy fines for the "crime" of blasphemy.  That law also allows government authorities to forcibly enter and search suspected premises for copies of "blasphemous" statements.  Now Pakistan and a group of Islamic states (the Organization of Islamic Conference, or "OIC") is using the language of the Irish blasphemy law to press the UN Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards to recognize the so-called "defamation of religions" as a ne

Goodness with or without God? Epstein’s surrender plan to religious faith.
So I've been reading this book titled Good without God. Maybe you've seen it too.  I was struck by this passage, on the first page: "the time has come for it [rationalism] to be aggressive, and not only to declare that men can be good without God, but to boldly maintain that no one can be truly good who believes in God."  Now that's a bold rationalism: to say to the world, "be even better without God." Many rationalists, freethinkers, and atheist humanists have been proclaiming as much for over a hundred years. This one book, Good without God, from which I quote, was published in 1902. Yes, 1902 -- by Rob

Health Care and Human Rights
Senate Democrats have just released their proposed health care reform bill. The good news: their proposal is estimated to cost $200 billion less than the bill proposed by House Democrats. The bad news: the cost will be $849 billion over ten years. Of course, as was true with the House bill, the Senate bill actually projects a net reduction in the federal deficit over ten years, to the tune of about $130 billion. Much of the cost savings comes from projected cuts to Medicare reimbursement. Anyone who thinks that substantial redu