Why Rudd should let the Brethren slide

Prior to the Federal election, PM in waiting Kevin Rudd stated that the Exclusive Brethren were an “extremist cult” and called for investigation of their affairs by a number of government bodies. This was in response to allegations that the Brethren have a
disproportionately high taxpayer funding of Brethren schools, dishonest political campaigning, their charitable [...]

The struggle over Einstein’s soul

Obviously atheists are pleased with the revelation that Einstein viewed religion as a childish thing. For believers it finally removes Einstein as the authority in a classic argument from authority.
But for non-believers, there is a note of triumphalism that understandable but we should be wary of using Einstein as an authority ourselves. James F [...]

The Vatican want aliens to convert to Catholicism

The Vatican have announced they are comfortable with the idea of alien life. The good news for aliens is that they may be free of original sin. The bad news for aliens is:
…extraterrestrials would benefit equally from the “incarnation”, in which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, assumed earthlings’ flesh, body and soul in order [...]

Atheism is not about ‘removing’ religion from society

Over in England, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is worried. It seems there are attempts afoot to eliminate the christian voice the public sphere.
The cardinal is a little vague as to who wants religion removed from society. There seems to also be a thinking that a natural trend towards disbelief must have some movers behind it. [...]

Zeus versus Vulcan in Chile

An extraordinary image of a thunderstorm meeting with the dust cloud from Chaiten volcano. More can be found here.

Pamela Bone and the lived atheist life

Over the past few years, I didn’t take much to the writings of the late journalist Pamela Bone. She had tended towards routine attacks on so-called feminist inaction against Islam by conveniently ignoring what feminists were doing.
But with her death, The Age has reprinted a beautiful statement of hers, relating to how she found [...]

Commonsense on preachers and politics

Via a comment at LP, I stumbled onto an excellent article by Katha Pollitt on the need for presidential candidates to have crazy, preaching guys as their spiritual advisor (part of Obama’s sin is that he chose a black crazy preacher guy, not the usual white bread crazy preacher guy).
The on the money quote [...]

The lot of an atheist

Bernard Keane is Friday’s Crikey mentions that lot of an atheists and says a few things that reflect my position as an atheist. The article is for Crikey’s subscribers only but I’ll quote a few choice selections.
Several complainants suggested I wouldn’t dare say such offensive things about Islam. Au contraire. Islam is about the [...]