1. Religion & Spirituality

Ten Commandments vs. American Law

Roy Moore's Ten Commandments Monument

The myth that the Ten Commandments are the basis for American law is used by Christian Nationalists to justify all sorts of nonsense. It's easy to demonstrate how false this myth is, yet it persists anyway because it's politically useful.

Ten Commandments in America
Agnosticism / Atheism Spotlight10

Catholic School Forfeits Rather than Play Against a Girl

Friday May 18, 2012
Softball
Softball
Photo: Iconica / John Giustina

Our Lady of Sorrows is a fundamentalist Catholic school in Phoenix, Arizona, that was supposed to play Mesa Preparatory Academy for the state softball championship. That game didn't take place because the Catholic school refused to play. Why? Because one of the Mesa softball players is a girl, Paige Sultzbach.

And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Our Lady of Sorrows lost twice to Mesa Prep over the course of the regular season. Read More...

Atheists Trusted Less Than Rapists in America

Friday May 18, 2012

It should be well known by now that distrust of atheists is high, but it's worse than you may realize: atheists are distrusted about as much, and perhaps a little more than, rapists. In studies that show a person doing something illegal and unethical, few will identify them as a Christian but lots are willing to identify them as a rapist or an atheist.

Read Article: Atheists Trusted Less Than Rapists in America

Who is Prejudiced Against Atheists? Who Attacks Godless Atheism, Liberalism?

Thursday May 17, 2012
It might be expected that conservative Christians would hold at least some animus towards atheists, and in fact hostility towards atheism is almost universal among 'born-again Christians.' Even non-Christians and liberal Christians, however, demonstrate a great deal of anti-atheist animus. Tirades against 'godless liberalism' on the part of the Christian Right may be causing some liberals to tell atheists to simply go away or at least stop agitating on behalf of secularism and science.

 

Read Article: Who is Prejudiced Against Atheists? Who Attacks Godless Atheism, Liberalism?

Irrational Decision-Making May be Right

Thursday May 17, 2012

Logic has been around a long time. Probability theory has been around since the 17th century. Decision theory was developed in the 20th century. So we know how to make rational decisions and that we should prefer rational decisions, right? Well... maybe not.

For one thing, you make way too many decisions over the course of the average day to imagine for a second that you generally make those decisions based on sober, rational reflection. And this isn't just true about the "simple" decisions, either... Read More...

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