The President, Donald Trump, proclaimed this day, January 16, 2018, to be Religious Freedom Day. Religious Freedom Day is, in the president’s words, a day when we… … celebrate the many faiths that make up our country, and we commemorate the 232nd…
Category: Religion
How to believe in God (in 6 easy steps)
Sam Harris has created a simple, but effective template for how to believe in God that he fit easily into six tweets, which are shown below. I’ve added brief commentary to each step. 1. First, you must want to believe in…
Torture and Religion: A Curious Correlation
Under God in The Pledge: Why should we care?
Pope Francis and the Evolution of Catholicism
This week marked another interesting milestone in the ongoing evolution of Catholicism. Since Tuesday, media outlets across the globe have been abuzz with headlines like: Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are real and God is not ‘a…
Response to 22 Creationists
Last Tuesday, Bill Nye (the science guy) debated Ken Ham (founder and CEO of Kentucky’s Creation Museum) on the question of whether a young-earth creation model is compatible with the theory of evolution. NPR posted a nice summary of the debate,…
Catholic Church Evolves, Reduces Purgatory for Twitter Users
We all know the Catholic Church evolves. It is not static. For example, just in my lifetime, the Catholic Church: introduced non-Latin mass translations (1963); introduced Canon Law (1983, replacing changes introduced in 1917); abolished the concept of Limbo (2007); altered…
TIME Magazine Doubles Down on Joe Klein’s Religious Bigotry
Last week I wrote about Joe Klein’s cover story in TIME Magazine. I’ve been sort of hoping that TIME, Joe Klein, or both, would have made some sort of apology—or at least acknowledge their factual errors. They didn’t. Instead, TIME…
Joe Klein and Religious Bigotry in TIME Magazine
In a cover story for TIME Magazine, political columnist Joe Klein takes a gratuitous and factually incorrect swipe at secular humanists.
Pascal’s Wager, a Special Pony, and Belief
Blaise Pascal was a towering intellect of the 17th century; there is no doubt about that. But with regard to his famous wager, I have my doubts—Pascal’s analysis, and thus his conclusion itself, is derived from faith.