Why is it More Wrong to Attack a Person’s Religion than their Secular Moral...
Ireland has recently enacted a law banning “blasphemy,” which has in turn attracted plenty of justified criticism: Secular campaigners in the Irish Republic defied a strict new blasphemy law which came...
View ArticleAre More Intelligent People More Likely to be Atheists?
In this post, I criticized psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa’s widely discussed recent article claiming that more intelligent people are more likely to be politically liberal. Kanazawa also claims that his...
View ArticleAtheism, Agnosticism, and Certainty About the Origins of the Universe
In a recent Slate essay, Ron Rosenbaum argues that agnosticism is preferable to atheism because atheists wrongly believe that they can explain the origins and nature of the universe: I think it’s time...
View ArticleProperty Rights for Deities?
Co-blogger Eugene Volokh links to an Indian newspaper article about a ruling concerning the property rights of Hindu gods. According to the article, Hindu deities are allowed to acquire at least some...
View ArticleQueensland University Suspends Lawyer for YouTube-Distributed Blasphemy
The Brisbane Times reports that: A Queensland University of Technology lawyer[,] … Alex Stewart[,] has taken leave from his non-academic position as a QUT [Queensland University of Technology]...
View ArticlePublic Ignorance About Religion
A Recent Pew Research Center survey of American’s knowledge about religion shows widespread ignorance. The study asked 32 mostly relatively basic multiple choice questions about various religions...
View ArticleExplaining Group Differences in Knowledge of Religion
As I noted in a recent post, the Pew Research Center survey of public knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics, Jews, and Mormons are the groups with by far the highest knowledge levels...
View ArticleNew York Times on the Secular Right Blog
The New York Times recently ran an interesting article on the Secular Right blog, which I commented on here back when it was first established: As a child, Razib Khan spent several weeks studying in a...
View ArticleJudge Grilling Parent in Child Custody Case About the Parent’s Secular Humanism
From yesterday’s Atchley v. Atchley: The trial court addressed the following inquiry to the husband. Q. Now, you said you attend a Morning Star Church? A. Correct. Q. Do you donate money to the church?...
View ArticleA Turing Test For Religion
Inspired by Bryan Caplan’s ideological Turing Test, atheist blogger Leah Libresco proposes a religious Turing test to measure the extent to which Christians and atheists understand the arguments of the...
View ArticleLeah Libresco’s Turing Test for Religion
Atheist blogger Leah Libresco has now begun to implement her Turing Test for religion, which I previously wrote about here. At her blog, she has recruited fifteen test participants who will first...
View ArticleThe Next Round of Leah Libresco’s Turing Test for Religion
Leah Libresco has now posted many of the questions and answers for the next round of her Turing Test for religion. They are available at her blog. In the previous round, her fifteen test participants...
View ArticleAtheism, Religion, and Presidential Voting
The New York Times Room for Debate Forum has an interesting symposium on the role of religion in presidential elections. In his contribution, polling expert Andrew Kohut cites a 2007 Pew survey showing...
View ArticleIs Atheism a Religion?
At the Reason website, Kennedy (who apparently has only one name), argues at length that atheism should be considered a religion: [W]hether you make sense of the world as an atheist and don’t require...
View ArticleThe Boy Scouts’ Other Discriminatory Policy
Over the last decade, a lot of attention has focused on the Boy Scouts’ policy banning gays and lesbians from participating as Scouts or working for the organization. Most recently, a group of Eagle...
View Article3-Year Sentence for Blasphemy in Egypt
Al Arabiya reports: An Egyptian Copt arrested on suspicion of posting online an anti-Islam film that ignited Muslim protests around the world was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison, a...
View ArticleAnother Example of Unconstitutional Religious Discrimination in Virginia...
Co-blogger Eugene Volokh recently linked to a Virginia state court decision striking down as unconstitutional a state law that allowed religious societies without official clergy to designate only one...
View ArticleTennessee Child Custody Law Favoring Parents Who Can Best Prepare Child for...
I just ran across the Tennessee statute, Tenn Code Ann. § 36-6-404, that provides the factors that courts are to consider in determining physical custody as between two parents. Many states have such...
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