Texas is reviewing its science standards, specifically with the desire to remove them altogether. Skepchick has a great discussion of exactly what this means, but here’s the short version: Texas and California’s choices for scientific textbooks drives the availability of textbooks nationwide because of their massive marketshare the Texas State Board of Education (TSBE) has [...]

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According this US News and World Report article, one of the biggest finds from the new American Religious Identification Survey is rise of the “nones” and the bleeding of traditional institutions’ membership. More people are choosing to call themselves non-denominational, spiritual, or not religious at all. In terms of percentage of population, the biggest gains [...]

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Apparently some aspect of the LDS temple ceremony will be portrayed on HBO’s Big Love (tonight?). Here’s a picture that was forwarded to me, apparently from TV Guide: Mormons are decrying this as sacrilegious and disrespectful, of course, but as one of thousands who was hoodwinked into going through the ceremony and socially coerced into [...]

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Late to the party on this one, I know, sorry. It turns out that conservative (read: religious) states have the highest porn rates in the country. Probably because they’re not allowed to have deviant (read: fun) sex at home. Meanwhile, people living in enlightened areas of the country have other outlets for their sexual urges, [...]

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I’ve been listening to this recently and it’s kept me going as law school ties me up in its basement, feeding me only bread and water, and negotiating a ransom exchange with my family husband. I keep getting the feeling that the majority of my family would like me to settle down and start having [...]

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This is another lecture that was put on at my school, this time by the ACLU, in response to Prop 8. The California Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments about the Constitutionality of Prop 8 a week from tomorrow. In preparation for that, the local ACLU chapter invited to gay people who grew up in [...]

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I told a professor here (who was running a forum on the Question of God) that my religious background is ex-Catholic but that I am an active blogger in the ex-Mormon part of the Bloggernacle; that my husband is humanist, my father-in-law is Buddhist, and my mother-in-law is First Nations/Pagan. I got an awesome look [...]

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That’s a rhetorical question by the way, so quiet, you. Zip it! The following makes a good drinking game: one swallow from a goblet of consecrated wine whenever you hear (or think you hear) about the Pope, a shot of bad gin for each time one of the Henry VIII’s wives is mentioned (you’ll have [...]

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But also anti-woman! A true uniter. See here for his creepy-ass discussion of why divorce is worse than your spouse abusing you (hint: because if you divorce, then God gets to abuse you! And whose abuse would you rather?) Ugh. via.

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I’m catching up on local news (read: blogs) while my cousin is in town (trying not to be too antisocial by spending all my free time blogging) and enjoyed particularly this most recent post at Daylight Atheism: No Holy Ground, a rational look at the conflict in the so-called “Holy Land” and how it is [...]

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