I heard about Agora from Jason over at the Wild Hunt. He first mentioned it in ’08, where he extolled it as likely to be a Pagan-friendly work. Well, that was enough for me, so I waited for it to come out. And waited some more. Meanwhile, Jason was giving occasional tidbits: the movie was [...]

[Read more →]

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America reads (in pertinent part): Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This has, historically, been interpreted to include other official acts by the government. Here, “Congress” is read (due to the context of the [...]

[Read more →]

This article on how the X and Y generations are leaving religion like lemmings turning back from the cliff is actually from xJane, but she’s chin-deep in finals, so asked me to pass this on to you all. Money quote: “Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church,” Putnam said. “They have [...]

[Read more →]

Nationwide, Christians who refuse to provide services on the basis of gender orientation are losing legal battles.

[Read more →]

This is how our president defined our country yesterday. Explicitly denying that it was a “Christian nation” and explicitly stating that this fact is one of our “great strengths”. It’s nice to be reminded of this—and by someone so high in the administration! It is vogue for politicians to exclaim “God bless America!” Whether or [...]

[Read more →]

It’s got it all: atheism, spirituality, god, scifi, and good music!! Hulu’s got the first four eps up right now (and it doesn’t keep them forever), so go catch up. It’s too smart and too well written to stay on the air for long. It’s the story of Kings David and Saul transposed into a [...]

[Read more →]

This episode is 94% Temple, 6% Beer. Mostly I talk about the throat-slitting penalty that was removed from the endowment ceremony in 1990, when I still had the (mis)fortune of experiencing it. I would love to hear your feedback. Update: Most of my attributions got edited out (I had to seriously shorten my ramblings, believe [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

Today, the Obama Administration signed onto the UN call for the decriminalization of homosexuality. In 77 countries, it is a crime to be attracted to members of the same sex, and in seven, merely being gay is punishable by death. This UN declaration has nothing to do with visiting rights or adoption or insurance for [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]