Tag: Secularism

Does ‘militant’ secularism exist in Britain?

Physicist and author Victor Stenger calls upon scientists and all thinking people to focus their attention on reducing the influence of religion.

On Sunday, Rick Santorum defended a statement he made last October in which he said that he “almost threw up” when he read John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Houston address on the role of religion in public life.

Call me an optimist, but I think atheists and other nonbelievers are poised for huge growth in public acceptance. We’ve been one of the last groups against whom open discrimination was acceptable; the story’s told well enough by the repeated surveys over the last decade or so showing that fewer Americans would vote for an atheist for president than would vote for a woman, gay or lesbian, Muslim and so on. We nonbelievers have been in the basement, #1 among reviled minorities as other groups have gained ground.

Colleges and universities have long offered majors in religion or theology. But with more and more people now saying they have no religion, one college has decided to be the first to offer a major in secularism.

After implementation of the French law that prohibits burqas and niqabs, international media has focused on ’protesting Muslims’, while the voices of the vast majority of presumed Muslims in France are ignored.

Atheist groups get ready to launch several ad campaigns during the holiday season.

Civil society activists in Lebanon are hoping that thousands will turn up for an unprecedented rally in Beirut. The march for secularism will call on all Lebanese to unite and work towards the abolition of the country’s deeply divisive sectarian system.

Two Harvard economists conclude that certain religious beliefs correlate with faster economic development.

According to a new study, prosperity is highest in countries that practice religion the least.

Nominations are in for Secularist of the Year and a pretty “catholic” list it turns out to be. The winner will be announced at the special event to present the £5,000 Irwin prize in February next year. So, here – in alphabetical order – are the nominations.

Karen Armstrong attempts to defend religion against what she considers common critiques.  Instead she ends up making excuses for the problems religion creates while shifting the blame onto “overly aggressive secularization” and “so-called new atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens.”  

Less awareness of religious symbols, stories and lessons believed to be a sign of increased western secularism

The author discusses misconceptions about Atheism, including that “Atheism is a Denial of God That Requires Faith,” “Atheists Lead Meaningless Lives of Despair Without Love or Beauty,” “Atheists Worship Satan, Themselves, Money, or Some Other God,” and more.

There are signs of a crackdown in Iran’s academia on un-Islamic ideas.

Brad Pitt is interviewed by Bill Maher on Real Time.  Mr. Pitt discusses his Secularism aside from other subjects.

Some residents of the mostly secular Ramat Aviv district, alarmed by the increasing presence and proselytizing of ultra-Orthodox Haredim, are trying to drive them out.

Humans naturally create stories and narratives, says British author and neurologist Oliver Sacks. As a “non-militant atheist”, Sacks believes that the human mind is s story-generating machine, but that this story generating propensity needn’t be focused on Theistic themes and that much can be gained by using this faculty in the context of nature.

Orator and defender of agnosticism Robert Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899), tells the truth about the Bible as he knew it in 1894.

We often point to France as a beacon of secularism, a country with a constitution that guarantees religious rights but ensures that they are completely separate from the functions of the state.