Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1686
June 21, 2015
Have Scientists Figured Out How to Stop the Poaching of Rhinos or Will They Just Make the Problem Worse?
As a vegetarian, the idea of artificial meat is fascinating to me. If scientists could make fake meat that looked, smelled, and tasted like the real thing, perhaps it would lead to less cruelty against living animals.
Then you think about what’s happening to South African rhinos. They’re being killed off for their horns, because people in China and Vietnam use them in “designer party drugs” and marketed as a potential cure for cancer. So superstition and irrational thinking is pushing this spe...
A Former President of Atheist Alliance of America Has Died of Cancer
Yesterday afternoon, we lost a wonderful atheist leader.
Chuck VonDerAhe, a former President of Atheist Alliance of America, died after a battle with cancer. He was 66 years old. Christine Shellska, AAA’s current President, said that Chuck bequeathed his estate to the organization.
A science-advocate till the end, his body will be donated to a local university for research purposes.
Chuck and I in 2010
I was going back through our emails over the years, and there was a time when they would pretty...
June 20, 2015
The Hierarchy of Religious Beliefs
Step aside, Maslow.
Crispian Jago created a hierarchy of religious beliefs, from the most harmless at the bottom to the most harmful at the top. He argues you can’t make your way up the pyramid without hitting all the levels below first:
Before you can believe in something utterly ridiculous and hateful, you need to first believe in something seemingly slightly less ridiculous and hateful. The best way to believe in something slightly less ridiculous is firstly to make it a cultural norm, so we...
Ohio Grocery Chain Removes “Sweet Baby Jesus” Beer from Shelves After Customer Complaints
Baltimore-based DeClaw Brewing has a variety of beers with fantastic-sounding names.
Like Sweet Baby Jesus (a reference to Talladega Nights):
First brewed in 2011, this Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter is jet black in color with a tan, rocky head, full body and creamy, luxurious mouthfeel. Its lightly sweet, malty flavor is accented by rich flavors of chocolate, coffee and peanut butter, and balanced by a subtle hop character and moderate 6.5% abv. Sweet Baby Jesus finishes smooth, dry, and roast...
Teen Atheist Facing Three Years in Prison for “Wounding Religious Feelings” Online
This is a guest post by Alan Bao.
…
Last month, we posted about Amos Yee:
He’s the 16-year-old Singaporean YouTuber who had been arrested and convicted of “wounding religious feelings” and “obscenity” after making a video that lampooned Christianity and Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kwan Yew.
Since then, he’s been sent to prison for re-uploading the offending materials and now waits for the court to decide on whether or not he should be sentenced to “Reformative Training” — an ostensibly “reha...
California State University Give Stamp of Approval to Christian Groups Who Want to Discriminate
For a couple of years now, Christians have been fighting to obtain special rights on college campuses that allow them to discriminate against certain kinds of students while still reaping the benefits of being official campus organizations.
A year ago, we saw it happen at Bowdoin College in Maine, when leaders of the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship were about to lose their designation as an official campus group (with all the privileges that came with it) because they really really really wanted...
Christian Writer: God Wants Husbands to Withhold Money from Their Wives as Punishment
Nothing says “functional relationship” quite like punishing your stay-at-home spouse for perceived wrongs by cutting off all access to the family’s finances.
I’m sorry, did I say functional? I meant abusive.
This, however, is precisely the sort of relationship championed in a recent post by the anonymous advocate for Biblical family values at BiblicalGenderRoles.com. (You may remember his marital rape apologetics from last month.)
Let’s first get some background on BGR’s idea of a perfect family...
Arizona Sheriff Will Send Armed Guards to Black Churches Tomorrow Whether They Want Them or Not
Tomorrow morning, when black congregations will once again gather for what will surely be emotional church services, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (who has a racist past of his own) has announced how he plans to protect those churches in his part of Arizona.
He’s going to “send armed volunteer posse members” to those churches.
He said the Rev. Jarrett Maupin, who describes himself as a Progressive Baptist preacher and civil-rights campaigner on his Facebook page, asked him to provide the p...
June 19, 2015
These Christian Apologists Say Asking People About How They Think is an Attack on Faith
I’ve posted several videos featuring Anthony Magnabosco walking up to strangers and chatting with them about their religious beliefs and how they came to them. It’s called Street Epistemology.
Christian apologists Dr. Tim McGrew and Tom Gilson recently told audiences that this approach was akin to playing the knockout game and amounted to “baseball bat-level engagement.” (They were referring specifically to Peter Boghossian‘s book.)
Both are ridiculous charges and Magnabosco shows you why in th...
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