Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1813

Debunking the “Russian Ghost Car” Video

Captain Disillusion — who makes some of the best videos about skepticism you’ll ever see — debunks the popular video of a car that seems to appear out of nowhere to cause a minor accident:

See? No ghost cars. Just a perfectly rational explanation.

A Quarter of Americans Believe God Determines the Winner of Sporting Events

A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (in partnership with Religion News Service) reveals that *way* too many Americans still think God has a vested interest in their favorite sports team:

About 1-in-4 (26%) Americans and 27% of self-described sports fans say that God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event. About 7-in-10 Americans (71%) and sports fans (69%) disagree.

Minority Protestants (45%) are more likely than any other religious group to believe th...

Richard Dawkins’ Next Book Finally Has a Title and Release Date

In 2013, Richard Dawkins released the first half of his autobiography: An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist:

It was just announced that the second half — the part that will likely focus on his career as a communicator of science and public atheist — will be released on September 22. The title? A Brief Candle in the Dark, a reference to the Carl Sagan phrase.

The cover isn’t available yet, but you can pre-order the book now.

Bible Schools in Illinois Sue to Bypass Accreditation Regulations

A number of Illinois Bible schools are suing the state’s education regulators in federal court for the right to award degrees without meeting the state’s accreditation standards. They don’t deny that their programs fail to meet the standards for awarding degrees; they just feel that they should be exempt regardless because, they argue, it’s an infringement of their religion to do otherwise.

The Bible colleges — there are about 15 statewide — don’t have full-fledged collegiate curriculums that...

Canadian Groups Will Hand Out “Get Out of That ‘Mandatory’ Religion Class!” Cards to Catholic School Students

There are Catholic schools in Ontario that are publicly-funded, yet offer classes in religious doctrine. High school students are allowed to get out of those classes with their parents’ permission — but very few people know that.

Now, some secular groups are trying to change that.

Secular Ontario and Humanist Perspectives will be holding a peaceful protest outside an as-yet-unnamed Catholic school on Friday and hand out these cards to students:

The coupons, which look like something you’d get in...

Sam Harris: Media Outlets Worldwide Should Have Published the New Charlie Hebdo Cover Simultaneously

In his latest podcast, Sam Harris responds to the Charlie Hebdo attacks by, among other things, saying that media outlets everywhere should have posted the recent post-massacre cover of the magazine en masse as a show of solidarity:

It’s just astonishing the media cannot do the one thing that it could do to keep it and everyone else safe, and it can’t do the one thing that would’ve kept the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists safe, which is publish, en masse, all of these cartoons and present a united f...

The Orlando Police Department Spent $25,000 on its Chaplain Program Over the Past Two Years

When police departments have chaplains, we can argue over whether that’s legal, but a common rebuttal is that it’s mostly symbolic and hurts nobody.

Let’s put a rest to all that. According to an open records request by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Orlando Police Department (in Florida) spent nearly $25,000 on its chaplain program, with the bulk of the money going toward a new car for the chaplain’s use:

Expenditures in just two years included hundreds of dollars on uniforms for cha...

Virginia School District Abandons Policy Requiring Homeschooled Children to Explain Their Religious Beliefs

Last week, the Goochland County school board in Virginia was hounded by homeschooling parents to back down from a new approach regarding religious exemptions from school attendance and annual testing. Homeschool parents complained that the proposed changes would be a violation of their First Amendment rights, since it would require children over the age of 14 to agree with their parents’ request for a religious exemption and possibly even testify to the school board about why their religious...

Mississippi Students Protest Their District’s Opposition to the Formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance Group

Last week, I posted about Rankin County School District in Mississippi and how Superintendent Lynn Weathersby (below) was doing everything in his power to prevent a Gay-Straight Alliance from forming at Brandon High School:

“I talked to (board attorney) Freddie (Harrell) and several administrators about what we could legally do to limit organizations like that on campus that we don’t want to endorse and don’t want,” Weathersby said.

…

In the school board meeting on Wednesday, Weathersby said he...

Bryan Fischer: Obama Isn’t a True Christian Because He Supports LGBT Rights

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer is certainly not one to shy away from expressing bizarre opinions, but last week on his show Focal Point, he might have set a new record for the most hilariously contradictory and nonsensical statements uttered in a short time.

It transpired when a caller, Don, wondered, “… how come there’s nobody on AFR [American Family Radio] that will say that Barack Obama’s not a Christian?” The caller speculated that President Obama might instead be a Muslim...