By Susan Jacoby, on the Washington Post blog God Is Not...Well, He's Just Not I am not too fond of absolutist ex cathedra statements, even when they come from someone who is definitely not the pope and with whom I am in total agreement about the irrationality of all faith in the supernatural. Modify the noun "religion" with the adjective "fundamentalist," and I'll sign on to that sentiment. All belief in the supernatural; ie., that which contradicts the laws of nature, is irrational by definition. But there are many religious denominations that are no longer violent, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children. You know which ones they are. These are all, as Sam Harris has pointed out, religions that have allowed themselves to be modified by secular knowledge. But I respectfully disagree with Harris, Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, who have all su...

By Christopher Hitchens, from the Washington Post blog . On Sunday the New York Times reported on the recrudescence of "faith-based" teaching in Russian public schools: "A teacher named Irina Donshina set aside her textbooks, strode before her second-graders and, as if speaking from a pulpit, posed a simple question: "Whom should we learn to do good from?" "From God!" the children said. "Right!" Ms. Donshina said. "Because people he created crucified him. But did he accuse them or curse them or hate them? Of course not? He continued loving and feeling pity for them, though he could have eliminated all of us and the whole world in a fraction of a second." This grisly vignette, which almost perfectly summarizes the relationship between sadism and masochism in Christian teaching, probably wouldn't delight all those who think that morality derives from supernatural authority. After all, the Russian Orthodox Church was the patron of...

A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted. Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday. "I'm just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master's degree, a couple actually, have to teach that there were such things as talking snakes or lose their job," Bitterman said. Sarah Smith, director of the school's Red Oak campus , declined to comment Friday on Bitterman's employment status. The school's president, Barbara Crittenden, said Bitterman taught one course at Southwest. She would not comment, however, on his claim that he was fired over the Bible reference...

Military officials in Iraq are investigating allegations that an Army specialist is being harassed for being an atheist but said Saturday that they cannot find an officer the soldier has named in a federal lawsuit. Spc. Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit against Maj. Paul Welborne and Defense Secretary Robert Gates in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, this past week. It alleges that Welborne threatened to pursue military charges against Hall and to block his reenlistment because he was trying to hold a meeting of atheists and non-Christians in Iraq. The suit also alleges that Gates permits a military culture in which officers are encouraged to pressure soldiers to adopt and espouse fundamentalist Christian beliefs. On Friday, Mikey Weinstein, the foundation's founder and president, released to The Associated Press copies of e-mails from Hall in which the soldier said he had been harassed and threatened on blogs with being killed ...

Less than a week before Kari Lynn Baker’s death, she found crushed pills in her husband’s briefcase and confided to a friend that she thought Matt Baker was trying to kill her, the close friend said Friday. “She was kind of panicked about the whole situation when she found those crushed pills. No. Really, she was a lot panicked,” Shae Dickey, who taught with Kari Baker at Spring Valley Elementary School in Hewitt, told the Tribune-Herald. “She suspected that he was having an affair, and she told me she thought he was trying to kill her.” Read the arrest affidavit. Those fears are included in the affidavit filed locally Friday to support Matt Baker’s arrest. By sundown, the 36-year-old former Central Texas pastor had turned himself in to authorities at the Kerr County Jail. Since Kari Baker’s death April 8, 2006, — initially ruled suicide by overdose — Dickey says she has replayed her conversation with Kari many times in her head, including her friend’s worries concerning her husband. “...

From Wired Science : YouTube has banned a group called the Rational Response Squad after it complained its videos were being taken down due to spurious DMCA requests from creationists. The takedown followed copyright requests sent by Creation Science Evangelism Ministries , an organization founded by currently-imprisoned tax evader Kent Hovind. The Squad says the clips comprise material that is either public domain, covered by fair use, or entirely self-produced. This again highlights a central problem with the DMCA, namely that it forces takedowns without any kind of review, and puts the burden on proof on the "defendant" to show that its material is non-infringing. But to ban people for protesting when the process has been used illegitimately is something entirely different. The creationist ministry's own website said that "none of the materials ... are copyrighted, so feel free to copy these and distribute them freely." Looks like someone at the YouTu...

A former Darien, Conn., pastor pleaded guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars of church money by setting up secret bank accounts to pay for a life of luxury, including traveling around the world and buying a condominium. The Rev. Michael Jude Fay, who resigned last year as pastor of St. John Roman Catholic Church , pleaded guilty in federal court to interstate transportation of money obtained by fraud. He set up hidden accounts that he called the Bridget Fund and the Don Bosco account to commit the fraud. "A religious leader who secretly uses contributions made to a church for his own personal benefit destroys the confidence and trust of everyone who donates money to a religious institution or charity," said U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor. "Prosecutions of this kind of serious criminal conduct should serve as a message that no one is above the law." Investigators working for the Bridgeport Diocese last year said that Fay, 56, used church money for l...

The following is from the Turkish Daily News . The author, an Islamic believer, maintains that a person needs a lot of faith to believe in the non-existence of Allah. He calls atheism a religion. And interestingly, he parrots many fallacious Christian arguments, even quoting Christian apologists to make his point. He suggests that atheistic regimes of the last century far exceeded the purported cruelty of the entire Middle Ages, and... Well, read for yourself. And feel free to comment. -- WM By Mustafa AKYOL Krynica-ZdrOj – this little Polish town not only has a name hard to pronounce, but it is also quite difficult to reach. In order to arrive at this nice spa resort, you need to first fly to Warsaw, then take another plane to Krakow, and then drive for more than 200 kilometers. Yet this long and winding – and nowadays heavily raining – road apparently does not prevent thousands of people to meet here every September for what they call “the Davos of Central-Eastern Europe:” The Krynic...

FRESNO, Calif . -— The Reverend John Bonine is accused of molesting two girls. John Bonine's public defender says the Pastor of Sierra Heights Baptist Church could be facing life in prison if convicted because there are two children involved. Bonine faces more than 100 criminal charges of child molestation. John Bonine looked nervous as he made his first court room appearance Thursday afternoon and pleaded not guilty. Jim Lambe, defense attorney, says, "What is important is that there are two alleged victims, so there for the case would carry a life sentence." It's been four years since Bonine started his job as Senior Pastor at Sierra Heights Baptist Church. Mansel Trimble, youth pastor, says, "We're hurt and this is a very unsettling time. At the same time, we're looking towards healing." Mansel Trimble is the youth pastor and speaks on behalf of the 200 members. He and investigators say the molestations are not connected to the church. Trimble co...

WACO TX -- Members of a local church whose former part-time pastor has been arrested on child pornography charges don’t think he meant to do anything wrong, the church’s full-time preacher says. Henry Edgington, 63, stepped down from his leadership position at Elm Mott Church of Christ before his arrest Thursday, says Sam Armstrong, the church’s main pastor. Although Edgington maintains — and some church members believe — that he had the graphic images because he was doing research to try and get child pornography sites off the Internet, he decided to quit his post the past week or so because he feared he might be charged with a crime, Armstrong said. Those fears played out this week when Edgington was arrested on seven counts of possessing child pornography. According to affidavits supporting his arrest, he had multiple illegal pictures of children in a padlocked box at his home. They were found and brought to police by the fiancée of Edgington’s son. She found the box in his bathro...

A high-profile pastor from Kanawha County says he's one of the sexual assault victims of another pastor -- and he's written a letter to the public. Pastor Mike Lewis of the New Life Center in Cedar Grove sent a letter to local media outlets Tuesday night. In the letter, he says he was one of the victims of Sandy Martin Cook more than ten years ago when he was a teenager. Cook was and still is the pastor at the Shrewsbury Church of God . Cook was arrested by West Virginia State Police on Monday. He's charged with 3 counts of sexual abuse by a person of trust, and 44 counts of sexual assault in the 3rd degree. During his arraignment in Kanawha County magistrate court, Cook said, "I'm scared to death." According to the criminal complaint, the alleged crimes happened around 1994 -- and so far, three alleged victims have come forward in the case. All were between 13-16 years old at the time. One victim stated he developed a close relationship with Cook -- and...