Australian atheists are under attack, with the websites of both the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Global Atheist Convention knocked offline in a major cyber attack yesterday afternoon. The " distributed denial of service " attacks flooded the websites with traffic, forcing them offline about 5.20pm yesterday. As of this morning, service to both websites has been restored. The attacks may be related to the Global Atheist Convention, which is being held in Melbourne in March next year. Speakers include Richard Dawkins , author of The God Delusion and comedy writer Catherine Deveny. About 1000 tickets have been sold so far through the Global Atheist Convention website, which was set up, and is operated, by the AFA. The AFA is billing the event as the largest gathering of atheists in Australian history but ticket sales have had to be halted for now due to the cyber attack. David Nicholls, president of the AFA, said it was not yet clear whether the attacks were motiv...

A sexually explicit illustrated Book of Genesis by controversial artist Robert Crumb , which features Bible characters having intercourse, has been condemned by religious groups . US cartoonist Robert Crumb, whose take on the Bible was just released worldwide, says people are "totally nuts" for taking the book so seriously for so long. "I grew to hate the Bible," he told a press conference for the international launch of " The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb ", which he called a "gruelling" four year project. The book hit bookshelves in this month in Europe, Brazil and the United States. "The idea of millions of people taking this so seriously is totally nuts," he added. "The Bible doesn't need to be satirised. It's already so crazy." Crumb's 220-page epic take on the Book of Genesis painstakingly mirrors every twist and turn, from God's Creation of the world through the meanderings of Noah's Ark a...

Image of Jose Saramago via Wikipedia LISBON — A row broke out in Portugal on Monday after a Nobel Prize -winning author denounced the Bible as a "handbook of bad morals". Speaking at the launch of his new book "Cain", Jose Saramago , who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, said society would probably be better off without the Bible. Roman Catholic Church leaders accused the 86-year-old of a publicity stunt. The book is an ironic retelling of the Biblical story of Cain, Adam and Eve's son who killed his younger brother Abel. At the launch event in the northern Portuguese town of Penafiel on Sunday, Saramago said he did not think the book would offend Catholics "because they do not read the Bible". "The Bible is a manual of bad morals (which) has a powerful influence on our culture and even our way of life. Without the Bible, we would be different, and probably better people," he was quoted as saying by the news agency Lusa. Saramago atta...

by Valerie Tarico Advice for candidates from a former fundie. O ne thing I learned not long after finishing my Spanish degree was – never volunteer to translate anything into a language you don’t dream in. I was visiting Flores, Guatemala, and offered to help a small art collective. In response, they handed me some fliers to translate from English to Spanish. I had that four year degree, you know, so I did--with embarrassing results. My sentences were grammatically correct, and the words even meant what I thought they meant. But no native speaker ever would have said things quite that way, and someone had to tactfully tell me so. I still wince at the memory, at my own naiveté and hubris. Takeaway for political candidates: If you're not a Christian, don't even try to speak Evangelese. There are subtleties of sequence and jargon that are invisible to outsiders, but violating them even slightly is a dead giveaway that you are a sham. Refer to someone as "a good person," ...

A Baptist Church near Asheville , N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning " to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non- King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music . The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. (now off line, for some reason), says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man , the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles,...

by Valerie Tarico Valerie Tarico via Wikipedia Please help obstruct the religious right by forwarding this article to anyone you know in Western Washington. Next week in King County, Washington, "nonpartisan" Susan Hutchison will be vying with Democrat Dow Constantine for the role of County Executive. The seat controls significant resources in a region that often plays a leadership role in future oriented public policy . If King County were a state, its budget size would be 13th in the country. Economically, the county lives on cutting edge science, engineering and technology: Microsoft, Boeing, Amgen, Nintendo and a host of tech/biotech start ups. What national precedents is King County likely to be setting in the next go around? That depends in part on who sits in the executive seat. Constantine has track records in brokering anti-sprawl, sustainable development and historic preservation. He's a proponent of strong, innovative carbon policies. But who is the elusive Hut...

Image via Wikipedia PRESS RELEASE October 10, 2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Dr. Stephen Uhl In just over one year the community of Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious (AASFSHNR) at Kiva.org have raised $1 million (USD) in interest-free loans to help end poverty. Kiva.org is a US non-profit organization that connects lenders with borrowers, from around the globe, who need a micro-finance loan. Peter Kroll , the AASFSHNR community team leader, created the community on August 28th, 2008 with the ambition to organize those who share his world view that "people should care about reducing the suffering of other human beings because we acknowledge the evolutionary fact that we are all one human family." Kiva's co-founder Matt Flannery has put out his call that "now is a time for the world's privileged to demonstrate to the world's poor just how compassionate and resilient we are....

Scientists have reproduced the Shroud of Turin - revered as the cloth that covered Jesus in the tomb - and say the experiment proves the relic was man-made, a group of Italian debunkers claimed Monday. The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping out of nailed hands and feet, and believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen fibres at the time of his resurrection. Scientists have reproduced the shroud using materials and methods that were available in the 14th century, the Italian Committee for Checking Claims on the Paranormal said. The group said in a statement this is further evidence the shroud is a medieval forgery. In 1988, scientists used radiocarbon dating to determine it was made in the 13th or 14th century. But the dispute continued because experts couldn't explain how the faint brown discolouration was produced, imprinting on the cloth a negative image centuries before the invention of photography. Many still believe that the...