Monday Religion and Atheism Report 01/19

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abuse, alabama, alex malarkey, americans, atheist, BBC, better news club, bible, blasphemy, boy, charlie hebdo, children, christianity, classes, creationism, FFRF, foxholes, free speech, god, good news club, heaven, islam, killing, learning, netherlands, news, oklahoma, parenting, politics, religion, religious, satire, schools, slavery, theology, tyndale house, values, voddie baucham, war

‘Boy Who Came Back From Heaven’ Actually Didn’t; Books Recalled

Tyndale House, a major Christian publisher, has announced that it will stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey. [Read more]

Slavery & Christianity in the Old South: Blending Culture and Christianity

Slavery was defended in the Old South by good white Christians who relied on the Bible to justify their immoral, unjust, and oppressive culture. [Read more]

The Netherlands is Now Home to More Atheists Than Believers

There are more atheists than believers now in the Netherlands for the first time in recent history, according to a survey conducted by Ipsos. [Read more]

More Creationism in a Mainstream News Source

The Big Question is: Some things were unquestionably designed for the purpose of facilitating human life — your toilet seat, for example. [Read more]

Oklahoma Bill Seeks To Protect Schools That Want To Teach Bible Classes

A proposed bill in the Oklahoma state Senate seeks to allow schools to offer “an elective course in the objective study of religion or the Bible” without fear of legal liability. [Read more]

Whose Values Rule the Schools?

When it comes to general attitudes toward children and education, conservative values seem enormously powerful. [Read more]

We Believe in Free Speech

Years ago, when I was teaching public speaking to community college students, I started an impromptu debate on the topic of free speech. [Read more]

Charlie Hebdo Massacre Raises Age-Old Questions: Are Any Religions Good or Necessary?

Is religion at fault? What good can religion do? Are any religions truly good? Is religion necessary? [Read more]

Religion and Speech

The pope did call killing in the name of God an “aberration” and said religion should not be used to justify violence. [Read more]

Real Atheism Requires Omniscience?

It isn’t too uncommon for some theists to argue that logical, reasonable atheism requires such extensive knowledge that an atheist would have to actually be God in order to deny God. [Read more]

The Child As Viper: How Voddie Baucham’s Theology of Children Promotes Abuse

The Pastor of Preaching at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas and founder of Voddie Baucham Ministries, he is a prolific writer as well as a skilled public speaker. [Read more]

Locals Echo Surveys That Find Steady Growth Among the Religiously Unaffiliated

Large-scale national studies in recent years, including a major new one, have shown sizable increases in the numbers of religiously unaffiliated Americans. [Read more]

Creationism: Living and Learning

At its heart, Creationism is a fight over how people can know what is true and what is not–in the form of a concerted effort on the part of religious zealots to maintain their privilege and dominance over those outside the group. [Read more]

Nearly 20 Percent Of Americans Think Religion Should Not Be The Subject Of Satire

In a survey of 1,000 adults conducted Jan. 7-9 by the Huffington Post/YouGov, 63 percent of respondents said protecting free speech is more important than safe guarding the “dignity of sincerely held religious beliefs.” [Read more]

FFRF Awards Charlie Hebdo $20,000 As True ‘Atheists in Foxholes’

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is bestowing $20,000 USD to the Parisian magazine Charlie Hebdo “in a show of admiration and solidarity from your atheist and freethinking brothers and sisters across the Atlantic.” [Read more]

When Blasphemy Goes Viral

The ‘Charlie Hebdo’ massacre marks the dawn of a digital age of irreverence and retaliation. [Read more]

Raising Children Without Religion

Yes, there are “godless” children who have turned out just fine, but many whom I’ve encountered seem to be quite narcissistic and self-absorbed. [Read more]

Religion, Politics, and War

Religion has been at the core of major blood-lettings since the Cold War gave way to the collapse of the Soviet Union. [Read more]

Killing in the Name of God and Religion Must Stop

Is there room for a tolerance of humor, a humor that borders on ridicule in any of the world’s storied religions – including Hinduism and Judaism? [Read more]

Atheist Parents Take on Christian ‘Good News Club’ with ‘Better News Club’

A group of atheists in Rochester, N.Y., has bad news for the Good News Club, a Christian after-school club for children. [Read more]

What If God Doesn’t Want It? Ala. Town Declares Itself Property of the Almighty

Officials in the town of Winfield, Ala., passed an interesting resolution last month: They declared that God owns their community. [Read more]

Privileging Religion and Christianity in the Media

Unfortunately, killing religious privileges has proven especially difficult — possibly more difficult than killing many other forms of unjust privilege. [Read more]

Finally—a BBC Show That Doesn’t Whitewash Islam

This superb video, “The Battle for British Islam,” is a recent BBC Panorama documentary narrated and moderated by John Ware.

[Read more]