Mid-Week Religion and Agnostic Report

Tags

atheists, AU, bibles, books, child abuse, china, christianity, church, churches, conservatives, ebola, education, gay, irs, islamic, israel, lgbt, lies, mark driscoll, martyrs, military, MRFF, pastors, pope, prayer, public, rabbis, same-sex, sexuality, suffering, surrogacy, syria, teen, yazidi, yom kippur

Evangelically Atheist is sponsor and donation-driven. If you’d like to place an image-linked ad, our rates are very affordable. Or if you’d simply like to donate a small amount, any dollar amount helps us keep this site going, especially with the Documents section taking up most of our MB space. To load more free downloadable documents, EA will have to buy more web hosting space. Thank you for considering. 🙂

5 Bizarre Parts of Christianity That Are Going Away Forever

As someone who was once happily immersed in the evangelical Christian lifestyle, who went to church three days a week (while in college), who signed a contract (at age 12) promising never to drink or do drugs or have sex before marriage, who self-censored mainstream secular music for a whole year and still can’t hear “Hotel California” without getting the heebie-jeebies (because of Satanism, duh), my perspective on hardcore fundamentalism comes from a place of love and honest reflection. [Read more]

Megapastor Mark Driscoll’s Books Pulled From Major Christian Store In Wake Of Scandal

The nation’s second largest Christian book retailer has pulled megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll’s books from its website and 186 stores. [Read more]

My Christian Apartment Complex Allowed Me and My Partner to Move In—As Long As We Didn’t Have Sex

Late last spring, with the move to Atlanta for graduate school quickly approaching, my partner and I were on the hunt for an apartment. [Read more]

The Insane Lie About Slavery That Christian Conservatives Are Spreading

The fanatical right in the US has a problem on its hands and that problem is American history. History tells a tale that does not fit the narrative of the Tea Party and libertarian version of American’s founding and history. [Read more]

Fundamentalist Christian Leader Blames Me for Air Force Academy Rape Epidemic

As founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a civil rights organization founded in 2005 to combat unconstitutional proselytizing in the U.S. Armed Forces, I don’t shock easily. [Read more]

Cops: Mom Says “Devil Made Me” Toss Baby Down Hillside in Wash.

A woman accused of throwing her 1-year-old down a 50-foot embankment in Washington is claiming the devil made her do it, reports CBS affiliate KREM. The baby survived the fall. [Read more]

Even Atheists Have Sacred Cows

It seems that one of the great American holies is celebrity culture: don’t you dare say anything that comes across as callous about a beloved comedian. [Read more]

Ohio Strippers Take Topless Protest to Church That Harassed Them as ‘Whores, Tramps’ for Nine Years

A group of topless dancers in Ohio on Sunday turned the tables on a fundamentalist church that has picketed their club for almost nine years. [Read more]

Suffering: Is the Evangelical God in Control of Everything?

Even the Calvinist  must go to great lengths to explain why God is in control of everything,yet not culpable for sin, violence, and death. [Read more]

Mark Driscoll Says What Many Preachers Believe but Would Never Say

I have no respect for Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. He is a misogynistic, homophobic, Calvinistic, knuckle dragging Neanderthal who has spent the last year of so embroiled in one scandal after another. [Read more]

Pope Could Seek to Fix Church’s Troubled Relationship With China

Fraught Relations With Beijing Overshadow the Vatican’s Aspirations in Asia. [Read more]

Is Empathy the Same in Humans and Apes?

Whether or not humans are the only empathic beings is still under debate. In a new study, researchers directly compared the ‘yawn contagion’ effect between humans and bonobos (our closest evolutionary cousins). [Read more]

Evangelical Leaders Will Travel to Israel to Signal Their Support

Several high-profile evangelical leaders will travel to Israel next week as a part of the “Christians in Solidarity with Israel” trip put together by the National Religious Broadcasters in response to the most recent conflict in Gaza. [Read more]

Bibles Booted from U.S. Navy Base Guest Rooms

The U.S. Navy will no longer allow Bibles and other religious materials in the guest rooms of Navy lodges, a decision that has infuriated some conservative groups, which recently learned about the new policy. [Read more]

Martyrs and Peace with Pyongyang Top Pope’s Agenda

Pope Francis’ five-day visit to South Korea will be the first time in a quarter-century that a pope has been on the divided Korean peninsula. [Read more]

Syria Crisis: Islamic State Fighters Seize Aleppo Towns

Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria have taken control of several towns in the northern province of Aleppo, according to reports from activists. [Read more]

Who Are the Yazidi People, and What Are Their Beliefs?

Although Yazidis are often regarded as Kurds, they form a religious and ethnic minority with unique beliefs and practices misunderstood by their neighbours, leading to their persecution and demonisation as “devil-worshippers”. [Read more]

Ex-Mars Hill Board Member: Church’s Oversight Doesn’t Work

“Distant, external accountability” at a mega-church doesn’t work, in the words of a statement posted Tuesday by a prominent preacher who quit earlier this summer as a member of the Board of Advisors and Accountability at Mars Hill Church. [Read more]

Rabbis, Ministers Join Movers on Skokie Picket Line

Rabbis and ministers walked the picket line Tuesday in Skokie in support of striking workers who say they are being denied a fair wage and fair treatment by Golan’s Moving and Storage. [Read more]

Christian Group Demands Release of Secret Deal IRS Made With Atheists That Threatens to Censor Houses of Worship

The Faith & Freedom Coalition demanded Monday the release of a secret legal agreement between the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice and atheist organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation charging that it is likely to censor churches by “potentially infringing upon their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association”. [Read more]

In Theory: Should the U.N. Recognize Yom Kippur?

Although over the years the relationship between Israel and the United Nations has been somewhat rocky due to the Palestinian issue, 32 nations, including the United States, in late July sent a letter to a U.N. committee asking that the body recognize Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur, as an official holiday. [Read more]

New Front In Fight Against Same Sex Marriage? U.S. Evangelical Leaders Turn To Latin America

Evangelical leaders from the United States are looking to Latin America as the next battleground in the war against same-sex partnerships and abortion. [Read more]

Prayer Shouldn’t Be in Public Education

The Rev. David G. Humphrey tries to warn us that our free speech is endangered because a religious ritual for a school’s ceremonies was eliminated. [Read more]

LGBT Americans Are Less Religious Than Non-LGBT Americans, But Not Across The Board: Report

LGBT adults in the U.S. are considerably more likely to identify as non-religious than their non-LGBT counterparts, Gallup found in an August 2014 survey. [Read more]

‘Family Values’ Means Very Different Things for Men and Women in the Christian Right Hierarchy

One of the great self-justifying myths of the conservatives is that their support for traditional gender roles is not rooted in misogyny, but in “family values.” [Read more]

Is Ebola a Curse from God? Some African Christian Leaders Think So

As Western nations evacuate their citizens from West Africa’s growing Ebola outbreak, some Christian leaders have begun to speak of the virus as a curse from God. [Read more]

Americans United, Allies Ask Federal Court To Strike Down Wisconsin’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban

Americans United for Separation of Church and State and its allies have asked a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court’s ruling that struck down Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage ban. [Read more]

The Surrogacy Debate Is About to Break the Christian Right Wide Open

Surrogacy has always seemed to me to be perfectly compatible with conservative values. It involves a carefully planned pregnancy designed to deliver a baby to two loving parents. [Read more]

Doctor Jaspreet Singh Batra, Victim Of Another Alleged Sikh Hate Crime, Urges Message Of Forgiveness

Doctor Jaspreet Singh Batra came forward on Monday as the victim of an alleged Sikh hate crime that took place in New York City less than two weeks after another Sikh man was reportedly dragged from a pickup truck in Queens. [Read more]

Raising a Gay Teen: When Faith, Family and Sexuality Collide

Dawn Bennett thought she knew herself. Wife. Mother of three. Devout Christian. She thought she knew her daughter. Guitarist. Softball player. Girl of unfaltering faith. She didn’t really know either. Raising a gay child has taught her that. [Read more]