I’ve seen my share of ridiculous church signs but we have to create a new dumbass award for whoever came up with this one I found on reddit. The person who posted the picture says the area code is 716, in case you’d like to call in and answer their question. I wonder if there are any prizes to be won!

If Evolution is true, why help the poor?

Here’s a short interview with a delightfully endearing Bertrand Russell – the atheist philosopher who came up with the famous Russell’s Teapot argument that inspired our Russell’s Teapot t-shirt. What a brilliant and insightful old man! Enjoy!

One Nation Under God

Now this hilarious Pledge of Allegiance cartoon gives an interpretation of “One Nation under God” that I can agree with! Just think of how religion, and ergo ‘God’, tend to get in the way and screw up everything, from the rights of gay people to be together and live like the rest of us to our understanding of science and the world around us. You see what I mean?

If there’s any praying types out there reading this, could you kindly ask God to get off our backs for a millennium or two? Thanks!

When I was a Catholic, I started to evaluate the evidence, or rather, the lack of evidence, for God. This is what led me to my disbelief. It wasn’t an easy road and now I have to say that I am having another rethink about God. But hey! Having an open mind is all about being able to change your mind, isn’t it?

I have watched the video below several times now and I am totally dumbfounded. A fellow atheist has found conclusive, hard scientific evidence for God, and it really does hold up! He also devised some simple tests you can try at home to show God definitely exists. Of all people an atheist! Needless to say, he’s an ex-atheist now.

I have always said that if anyone offered me strong, convincing evidence for God, then I would turn around on a dime and believe. I never thought it would happen – ever! But it looks like that day has come. I honestly never thought I’d become convinced once again of God’s existence in under three minutes. Watch the video below with an open mind and judge for yourself!

Ammonite in the marble floor of the Cathedral of Antequera, Spain

Yes, atheists do visit churches, in case you were wondering. Let’s face it, churches can be full of interesting stuff, much like you might expect an ancient Roman or Greek temple to be. And anyway, if you’re traveling around Spain, churches are probably the most numerous of all the monuments you can visit, which makes them rather hard to avoid. As you can see from this photo of the base of a column in the Cathedral of Antequera in Andalusia, there was much more than art on display this time.

This particular ammonite fossil had to make do with a pretty inconspicuous place on the floor, but it still got a lot of attention from parents pointing it out to their kids.

Thankfully, your average Catholic is open minded enough not to believe that the earth is 6000 years old, I thought. Then another thought occurred to me: how funny it would have been had that slab of marble found its way into a Creationist church! Oh sweet, sweet irony!

Long live the First Amendment! The kids in this video sure know how to exercise their rights, and that “One Nation under nobody” during the Pledge of Allegiance sure did put a priceless look on the Mrs Principal’s face!

She can try and play it down to the girl being in kindergarten all she likes, but the fact remains that those two kids will soon be way smarter than she will ever be.

One Nation under nobody! Way to go guys!

Jesus opens the darkness and shines his love at me, by Kevin, aged 9 1/2

Jesus opens the darkness and shines his love at little Kevin, aged 9 1/2 . . .

Yeah right! We know what you’re up to, you naughty Jesus, and we’re gonna tell your Daddy!

Jesus had two dads - why can't I?

Indeed, why not? Why all the anger against homosexuals from the Christian camp?

I mean, come on! You say that Jesus – the same guy who rounded up twelve men who were willing to leave their wives behind to follow him – hates gays?

Read your Bible and you’ll see that the Jesus portrayed in its pages would have empathized with gays in the same way that he did with all other social outcasts, from lepers to prostitutes to tax collectors. So go out and love your neighbors – even the gay ones!

The ossuary of no one in particular

The whole St. Paul’s bones issue has left me wondering. What would it take to convince the Pope Benedict and the Vatican that a number of first century bones were those of Jesus, and that he was not in fact physically resurrected?

If you recall, a few years back, the famous case of the James the brother of Jesus ossuary was debunked as a forgery, and for very good reason.

Now imagine that archaeologists actually find an ossuary and authenticate an inscription that says it contains the bones of Jesus himself. Imagine this inscription is conclusively shown to have been made by first century Gnostics, who believed that Jesus was not resurrected. Surely an authenticated inscription is a level above the two millennia of oral tradition that have been used to argue the case for the St. Paul bones, and just because the Gnostics did not benefit from a friendly Roman Emperor to help them spread and grow like the Catholics did, it does not automatically make their beliefs any less valid. Imagine also that the bones in the ossuary are dated and found to exactly match the time of Jesus’ death with any margin of error being well within the limits (unlike the St. Paul case).

Would this be enough evidence to convince Pope Benedict XVI and Christians in general that Jesus was not bodily resurrected into Heaven like they believe? Will the Pope hang up his pointy hat and announce that the central belief of Christianity – salvation through the resurrection of Jesus – has been disproven?

I guess not! So what kind of scientific evidence and how much of it would it take to convince them that Jesus died and stayed dead?

Comments please!

"The thigh bone connected to the back bone, The back bone connected to the neck bone, The neck bone connected to the head bone, Oh, hear the word of the Lord!"

Suddenly, Pope Benedict XVI seems to be thinking that science is his best friend.

Actually, the Pope has just shown the world that he has no idea how science works. And apparently, he even lacks a grasp of basic logic.

You see, the Pope gleefully announced that some old bones in a sarcophagus have been scientifically tested and shown to be those of St Paul, as the Catholic Church has maintained all along.


As Catholic Online reports:

In his homily, broadcast live on Italian television, the Pope told the faithful that the tomb had been “…subject to a scientific investigation. A small hole was drilled in the sarcophagus, unopened for centuries, and a probe was introduced. It found traces of a valuable purple fabric, in linen and gold layer-laminated, and a blue fabric with linen threads. Red incense grains and substances containing proteins and limestone were also discovered. Small fragments of bone were found and radiocarbon dated by experts who did not know their place of origin. Results indicate that they belong to someone who lived between the 1st and 2nd century A.D. This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition according to which these are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul. All this fills our soul with deep emotion.”

What Pope Benedict XVI is actually saying is, “Hey! Check out these old bones that we think belong to St. Paul. We’ve scientifically shown that they could be enough to be St. Paul’s, so, of course, they must be his.”

Of course, experts are skeptical about this claim.

First of all, the bones were dated to the first or second century CE, meaning any time between 1CE and 200 CE. Given that St. Paul is said to have been beheaded around 65CE, there is a greater chance than not that the person those bones belong to died after St. Paul. Secondly, unless St. Paul was the only person alive at the time, how can we be sure that the bones in the sarcophagus are definitely his?

Wishful thinking. That’s how!

Now, you might even think that it’s only reasonable for poor old Pope Benedict to get carried away and fabricate fact where there is none. After all, he has a vested interest in this ‘discovery’ of St. Paul’s bones.  But the mental acrobatics needed to arrive at such a conclusion are astounding, to say the least.

And since when have the Pope and the Vatican rushed to uphold a scientific claim, anyway?