Innumeracy: A Fault to Fix

Innumeracy is more of a threat than scientific illiteracy. And I want to illustrate this today. A Problem Atheists Should Care About Ordinary literacy is not so much a problem online, since participation on the internet requires basic literacy—although of...

Is Attacking Rape Apologetics Rape Apologetics?

It’s strange to see even atheists convert hyperbole into fact in the span of just hours or days. That’s supposed to be what religious people do. When I wrote an article attacking rape apologetics in the discussion of the allegations against Michael...

Michael Shermer: Rapist or Sleaze? (Unless Box Checked for Other)

Presumably you’re aware by now that accusations have been made that Michael Shermer did something bad (if not, you can catch up on current events here). There are some things atheists need to consider about this, philosophically and personally.  The Quality of...

A Disturbing New York Law (and What CFI Could Do about It)

In my last article about CFI’s disastrous communications in the recent sexual harassment case, I said there was a second thing about this case that disturbed me that I would write about next: something about the legal and corporate culture at CFI. I hinted at...

How to Do Men's Rights Rightly

Ever wonder why MRAs promote hatred or hostility toward women when they actually could be doing at least something worthwhile instead? I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this in the last few days (perhaps because of speculations that MRA affiliation had...

That Christian Nation Nonsense (Gods Bless Our Pagan Nation)

This is a transcript of my speech at this year’s convention for the National Atheist Party (minus spontaneous asides and ad-libs). Though this was an oratorical adaptation and rearrangement of my previous work online (Christianity Was Not Responsible for American...

And Then All Hell Breaks Loose…

So, I go off to the Atheist Film Festival for the weekend and come back to find out the Thunderf00t scandal broke, David Barton was publicly exposed and disgraced, and Romney deliberately tanks his campaign by picking a social conservative as veep. Christo santo! I...

Sexy Sex Sex!! (for Cash on the Barrel!)

A debate is flourishing over the morality of pornography and prostitution, and it illustrates some principles of political and moral philosophy that I think are important to disseminate more widely than just among the privileged West, and illustrates how easily the...

Why The Week Rocks

I hate magazines and never read them. Except all the magazines that I read. I say that only because the magazines I read would be considered (by many avid magazine readers) as weird. This includes trade mags that most of you would find terribly dull but that keep me...

PIPA, SOPA, NOPA!

If you are wondering what all the worldwide hubbub is over Congress’s attempt to fast-track the latest anti-piracy legislation (SOPA and PIPA) without much public scrutiny (you may be wondering, since Google has blacked out it’s logo in protest, and...

Obama the Ominous Tyrant (or Not)

Did Obama sign a law granting the Presidency power to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial? No, he did not. This is yet another manufactured story from the irrational left, which simply ignores the actual facts, like so many a Tea Partier would. I have...

Sic Semper Regulationes

There’s often a lot of hostility toward “government regulations.” I’m going to muse on that today, with a long general contemplation on the whole nature of this fashionable outrage. It comes in all varieties. There are people who think laws are...