For the first time since I’d entered the ministry, I settled in my mind that the spiritual fix I sought in order to return to preaching was unlikely to be found. I was going to have to live my life without a spiritual resolution. I needed to face the cold fact that I would not be back behind the pulpit anytime soon. Preaching at a somewhat traditional Pentecostal church was going to be impossible and I’d even been unable to make the liberal Pentecostalism of Grace of DeQuincy or First Community work for me. But I could not completely let go of the ministry: I had been ministering for nearly twenty-five years and from the very beginning it was not a career but a mission. Perhaps, I reasoned to myself then, I’ll find a mentor in the church and quietly work under him—or maybe I’ll pastor to the faithful individually. But as the spring of 2011 began, I had to push my spiritual crisis even further back into my mind. I was just emerging from the training period with Ronnie, which meant that I’d soon assume real responsibilities at BIG. The promotion would be a big boost to Kelli and me financially as we were just beginning to rebuild from the near financial collapse of my Village Profile period. With a happy, contented wife and a boss who treated me as both a business partner and a brother, life was good again. I couldn’t allow my questions of faith to consume me.

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"But people need religion for community! For social support! People get so much from religion—counseling, emotional help during hard times, financial help during hard times, rituals and rites of passage, day care, even job networking. Why do atheists want to take that away?"

There are a lot of arguments people make for religion. But this one gets atheists' attention. Not because it's a good argument for religion—it's not. People don't need religion to help each other out, or even to form organized groups to help each other out. We form communities and support networks around all sorts of ideas and identities: philosophies, political views, sexual orientations, gender identities or lack thereof, hobbies, geographical accidents, food preferences, and much, much more. And the communities people build around religion are hardly evidence that God exists... any more than Dickens re-creation societies are evidence that Oliver Twist exists.

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Doughty, who has lived in the U.S. for more than thirty years, had wanted to become a naturalized citizen, but objected to the required pledge to bear arms in defense of the country. She explained, "I deeply and sincerely believe that it is not moral or ethical to take another person’s life, and my lifelong spiritual/religious beliefs impose on me a duty of conscience not to contribute to warfare by taking up arms… my beliefs are as strong and deeply held as those who possess traditional religious beliefs and who believe in God."

Maybe it was the mention of deeply held beliefs that tripped up Immigration. Conveniently ignoring the whole part of her explanation where she implied she doesn't have "traditional religious beliefs," it then demanded Doughty provide documentation to support her status as a conscientious objector "on official church stationery, attesting to the fact that [she is] a member in good standing and the church's official position on the bearing of arms."

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The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Central Florida Freethought Community had a perfectly valid point recently when they challenged the distribution of Bibles in the local high schools. Earlier this year,  a Collier County judge ruled in favor of "passive" dissemination of the Bibles, allowing them to be laid out on tables for the taking. That's a clearly stupid move; one that suggests the judge has zero grasp on the term "separation of church and state." One does not leave Bibles willy-nilly around schools, any more than one leads a Christian prayer session in school -- another battle the Freedom From Religion Foundation recently fought and won. (The victory was somewhat mitigated by a local valedictorian's defiant recitation of the Lord's Prayer during graduation anyway.)

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For centuries, a dominant majority of Western philosophers and intellectuals have asserted that humans are the “rational animal.” Our ability to reason, so the logic goes, is the one thing separating us from the plethora of other animals on the planet. Instinct, passion, and emotion, traditionally assigned to the animal side of life, often meant that being “good”—being the sort of human who behaves morally—required a removal of the animal or “beastly” nature that resides somewhere deep within our fleshy bodies.

In recent decades, however, this fragile logic has been falling apart. It’s become increasingly clear that while our digital technologies behave quite rationally, they are often deeply cruel. And on the other side of the ledger, the accumulation of data on animal behavior makes it more and more difficult to support the claim that “goodness” is something that only humans exhibit.

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He knows the interview was a setup because he is an expert who has been doing this "long enough to know that [the exchange]... wasn't natural" and just has really good journalistic instincts in general, OK?

h/t Right Wing Watch

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In a message delivered Wednesday via Vatican Radio, the new pontiff distinguished himself with a call for tolerance and a message of support – and even admiration – toward nonbelievers.

Naturally, a guy whose job it is to lead the world's largest Christian faith is still going to come at his flock with a Jesus-centric message. But he's taking it in an encouraging new direction. In his message, Francis dissed the apostles for being "a little intolerant" and said, "All of us have this commandment at heart: Do good and do not do evil. All of us. 'But, Father, this is not (a) Catholic! He cannot do good.' Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must."

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Speaking live to a survivor of the deadly tornado in Moore, Okla., Blitzer declared the woman "blessed," her husband "blessed," and her son "blessed." He then asked, "You've gotta thank the Lord, right? Do you thank the Lord for that split-second decision?"

But as she held her 18-month-old son, Rebecca Vitsmun politely replied, "I'm actually an atheist." A flummoxed Blitzer quickly lobbed back, "You are. All right. But you made the right call," and Vitsmun graciously offered him a lifeline. "We are here," she said, "and I don't blame anyone for thanking the Lord." Nicely done, Rebecca Vitsmun.

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In a validation of stupidity not seen since, well, NBC's entire lineup, two institutions that have gone viral for their idiocy are now reaping the benefits of attention.

First, there's there Amy's Baking Co. in Scottsdale, Ariz., an establishment that became instantly notorious after owners Amy and Samy Bouzaglo were unflatteringly featured on Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" – and went on a hilariously bonkers social media rampage. As the Phoenix Business Journal reported on Wednesday, the restaurant this week has become "a tourist attraction as cars slowly drove by to ogle, take photos and try to eat at the bakery and bistro."

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Distracted by the weather, perhaps, or by the sight of so many young things lining up for Sunday worship, a passing car rear-ended the vehicle ahead. The crowd groaned and jeered. “Don’t worry,” a young woman called out, between tender sips of Red Bull. “You’ve got, like, a hundred witnesses!” The crowd laughed and turned inwards, leaving two piqued drivers to the earthly task of exchanging insurance information.

Soon enough, the doors opened and we shuffled inside. Near the entrance to the foyer, several church ladies had set a table with biscuits and a few iced cakes.

At our final destination, the sanctuary, we were greeted by bare walls and dull paint; presumably, everything of grandeur had been stripped away when the church was rendered unsacred. (The Nave, on St. Paul’s Road, is now an “arts and performance space.”) Almost instantly, the rows of plastic chairs arranged before the altar were filled, and congregants began competing for floor space. A screen above their heads displayed the words “Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More.” And then, our high priest arrived.

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“The results imply that atheists’ attitudes toward God are ambivalent, in that their explicit beliefs conflict with their affective response,” concludes a research team led by University of Helsinki psychologist Marjaana Lindeman. Its study is published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion.

Lindeman and her colleagues describe two small-scale experiments. The first featured 17 Finns, recruited online, who expressed high levels of belief, or disbelief, in God. They read out loud a series of statements while skin conductance data was collected via electrodes placed on two of their fingers.

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It appears, however, that some of those believers are stupider than others. At least according to a recent series of tweets by Dawkins, who served up a hostile helping of snark this week aimed at followers of the Muslim faith. It’s a group that has come to occupy a special place in his line of fire -- and in the minds of a growing club of no-God naysayers who have fast rebranded atheism into a popular, cerebral and more bellicose version of its former self.

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One quiet Sunday morning, I stroll down the driveway of my home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, to pick up the newspaper. As I arrive at the bottom—we live on a hill—a Cadillac drives up the street and stops right before me. A big man in a suit steps out, sticking out his hand. A firm handshake follows, during which I hear him proclaim in a booming, almost happy voice, “I’m looking for lost souls!” Apart from perhaps being overly trusting, I am rather slow and had no idea what he was talking about. I turned around to look behind me, thinking that perhaps he had lost his dog, then corrected myself and mumbled something like, “I’m not very religious.”

This was of course a lie, because I am not religious at all. The man, a pastor, was taken aback, probably more by my accent than by my answer. He must have realized that converting a European to his brand of religion was going to be a challenge, so he walked back to his car, but not without handing me a business card in case I’d change my mind. A day that had begun so promisingly now left me feeling like I might go straight to hell.

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I stood on a mountaintop and looked out over the sea. A thousand feet below me, eagles soared on thermals. Wind blew through my hair and I felt dizzy. I fell to my knees and cried. I didn't realize it at the time, but this “white-light” experience was the moment I realized there was no God — I had been struck atheist.

To be accurate and appropriately less dramatic, my atheist conversion was far from immediate. It was a process that began when I got sober about five years earlier.

I finally stopped drinking and drugging at age 30, in the summer of 2004, after about 15 years of relatively high-functioning abuse. I took to 12-step recovery like a fish to water and was especially drawn to Alcoholics Anonymous’ message of a spiritual solution.

I was perfectly comfortable with spirituality. I had been exposed from an early age to a hodge-podge of spiritual ideas by Goldwater Republican parents who had baptized me Episcopalian but referenced Joseph Campbell and the Buddha in casual conversation and sent me to an astrologer in lieu of a child psychologist.

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A group of students who attend the Texas Christian University have created an atheist organization, and they now want official recognition from their school. TheChristian News Network reports that the group is called the “Freethinking Frogs,” a reference to the school mascot.

The group was formed by 32-year-old transfer student Alexis Lohse. She told the Christian news outlet that the organization is for people who are agnostic and secular. She also told The Fort News Weekly that she wanted to form a group to support students who thought outside the Christian box.

University officials say that they have received the application for official recognition, and that a decision will be made soon.

Lohse’s group has about 30 members.

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It’s almost Oscar season, and we all know what that means: a parade of well-dressed, trophy-clutching men and women thanking their friends, family, spouses, and above all, God. As I watch the Academy Awards each year, I’m always left wondering: Aren’t there any atheist celebrities?

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The news this week from Scoutland brings controversy over a proposed end to the ban on gay Americans. But here’s another dirty little secret. The Boy Scouts also officially discriminate against atheists and agnostics. For much of their history, the Girl Scouts did, too, but in 1993, the national organization had the sense to stop this unfair and distinctly un-American practice.

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