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Freethought in the light of the sun
At Netroots Nation last week, I attended a panel on Citizens United, the infamous case in which the Supreme Court tossed aside decades of campaign finance laws and ruled that corporations had the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. This gives them an incalculably ...
SSA Week is ongoing, as atheist bloggers come together to raise money for the Secular Student Alliance. At the time this post was published, they've collectively raised $65,000 out of a goal of $100,000, a gain of more than $5,000 since yesterday. Awesome! Yesterday's ongoing blogathon had ...
SSA Week is ongoing, as atheist bloggers come together to raise money for the Secular Student Alliance. At the time this post was published, they've collectively raised $59,680 out of a goal of $100,000. Keep it up! For Sunday's blogathon, we had four participants. Here are my picks: First ...
I'm still sorting through all my thoughts and impressions from the Netroots Nation conference this past week. But there's one image that's stayed with me vividly, which was a slide in a talk given by the progressive House candidate Darcy Burner. This is a chart of voter turnout in Burner's home ...
I'm back! Apologies for the radio silence these past few days - as I mentioned earlier, I was in Providence, Rhode Island attending Netroots Nation, an annual convention of liberal bloggers and political activists. I've had a jam-packed three days of panels, forums, and afterparties, all of ...
I'm a bit busy this week, since I'm at Netroots Nation until Sunday. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the major fundraising drive that's just kicked off: the Secular Student Alliance's SSA Week, which is taking place from June 6th to 16th. Yes, I realize that's more than a week, but our ...
Most of us, especially if we follow the principles of critical thinking, go through life slowly building up a patina of evidence supporting the beliefs that matter to us. Under normal circumstances, the more that our experiences confirm the truth of a proposition, the more confidence we place in it ...
Ever since I moved to Big Think last October, the changes are coming faster and faster. And now, the next big one is right around the corner! Following in the footsteps of that astute master of political strategy, Newt Gingrich, I'm writing this post to announce that I'll soon make an ...
I've long argued that there's a natural alliance between atheism and feminism, for the same reason that there's a natural alliance between atheism and GLBT activism: because we all understand what it's like to experience oppression and discrimination rooted in religion, and we ought to grasp that ...
One more announcement for the weekend: This coming week, I'll be in Providence, Rhode Island, attending Netroots Nation 2012 from June 7 to 10. If you're also going and would like to arrange a meetup, leave a comment or send me an e-mail and we'll work out a time and a place. I'm going to a whole ...
There are a couple of stories from this past week that I wanted to mention: • A three-judge panel on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, two of whom are Republican appointees, have struck down part of DOMA, ruling that it violates the Constitution for the federal government to deny benefits to ...
The atheist community is abuzz over a discussion at last month's Women in Secularism conference, in which it inadvertently emerged that there are prominent speakers who have a reputation for predatory behavior and whom atheist women informally warn each other to avoid. This revelation (as well as a ...
Help the secular community out! Two fellow bloggers have requests that some of you fine people may be able to fulfill: • Greta Christina is writing a new book about coming out of the closet, and she's collecting stories about how you told other people that you were an atheist. If you've got one ...
I've been thinking in speculative directions lately, and nothing is more speculative than the question of whether we'll one day be able to extend the human lifespan. The notion of living longer is certainly pleasant to contemplate personally, but I'm not convinced it would be positive for humanity ...
This article was previously published on AlterNet. For the vast majority of human history, the only form of government was the few ruling over the many. As human societies became settled and stratified, tribal chiefs and conquering warlords rose to become kings, pharaohs, and emperors, all ...