An interesting observation I ran across in an interview with a Turkish journalist: Apparently, many women drivers in Turkey have begun to keep a headscarf in the car. This is just in case they run into a police checkpoint (usually for traffic purposes). In Turkey today, the police are notoriously a stronghold of religious conservatism. … Headscarves to placate the police

I recently read Bruce Sheiman’s An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity Is Better Off with Religion than without it. It’s a bit disappointing, so I won’t write a long review. The thesis of the book is interesting enough: that organized religion and supernatural belief has significant social and personal benefits, and that even those who … An Atheist Defends Religion

I spend a good part of each week in the classroom trying to teach college students some physics. I’ve done a lot of work on supernatural and paranormal beliefs, particularly varieties of creationism and intelligent design. So I’m professionally obligated to deplore any inroads creationism makes into education, and to insist that evolution is a … Evolution as a liberal cultural weapon

Standard accounts of secularization emphasize how social changes that led to the modern world undermine organized religion. Few people actively wanted religion to become a more private affair – secularization has always proceeded against a background of shirt-rending about the erosion of public morality. And few were affected by intellectual critiques of religion. Science, for … Social changes that may undermine nonbelief

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Religionlink.com has just put up “Freethinkers: A source guide to atheists, humanists and other nontheists.” It’s intended as a resource guide for journalists interested in various forms of nonbelief, but it’s useful for other purposes as well. It’s worth a quick look. Your name Your email Subject Your message (optional)

I’ll be in St Louis on October 22, speaking at a “Skeptics in the Pub” event. It’ll be about Islam and science, particularly Muslim creationism. It should be interesting. Your name Your email Subject Your message (optional)

Ibn Warraq, the well-known critic of Islam and author and editor of books such as Why I Am Not A Muslim, has left the Center for Inquiry to join the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neoconservative Washington DC think tank. [Thanks to David Harding for pointing this out to me.] There is an interesting … Neoconservatism and critics of Islam

Turkey recently had a referendum on constitutional changes, in which the ruling party enjoyed a crushing victory. The Western press, to the extent it paid attention, was preoccupied with questions such as whether this was a victory for democracy, and whether it was a victory for Islamism. The answer to both is yes. Western powers … Another loss for Turkish secularism