Brink Lindsey has an interesting post at his blog about the increasing numbers of nonreligious people globally over the last five decades, and speculation about why the U.S. remains so religious. He suggests that it’s not the separation of church and state (with Australia and New Zealand as counter-examples to the U.S.), but ethnic heterogeneity … Global trends towards secularization

There is a lot of prejudice toward religious nonbelievers in many parts of the United States; indeed, throughout much of the world. We’re not trusted. One of the first questions we face is whether we can be moral — after all, even if perchance we might behave decently, what possible basis can we have for … Nonbelief and mainstream values

Apparently there was an atheism vs. God debate between Chris Hedges and Christopher Hitchens last week. Hedges took a liberal Christian view, while Hitchens took the crusading Islamophobic atheist position. It doesn’t sound like it was all that illuminating, however. Perhaps it’s selective reporting that reduces participants to stereotypes. Nevertheless, in the story, Hedges and … Hedges vs. Hitchens

LINK

I received the unfortunate news this morning that Clark Adams has died, and that he took his own life. Clark was a long-time board member of the Internet Infidels (and for many years its public relations director) and a frequent speaker and attendee at atheist, freethought, humanist, and skeptical events. He was a jovial, funny … Clark Adams, RIP

Some years ago I became interested in criticizing the latest mutation of creationism, intelligent design. In 2004, this culminated in the publication of Why Intelligent Design Fails, one of the leading books critical of ID, which I co-edited with Matt Young. Lately I’ve eased off on ID, because I decided that I had said what … Where does this confidence come from?

Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer at Iowa State University who is best known as an Intelligent Design proponent, has just been denied tenure. So far it seems unclear what role ID played in this denial, though it’s a real possibility since Gonzalez has been active and reasonably productive in mainstream astronomical research. In the fall of … ID proponent denied tenure

Among those who care, it should be reasonably well-known by now that secularism is in deep trouble within the Muslim world. The Muslim experience with secularism has typically followed what I have called “military secularism,” where reforming constituencies such as military elites have pushed Westernization in order to force their societies to catch up to … Secularism vs. Democracy

Another podcast about An Illusion of Harmony; this time associated with The Scientist.

I’m not sure what to make of this blog post over at TPM. Neoconservative writer Christopher Hitchens says that White House political advisor Karl Rove is an atheist. Hitchens (an atheist himself) told the New Yorker that Rove “is not a believer, and he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers … Karl Rove an Atheist?