The New York Times is reporting that the evolutionary biology major has been dropped from the U.S. Department of Education’s list of eligible majors for educational grants. So if you’re a low-income student applying for a Pell or other federal grant and you want to study evolutionary biology, the feds won’t pay for it. When … Evolutionary Biology Major Dropped From DOE Approved List

Continuing on the theme of Christianity and giving away wealth, the Associated Press notes that religious fraud is on the increase: Billions of dollars has been stolen in religion-related fraud in recent years, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state officials who work to protect investors. Between 1984 and 1989, … Religious fraud increasing

Jesus famously said: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24) In the previous post with the video about selling everything a reader interpreted this to mean that the “rich man can enter heaven (with … The Needle’s Eye

A little bit of entertainment from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r-kIBARMpM

In December 2005, Judge Jones struck a blow against the Intelligent Design (ID) movement in Dover, PA (Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District). Perhaps just as important as the decision itself was the public reaction to it at the polling booth. Locals in Dover overwhelming “threw out the bums” and voted in moderate … Kansas Course Correction

There’s a great article in today’s New York Times entitled “Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock,” (Jul 30, A1, A21). It tells how Rev. Gregory A. Boyd of the Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently gave a series of sermons that essentially argued against coupling politics and religion. Or more specifically, the … Reverend Questions Church and State Entanglement

An iPod is a wonderful thing for long car trips. So this past week I listened to a podcast of a debate on the Infidel Guy radio show. It was an hour and a half long and often exasperating, so I wouldn’t have sat through it otherwise. The debate was between FFRF‘s Dan Barker and … Presuppositionalists

P.Z. Myers at Pharyngula points out Godchecker’s “Your Guide to the Gods,” a searchable database of over 2,850 gods. You can search by pantheon (African, Australian, Aztec, Caribbean, Celtic, Chinese, Egyptian, Finnish, Greek, Incan, Japanese, Mayan, Mesopotamian, Middle Eastern, Native American, Norse, Oceanic, Roman, Slavic and Baltic, South American, and Southeast Asian), look at the … A catalog of gods

Secularists have long hoped that modernization would work against religion, or at least the more mindless varieties of religion. As we did better in fulfilling human needs, there would be less that religious belief would compensate for. In modern societies with multiple overlapping social roles and fragmented identities, religions as complete ways of life would … Modern religion

Just in case anyone is interested and can make it: I’m going to be speaking in the Summer Institute of the Jefferson Center for Religion and Philosophy in Ashland, Oregon, on August 5. They have an good lineup of speakers, including Matt Young, who should also be of interest to Secular Outpost readers. The Jefferson … Talk in Oregon