One interesting thing about conservative Christianity in the US is the parallel social and cultural reality it has been able to sustain. There are Christian books, music acts, movies — a whole cultural world Christians try to keep pure of contamination by a corrupt secular environment. There are directories of Christian businesses for those who … A Parallel “Reality”

Evangelical Christian “Arkeologists” have again claimed to have discovered Noah’s Ark, this time in Iran. On a recent (second) trip to the site, the explorers included “some of America’s leading businessmen, an attorney who has argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and two leading apologists,” including Josh McDowell. The main explorer is “international … Noah’s Ark, discovered yet again

Quite a few creationists, conservatives, and religious-right-types appear to be enthusiastic about Ann Coulter’s latest rant, Godless. So I stopped by at a bookstore and hastily read about half of it. (I’m not buying the thing. Being a bibliomaniac, I spend enough on books that I don’t feel guilty stting down in Borders occasionally and … “Godless”

Francis Collins, director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, is known to be a fairly traditional sort of religious believer. Apparently he’s been working on a book to make the case for God, which will appear in the fall. If this news story is any indication, though, the book is going to be … Collins defends God

I’ve run across a couple of interesting articles in right-wing journals. First there’s “Darwin’s Divisions,” by Martin Hilbert, in this month’s Touchstone. It comes out against Darwinian (naturalistic) evolution, though it accepts common descent; it has strong intelligent design sympathies. Though Hilbert is a bit clueless about the science, and clearly has no concept of … Catholics on evolution; Left-wing bible-thumping

I’m more interested in criticizing supernatural fact claims than in social and ethical opposition to religion. Still, as your basic secular humanist-type, I’d like to keep religion out of my life as much as possible. These are times of resurgent fundamentalisms all over the world, where religion is very political. So I try and follow … Islam and the political Left

Yesterday’s Guardian (UK) had a short piece on a talk by Martin Rees, head of the Royal Society, and part of it was: In an apparent swipe at colleagues such as Richard Dawkins and Lewis Wolpert who have launched blistering attacks on religion, Lord Rees said he felt it was “not helpful” to cast religion … Practising, but non-believing Christian?

My curiosity got the better of me and I went to see the Da Vinci Code last night. I hadn’t planned to go because the critics have been near universal in saying how horrible they thought it was. I’m glad I didn’t listen to them. It was a fantastic movie. Sure it was standard Hollywood … Da Vinci Code

It has been tradition at Russell County High School in Kentucky for graduating seniors to elect a “graduation chaplain” who delivers a Christian prayer at the graduation ceremony. This year, a Muslim student filed a lawsuit and a judge issued an injunction to prevent it. As the principal began his opening remarks, 200 students stood … Russell County High School students demonstrate their faith

The freakometer reached category 6 with the announcement on Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) that Pat Robertson can leg-press 2,000 pounds. The site claims that Robertson’s superhuman strength in “keeping his energy high and his vitality soaring is his age-defying protein shake.” The recipe for this magical potion is available for download on the site. Has … Pat “Superman” Robertson