Now I have science justifying my prejudices:

Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified…

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I'm afraid my IM discussions with my Christian coworker have gone about as far as they're likely to go. Last night, the Christian started making liberal use of entirely capitalized sentences and then turned openly conceited. It seems he's reached the end of his patience.



One of our primary points of contention, and the one we always came back to was whether or not thoughts arise from purely physical processes. I know little about neuroscience, so it was a difficult subject for me to… Continue

I was having lunch today with a bunch of my coworkers, and the topic drifted into the subject of religion (I promise, I didn't do it). The group consisted of three agnostics (including myself), a Catholic, a liberal Christian, and my boss, who is a Mormon.



Overall, the discussion was a refreshing, open exchange of ideas. No one was out to hurt anyone else's feelings, and everybody kept it respectful. However, I found one moment particularly eye-opening when we entered the subject of… Continue

A couple days ago I came across the following question on Yahoo! Answers. Bethany wrote:

My 17 year old son has been very secretive with me lately, recently he has started to refuse to go to church with the family and tonight when I was going through his room I found a magazine with naked men in it. He obviously has a girlfriend that he is hiding from me that brought that magazine into my home…

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From time to time, you may hear certain far right elected officials (Michelle Bachmann, for instance) warn about the coming "New World Order". It's been a common conspiracy theory amongst conservative Christians since the 1990s, and it's become an essential component of the popular end times theology that many Christians draw from a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations. In short, NWO conspiracy theorists… Continue

So apparently one of my coworkers has made it his personal goal to convert me to Christianity. Now to give you an idea, this Christian's entire life revolves around his faith, and he's very much what you'd think of when you picture the home-schooled Christian whose only social interaction comes with those at his church. However, he's a very nice man, and always extremely respectful, so it really didn't bother me at all. Plus, I love sharing my thoughts, especially when it's an opportunity to… Continue

Today, PZ Myers posted a point by point rebuttal to a recent piece on Ken Ham's blog. If you don't know who he is, Ken Ham is the fundamental Christian who founded Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum in Kentucky, both of which insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible.



Anyway, Ham's… Continue

Of course, there can't be a natural disaster anywhere without Pat Robertson making up reasons why it's punishment from God. Here's what he said this morning on The 700 Club:

And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heal of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the…

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Paleontologists recently described a fossilized trackway discovered in Poland that dates to 395 million years ago.



What's cool about it is that paleontologists previously believed tetrapods evolved around 370 million years ago based on finds such as the… Continue

I can’t begin to describe how tired I am at of seeing the label “militant atheist”. This meme has made the rounds ever since the surge in vocal atheism started a few years ago (maybe the meme has been around longer, but I never noticed it beforehand). But are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, PZ Myers, Christopher Hitchens, et cetera really militant?



Sure, all the above mentioned atheists and many others, including myself, feel that humanity would be better off without religion, and we… Continue