Number of people that now identify as having no religion is over 50% in Britain.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

A survey from the National Centre for Social Research, just released today, finds that a record number of British people have no religious affiliation at all. 53% of people said they didn’t belong to any organized religion, which is up 5% from just a year ago. 

Researchers with the British Social Attitudes survey asked participants, “Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?” If they said yes, they were asked which one. That phrasing makes a difference. If researchers had offered a multiple choice list of religions, with “No religion” as an option, it’s possible many people would have responded with the religion of their youth despite no longer practicing it. But when asked up front if they’re religious, it’s much easier to honestly say no. 

Since 1983, when this survey began, the number has grown pretty steadily with only a few slight dips in between. And the rise of the Nones is commensurate with the decline of the Church of England. 

What is even more exciting is that a full 71% of folks aged 18-24 now identify as non-religious, so the future looks bright indeed.

It is still my firm opinion that religion itself is an outdated and antiquated idea which no longer serves any real purpose except to dumb down the populace and convince them to vote for idiotic things like Donald Trump and Brexit.

My goal is to live long enough to see the majority of the world identify at non-religious before I die.

So what do you think, do I need to live to be a hundred or a hundred and fifty?

20 year old woman wants parents prosecuted for treating the hole in her heart at birth with faith instead of getting her the medical help that she needed.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

Mariah Walton, a 20-year-old woman awaiting a heart and lung transplant, said she thinks her parents and other faith healers should face criminal charges for “treating” her with prayer instead of medicine.

It’s a tale as old as time: girl is born with a small hole in her heart, her parents refuse to get it fixed and instead ask God to oversee her well-being, girl is now permanently disabled due to years of being refused care. The twist, however, is that Walton — unlike many faith healing victims — lived on to call for her parents’ prosecution and to condemn the practice in general. 

“It would have been solved. If I had a surgery when I was one year old, I would have been just fine,” Walton said in an interview with KTVB News. She said she can’t run, misses a lot of school, and gets sick easily because of her weakened immune system.

Instead of getting her the simple medical procedure that she needed Mariah's parents subjected her to "alternative medicines" and faith healing which allowed her condition to worsen until it was life threatening. 

Oddly enough her parents did not "trust" modern medicine, but had no problem trusting that God existed and would heal their child if only they had enough faith.

Fortunate this young woman survived, and now those same parents can pray that they do not end up in jail for condemning their daughter to a lifetime of unnecessary suffering.

Glenn Beck and phony historian David Barton are charging $375 to teach college age students fake American history.

"I guarantee you the professors at college will have the wrong answer."

If ever there were a statement that should send you running and screaming away from this "offer" it is that one.

Here is more courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

We spend our mornings in a classroom-like setting and each afternoon we dig through online resources as well as our unique, original library. We will delve into topics such as:

• A Biblical Worldview 
• The Truth in History 
• America’s Godly Heritage 
• Early Education in America 
• How the Bible Influenced America 
• American Exceptionalism 
• God and the Constitution 
• Reclaiming the Land 

We will research our Founding Fathers, discovering their accomplishments, families, and faith, giving individual presentations at the end of each week. This is a specialized training for 18-25 year old.

We tend to give Glenn Beck a pass sometimes these days because he is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump.

However we need to remember that he is essentially just a shyster selling a damaged bill of goods just like Sarah Palin and even Trump himself.

And only thing that keeps him from being really dangerous is that fewer and fewer people are paying any attention to him.

Ray "Banana Man" Comfort wins award for best science film. Wait, what happened?

So this is apparently an award given to Comfort for his ridiculous attempt to attack Atheism in a film which uses clips of Banana Man confronting scientists and college students with poorly presented "facts" and then carefully editing their responses to make them seem incapable of responding rationally.

Comfort claims to attack Atheism with science, but in fact the simply misrepresents science, refuses to accept correction, and calls that a win.

Here is how The Friendly Atheist responded to news of this "award.":  

The only time “science” appears in the movie is when Comfort asks random people how DNA could have possibly evolved on its own, a rhetorical question that he believes points to the truth of Intelligent Design. It’s not like he explains DNA. He doesn’t add to our scientific understanding of anything, unless you count ignorance as a virtue. 

The Friendly Atheist also points out that "Int'l Christian Film Festival" seems like a fly by night organization, and that there appears to have been no other films competing against "The Atheist Delusion." 

I think it is quite telling that a Christian film festival only gives a "Best Science Film" award to a movie that does nothing but attack scientific knowledge.

Pretty much says it all, don't you think?

Well this seems a little extreme.

Courtesy of the Friendly Atheist:

According to a Facebook post that’s been shared more than 4,700 times as of this writing, at last night’s McKenzie High School (Alabama) football game, the announcer told the crowd that anyone who didn’t stand for the National Anthem should be shot by our military.

In other news the National Anthem protest is spreading all though the NFL.

In fact just today some of the players for the Miami Dolphins knelt in protest during the anthem.

So guess not everybody actually believes it's appropriate to wish death on American citizens who refuse to demonstrate respect for the anthem of a country that still allows institutionalized racism among its law enforcement officials.

Good to know.

Christian workbook gives instruction for how to explain to homeschool students why God would allow a child to be molested.

Courtesy of the Friendly Atheist:  

The folks at Homeschoolers Anonymous recently got their hands on some old workbook pages used at the Institute of Basic Life Principles. That would be the Christian ministry founded by Bill Gothard, a man who resigned as President a couple of years ago after 34 women accused him of sexual harassment. 

In these workbook pages, which are approximately 20 years old but still aligned with the ministry’s current teachings, students are presented with a question: “Why did God let a four year old boy be molested by a fifteen year old neighbor?” 

Besides the odd phrasing that suggests the four-year-old did something to get molested instead of focusing on the teenager who committed the crime, it’s also a really weird way to talk about why God allows bad things to happen…

Well just threw up in my mouth a little. 

As somebody who has dealt with kids who have been sexually abuses and molested I am horrified that ANYBODY would use this to "educate" an impressionable child.

In fact it reads like a manual for how to prepare children to be victimized.

Sarah Palin has her fake daughter defend her on the internet again.

Of course the humorous part is that Bristol did not write a word of the post that Palin links to.

In fact it is most likely that Nancy also wrote this Facebook post linking to her article.

I work in mental health, and that is literally one of the most psychotically convoluted things I have ever seen.

This is a person pretending to be Sarah Palin, linking to an article by the herself pretending to be Sarah Palin's daughter, in defense of the real Sarah Palin. (Assuming of course that Sarah Palin is in fact real.)

The thing is that French is correct in calling out the author of an article claiming that Palin was going to debate Bill Nye for lying.

However it was kind of funny that she linked to this article by the Friendly Atheist revealing that it was a lie, but also shaming the organizers of that climate change denying event for using Bill Nye's name to falsely drum up interest.

Speaking of psychotically convoluted.

The Satanic Temple came up with a rather unique way to weed out potential protesters before the unveiling of their Baphomet statue.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist: 

According to TST spokesperson Lucien Greaves, attendees for the event had to go through the following process: 

1) Show up at the location stated on the e-ticket. 
2) Go through a security checkpoint there. 
3) Sign a contract transferring their souls to Satan. 
4) Get the real location for the event, which was miles away. 

It worked. The event went off without a hitch.

Here is a link to the actual soul transferring agreement.

Okay you have to admit that is pretty damn inventive.

It also makes one wonder just how many people self identified as non-religious would be willing to sign a contract like this. After all superstitions run deep.

The epitome of Christian love.

So that strange looking individual up above is a former LA cop and current missionary and self styled preacher Tony Miano. He is also used to host a show with Kirk Cameron buddy, Ray Comfort.

Well while most people were reacting with horror at the devastation that resulted from that earthquake in Nepal, Miano had an entirely different reaction.

.@CNN Praying 4 the lost souls in Nepal. Praying not a single destroyed pagan temple will b rebuilt & the people will repent/receive Christ.
— Tony Miano (@TonyMiano) April 25, 2015

Yeah nothing like a devastating earthquake, and an astronomical loss of innocent life, to convince the heathens to reject thousands of years of religious tradition and embrace the Christian god, who Christians believe is responsible for all natural phenomena on earth.

Good sales pitch.

(H/T to The Friendly Atheist.)

Man who was a minister for over 30 years come out as an Atheist. Wait, you can do that?

Courtesy of the Friendly Atheist:  

Rev. Bob Ripley was a minister for more than three decades, including 15 years spent as Senior Minister at Metropolitan United Church, a major Canadian congregation. He also wrote a syndicated column discussing religion for the past 25 years. His most recent column, however, may raise a lot of eyebrows, because Ripley talks about how he no longer believes in God:… I need to tell you that I’ve changed my mind. Where once I proclaimed the doctrines of Christianity with passion and sincerity, I am now convinced that religion, all religion, is man-made. As with the long line of deities dotting the history of our species, the idea of one God, Yahweh, made manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, is our means to an end — to explain how we got here, for instance, or to avoid looking fate in the face or to gain an edge over our enemies. 

… 

If all this makes you sad, I’m sorry. Please remember that I have not changed. The heart that was once surrendered to Jesus Christ, that gave itself to others and infused a vocation with kindness, still beats in me. If you have ever met me, know that the person I was then, I am now, still striving for integrity and capable of profound love. 

I’m not lost. I began this journey by asking questions. It continued by not being content with trite cliches or lazy affirmations. Curiosity is an amazing accelerant. I am a passionate advocate for unremitting intellectual honesty, for reason and reality, for love and learning. My advocacy simply no longer assumes a deity. 

I still believe. I believe no person or group of persons is inferior to any other. I believe that what matters is not so much what we believe, but how we conduct ourselves for these few short, fragile years of being alive. I believe that being aware of the beauty and wonder of the universe, including this pale blue dot in the remote corner of one of billions of galaxies, is an indescribably wonderful privilege.

You know I have believed for quite some time that there are a number of ministers who no longer believe, but simply cannot bring themselves to walk away from the only life they have ever known.

I also think that in reality there are more non-believers in the world than believers. They simply hide that fact in deference to family, or career, or social position, instead living in constant fear of ever letting on to others their lack of faith.

In some ways these people are in a similar place to closeted homosexuals. Forever forced to deny their true selves in a desperate attempt to fit in with those around them.

Hopefully soon we will witness the same acceptance for the non-religious community that we are now beginning to witness among the LGBT community.

I know that's my goal.

Here comes a shocker, Americans lie about church attendance. I know, right?

Courtesy of the Friendly Atheist:  

In a study to be unveiled just hours from now, brilliantly titled “I Know What You Did Last Sunday,” the Public Religion Research Institute shows that Americans are lying their asses off when it comes to admitting how often they go to church.

Check this out from the study:  

The degree to which Americans over-report their religious participation varies considerably by religious affiliation. Among religious groups, Catholics and white mainline Protestants are more likely than white evangelical Protestants to over-report their levels of religious participation. When interviewed by telephone, fewer than 3-in-10 (28%) white mainline Protestants report that they seldom or never attend religious services, compared to 45% in the self-administered online survey. 

Catholics are less than half as likely to report seldom or never attending religious services when responding to a telephone versus online survey (15% vs. 33%). Among white evangelical Protestants, the differences between modes are less stark: 9% report they seldom or never attend religious services when speaking with a live interviewer, compared to 17% who report the same in a self-administered survey. Among black Protestants, the differences between modes are also not as glaring. Only 14% of black Protestants report seldom or never attending on a telephone survey, compared to nearly one-quarter (24%) on the online survey.

It seems that the respondents had more difficult time being honest when the request came from an actual human being on the other end of the phone line, and less of an issue when it as simply a computer survey.

Interestingly enough it is not only the religious who lie, but the non-religious as well. With 73% admitting they do not attend church by phone, and 91% fessing up online.

Which just goes to prove that even those who don't believe in God, still believe in the potential ramifications of not believing in God.

Maybe I'm the exception, but I would answer truthfully on the phone, on the internet, and in person.

But then again, I'm kind of a troublemaker.