Richard Dawkins Event Banned by Michigan Country Club

Prejudice against atheists manifested itself again when The Wyndgate Country Club in Rochester Hills, Michigan (outside of Detroit), cancelled an event with scientist and author Richard Dawkins after learning of Dawkins’s views on religion. The Wyndgate terminated the agreement after the owner saw an October 5th interview with Dawkins onThe O’Reilly Factor in which Dawkins discussed his new book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True . . . The Wyndgate’s representative explained that the owner did not wish to associate with individuals such as Dawkins, or his philosophies.
Read more . . .  

What Does The Future Hold For Atheists?

. . . [O]ur fight is not with 2.1 billion believers, most of whom could care less about politics or Constitutional law. Our battles are with the fundamentalist extremists who would like to see us dead and gone, and with the right wing Dominionist nutjobs who are trying to turn our Nation into a theocracy that encompasses our legislative, judiciary and executive branches of government; including our public school curriculum. They want all of us to live under the authority of their god.
Read more . . .  

Why I am an atheist – Heather Dalgleish

I don’t believe in gods for much the same reason that I don’t believe in fairies, bogeymen, ghosts, lucky gems, leprechauns, Santa or the Easter Bunny. There isn’t a shred of convincing evidence for the existence of any of them, plenty of evidence that they are grossly surplus to requirements for explaining any phenomenon, and that proposing them just creates more problems than it solves . . .

Faith is by definition belief without evidence – it’s pulling things out of your ass; it’s clinging to things that you might well know are faintly ridiculous; it’s putting up barriers to honest enquiry; it can be used as an impediment to curiosity and intellect, and it is simply the most ridiculous method of discovering or knowing anything about reality. It’s not a virtue – and it shouldn’t be a virtue in wider society any more than it would be in a court of law.
Read more . . .  

Christopher Hitchens makes first public appearance in months

Atheist superstar and public intellectual Christopher Hitchens appeared in public for the first time in months tonight at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston. Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and most recently of Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens, was presented with the Richard Dawkins Freethinker of the Year Award by Dawkins himself. Dawkins is the bestselling author of The God Delusion and The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.
Read more . . . 

Brazil’s Roman Catholics shrink as secular rise

The number of people under the age of 20 in Brazil who say they follow no religion is growing three times more quickly than those 50 and older, with 9 percent of young Brazilians saying they belong to no religion, according to the study. That mirrors a similar trend in the number of people leaving the Catholic Church . . . 

The foundation study discovered that Catholic women, instead of giving up entirely on religion, are largely going to traditional Protestant denominations such as the Presbyterians or Methodists, which are viewed by many as less patriarchal.
Read more . . .