Seth Andrews took a camera to the 2016 Reason Rally. This short video contains a few moments from the event, and it also features some great photos taken by some of the attendees. Enjoy.
Alex Jacobsen, 26, was suffering from mental exhaustion and anxiety. He hadn’t slept for days despite being in a faith-based treatment program. He felt hopeless and when he spotted a box knife he grabbed it and held it against his neck pressing harder as it cut through his skin.
An anti-gay pastor in Arkansas is in a lot of trouble. He has been arrested on 70 counts of child porn.
“Meet Dave Reynolds. He’s the recently fired pastor of the Cornerstone Bible Fellowship in Sherwood, Arkansas currently facing 70 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing child pornography.
He’s also vehemently anti-gay.
The 40-year-old pastor, who has preached that marriage is between a man and a woman and that all homosexual activity is a sin, was arrested this week after police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a social media account in Sherwood was storing pages and pages (and pages and pages) of images of kiddy porn.
The account allegedly belonged to Reynolds.
In March, Reynolds informed elders at Cornerstone Bible Fellowship that he was under investigation for child porn possession. When they asked if he had engaged in viewing the material, Reynolds told them he had “not knowingly done so.”
Virginia’s KKK “Imperial Wizard” endorsed Donald Trump during a sit-down interview with WWBT. According to the Imperial Wizard, “The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes in, we believe in. We want our country to be safe,” he said. Trump previously received support for former KKK leader David Duke in January. Nik Zecevic, and Melvin Robert take a closer look at Trump’s growing white supremacist following on the Lip News.
We’re used to seeing big price tags on government spending, but how much could congressional chaplains really cost? Actually, a lot.
“According to Andrew Seidel of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who did the math to determine what taxpayers are being charged for prayers in Washington, the total annual bill comes to more than $800,000.
Both the U.S. House and Senate employ a chaplain whose singular duty is to administer prayer. The budget for the House Chaplain’s office is $345,000, while the Senate Chaplain’s office receives $436,886.
Seidel reports that both the House and Senate chaplains earn executive level salaries which are equal to those of high-ranking government officials, such as “general counsels of the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the chief financial officers of NASA and the EPA; the Chief Information Officers of almost every major federal department and agency; and the Army’s Director of Civil Defense.”
The two chaplains earn three-figure salaries for presiding over opening prayers in the house and senate, which only convene about 135 days out of the year.”
What is hell? Is it a literal place of torture and torment? Is it separation from a god? Is it annihilation? Is there anything real behind the threats? Which religion’s hell should we avoid? What is this concept doing to people?
This talk was delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Humanists of Tampa Florida in April, 2016.
Always Question Authority 