By Eric Jayne
Last month Joseph Stack flew his single-engine airplane into the side of an IRS office building in Austin, Texas. The attack killed Stack, one other man, and injured 12 others. The flurry of complaints and unhinged anger in Stack’s suicide note made it difficult to read but it was clear that he had a major grudge against American tax policies and the IRS. Like Stack, most of us don’t enjoy paying taxes (even though we enjoy the services their revenue provides) but before you take a page out of his nefarious playbook on how to stick it to the man maybe you should consider going to Hell instead.
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Read more: Taxes from Hell
By James Zimmerman
William Hopper’s
The Heathen’s Guide presents a light-hearted, at times comical, overview of the world’s religions. It’s a short book, and thus doesn’t capture every detail about every little sect or cult in existence, but it spends a chapter on each of the biggies. The book is laid-out in a logical order: the chapter on Judaism leads to a chapter on Christianity leads to a chapter on Islam.
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Read more: Book Review: The Heathen's Guide to World Religions
By James Zimmerman
During the February 28th episode of the CBS reality show the Amazing Race, contestants Monique and Shawne (billed as “Moms/Attorneys”) attempted to curry favor with the prime deity of the New Testament. During the leg’s Roadblock, teams were required to lasso a target 18 feet away and pull it towards them to receive their next clue. Though Monique and Shawne arrived at the Roadblock prior to several teams, they were still trying, without success, to lasso the target after all other teams had come and gone.
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Read more: No Amazing Grace in the Amazing Race
By James Zimmerman
REVIEW:
Waiting for Armageddon details the lives of several Americans who live in expectation of a rapture. And, as the film stresses, these evangelical Christians expect the End to arrive very, very soon—one young girl was nearly in tears as contemplated the future she was never going to have. Later, a mother pointed to her son, saying he would never grow old enough to graduate high school, or even to get a driver’s license.
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Read more: Waiting for Armageddon: Review and Panel Discussion
By Bjorn Watland
Atheist, humanist, secular humanist, Bright, freethinker, secularist, naturalist: these are all words I've heard people use to describe themselves. I recall the diversity of identifiers used at the Atheist Coming Out Day last year. I was reminded of this diversity when an issue came up with the newsletter for a secular organization: Should "humanism" be capitalized?
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Read more: What's in a Name?
