Indiana Governor's Atheism Comments

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels did an interview back in December on faith. Here's one little gem from the interview:

"And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists -Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth- because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth."

Head over to The Legal Satyricon to read the interview and his take on it.

Great New Website

So I stumbled across this great website yesterday. It's called Opposing Views and it's a debate site. The first debate I came across was "Does Intelligent Design Have Merit?". On one side you have Michael Behe, The Discovery Institute, and The Action Institute against Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, National Center for Science Education and Americans United. There are a large number of subjects being discussed by experts from many different entities.

AAI 2009 Videos

Videos of the lectures from the 2009 Atheist Alliance International conference have been posted here on youtube. It was a great conference. Some of the speakers there were Richard Dawkins, Eugenie Scott, Daniel Dennett, PZ Myers and Mr. Deity and cast. Go check out the videos, these were some great lectures.

Helping Haiti

Here's a link to secular aid organizations that are working in Haiti.

Creation: The True Story of Charles Darwin

Creation: The True Story of Charles Darwin is a British film about Darwin's life. Instead of the focus being on his work it looks more at him as a person and the death of his daughter. One problem is that the film was unable to find an American distributor. Whether or not that means it won't play at all or only in some theaters, I don't know. I've been unable to find out if it'll play in Spokane. Here's the full story at the British Telegraph.

Montana Physician-Assisted Suicide

Read this over at the Voices for Reason blog. This is the official blog of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

Montana has joined the short list of states that permit physician-assisted suicide . . . sort of.

It started with a court case brought by Robert Baxter when he was terminally ill with lymphocytic leukemia. His symptoms included infections, chronic fatigue, anemia, night sweats, nausea, massively swollen glands, digestive problems and generalized pain.

Check the rest out here.

Ireland's Blasphemy Law

Herb Silverman, president of the Secular Coalition for America, wrote a piece on the new Irish law for Newsweek.

Q: Atheists are[sic] others are protesting a new law in Ireland, under which a person can be found guilty of blasphemy if "he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion." The penalty is a fine of up to about $35,000. Should Ireland or any nation have a law against blasphemy?

Read the rest here.