Mentalist Derren Brown poses as James Lawrence who claims to be able to convert atheists into believing in God with a touch of his hand. Derren makes the following statement at the beginning of each episode of 'Trick of the Mind': "This program fuses magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship. I achieve all the results you'll see through a varied mixture of those techniques. At no point are actors or stooges used in the show." Part I: Part II:

Michael Shermer takes us on a hilarious romp through the strange claims we humans put forth as truth — from alien encounters to Virgin Mary sightings on pizza pies, to hidden messages revealed while playing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards — and explains the evolutionary and cognitive basis for these lapses in reason. Don't miss the one-minute challenge testing your own observational skills...

I've been reading news articles and commentaries on the Ted Haggard episode and have been surprised to find that the majority of stories haven't been all that condemning. Although no one is denying Haggard's homosexual lifestyle or his drug use, almost without exception the articles contain phrases such as "We are all subject to falling to temptation" or "Satan attacks successful Christians" or "Ministers are just people too" and "We should remember David and Bathsheba" or "We must seek for his restoration and forgiveness" or similar banal rhetoric. And these trite phrases have been weaved into columns written by secular and Christian writers alike! In fact, the general timbre seems to be that although Haggard initially denied the allegations and only later admitted he’d been disingenuous, his fall from grace is supposedly only evidence of human frailty or Original Sin or something. Perhaps I'm just jaded, but the man i...

This post is excerpted from The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth, by Valerie Tarico, www.lulu.com/tarico The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. —Isaiah 11:6–7 HUMBLED AND ENTHRALLED, THE WRITER OF PSALMS MARVELED AT THE GLORIES of God displayed before mortal men in nature’s grand design. His poems of worship pay tribute to God’s awesome handiwork. Not only is God the maker of heaven and earth, he is involved in the tiniest details of the natural world. “Every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine” (Psa. 50:10–11). A later psalmist, St. Francis of Assisi, wrote: “All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing...

Michael Moore goes after Fred Phelps with his gang of gay men.

Jesse James is a punk band from London, England. They formed in 2000 and have since toured the UK, Europe and Canada. Their first release, the Shoes EP was a hit on the UK, due to repeated TV play of the video for the song 'Shoes'. Later releases include the Hotwired EP, Punk Soul Brothers LP, and the Mission LP, recorded in San Francisco with the infamous NOFX producer Ryan Greene. The video for the song Dear Jesus, released in 2005, was banned from UK TV. They released their latest album, titled The Assassination of..., in May 2006. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh (Hi this is Jesus I can't get to the phone right now But if you leave a message after the tone I'll get right back to you) Beep Dear Jesus I don't believe in you no more Dear Jesus I think you should know the score I never met you Cos you lived a long long time ago Not to upset you But there's not a lot to know Born in a stable Is the story we were told He had a beard And you wore a lot of shitty cloth...

By Alan M. Perlman, PhD I’ve been just as surprised as any liberally-educated secular humanist by the resurgence of religious superstition and fundamentalism in my lifetime. After all, we’ve had the brilliance of Greek and Roman civilization, then the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and, most recently, the dawn of the Information Age. After decades of painstaking research and observation, we have a theory of how things began: Big Bang (or some other equally momentous event), followed by the creation of simple, then more complex chemical elements, the solidification of planets, then just the right mix of circumstances to set up our blessed little globe for us. It took fifteen billion years or so, and there are perhaps billions of galaxies like ours. It took us a million years to go from hominids to the Internet. It’s all quite miraculous. And I thought that religious believers and modern, science-minded folks had reached accommodation on the q...

By Ian Hi Jesus. Jet me start out by saying F*** you. Yeah, that's right. F*** you. F*** you uncle f***er. What the f***? you ask. Allow me to explain. After careful consideration and a lot of thinking, I have come to the conclusion that you, as presented in the Bible and your followers, are a f***er. How so? Let's see. If people don't believe in you, you damn them to hell. Real nice and merciful. If you damn people to hell for not believing in you and thus harming your ego, then f*** you. If you damn people to hell for following Christianity, then f*** you. If you're going to damn ME for being a freethinker and a humanist, then you're a really psychotic son of God. Want to change your image Jesus? How about starting off by getting rid of all your spokespersons. Why not start with Billy Graham? He's a big motherf***er. I mean come on, wrinkly as a prune, thinks Satan is out to ruin the world, threatens us with hell if we don't believe, runs ...

By Atheist Mommy 1. Atheists hate Christians and Christianity. No, we don't. Personally, I do hate the atrocities that have been committed in the name of religion, the dishonesty of most religions, and the way that they encourage people not to think or question, and not to trust or use their minds. But I don't dislike someone just because of their religion. 2. Most atheists started out as Christians, and stopped believing because of some bad experience with other Christians. Or maybe we simply started to question, to wonder what happened when we applied the standards of logic, reason and burden of proof to religion, as we already did to everything in our lives. Or, perhaps, we were never believers at all. It happens, you know. 3. Atheists have no sense of morality, since morality comes from God. Ah, the old without fear of hell, there would be nothing to stop people from being bloodthirsty monsters argument. It may come as a surprise to most Christians, but there are reasons fo...

Robert Green Ingersoll I have sometimes thought that it will not make great and splendid character to rock children in the cradle of hypocrisy. I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. For my part, I believe men will be nearer honest in business, in politics, grander in art -- in everything that is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the coffin to tell their honest opinion. Neither do I believe thought to be dangerous. It is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. It is incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. There can be no danger in hon...