The Atheism News Magazine

:: God’s failure to intervene when his followers (and even many non-religious) are begging him to presents a problem to the believer: How do they manage to account for an absent God, while avoiding cognitive dissonance? The religious mind has come up with an ingenious solution: Take what humans do to help those in need, and attribute those actions to God. In effect, they are mentally Photoshopping God into a situation where he never was. ::

:: The Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to allow openly gay members, but openly gay leaders and atheists will continue to be prohibited. More than 60 percent of the 1,400 delegates of the Boy Scouts’ National Council voted to repeal the long-standing prohibition on openly gay members. LGBT advocates praised the vote as a positive first step. However, the council did not vote on the issue of leaders and therefore the current policy will remain in place. “The Boy Scouts of America will not sacrifice its mission, or the youth served by the movement, by allowing the organization to be consumed by a single, divisive, and unresolved societal issue,” the organization said in a statement. ::

:: The Rev. Michael Fugee, a fifty-two year old Priest, stood before a judge on 21 May 2013 to face charges for violating a court-ordered lifetime ban on working with children. Bergen County investigators discovered that Fugee has heard confessions at youth retreats from minors on two occasions in 2010, and once again in 2012. He was charged with seven counts of contempt of a judicial order, a 4th degree crime that carries a maximum prison sentence of eighteen 18 months. Bergen County, NJ, Assistant Prosecutor Demetra Maurice who had authored the agreement in 2007, read seven counts that were levied against Fugee. ::

: The Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia says that he is a Christian and has no reason to apologize for his history against of hate speech against LGBT people, liberals and abortion providers. It was only after African-American minister E.W. Jackson won the nomination at the Virginia Republican Party Convention last week that many became aware of his history of saying gay people were “perverted” and “sick people psychologically.” “Homosexuality is a horrible sin, it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of,” he said last year. ::

 :: A lawmaker put in charge of delivering the opening prayer at yesterday's session of the Arizona House of Representatives surprised his colleagues by using the opportunity to talk about his atheism and quote Carl Sagan. USA Today says Juan Mendez (D-Tempe) put in a request to have Secular Coalition of Arizona director Serah Blain speak before the house during yesterday's "prayer time," but his request was somehow misplaced, so he decided to address the House in her stead. ::

:: A right-wing historian shot himself dead in front of hundreds of tourists at the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris today, apparently in protest at France's legalisation of gay marriage. Dominique Venner, who had recently been campaigning against gay marriage in France, is said to have calmly walked past the crowds milling around the 850-year-old Cathedral, one of the most popular tourist sites in the world, before taking out a Herstal automatic pistol. The 78-year-old put the gun in his mouth and fired before collapsing on to the altar, according to French media reports. ::

:: Once upon a time, animal sacrifice was an important part of Hindu life, Catholic priests weren't celibate and visual depictions of the Prophet Muhammad were part of Islamic art. And soon some churches in the UK may be marrying gay couples. How do religions manage to change their mind? History shows that any religion that refuses to change dies out. But what about those religions that don't have living prophets - how do they change? ::

:: Before he was elected Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio spent fourteen years as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina. During that time he built a strong friendship with Abraham Skorka, an Argentinian rabbi and biophysicist. Together they promoted interreligious dialogue on faith and reason, seeking to build bridges among Catholicism, Judaism, and the world at large. Last month, Image Books released the English translation of On Heaven and Earth, originally published in Argentina in 2010. The book contains several conversations between both men where they discuss various theological and worldly issues, including God, fundamentalism, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and globalization. ::

:: A new national study shows that while Canada remains overwhelmingly Christian, Canadians are turning their backs on organized religion in ever greater numbers. Observers noted that among the survey’s most striking findings is that one in four Canadians, or 7.8 million people, reported they had no religious affiliation at all. That was up sharply from 16.5 percent from the 2001 census, and 12 percent in 1991. The Canadian trend seems to mirror but even exceed levels of non-affiliation in the United States. A 2012 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life pegged the ratio of religiously unaffiliated Americans at just under 20 percent. ::

:: The Tom-Cruise-iest religion on the planet took a break from their attempt to destroy free speech to celebrate the grand-mega opening of their new ironically named Ideal Organization in Portland by producing the worst photoshopped picture this side of the Iranian military. ::

I took an abstinence pledge hoping it would ensure a strong marriage. Instead, it led to a quick divorce

:: 'Whosoever killeth a human being…” says the Koran, in the 32nd verse of its fifth chapter, “it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.” Thus, the two supposedly Muslim men suspected of killing and mutilating an unarmed, off-duty soldier in the middle of a London street, while shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”), were violating the injunction of their own holy book. ::

:: "On Thursday, delegates to the Boy Scouts of America’s national conference met in Grapevine, Texas, to determine the fate of one of the most beloved organizations in this country’s history. This organization that has stood the test of time will probably be destroyed now that they have decided to admit openly gay boys as Scouts. Sex and politics have no place in the Boy Scouts, and allowing open homosexuality will lead to myriad bad consequences." ::

:: Conservative radio host Glenn Beck says that “forces of spiritual darkness” at CNN arranged to have Wolf Blitzer ask a atheist tornado survivor if she thanked the Lord as a plot to promote atheism. At the conclusion of his Tuesday interview with Rebecca Vitsmun, Blitzer told the woman who lost all of her worldly possessions that “you gotta thank the Lord, right? Do you thank the Lord?” “I’m actually an atheist,” Vitsmun politely replied, adding, “I don’t blame anybody for thanking the Lord.” During Wednesday’s radio show, Beck asserted that Blitzer’s question was “peculiar in the way that it was stated.” ::

:: For anyone who knows the history of the religious right, the possible revocation of tax-exempt status for claimed religious belief is a potent flashpoint. In his book, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament, religion historian Randall Balmer argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, which Balmar calls the "abortion myth", evangelical voters were not propelled to political activism by the supreme court's 1973 decision in Roe v Wade. Instead, the issue that mobilized these voters was the IRS's 1975 revocation of the tax-exempt status of the segregationist Bob Jones University. ::

An atheist state lawmaker in Arizona invoked astronomer Carl Sagan on Tuesday when he was tasked with giving the opening prayer for the state House of Representatives.

Democratic state Representative Juan Mendez began by asking members not to bow their heads, explaining that he had a “secular humanist tradition,” according to an account published by the Phoenix NewTimes.

NO. SHE DOES NOT.

:: The Vatican has denied claims that Pope Francis performed an exorcism, after TV images showed a man apparently reacting to him putting his hands on his head. The encounter - during Sunday Mass - was shown on a TV channel owned by the Italian bishops' conference. The station quoted exorcists as saying there was "no doubt" the Pope had either performed an exorcism or a prayer to free the man from the devil. Its director later apologised for "having altered the truth". The Pope's spokesman said he "did not intend to perform any exorcism". ::

:: Pope Francis appears to have been captured on video performing an exorcism in St Peter’s Square. The astonishing footage, taken immediately after Pentecostal mass on Sunday 19th May, shows the Pontiff approach the second of two wheelchair bound people, whose face is pixelled out. After a priest leans across the boy or young man to tell Francis something, the Pope’s expression becomes more serious, the voice-over notes. He then grips the top of the subject’s head firmly and is seen pushing him down into his wheel chair. As this is happening the Pontiff recites an intense prayer, and the boy’s mouth drops wide open and he exhales sharply. ::

:: Christianity could be facing a catastrophic collapse in Britain according to official figures suggesting it is declining 50 per cent faster than previously thought. A new analysis of the 2011 census shows that a decade of mass immigration helped mask the scale of decline in Christian affiliation among the British-born population – while driving a dramatic increase in Islam, particularly among the young. It suggests that only a minority of people will describe themselves as Christians within the next decade, for first time. Meanwhile almost one in 10 under 25s in Britain is now a Muslim. ::

:: The Arizona House yesterday passed a bill that would allow anyone to discriminate against anyone for any reason, especially on the grounds of religious liberty. The bill, designed to allow private businesses the legal right to discriminate against LGBT people by citing their personal religious objections to homosexuality, overrules Arizona’s current anti-discrimination statutes. The bill, whose chief sponsor is Rep. Steve Yarbrough (image, above,) passed the House by a 32-24 vote, and has been transmitted to the Arizona Senate. All House Democrats voted against the bill. ::

:: A youth minister attempting to procure a 14-year-old girl for sex was among the 92 people arrested in Orlando, Florida during a four-day undercover operation targeting the area’s sex trade. Youth Minister Samuel Yoon, 45, of the *Holy Cows* youth group of New Community Mission Church in San Leandro, California was arrested when he made arrangements to meet with a person who he thought was a 14-year-old girl, but who was actually a Polk County Detective. Yoon is charged with traveling to meet a minor for sex and use of a two-way communication device to commit a felony. ::

:: The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is to set up an independent inquiry to investigate allegations of child abuse by a senior cleric. The late Robert Waddington, who was Dean of Manchester Cathedral between 1984 and 1990, is alleged to have abused several boys in the UK and abroad. It has been reported that in 1999 the then Archbishop of York, David (now Lord) Hope, was told that Waddington had abused a pupil while he was the headteacher at a school in Queensland, Australia. And in 2003, a former choirboy at Manchester Cathedral claimed he had been abused by Waddington in the 1980s. ::