I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian. The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about a philosopher being like a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat—which wasn't there. "That may be," said the philosopher; "but a theologian would have found it."

—Julian Huxley

via Lost and Found

This is old news but I've never written about it.

A few months ago Pete Stark "came out of the closet" as an nontheist. He is a Democratic Representative from California's 13th.

From Wikipedia:

Stark is the first openly nontheistic member of Congress, as announced by the Secular Coalition for America.[1] Stark, who has represented San Francisco's East Bay since 1973, acknowledged his nontheism in response to an SCA questionnaire sent to public officials in January 2007. In a statement, Stark said he is a "Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social service."

Richard Dawkins is appearing on CNN in response to the outrage cause by the clip I referred to below.

He will be appearing on the Paula Zahn show Monday the 12th (which is Darwin Day btw) hopefully to give voice to our outrage. I believe he will be on the 8EST show.

Here is part of the horrendous segment, for those who are too lazy to click the other day's link : ).

Ever wonder why I feel secularism is an important topic?

Watch this video and you may understand

It goes from bad, seeing the plight of two couple, to worse, a network giving intolerance a soap box.

Watch this and try for a moment to wear my shoes.

So you'd like to work from the Head Start program?
- Oh yes very much so.

Why in particular are you interested in working in the Head Start program?
- I love children and I think it's very important that all children have a fair shot at a quality education. I want to make sure that even those children with less financial means are able to participate in quality pre-school.

Good Good. You sound like a perfect candidate.... I just have one more question. You are Christian correct?
- Well no I was raised and am agnostic.

Oh I'm sorry you are not qualified to help these children... I would suggest you try looking in to hell. I think they have a spot reserved for you.

Our Republican representatives and a few "democrats" are placating the religious right again. A bunch of progressive groups have posted links to this story today. I first read it on http://www.tompaine.com/ 's newsworthy section. American's United for Separation of Church and State (http://www.au.org/)followed quickly with a press release of their own.

I fail to understand how a person's faith has any baring on that personal ability to work for an organization like Head Start. Is a Jew or an atheist really going to be unable to help the Head Start children receive their needed support?

The argument given is that some faith-based groups get government money for their work with the Head Start program and it would be an abomination for these faith based groups to have to hire some one of a different faith.

First of all let's just get rid of public tax dollars going to religious group.... that solves this and a number of other problems, not to mention it doesn't violate the constitution.