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."

From Bill Scher, blogger for the Campaign for America's Future. An interesting post looking at the religion in politics issue from a different perspective.

A good quote:

Lots of ink has been spilled about how Democrats and liberals suffer from a "religion problem" -- a perceived hostility towards Christianity and religion in general. But Pew Research Center exit poll data from the 2006 midterm elections shows the opposite.

Democrats crushed Republicans among secular voters, broadly defined as those who attend church seldom (favoring Democrats 60% to 38%) or never (67% to 30%). Republicans retained strong support among those who attend church more than weekly. But among those who only go weekly -- the larger portion of the religious vote -- the Republican lead shrunk from 15 points to 7.

Read the whole thing here

Today is Darwin Day a celebration of the life and works of Charles Darwin.

Want to know how you can celebrate?

Well here are a couple ideas:

• Take the day off! (thats what I've done)
• Join or renew you membership to a secular, atheist or pro-science group. Some good ones include: Center for Inquiry, American Atheists, Campaign to Defend the Constitution, or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
• Go to a Darwin Day event
• Buy a Darwin Fish for your car
• Watch Richard Dawkins on CNN give Paula Zahn the smack down!
• Read one of the great works of Charles Darwin
• Spread the good cheer with this "Darwin Day Card"
  <center><br /><h3>Happy Darwin Day!</h3><br /><img src="http://www.irnbru001.com/darwinfish.jpg"><br />From <a href="http://www.irnbru01.com/">IrnBru001.com</a></center>
• Or if you're in DC like me join me with a visit to the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

Enjoy the day, having evolved so far we deserve it!

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.

Dwindling In Unbelief

Found this from a great Jesus' General post. Dwindling In Unbelief is from Steve Well, the Editor of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible/Quran/Book of Mormon, which is the best annotated version of the Bible (and Quran and Book of Mormon) I've ever found. I really have been waiting quite a while for a print version.

Dwindling in Unbelief's newest post is this great video featuring Richard Dawkins.

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) was sworn in on January 04. The right wing fundamentalists were up in arms when they heard what was going to happen. Rep. Ellison, the first Muslim elected to congress, wanted to use the Quran, and not the Bible, for his unofficial swearing in ceremony.

As I blogged early, my thoughts on this idea were mixed. As I stated the right wingnuts response was horrible, screaming of intolerance and fundamentalism.

My reservation were rooted in my deep belief in a secular society, regardless of the faith. But Rep. Ellison, handled the whole "controversy" with grace and class.

At this unofficial swearing in Rep. Ellison used a copy of the Quran once owned by the, great champion of Separation of Church and State, Thomas Jefferson.

The Wall of Separation provided a great quote from Rep. Ellison from the event.

“The very foundation of our nation, the authors of our Constitution impressed, is religious freedom, and the use of Jefferson’s Quran shows that the founders not only knew of the Quran but also used it,” Ellison said during his swearing-in ceremony.

While I still hope that some day, even in purely ceremonial, yet political events, we no longer feel the need to insert our personal religious believes. As the paradigm of American politics and society now stands, there would have hardly been a better out come.