"It is easy to make fun of radical environmentalism. Its climatological projections are often dubious and even if they are accurate, it is not clear how a handful of enthusiasts can avert the coming apocalypse. But that is to miss the point. The green movement may speak the language of science, but what really moves it is an ethical imperative. It is an attempt to create a society in which some choices are recognised as better than others, in which nature is seen to put constraints upon the free play of desire. In short, it is a religion—a religion without God. It is to such spontaneous initiatives of the faithful, not the clunking machinery of state, that we must look for a restoration of life to the language of the virtues."

The Return of Goodness

On Religion, Public Policy, and Obama →

An interesting post on Obama’s position on separation of church and state. (via rodmitch)

"I think it was important, a little bit for the stability factor, that it wasn’t God who was going to perform a miracle, end the war and bring us home. It was men. It was Caesar. I think the majority of those guys felt the way I did but we just had some, just as people turn to faith healing and that kind of stuff, we had some of that. A lot of times I would pray for strength and I think sometimes I got it. Pray for patience to get through the next minute when things were bad. I just don’t think it’s fair to expect too much out of what is basically not the Lord’s business."

John McCain on the preaching he did to his fellow POWs in Vietnam, from this NYT article.

I think McCain gets the idea of separation of church and state — an idea that, seriously, goes all the way back the Gospel. McCain’s alluding to it here; “Caesar” as in Matthew 22:21.

If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House? →

Some within the New Atheism movement are trying to create atheist social organizations to replace the theist ones they rail against. I hear Hazel Motes is doing great things with his Church of Christ Without Christ.

"…my Bible year taught me something that I wish I had known for the first 38 years of my life. If you want to be happy, you should pursue OTHER people’s happiness. You should do good things for others. It’s a paradox, but it works. Being unselfish leads to selfish fulfillment."

A.J. Jacobs (via azspot)

The Irrational Atheist →

Vox Day, writing on John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, describes writing The Irrational Atheist, a book which takes apart recent books which “take apart” religion in ridiculous ways.

There was a single thought that repeatedly entered my mind when slogging through the interminable morasses of The God Delusion, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, God is Not Great, Breaking the Spell and Trattato di Ateologia during the course of researching TIA, and it was “I cannot believe so many people are falling for this utterly abysmal nonsense.”

It’s nice to see someone take on this most recent crop of angry atheists who seem to think that spitting in God’s eye is something new. The book is available for download as well.

What do you do when your premise is wrong? →

GetReligion’s Molly Ziegler profiles a new faith/journalism website:

Rather than looking critically at the parameters set out by the project and readjusting to reflect the reality of different religions, the group simply excludes the religion that doesn’t fit. I’m not saying I’m not sympathetic, but it’s just interesting to contemplate how this works in story assignment and development.

When sources don’t say what you want them to say, do you ignore them? Do you exclude them? Do you rethink your story’s premise? I’d say how you answer that question says a lot about the quality of the piece you end up with.

Hits home for more than just religion coverage.