I recently stumbled upon the website for New Mexicans for Science and Reason. Thanks to Kylie Sturgess over at PodBlack Blog for bringing this to our attention. For more background information you may refer to this article on USA Today’s website.

I was able to find a page called Best and Worst of the Year Awards, a compilation of outrageous claims and blunders, many of which have been publicly debunked by skeptics. After taking a gallop through the 2007 list, I thought it might be amusing to throw up a personal highlight reel from NMSR’s list.

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Non-believers often hear theists use the following argument:

Suppose you are right, and God doesn’t exist. When I die as a believer, I have lost nothing. I will have lived a happy, moral, fulfilling life, and when I die I simply cease to exist. But if you, as a non-believer, are wrong, you have to spend an eternity in hell. See, I have nothing to lose, but you have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Now doesn’t it make more sense to believe in God?

This argument, commonly known as Pascal’s Wager, really amounts to playing it safe. Simpler versions include “What if you’re wrong?” or “Have you thought about what will happen to you after you die?” Essentially, they are all saying the same thing: why not hedge your bets so at least you’ll have a chance of getting into heaven?

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Which religion is right for you? Does that right religion just happen to be the one your family believes? Maybe, but maybe not; a new study shows that almost half of American adults leave their childhood faith to change religions or abandon religious affiliation altogether.

The survey, released on Feb 25, 2008 by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, estimates that the United States is 78 percent Christian. The majority of our nation has traditionally been Protestant; however, mainstream Protestants are now at 51 percent and still declining, while non-denominational churches are growing. The Catholic Church is losing followers in even greater numbers; nearly 10 percent of all Americans are ex-Catholics.

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On February 19, 2008, several online news sites ran an article by the Associated Press titled Oxford to Study Faith in God (I’ll link to this one, if you’d like to read the short article in full). The first paragraph reads:

University of Oxford researchers will spend nearly $4 million to study why mankind embraces God. The grant to the Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion will bring anthropologists, theologians, philosophers and other academics together for three years to study whether belief in a divine being is a basic part of mankind’s makeup. - AP

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Are theists using school shootings to force religion down our throats?

Shortly after Seung Hui-Cho killed 33 people (himself included) in the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007, the following email began circulating the web:

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