The latest Carnival of the Liberals has been posted over at Submitted to a Candid World. Unlike my usual practice of suggesting an article that I especially like, I recommend that you go over there and check a bunch of them out. Many of the articles are on topics we’ve been discussing lately, such as anti-intellectualism and offshore drilling.

The latest Skeptics’ Circle is now up at The Lay Scientist. Among the articles there, you’ll see one by The Skeptic Dad. Dad rips apart a flawed study that purports to show that we are all born believing in God.

It’s been a while since I participated in a Carnival of the Liberals, so I figured I was overdue. The latest edition is up over at Cult of Gracie. It’s a good source for a variety of liberal topics. Go check it out.

The one that caught my attention, though, was “The Evangelical Re-Invention of John McCain, and the Sad Paradox of Fundamentalist Family Values” over at Submitted to a Candid World. It says (in part):

McCain attempts to mask his endorsement of the religious right mainline by couching it in the rhetoric of “local control” - let the states/cities/towns decide issues like abortion, gay rights, and science. This is a thinly veiled attempt to pass the buck, and a tactic commonly used by McCain to exculpate himself from endorsing far-right positions by nominally devolving the issue to others who he knows will make the (religious-)right decisions. McCain won’t destroy women’s rights: his Supreme Court appointees will. McCain won’t endorse homophobic bigotry. But he will idly stand by [while] states do it. McCain won’t teach creationism. But he will subtly endorse it, and let others teach it if they want to.

The latest Carnival of the Godless is up over at Sean the Blogonaut. Go check it out.

The article most worth reading is “In God We Trust” by The Chaplain at An Apostate’s Chapel. It’s about that supposedly harmless phrase “In God we trust” on our money. “It’s just ceremonial deism!” “It’s virtually meaningless!” Kiss my ass, Christians! It isn’t meaningless, and it’s more than ceremonial. The Chaplain demonstrates this by deconstructing a Christian pamphlet.

The latest Carnival of the Godless is up over at Disillusioned Words. Go check it out.

Unlike past carnivals, I didn’t submit anything of my own. Instead, you’ll find ParrotLover’s “God Did Not Make Klingons”. It’s the best thing to appear on this site in the last two weeks, so read it if you haven’t already.

My favorite article of this carnival is “Let There Be Light” at A Dark and Sinister Force for Good. I had never seen this site before. I knew I was going to love it when I read the About page. The blog’s author, who goes by the nom de plume “Archvillain”, says this about himself:

Among many other unpleasant traits, I am extremely intolerant of stupidity. I have no problem whatsoever heaping scorn upon inexcusably stupid ideas — or even good ideas poorly or stupidly presented.

That’s when I knew I’d found a good blog.

Archvillain writes in “Let There Be Light”:

Pointing out the ignorance and stupidity of the willfully ignorant and stupid is not impolite or cruel, it is a necessity. It is also a survival mechanism for our civilization. Allowing outspoken stupidity to go unchallenged is to be complicit in its ascendancy. I, for one, will not be a party to the destruction of our civilization and society at the hands of the religious barbarians in our midst.

I would also like to draw your attention to “Random Book Review: What Do You Care What Other People Think” over at Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist. He reviews one of Richard Feynman’s autobiographies. Feynman was a huge influence on me (through his first autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman) at a critical age. Even though I never met him, he’s one of the few people who largely shaped who I am today (but please don’t blame him for Bay of Fundie. You can thank my extremist relatives for that!).

The 87th Skeptics’ Circle came out a couple of days ago at Action Skeptics.

The absolute best post of the bunch is Bing McGhandi’s story of his contest to sneak a fraudulent article past the “peer review” of Answers in Genesis’ creation journal, and the contestant who almost pulled it off.

The latest Skeptics’ Circle is up over at Andrea’s Buzzing About. There are a lot of good articles on a variety of topics.

One that I found enlightening was Seth Manapio’s analysis of Mein Kampf, in which he looks for evidence that Hitler was taking his marching orders directly from Darwin. Scandalous!

Carnival of the Godless #89 is up over at the Rational Response Squad. As always, there are are lot of good articles.

The subject of militant atheism has come up again, this time at Homo Academicus. I don’t agree with everything in the article, but it’s good to see yet another opinion on it. Check it out, along with the other articles.