I'm going to be away from my computer for a couple of days, so I thought I'd leave this question for readers to ponder.

In my attempt to understand why people worship God, I’ve been intrigued by the concept of worship itself. Whether it be of a God, entertainment celebrity or sports figure, it seems that many people need to worship something or somebody. So, just what is worship and, of more import, why do people do it?

Thirteen year old Oklahoma student Nicole Smalkowski experiences discrimination at school due to her admitting to be an atheist. This story has been around for a little over a year now but this video has just come to my attention:

Background info here thanks to GIFS.

Various secular humanist organizations are mounting opposition to John Tory's election pledge to publicly fund all faith-based schools in Ontario.

As their name implies, the One School System Network advocates one secular based school system in Ontario. The OSSN website is a great resource for info regarding the issue: letters to the editor, video statements, and lists of supportive individuals, school boards and other organizations.

And, the Center For Inquiry Ontario issues a statement denouncing Mr. Tory's misguided plan.

The National Post recently ran an article on the rise of atheism entitled Ditching God. The article features interviews with members of the Centre for Inquiry Ontario. With thanks to the Friendly Atheist.

John Tory's pledge to implement publicly funded faith-based education in Ontario has reared its ugly head again. I'm not sure why, but The Toronto Star has run the story for the second day in a row. Mr. Tory has this bit of logic for us:

Rather than divide students of different religions, public funding – and accountability – would bring them closer together ...

Let me try and make sense of this in my mind: separating students from the main stream into smaller homogeneous religiously oriented groups will bring them closer together. Closer together with who, members of their own group? Will this bring Christian students closer to Muslims? Closer to Hindus? I can't help but view Mr. Tory's divisive plan as another Conservative ploy to undermine the public education system in this province, not unlike the attempt a few years back by his predecessors, Mr. Harris and Mr. Eves. It's the old divide and conquer trick. Here's the Ministry of Education response to the issue:

It's a terrible idea, Liberal Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said yesterday.

"(Ontarians) do not want to see our society divided. They do not want to see kids segregated from one another," Wynne said. "We need an inclusive system in this province that allows kids to learn together, be together and understand each other."

The move would strip $500 million of badly needed funding from the existing public system that serves 95 per cent of Ontario's students, she said.

It's good to hear the education minister talking sensibly.

"What, pray tell, is the Sunday Morning Challenge", you might be asking yourself. Well, it’s actually two challenges in one. Let me explain the first. We, here at Jamonation, would like to challenge secularist readers of this blog to watch one hour of Sunday morning Evangelical Christian religious television programing and post a comment regarding their resultant thoughts and reaction. I've watched these shows occasionally and am amazed that they are broadcast on the public airways. Be on the lookout for Creationist propaganda, fear mongering, the incorporation of patriotism, ties between church and state, threats of eternal damnation and the like. Carefully observe the set, backdrops, audience and music. Oh, and make sure you don’t have a mouth full of coffee when the preacher asks you to send a donation to "help with God's work". The second challenge is merely to see if you can sit through one hour of this kind of programming. Have a laugh or be appalled and tell us about it.

So, on Sunday July 22 / 07:

* Watch at least 1 hour of Evangelical Christian religious television programing.
* Post your reaction here at Jamonation.
* Have fun reading everyone's comments.

** Disclaimer: We at Jamonation accept no responsibility if, for some reason, you are converted to Evangelical Christianity by participating in The Sunday Morning Challenge.

** Important Update - Saturday July 21 / 07: Having thought about the matter further and, after a flurry of e-mails back and forth, Jay and I have agreed that perhaps sitting through one hour of religious television is asking too much of people. I mean, we don’t want to disrupt anyone’s regular Sunday morning activities and, most of all, we don’t want to spoil anyone’s breakfast. To make The Sunday Morning Challenge less onerous, we’ve decided that fifteen minutes of viewing would most likely be adequate to give most of us a taste, not necessarily a good taste, of what’s on the telly Sunday mornings. So, forget about watching for one hour, fifteen minutes will do. If you do want to watch a hour’s worth, by all means do so ... just be aware of the disclaimer above.

Via The Brick Testament.

"It is my contention that Christianity, when it is full-blooded, is simultaneously reflexive, reasonable and faithful [repressive, irrational, and fanciful]." Those words (with my reinterpretation in brackets) from a post titled Are Christians as Inflexible as they say we are? over at one of Phil Steiger's blogs, Every Thought Captive.

I did not know this (but am not surprised) that a Mr. Steiger, a member of the world's largest Pentecostal denomination, the Assemblies of God, has somehow, by some torturous and tautologous reasoning, managed to reconcile his church's stated position "that all matters of faith and conduct must be evaluated on the basis of Holy Scripture, which is our infallible guide (2 Timothy 3:16,17)," with a statement such as the following:

"The tools of reason and analysis are actually built into and intended to be used by the faith system of Christianity. If God has given us intellectual tools such as reason, and if all truth is God’s truth, the Christian has nothing to fear by examining all things in pursuit of their faith."

The BBC offers this 3 minute news report on the Creation Museum. The tone of the report is somewhat on the skeptical side.

I love what Biologist, Gene Kritsky has to say about the Creation Museum:

"The only thing missing is yabba dabba doo".

"This is very cute, but so are the Smurfs. And the Smurfs aren't science".