The Heathen’s Weekly: April 25, 2026
Logical implications for a superstitious world.
1. The Fifth Circuit’s “Historical” Hallucination
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled 9-8 in favor of Texas Senate Bill 10, allowing the mandatory display of the Ten Commandments in public classrooms. The court’s “logical” leap—that a religious text displayed by the state “requires no religious exercise”—is a masterclass in cynical manipulation. By discarding the Lemon Test for a vague “Historical Context” standard, they’ve created an incremental tool to prioritize bronze-age mythology over constitutional clarity. No wonder our state leaders want to gut real education; it’s easier to manage a population trained in “willful ignorance” than one trained in critical thinking.
2. FFRF Shuts Down Creationist Pseudoscience
The Freedom From Religion Foundation successfully forced a Colorado charter school to stop teaching “intelligent design” in 8th-grade science. It’s the same old “teach the controversy” nonsense we’ve seen for decades. Anyone with a basic understanding of DNA Cladistics knows there is no “controversy,” only a desperate attempt to ignore the overwhelming preponderance of evidence. It’s refreshing to see a small victory for the scientific method in a year that feels increasingly like a regression toward the middle ages.
3. CRISPR and the “Cures” of Human Ingenuity
The 12th Breakthrough Prize was awarded this week to the researchers who used CRISPR gene-editing to effectively cure sickle cell disease. It’s a powerful illustration of the difference between “faith” and “reason.” While the superstitious pray for miracles to heal “acts of God,” rational people are busy editing the genetic code to solve the “poor design elements” of our own mammalian bodies. This is humanism in action—using the tools we built to fix the flaws we inherited.
4. Neutron Science and the “First Moments”
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge just hit a record 2.0-megawatt power level. For the layperson, it’s a big number; for us, it’s a high-resolution window into the “unimaginably hot” state of the early universe. We don’t need a creator-myth when we have high-energy physics providing a physical explanation for our origins. The more neutrons we fire, the further we push back the boundaries of “mystery” that the religious try to claim as their own territory.
5. Local Austin: The Secular Spectacle
For those of us in Austin who miss the “Reason Rally” energy, Pioneer Farms is hosting Hecate’s Torch tonight. It’s fire dancers and synchronized drones—a purely theatrical “ritual” that provides all the awe and communal wonder of a religious service without any of the dogmatic rubbish. It’s a reminder that we can appreciate the “magic of reality” and high-production spectacle without pretending it’s a miracle.