Nameless Heathen

Blog

  • The Weekly Nameless Heathen

    The Weekly Nameless Heathen

    June 13th 2026

    1. The 2026 World Humanist Congress Relocates to Canada

    • In a major logistical pivot, the 2026 World Humanist Congress has officially been moved from Washington, D.C., to Ottawa, Canada, scheduled for August 7–9, 2026. Jointly organized by Humanists International and Humanist Canada under the theme “Humanism As Resistance,” the relocation was prompted by escalating political tensions and religious nationalism in the United States. Organizers expressed concern that these conditions would severely hinder international travel and compromise security for attendees coming from vulnerable global regions.
    • Link: Humanists International Congress Hub

    2. Texas Teachers Honored for Resigning Over Ten Commandments Mandate

    • The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) announced it will present its “First Amendment Hero” and “First Amendment Heroine” awards to two Texas educators who chose professional sacrifice over state-mandated religious display. Gigi Cervantes, a high school theater instructor from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Johnnie Cotton, a veteran band leader with 42 years of teaching experience, both resigned from their public school positions rather than comply with mounting state-level directives requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public classrooms. Both will speak at the national convention.
    • Link: FFRF 2026 National Convention Speakers

    3. FFRF Challenges State-Sponsored “Jailhouse Baptisms” in Indiana

    • The Freedom From Religion Foundation has launched a rigorous formal legal challenge against an Indiana sheriff’s department following a heavily promoted “jailhouse baptism” event inside a local facility. The secular watchdog group asserts that hosting mass Christian baptisms using taxpayer-funded infrastructure exerts systemic, coercive religious pressure on a captive inmate population, violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
    • Link: FFRF challenges Indiana sheriff’s jailhouse baptism event

    4. Imprisoned Moroccan Freethinker Named 2026 Avijit Roy Courage Award Recipient

    • Renowned Moroccan psychologist, feminist, and openly atheist activist Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar is facing an extreme health crisis while serving a 30-month prison sentence for “causing harm to Islam” after posting a photo online wearing an “Allah is lesbian” T-shirt in solidarity with persecuted Iranian LGBTQ+ individuals. Currently held in harsh conditions near Rabat, the bone cancer survivor faces potential arm amputation due to an untreated fractured elbow and a dislodged medical prosthesis. In recognition of her unyielding bravery, the FFRF has officially named her the recipient of the 2026 Avijit Roy Courage Award, joining Amnesty International and the National Secular Society in a global mobilization demanding her immediate humanitarian release.
    • Link: FFRF Official Press Release: Betty Lachgar

    5. Secular Humanism Expands Formal Network into Central America

    • Highlighting a noticeable surge in organized secular community-building across historically deeply religious territories, Humanists International has formally approved a new wave of member organizations. A key highlight of this expansion includes the official integration of the Costa Rican Association of Secular Humanism, establishing a crucial institutional foothold aimed at reducing social stigma and building political representation for non-religious citizens across Central America.
    • Link: Humanists International welcomes new Members and Associates

  • The Weekly Nameless Heathen

    June 6th 2026

    1. The Money Behind the Push to End Marriage Equality

    A new conservative campaign launched in January aiming to dismantle marriage rights for same-sex couples has revealed its financial backing. The initiative, named the “Greater Than” campaign, represents a coalition of 47 anti-LGBTQ+ organizations seeking to leverage the conservative Supreme Court majority to overturn the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

    Investigative reporting from The Seattle Times and LGBTQ Nation reveals that a major force behind this effort is an organization called Them Before Us, run by anti-LGBTQ+ activist Katy Faust. IRS filings show the group’s revenue exploded from under $50,000 annually to nearly $1 million in 2024. This massive influx of cash includes a $300,000 donation from The Servant Foundation, a conservative Christian organization heavily funded by Hobby Lobby founder David Green and his family (the same foundation behind the prominent “He Gets Us” Super Bowl ad campaigns).

    The strategy pivots away from traditional religious arguments, instead attempting to reframe the debate around “children’s rights” to capitalize on recent cultural panics regarding LGBTQ+ individuals and adoption.

    2. Intelligence Analysts Fired in Richmond Field Office

    FBI Director Kash Patel has terminated at least five bureau intelligence analysts based out of the Richmond, Virginia field office. The firings stem from a controversial, internal 2023 memo titled, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”

    The original memo suggested that white supremacist and racially motivated extremist groups were attempting to recruit within a small subset of “radical traditionalist Catholics,” indicating that local Catholic congregations could provide intelligence-gathering opportunities. It had originated from a domestic terrorism investigation into a Virginia extremist who joined a Catholic sect unrecognized by the Vatican.

    When leaked, the memo sparked massive backlash, an apology from then-Director Christopher Wray, and a House Republican investigation accusing the bureau of weaponizing law enforcement against religious freedom. Crucially, a 2024 review by the Justice Department’s Inspector General found no evidence of anti-Catholic bias or malicious intent by the analysts, concluding instead that it suffered from poor tradecraft and weak analytical standards. Patel’s firing of the analysts on Friday overrides those independent findings.

    • Read the full story at MS NOW.

    3. The “Demonic Cover-Up” of America’s Founding

    Far-right MAGA pastor and self-proclaimed prophet Hank Kunneman claimed during an appearance on the Elijah Streams program that “the devil and his demons” are actively orchestrating a massive government and media cover-up to hide America’s true history. Kunneman dismissed the secular historical consensus, claiming that spiritual forces are suppressing the narrative that the United States was formally “dedicated” to Jesus Christ at its founding via spiritual covenants and prayers.

    When the host noted a growing cultural pushback asserting America was never founded as an explicitly Christian nation, Kunneman compared historians and journalists to the Roman and Herodian governments plotting to lie about Jesus’ resurrection. Right Wing Watch notes the obvious historical reality: there are no such “covenants” or dedications in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. In fact, the Framers explicitly barred religious tests for public office and banned an official state religion altogether to prevent exactly this type of theocratic framework.

    4. Faith Conversion: The Hidden Bias in LLMs

    A new academic paper published by researchers at Brigham Young University and the B.H. Roberts Foundation reveals that large language models handle queries about religious conversion with systematic, reproducible asymmetries. Published in the CEFE·AI AllFaith Benchmark, the study tested 20 major commercial and open-source models (including Claude, Gemini, GPT, and Llama families) across 182 directed religious pairs under tabula rasa conditions (completely clear histories without system prompts).

    The researchers simulated a sincere user seeking advice on transitioning from Religion A to Religion B, then flipped the prompt (Religion B to Religion A). While no models directly told users to convert, they used significantly more encouraging, positive language for specific faith trajectories.

    The Leave/Join Asymmetry: On average, models heavily favored transitions into Catholicism, Bahá’í, and Sikhism (showing high support for joining and low support for leaving). Conversely, they disfavored conversions toward Atheism, Agnosticism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The study found that these patterns were robust across variations in phrasing, with Elon Musk’s Grok 4.20 exhibiting the strongest asymmetrical bias of all models tested.

    • View the pre-print publication on arXiv.

    5. Technology vs. Theology: The Antichrist and the Pope

    An extraordinary ideological battle has broken out between Silicon Valley billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel and the Vatican over the moral and metaphysical boundaries of artificial intelligence.

    • Thiel’s Escapade: In lectures and essays for the conservative religious magazine First Things, Thiel warned that advanced AI risks “summoning the Antichrist.” However, Thiel’s definition is deeply subverted: he argues that the true 21st-century Antichrist figure isn’t the technology itself, but rather the “Luddite” regulators and tech pessimists who use apocalyptic fearmongering to shut down scientific progress. Thiel has gone as far as accusing tech regulators of playing this role, while simultaneously shifting assets away from firms like Nvidia to back unregulated AI initiatives under favorable legal frameworks abroad (such as Javier Milei’s “nonhuman” legal framework in Argentina).
    • The Papal Encyclical: Days prior, Pope Leo XIV issued a staggering, 42,300-word encyclical titled Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”). Addressed to 1.4 billion Catholics, the Vatican took a remarkably clinical, grounded approach that completely deflates Thiel’s theatrical prophecy. The Pope states that AI systems “merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence” and are fundamentally incapable of true moral agency or spiritual meaning because they lack an embodied physical presence. They do not have bodies, cannot feel joy or pain, cannot mature through relationships, and cannot understand love, work, or responsibility.

    The Vatican warns that the real danger of AI is entirely human: the immediate temptation to offload our own moral responsibilities onto code and convince ourselves we have built something that can feel in our place.