An Evening Wasted

This is going to be short and have no point.  Today I ran across an article about a man in Nigeria who was declared mentally ill based on statements that he does not believe in God.

While attempting to find another source corroborating this story, I ran across a blog by a British author and journalist names Sean Thomas (which I will not link to, you can google it if you need) in which he concludes that atheists are mentally ill (and mean -- a conclusion he reaches because of a survey finding atheists donate less to charity on average than people of faith).  The blog does not cite references well; aside from the survey, there is a 2009 New Zealand Herald article about people being wired for religion and a compilation of studies findings benefits to faith (by the Heritage Foundation, and therefore cherry-picked to support their political agenda and without consideration of alternative explanations).

Before I looked into the citations Mr. Thomas made, I googled him as well.  People dispute blogs he has issued on atheism, global warming, poetry, and the naturalness of homophobia.  People talking about his blogs were not saying nice things about him.  He does, however, have a Wikipedia page providing a brief bibliography of his novels.

So, my interest in the story I started with provided me a stranger to loathe.  Not something to write about really.  Nevertheless, please accept this gripe about an evening wasted.

-=-