[The Christian Science Monitor]
The legacy of William Henry Hudson in Argentina.

[The Guardian]
After lying almost untouched in the vaults of an Italian university for 500 years, a book on the magic arts written by Leonardo da Vinci's best friend and teacher has been translated into English for the first time. The world's oldest magic text, De viribus quantitatis (On The Powers Of Numbers) was penned by Luca Pacioli. Written between 1496 and 1508, it contains the first ever reference to card tricks as well as guidance on how to juggle, eat fire and make coins dance.

[The Chronicle]
Claim that the earth is flat, or that the tooth fairy exists, and you will be deservedly laughed at. But maintain that according to your religion, a seventh-century desert tribal leader ascended to heaven on a winged horse, or that a predecessor had done so, without such a conveyance, roughly 600 years earlier, and you are immediately entitled to deference. It has long been, let us say, an article of faith that at least in polite company, religious faith—belief without evidence—should go unchallenged. No longer. If recent books—many of them by prominent biologists—are any indication, the era of deference to religious belief is ending as faith is subjected to gimlet-eyed scrutiny.

[Daily Kos]
Can an atheist respond to tragedy such as the recent shooting spree at Virginia Tech as humanely and helpfully as religious platitudes?

[Editor & Publisher]
A new survey by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that despite the mass appeal of the Internet and cable news since a previous poll in 1989, Americans' knowledge of national affairs has slipped a little. For example, only 69% know that Dick Cheney is vice president, while 74% could identify Dan Quayle in that post in 1989. Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind. Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly.

[RichardDawkins.net]
As religion (particularly Islam) swells in Europe, a secular backlash is appearing.

[Atheist's Wager]
A persuasive response to Pascal's Wager.

[The New York Times]
Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84.

[Spiked]
Fear plays a key role in twenty-first century consciousness. Increasingly, we seem to engage with various issues through a narrative of fear. You could see this trend emerging and taking hold in the last century, which was frequently described as an "Age of Anxiety." But in recent decades, it has become more and better defined, as specific fears have been cultivated.

[RichardDawkins.net]
Richard Dawkins taking the piss out of the postmodernists: But don't the[y] claim only to be "playing games?" Isn't it the whole point of their philosophy that anything goes, there is no absolute truth, anything written has the same status as anything else, no point of view is privileged? Given their own standards of relative truth, isn't it rather unfair to take them to task for fooling around with word-games, and playing little jokes on readers? Perhaps, but one is then left wondering why their writings are so stupefyingly boring. Shouldn't games at least be entertaining, not po-faced, solemn and pretentious?

[Thomson Gale]
April is National Poetry Month. Here are some resources.