ALL ARTICLES

“For pure, unadulterated, We-Are-Atheists-Hear-Us-Roar unity and
pride, there was one beginning and one place to be: Thursday evenings at Baron d’Holbach’s joint.”

In every way the reality of man negates the goodness of God.

Pop culture surrendered to despair because it is easier to embrace our doom than to do something about it.

“Problems and questions keep mounting. Why in the [Grand Canyon] is there no mixing of land and marine animals as should have occurred in the turbulence of a massive flood?”

Poem: For years before he died, grandfather kept / stacked in his basement, every can, every / lidless jar and pastry tray that came / his way

“… Free Inquiry presents a large-scale
reappraisal of humanism’s outsized role in social-justice activism throughout
he twentieth century.”

“… Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, a humanist movement—and its underlying ideals—helped to shape many of the major social-reform initiatives that would transform America’s political and cultural landscape during the twentieth century.”

Why be pro-abortion? Because of all the genuine, unquestioned goods it makes possible.

“The forger even included a typographical
error in transcription that was in the online edition he or she used for the copying!”

“My experience as a priest impressed me with the sad reality that many parishioners were motivated only by hope of eventual bliss or by fear of an endless hell.”

“Bizarrely, a subset of progressives has bought into the idea that any criticism of the tenets of Islam is an attack on Muslim people.”

“What is starting to hurt me almost more than the continuous terrorist attacks—which make it seem as though the whole world is on fire—is seeing how we are becoming numb to these attacks.

“When you say the definition of atheism should be what it’s always been, you’re saying the old guard gets to define the language forever.”

Why should the kind of atheist one is incline anyone to adopt a specific, rather narrow set of values?

“Once formed by
making the last first, the Catholic Church then became dedicated to keeping the first first.”

Remembering an exceptional chemist, humanist, and educator.

Letters in response to Free Inquiry volume 36, issue 4

“It should be
obvious that failure to provide universal access to contraception, legal abortion, good sexuality education,
nd decent medical care . . . can only exacerbate the climate-change seamroller.”

Above all Robert Ingersoll demonstrated that an exuberant, joyful life without religion was possible.

“Theologians have filled thousands of volumes with abuse of this serpent, but it seems that he told the exact truth.”

“Jehovah’s Witnesses say that any day now, Jesus will descend from heaven with an army of angels to clash with Satan and an army of demons in the long-foreseen Battle of Armageddon.”

“… Thinking too deeply about the concept of God, much less coming out as an atheist at church, will forever change your relationship with those around you.”

In secular groups, activities derided as “preaching to the choir” actually serve valuable purposes.

“… It’s one great mystery why this supposedly loving and compassionate deity does not simply imbue all his creatures at least with the knowledge and certitude of his existence, his nature, and exactly how he wished to be worshipped… .”

“It was a long
journey, but we had made it all the way from Earth to Pluto to Limburger
heese to God.”

“… The book is not especially systematic, reading more like a
collection of diverse, thematically linked articles than a systematic effort to define,
iscuss, and defend naturalism of any kind.”

Whatever the future, the history of this issue presents yet another example of religion’s continual reliance on secular forces to show it the way.

“The task Rome’s greatest prose stylist set himself in De Senectute was to find reasons to stop complaining, to consent to aging, and to sing its virtues.”

Short reviews of books by Gene Weingarten, Stephen Van Eck, Monte Wolverton, Guy P. Harrison, John
W. Lof­­tus, Lee McIntyre, and Elicka Peterson Sparks.

if not what can’t be felt—allow— / perhaps / another feeling altogether

“. . . People are now more likely than ever to bypass religion altogether and to look toward popular culture for guidance.”

Not only is death inevitable, life wouldn’t be possible without it.

A year working in a mortuary reshapes one atheist’s understanding of death.

Ancient Stoic philosophy has much to offer contemporary secular humanists.

What is a secular humanist to do under these circumstances? To pray or not to pray?

One on one with a keeper of the Doomsday Clock, which has been tracking existential risk since 1947.

Cremation’s popularity is swelling. One factor seems to be growth among the nonreligious.

Worried how your religious survivors will arrange your funeral? You can’t stop them, but you can set limits.

Rejection of religion began with this writer’s deep understanding of the story of Abraham.

If civilization lasts long enough, secularism might one day get another chance in Muslim countries. For now, it is dead.