ALL ARTICLES

We are the stewards of Earth’s future in a way that no writer of ancient scriptures could have imagined. Are we equal to this responsibility?

“Naturally, my mother saw to it that her religiosity was duly forced upon her unsuspecting children.”

Because I was born an atheist, I was spared the indoctrination (brainwashing, child abuse) that produces helpless followers of one’s parents’ religion.

A flash of insight—there is no God!—compels a years-long, but ultimately successful, search for answers.

This Witness’s break from the family faith occurred, believe it or not, because of Romper Room.

There were attractive—even seductive—features to the mysticism my parents inculcated in me.

Only after converting to a vivid Christianity could one thinker come to realize how unconvincing it all was.

Shedding the last vestige of religious belief—and embracing atheism—made me free.

“I quickly discovered that most ordinary Christians have little interest in what elite liberal seminaries are teaching their future ministers.”

A flawed Supreme Court decision should dispel any illusion that America is quickly becoming more accepting of the nonreligious.

Like spirit, words such as transcendence and reverence can’t help making us sound like we still believe in woo.

A life with absolute certainty is no life at all.

Things may not be what they used to be at my old Boston high school, but they surely are across a resegregating nation.

Advocates for fetal “personhood” gain ground in part because scientists and clinicians quail from calling out their errors of fact.

“I prefer to identify myself with atheism and humanism as parts of a larger national and global movement, rather than identifying principally with people who happen to come from the same religious background I did.”

The separation of church and state in the U.S. constitution is more honored in the breach than in the observance.

People who believe the United States can somehow be saved by a rebirth of religious piety miss the most profound lesson American history has to offer.

Letters from the August/September 2014 issue of Free Inquiry.

Daring Pope Francis to reconcile his church to today’s world; New Orleans loses its last public schools.

Though many have been falsely accused of daring God to strike them dead, those who really attempt the exercise invariably survive it.

If the story of Jesus were true, ancient writers should have commented on it—yet 126 (and counting) who might have done so, did not.

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved but two hundred thousand years ago, or in about 1/18,000 (0.006 percent) of the time that Earth has existed.

A review of The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God, by Peter Watson.

A review of Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, by Greta Christina.

A review of Good Catholics: The Battle over Abortion in the Catholic Church, by Patricia Miller.

A poem from the August/September 2014 issue of Free Inquiry.

“. . . There has been a significant generational shift away from religion and theism.”

Debunking the Myth of Civil Rights as a Church Movement

“. . . The Sherrill decision was based in part on the Doctrine of Discovery, one of the rare principles of American law that came not from English common law or from the pen of some Enlightenment philosopher but rather from the Vatican.”

“. . . The power of gestures or words is due to their being understood by an intelligent (animal or human) respondent. But if this was not realized, it could be supposed that they themselves had an effective power.”

“. . . The original sin of agribusiness will haunt mankind more or less indefinitely.”

“Surrounded by family members firmly devoted to their beliefs can make freethought a lonely journey.”

“The days were filled with prayer, work, meditation, reading, and then more prayer and more work.”

“By the time I was ten or eleven, I’d figured out that church was theater.”

“Unlike the Southern Baptists, the devotees of Krishna danced, sang, made noise, and it was a holy thing.”

“Finally, I asked, ‘Can an all-powerful God make a rock so big he can’t move it?’ Success at last; I was kicked out of Sunday school.”

“. . . It wasn’t as if God was down to his last apple and the angels were going hungry; Adam and Eve had been surely just ‘breaking a rule,’ not really causing any harm.”

“I have met many gays and lesbians who have cited Christianity’s general tendency to deprecate homosexuality as their reason for leaving the religion of their upbringing.”

“Among today’s students, what does it mean to be secular—in other words, how do they understand that term?”

“Enraged by the presence at a cultural festival of Aziz Nesin, translator of parts of the novel into Turkish, the mob set fire to a hotel, killing thirty-five people.”