ALL ARTICLES

  One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.…You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been t he religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the …

Despite overwhelming historical and contemporary evidence providing testimony to the incendiary role of hatred in igniting fires of violence, murder, war, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and terrorism–to say nothing of demagoguery and political gridlock–relatively little sociological research has been conducted to date on the subject of hate as such. Sociologists, myself included, have studied hate as …

One major topic that impacts on the reliability of the Gospels is the rate at which myth or legend can grow and overcome the recollection of historical events, whether in the oral tradition or in the subsequent written record of that oral tra dition. Some argue that the Gospels cannot be mostly legend, as many …

I may be reading too much into the November 2012 elections, but they seem to have genuinely altered the drift of American political discourse. Minority groups from Hispanics to the nonreligious played central roles in the reelection of President Barack Obama and in numerous congressional, state, and even local races. (Obama arguably owes his election …

Let’s talk about a pleasant topic for once. The most pleasant topic of all, in fact. Let’s talk about pleasure. The atheist view of sensuality, of pure physical pleasure and joy in our bodies, is about eleven billion times better than any traditional religious view.Our view—or rather, our views—of physical pleasure are more coherent, more …

If there is any silver lining in the moronic, ignorant, and grossly offensive statements offered about rape by the failed candidates for Senate in the recently concluded election, Missouri’s Congressman Todd Akin and Indiana’s Richard Mourdock, it is that they may have finally shown both the folly and the moral dodginess inherent in efforts by …

Last October, Savita Halappanavar died at University Hospital Galway in Ireland. She was a dentist with a popular practice in Galway, thirty-one years old,and seventeen weeks pregnant. Hav­ing woken up with back pain on Sunday, October 21, Savita went to the hospital and was found to be miscarrying. Sherequested an abortion, but the fetus still …

A frequent, though quite unjustified, charge against free markets is that they encourage what Karl Marx called the “cash nexus,” or what is also called “commodification”: treating people like items for sale. The claim is that when people engage in commerce, they are hardhearted, stingy, or (as movie director Oliver Stone and the Occupy Wall …

For sixty years, I’ve been reporting on the disabled and disability rights groups. In school systems like NewYork’s, kids “with special needs” (an administrative euphemism) are left far behind, along with English language-learners. In the nation’s continually overflowing prisons, the disabled serve heavily intensified sentences. My interest in this dark side of the Fourth Amendment’s …

In his new book, Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (Beacon, 2012), Chris Stedman asks for kinder, gentler expressions of atheism. For Stedman, the current level of hostility among atheists toward religion and religious people is not only uncomfortable but also, more important, counterproductive to the achievement of shared humane goals. …

  Free Expression in Crisis In support of Tom Flynn’s call that “It’s Time to Stand Up for Free Expression” (FI, December 2012/January 2013), I propose the creation of a Free Expression Merit Badge to be awarded by the Council for Secu lar Humanism or by Free Inquiry. As you know, the Boy Scouts of …

November 6 was a good day for President Barack Obama. The Democrats increased their majority in the Senate and gained a few seats in the House. The popular vote for the House favored the Democrats, but the Republicans retained control thanks to gerrymandering in “red” states after the 2010 election. The percentage of women in …

It is astonishing how so many science popularizers are able to take a bit of scientific evidence and elevate it into an earth-shattering discovery–or at least a revolutionary principle. The “God gene” hypothesis is probably the best example of the practice: the notion that a specific part of the human anatomy, which may be genetically …

No, I’m not asking the old (but good) question of whether the New Testament gives Jews a bum rap. I want to make the argument that the process of unfairly condemning Jews, or Israelites, already begins in the Old Testament. We still read in Jewish as well as Christian writers, even ecumenically sensitive ones, about …

On May 13, 2012, Mother’s Day, I happened to glance at a paid obituary in the Redlands (California) Daily Facts for Mary Russo McCormick, born in 1934 and died on May 6, 2012. She had penned it herself. It read, in part, “Mary did not have a courageous battle with anything and did not pass …

When I got involved in the skeptical, atheist, and secular movements in the 1980s, one looked out over the audience and saw mostly old white guys. Today it is a different picture entirely. At the last Skeptics Society lecture at Caltech on December 16, for example, an audience of three hundred was roughly fifty-fifty men …

The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, by Susan Jacoby (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-300-18892-9). 256 pp. Hardcover, $25.00. The life of nineteenth-century freethought orator Robert Green Ingersoll has been chronicled by five previous biographers, the most recent previously being Frank Smith, whose Robert G. Ingersoll: A Life appeared in …

Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor, by Eamon Duffy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780300152166) 249 pp. Paperback, $29.17. Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor by Eamon Duffy, professor of the history of Christianity in the University of Cambridge, is another of his informative studies of the …

Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday!, by Penn Jillette (New York: Blue Rider Press, the Penguin Group, 2012, ISBN 978-0-399-16156-8). pp. Hardcover, $25.95. Golden Compass author Philip Pullman has written that “after nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Had Penn Jillette authored this sentiment, one could be …

  Rabbit Rabbit Joan Mazza On the first of every month, say it, first words as soon as you wake to guarantee good luck all month. Did you do it? It’s the first of another month of storms and fires across the country. Only one rabbit? You are to blame. Three rabbits are better or …

To organize an event with a focus on issues affecting a particular group, be it religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation, is to endure accusations of tokenism—the idea that inequality and tensions can be papered-over by the superficial inclusion or promotion of a particular group for the sake of appearances. Such insincerity and posturing can …

You would think that nontheism and feminism should be a natural combination. Women have the most to gain from escaping religion, after all: monotheism gives men higher status, starting with their allegedly being made in the image of God. But atheism hasn’t always been very welcoming to women. Maybe there’s an idea that men created …

Recently within the atheist community, sexism has become a hot-button issue–or more accurately, a molten-lava/center-of-the-sun issue. Whether it’s the religious Right’s push to restrict women’s reproductive rights or internal debates about sexual harassment policies at atheist/skeptical conferences, sexism has become the topic. And this has left a lot of atheists scratching their heads. “Why are …

It hadn’t occurred to me, seven or so years ago when I started the website Skepchick.org, that misogyny might exist independently of religion. Most of the antiwoman rhetoric that I read or experienced came by way of holy books—“wives, submit to your own husband as you do to the Lord” and so on. I assumed …

At the pioneering program “Women in Secularism” sponsored in May 2012 by the Center for Inquiry–Washington D.C., I discussed some of the reasons—from the greater religiosity of women to actual denigration of female intellect by some male secular activists (which you wouldn’t think would exist among male creatures who pride themselves on their rationality)—for the …

My first memory of attending a political protest was with my father, after a woman named Eulia Love was murdered by two Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers in 1979 in South Central Los Angeles. Love was gunned down after allegedly threatening the officers with a butcher knife. The killing elicited a firestorm in the …

I can scarcely tell you how pleased I am to be speaking at such a highly-needed conference: one devoted solely to women’s issues. Coming to Washington, D. C., for this conference is a double pleasure to me. Not only is it my first time to speak at such an event, but because sharing with you …

  Please Answer All Three of the Following Essay Questions I What would it take to make you what you truly want to be and why will no one cooperate with you on these visions you have of yourself, when it would be so easy for them to finally acknowledge that you are the demon …

I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about Christmas. There were presents, of course. Not too many–just enough to wake you before your parents. Saving the best for last, my brother and I went first for smallish parcels from dista nt relatives while still working the kinks from our corneas, the phlegm from dry winter windpipes. …

Somewhere out there in a singularity before the big bang or the poof-and-it’s-there—depending upon one’s persuasion–a “typical” family gathers for dinner and has an unusual discussion. Dad: Do you think it is about time to share the good life with a new species? We have been by ourselves for what seems like an eternity. Please …

  Kramer: A bris? You mean circumcision. . . . I would advise against that. Elaine: Kramer, it’s a tradition. Kramer: Yeah, well, so was sacrificing virgins to appease the gods, but we don’t do that anymore. Jerry: Well, maybe we should. —“The Bris,” Seinfeld, season 5, episode 5 The February/March 2012 issue of Free …

This issue of Free Inquiry highlights two very important concerns: namely, the need to ensure that people throughout the world can freely express their views about religion and the need to promote women’s rights and end sexism, both outside of and within the secular movement. Some might think these concerns are unconnected. They would be …

  The entire Muslim world . . . is agitating for the United Nations to pass an anti blasphemy law. The rest of the civilized world must oppose this at everytu rn. —Mahfooz Kanwar, Calgary Herald It seemed the whole world was marking International Blasphemy Rights Day (September 30). Debates about free speech and criticism …

Questions have arisen over whether the Internet film Innocence of Muslims (or its fourteen-minute trailer) should be considered protected by the First Amendment.1 The very core of free speech would be nullified if the film were denied constitutional protection. Some may assert that this film meets the standard of “a clear and present danger” in …

In the discourse of human rights, impiety is no longer understood as an affront to a sacred entity but to a human entity. Blasphemy is personal. Under existing human rights treaties, the prevailing legal model of personal blasphemy is “religious hatred.” Roughly speaking, laws against religious hatred or religious hate speech tend to draw from …

Shadia Drury’s two-part column “The Decay of American Democracy,” Part I of which appeared in the October/November issue, will be concluded in a future issue – Eds. The display of Muslim rage in over twenty countries that was triggered by an American-made video insulting the prophet Muhammad has once again turned the conflict between religion …

Sanal Edamaruku has been campaigning for critical thinking in India for more than three decades. As head of the Indian Rationalist Association, he travels throughout India showing how gurus or “godmen” perform supposedly science-defying miracles by means of simple stage magic. In a country where superstition is backed by poverty and illiteracy, rural Indians often …

Paul Kurtz, founder and longtime chair of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry, died on October 20, 2012, at the age of eighty-six. He was one of the most influential figures in the humanist and skeptical movements from the late 1960s through the first decade of …

  On Gore Vidal When I read that the editors of FI, in their introduction to S. T. Joshi’s obituary of Gore Vidal (FI, October/November 2012), quoted International Academy of Humanism Secretary Stephen Law that Vidal was “principled, honest, and courageous” I was perplexed and frightened. I could not help but wonder what Joshi had …

A big error has haunted humanity for centuries: it’s the equivocation between generosity and altruism. Generosity is a virtue any decent human being will practice: it asks that one reach out to deserving others in times of dire need. Altruism is a policy of devoting oneself to benefiting others above all. The former is admirable; …