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The two great intellectual revolutions in modern Western culture were the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and the awakening of the historical consciousness in the nineteenth century. The themes of the first are familiar to us all: the notion of natural rights, the emphasis on reason rather than faith, freedom of the press, and the …

I’m not an economist, and I’ve never played a political scientist on TV.* But I peruse their literatures, and I’m puzzled by how seldom their discussions seem to focus on a problem that I consider desperately important. If I’m wrong—either because the problem is being tackled or because it’s less important than I think—I hope …

A question that interests me very much (and always has) is this: I know that I do not believe in either any god or any religion, and I can give my reasons in a manner that the other side can at least understand, but can the same be said for those who claim that they …

Naturalism has been the dominant voice in American philosophy for most of the twentieth century. Beginning with pragmatism in the early part of the century and cresting with John Dewey in the latter half, it has included philosophers such as W.V. Quine, Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, and Adolf Grünbaum, …

As modern cultures become more secular, celebrities seem to fill the roles once occupied by the gods of old. Sometimes the differences between the two start to blur. Some people insist Elvis never died. Or was that Jim Morrison? The recent tributes to Princess Diana ten years after her death show that she is starting …

Several months ago, an associate professor of anthropology and genetics at the Pennsylvania State University proposed marriage to me via text message. I answered in the affirmative in the same medium. We then began making plans for a meaningful atheist ceremony in which passages from Dar­win’s Origin of Species and Robert Inger­soll’s poetry would be …

In the fall of 2000, Oxford University Press published The First Edition of the New Testament, the English version of my German postdoctoral thesis. In it, I tried to determine when the New Testament was first published. I concentrated my efforts on studying the manuscript tradition. The result was surprising and differed considerably from the …

The following discussion is about the two most notorious inscriptions that have turned up in recent years: the Proclamation of King Jehoash of Judah (putatively ninth century b.c.e.) and the Ossuary of Jacob (James) the Son of Joseph and the Brother of Jeshua (Jesus) (putatively first century c.e.).1 The former is written in Classical (Biblical) …

In 1953, New York psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis looked at the state of psychoanalytic theory and asked, “Where’s the evidence?” That simple question, combined with Ellis’s determined hard work in the face of the ridicule and scorn of psychoanalysts, launched a paradigm shift in psychology—one that transformed mainstream therapy from a mysterious, almost mystical, experience …

We live in a culture of increasing alienation. We are estranged from our friends, families, and communities. Work may overwhelm and exhaust us, leaving us little time to commune with others. There are challenges to developing relationships with our coworkers—the average worker now entering the U.S. workforce can expect to have ten jobs by the …

Last year, during a panel on the judiciary in Washington sponsored by the National Italian American Foundation, Justice Antonin Scalia contemptuously expressed—as the The Washington Post reported—“disdain for the news media and general reading public [for] inaccurate portrayals of federal judges and courts”— including the highest court in the land, whose decisions can affect millions …

An amazing thing has been happening here in God’s own country: for the first time in living memory, religious skepticism is hot. In the past two years, a whole slew of atheistic polemicists—Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens—have been on or near the best-seller list, speaking to packed houses, debating the faithful with …

  Dealing with Death In the introduction to “Dealing with Dying” (Free Inquiry, October/November 2007), Tom Flynn wrote: “How strange, then, that, despite the comfort and support their beliefs are said to brin g, most religious people appear to fear dying and dread death no less fiercely than any secular humanist. . . . Or …

The John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, Philip Kitcher is one of the world’s most eminent philosophers. He is the author of many books on science, literature, and music, including Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism; The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities; and Science, Truth, and Democracy. His research …

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s order that an eight-foot cross be removed from the Mojave National Preserve. The ruling dismissed as a sham the National Park Service’s transfer to a private organization of the land beneath the cross.—TF O, Canada On October 10, Ontario’s conservative Tory Party, led by …

George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), was once the most celebrated poet in Europe. Handsome and charismatic, he was the darling of polite society, the cynosure of salons, a pacesetter in fashion and mannerism, the observed of all observers. Smitten debutantes, madams, and maidservants vied for the attention of the dashing peer of the realm. …

Like a particularly persistent bluebottle fly, one question has been buzzing round my head these last few weeks: why do atheists and theists seem incapable of communicating with one another? Time and again, we rationalists believe that our position has been expressed clearly and cannot possibly be misunderstood, yet, time and again, we find that …

Belief in a perfect god-creator requires the balancing concept of demonic evil to account for the unsatisfactory conditions of life for sentient creatures. We who discard the first have no need of the second. Both concepts, in Judeo-Christian terms, are absolutes. The rationalist sees the conditions of life as a mix of good and bad …

Alphonse Mingana, surveying the writings of Christians of the seventh century—the colloquy between an Arab general and the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch, John I; the letters of Isho`yahb III, patriarch of Seleucia; and the chronicles of John Bar Penkaye—came to the conclusion that “the Christian historians of the whole of the seventh century had no …

As we all unhappily recognize, the leading ethical conundrum of our time is the ill-fated, pre-emptive war in Iraq. We have helped to make a complete hash of that nation, as if its people had not lived in sufficiently humiliating submission under a cruel and despotic ruler for the preceding thirtyfive years. Why go to …

Preparing to be Charles Darwin is always demanding. It requires at least an hour just to get into costume—putting on the beard alone takes some thirty minutes. However, it is mentally becoming Darwin that is most difficult, for I must suppress my own identity and think as Darwin would—not imagine being Darwin but really think …

Several months ago, an associate professor of anthropology and genetics at the Pennsylvania State University proposed marriage to me via text message. I answered in the affirmative in the same medium. We then began making plans for a meaningful atheist ceremony in which passages from Darwin’s Origin of Species and Robert Ingersoll’s poetry would be …

Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (New York: Free Press, 2007, ISBN 978- 0-7432-8968-9) 353 pp. Cloth $26. The issue of Islam and women’s rights is both a hot topic and a neglected one—a subject some people worry about and others ignore or sweep under the carpet. It is, in fact, an issue on which progressive …

What Is Secular Humanism?, by Paul Kurtz (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59102-499-6) 62 pp. Paper $9.95. What Is Secular Humanism? is not an argument in support of secular humanism. Rather, it is a fairly concise statement of the principles secular humanism espouses and a response to allegations that secular humanism is less moral, …

Secularism and Secularity: Contemporary International Perspectives, edited by Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar (Hartford, Conn.: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, 2007, ISBN 0-979816-0-0) 168 pp. Paper $10. Secularism is conspicuous in today’s news, sometimes by its presence and sometimes by its absence. Sociologist Barry Kosmin and demographer Ariela Keysar …

Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things, by Madeleine L. Van Hecke (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007, ISBN 978- 1-59102-509-2) 256 pp. Paper $18.00. Madeline Van Hecke displays her extraordinary talent for written communication as well as psychological savvy in her book, Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things. Van Heck discusses ten …

Religion and the Human Prospect, by Alexander Saxton (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006, ISBN 1-58367- 133-1) 240 pp. Paper $19.95. This astonishing book offers a profound and novel vision of religion’s place in human life. Alexander Saxton brings his historian’s perspective to such disparate fields as sociology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, weaving a credible, …

in the gray wood in the reptile skin in the grimace and grin of played-out fields a flicker of green to gold to hard brown stubble that pleads the modesty of snow against the grain a grain of hope against the choke of guns and even louder the chink of stone against the spade and …

In the current discussion of the “new atheism,” one point is often totally overlooked by most commentators: the positive dimensions of unbelief. Conservative religious critics have deplored the denigration of religion as an assault on the moral order and social fabric. They ask, “What does secular humanism have to offer?” I respond with neo-humanism, a …

In the first part of this essay (FI, August/September 2007), Richard Daw -kins offered responses to some of the criticisms of his “surprise best-seller,” The God Delusion, from reviewers. Here-with, his responses continue. — Eds. “You are just as much of a fundamentalist as those you criticize.” No, please, it is all too easy to …

Recently, our colleague and friend Matt Nisbet reopened an old wound by suggesting on his blog, Framing Science, that atheism is not a civil rights issue. Nisbet’s post referenced an article written by Austin Dacey and D.J. Grothe that appeared in the February/March 2004 issue of Free Inquiry, titled “Atheism Is Not a Civil Rights …

Even as a series of car-bomb attacks (apparently planned by Islamist members of the medical profession) were convulsing the United Kingdom, an outbreak of torrential rain in Yorkshire left thousands of people homeless across the northern part of the country. British weather is notoriously bad but seldom freakish, so another opportunity presented itself for speculation …

Can a public figure have a private life? In the United States, it seems the answer is no. But not all countries answer the question in the same way. In the French presidential run-off election last May, both candidates successfully kept their domestic lives separate from their appeals for votes. Although Ségolène Royal lost, no one …

Reporter Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe deservedly won a Pulitzer Prize this year for revealing how George W. Bush has used “signing statements” as he signed certain bills into law. Those presidential signing statements absolve him from having to actually obey those laws. Acting on what he regards as his “unitary executive” power to bypass …

The television documentary A Brief  History of Disbelief, which originally aired on BBC Four in 2005, was premiered for the American public on May 4, 2007, on select PBS stations and subsequently shown nationwide through October. The three-part series, written and narrated by the distinguished British entertainer and intellectual Jonathan Miller, was brought to American television …

You’d think dying would be harder for the nonreligious. For us, death is the end, as final as turning off the television—and throwing it in the lake. However false-ly, believers can look forward to eternal bliss or, if not bliss, at least justice; resolution, all the same. Picturing a deity’s hand upon the cosmic helm, …

myrrh (mûr) n. An aromatic gum resin obtained from woody plants of the genus Commiphora, valued in the ancient world as a perfume and as an embalming agent. Traditionally, a gift of the Magi to the infant Jesus. Not so long ago, I inadvertently found myself a party to a conversation at my health club. …

Our twenty-nine-year-old son died suddenly after taking an illegal drug. He was our only child. Before my husband and I were able to see him, the authorities took possession of his body for autopsy. We saw Kevin two days later. Another two months passed before we were permitted to retrieve his belongings, which the police …

I believe deeply and passionately in acknowledging and celebrating the seasons of life—births, graduations, marriages, civil unions, anniversaries, retirements, and deaths—and, on special occasions, participating in rites of passage to commemorate them. I enjoy welcoming celebrations for a new baby and its happy parents and marriage ceremonies, at which I often choke up because they …

I loved my mom. She was the type of single mother who never looked to anyone else to make her life easier. She believed that my brother and I should choose our own religion, despite her strong Lutheran upbringing. Life didn’t inspire my mom; it wore her down. Whatever inspiration religion could have provided, my brother …