ALL ARTICLES

When Religion Becomes Evil, by Charles Kimball (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002, ISBN 0-06–050653-9) 240 pp., including Notes and Selected Bibliography. Cloth $21.95. It seems to come as a perennial surprise to many that religious faith gives rise to terrible beliefs and acts. The lessons of human history do not seem to dispel the widely …

How to Be an Atheist: An Inaugural Lecture Given in the University of Cambridge 12 October 2001, by Denys Turner (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 0 521 52632) 39 pp. Paper $12. This book presents Denys Turner’s inaugural lecture upon becoming Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University. It is of interest …

Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions, by Daniel C. Maguire (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2001, ISBN 080063433) 160 pp., including Index. Paper $13. In Sacred Choices Daniel C. Maguire, who teaches ethics in the theology department of Marquette University, gives a very optimistic view of attitudes toward abortion by …

Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple, by Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller (New York: Marlowe and Company, 2002, ISBN 1-56924–566-5) 320 pp. Paper $15.95. The trouble started when Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller moved in together. First Solot couldn’t get Miller on her workplace’s health insurance because …

SIDE / LINES There Are Limits—Not all those who wish to read from the Bible are welcome at West Virginia’s Shepherd College. When forty-nine-year-old Barbara Marie Harm ison wanted to do just that, campus police told her she needed permission from the student affairs department. She may have forgot to tell them she planned to …

Church-State Update tracks continuing developments in important federal, state, and local church-state issues. Each item is preceded by an up arrow () or a down arrow (¸), based on the story’s implications for separation of church and state and the rights of the nonreligious. Washington Wire . . .Bush Orders Faith­Based Initia­tive. After two years …

In this new column, Bill Cooke comments on developments of concern to humanists worldwide. A longtime New Zealand humanist activist, Cooke is now a senior editor of Free Inquiry and director of the Center for Inquiry’s new Commission for Transnational Cooperation —eds. The death sentence against Hashem Aghajari, a reformist and an academic at Modarres …

We can draw energy, inspiration, and strategies from the gadfly who launched the Western tradition of independent thinking 2,500 years ago. As humanists, it is natural for us to look to our fellow human beings for the values and motivation to become all we are capable of being. As we strive to make the most …

Several readers objected to Taner Edis’s discussion of randomness in his “An Accidental World” (FI, Science and Religion, Fall 2002). Quantum randomness may be counterintuitive, but it isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law. We invited Edis to expound further on the admittedly quizzical quantum randomness. —eds. Physics can get weird, so everyone who …

Will secular humanists ever succeed in organizing so as to wield political influence in our nation’s capital? Once again, we’re going to try. In Washington, D.C., from April 11 to 13, the Council for Secular Humanism will host a national conference entitled “One Nation Without God? Secularism, Society, and Justice.” Session topics include religious-political extremism, …

In 1988, fundamentalist Christians in several nations vented rage and violence because a movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, portrayed Jesus as a wavering human who lusted for the prostitute Mary Magdalene. A Paris theater showing the film was firebombed, sending thirteen people to hospitals. Another, at Besancon, France, suffered a similar attack. Tear gas …

A Discussion Chris: Hello, you don’t believe in anything. Are you an atheist? Agnes: Well no, I am a polytheist. I think atheist sounds so negative. C.: Well, at least you believe in some sort of god. But isn’t polytheism kind of primitive? We all know that the concept of a single almighty god, who is …