Author: James Underdown
James Underdown is the executive director of the Center for Inquiry/ West in Los Angeles and host on Point of Inquiry
One Nation, above God
On January 20, on his blog Ask the Atheist, CFI Los Angeles Executive Director Jim Underdown was asked the following question: What did you think of the inauguration? Kind of godly, wasn’t it? William G., Wheaton, Illinois Here’s Underdown’s answer: (sigh) Look, overall, I thought it was great. The themes of unification, truth, resolve, equality—all …
Flowers and Fire
‘To Bruno’ My wife and I are at the end of a seventeen-day science pilgrimage that began in Venice and is ending here in Rome. We have been visiting sites in northern Italy—Padua, Florence, Pisa, Sienna, Vinci, among others—significant to Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci, two key figures in the Renaissance. We’ve seen Galileo’s …
‘I was There…’ Harlan Ellison Witnesses the Birth of Scientology
In 2014, I had a long phone conversation with Harlan Ellison, during which I took many notes. I had sent him a letter asking if he’d appear in (or at least consult on) a music video that my band, The Heathens, was considering shooting. Craig Else and I had written a song about L. Ron …
Mother (Nature) Dearest
The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out. —Walt Whitman, “Carol of Words” On September 19, 2003, I joined Jeff Lowder and Jim Still—both board members of Internet Infidels—on a trek …