Author: Mark Kolsen

In 2016, Congress passed the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, a.k.a. Public Law 114-281. Section 2 of the Act—an amendment to the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998—conveyed Congress’s “revised” view that “freedom of thought, conscience and religion is understood to protect theistic and non-theistic beliefs, and the right not to profess …

Historians have been reluctant to acknowledge that India’s most famous prime minister—Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964)—was not only an atheist but an extraordinarily learned atheist. His atheism did not develop as a reaction to a religious upbringing or the suffering of the Indian people (though he thought only a secular society could alleviate that suffering). Nor did …

A Response to Jill Filipovic’s New York Times Review of Prey Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s latest book, Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights (Harper Collins, 2021), has not only altered my perspective on immigration, but it has also—as her epigraph promises—“triggered” me. Her descriptions and documentation of the crimes and sexual abuse by …

At age seventy, my episodic memory can rarely replay events I have witnessed. But every detail of October 8, 2011, is engraved in my mind. On that evening, at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston, Christopher Hitchens received the Richard Dawkins Atheist of the Year Award. Five hundred atheists and onlookers attended the awards banquet, …

In December 1885, Robert Green Ingersoll wrote a tribute to Elizur Wright, who had died the previous month. Ingersoll said Wright had been “one of the Titans who attacked the monsters, the Gods, of his time … at the peril of his life.” Because during Wright’s lifetime “a majority of Christians were willing to enslave …

In 2011, Pitzer College offered the first—and still the only—college major in secular studies. The prime mover behind that initiative was Dr. Phil Zuckerman, who in 2011 wrote that he could “sense the thirst out there. So many students, perhaps galvanized by the New Atheists, wanted to take classes that challenged religious worldviews, explored the …

Beryl Markham, the first woman to fly east to west across the Atlantic, was undoubtedly an atheist. Raised in colonial Kenya by her British expatriate father, Markham was a “wild child” who spent much of her youth hunting—half naked—with local African tribesmen. There is no evidence she ever received religious instruction or attended church. In …

Sweden’s largest secular organization—Humanisterna (“the Humanists”)—is facing new challenges. Membership growth has stalled (at around 5,000 members), partly because the public perceives it as only an “anti-religion” organization. Within Humanisterna, members wonder how to integrate secular-humanist values into the lives of many Swedish secularists, especially young Nones. More pressing is the question of how to …

When you think of famous past American atheists, who comes to mind? Robert Green Ingersoll? Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Mark Twain? Clarence Darrow? Carl Sagan? Madalyn Murray O’Hair? No matter who’s on your list, it’s a safe bet that most are white males. As Melanie Brewster notes in Atheists in America, “studies find almost unanimously that …

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) has stumped historians. Biographer David Anderson states that Ingersoll was a “conservative and patriot … [not] versed in the social and economic controversies of the day.” He acknowledges that Ingersoll “taught men to question … the rationale behind the rise of nineteenth-century capitalism.” And he briefly mentions Ingersoll’s comparison of industrialists …

Although I have fished in many places, I have always avoided the murky waters of biblical interpretation. Nevertheless, after reading yet another rendition of John 21—the verse about Peter’s boat fishing all night without success and Jesus’s “miraculously” filling its nets with 153 fish—I feel compelled to raise some issues. First, let’s talk fishing facts, …

Although mostly ignored in anthologies of American literature, Philip Freneau is still recognized as “The Poet of the American Revolution.” During the War of Independence, he was unyielding in his criticism of the British and in his praise for the colonists’ patriotism, bravery, and sacrifices. In his poem about the Battle of Eutaw Springs, Freneau …

In 2011, the Canadian National Household Survey discovered that 24 percent of its sample chose “none” when asked about religious affiliation. According to Pew Research’s analysis of the Canadian data, “Young adults, males, single adults and college graduates” were “more likely to be religious ‘nones’ than older adults, females, married people and those with less …

One of America’s most prominent atheists, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has been severely criticized, even threatened, for her views regarding Islam. Critics say she has misinterpreted the Qur’an, inaccurately characterized Muslims, and promoted “Islamophobia” in the United States. They further posit that she does not understand that Islam is a religion of peace, not war, and …