Author: Nicholas S. Molinari
Nicholas S. Molinari had a brief career as a Roman Catholic priest before he turned to a longer one in the automobile industry. He now works to promote humanist values through writing letters and articles.
A Verbal Laxative for the Bloat of Theism
Hello, God, it’s me. I haven’t bothered with you for quite some time. I figured: What’s the use? But then it occurred to me that maybe you are real. In that case, I request something very simple from you. Can you … would you … please write up your job description? You know—what your duties …
Conversation with My Darling Marie
On August 23, 2021, I lost my friend and editor Tom Flynn, a great man among men and women. His death was sudden, unexpected, and far earlier than its due time. Seven days later, I lost my beloved wife, Marie. Her death was not sudden. It was expected, even overdue. Death unhurriedly arrived at our …
Salvific Humanism
No thesis, this. It’s merely one person’s take on the questionable, even dubious, link between religion and morality. Doesn’t history belie that almost universally accepted view that morality flows from religion? Does not all good come from God/religion, as claimed in the Bible? People who practice religion always live in accordance with moral principles, do …
A Suitable Sobriquet
Alas! It’s come to this. America has long prided itself on being a Christian nation founded on Christian teachings and principles. Wrong! The Founding Fathers and Mothers detested the harmful and arrogant bond between monarch and church in their former nation, Great Britain. At best, most of our nation-establishing progenitors might possibly be described as …
Sixty-Six out of Seventy
Sixteen years ago, Free Inquiry published a remarkable and prescient article by Laurence W. Britt about the encroachment of fascism in various nations throughout the world, including the United States (“Fascism, Anyone?,” Spring 2003). This writer wishes to revisit the essence of that article—or perhaps, oracle—with the intention of alerting, and even alarming, all readers …
When Absurdity Becomes the Norm
Tertullian (Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus, c. 155 AD–c. 225 AD) was a quipster who might have enjoyed a Henny Youngman–type success had he been born about eighteen centuries later. The Henny Youngman of more recent fame became the king of one-liners: he concentrated on human incongruences for the sake of human humor. On the contrary, …
The Suffocation of American Compassion
The rise of the GOP and the decline of compassion go hand-in-glove. This dreadful phenomenon affects not only the old, sick, and struggling of our own nation but also rejects all hope for desperate people in many war-afflicted nations as they struggle to survive, eat, drink, and escape catastrophic carnage. To have witnessed this increasingly …
Through My Own Looking Glass
I’ve forsaken religious certainty—but not without being wistful about it.
Francis: A Pope Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers Can Believe In
“My experience as a priest impressed me with the sad reality that many parishioners were motivated only by hope of eventual bliss or by fear of an endless hell.”