Category: Op-Ed

In the United States and around most of the world, recent trends in the economy and communications technology have advanced the process of secularization, which Max Weber referred to as disenchantment. Organized religion’s “three Bs”—believing, belonging, and behaving—all show declines in most societies. The general public has become less obedient to religious authority and less …

The presidency of Donald Trump has divided the United States along racial, ethnic, and religious lines. He has shredded the Constitution by acting and speaking as if he were above the law. Like autocratic leaders from time immemorial, he identifies himself with the nation. As the French monarch Louis XIV famously said, “L’état c’est moi.” …

Existentialists see that life is profoundly absurd. Here’s why: People search for a meaning to it all, but the universe has no discernible purpose, no moral code, and no cosmic guidelines. Honest thinkers feel adrift, floundering on their own, lacking sure rules. Biology and evolution put us here, but that’s all we can know. We …

It’s hard to believe we’re back to “Love It or Leave It” again—it seems so very embedded in the years of the Vietnam War, Johnson-Nixon, Jane Fonda, George Wallace. Where does Donald Trump fit into that? He wasn’t an anti-war protester, but he wasn’t an angry homecoming veteran either. He was Mister Medical Deferment because …

Voluntary assisted dying, also known as voluntary euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (though all these terms have their own nuances), is a perennial issue dividing religious conservatives from secular liberals. In Australia, several legal jurisdictions have been engaging with the issue since the 1990s, and it is currently under consideration by the parliaments of two states. …

Readers of this magazine have no doubt observed that certain state legislatures have recently fallen all over themselves in passing the most severe and uncompromising anti-abortion legislation in decades—and that’s saying something, because hundreds of laws making abortion difficult (and in some instances nearly impossible) for those women who have the misfortune to be poor …

Throughout history, a clear pattern is visible: Religious believers sometimes kill doubters or throw them in prison as criminals. It began in ancient Greece, the first known place where scientific-minded thinkers questioned supernatural claims. Socrates was sentenced to death for “refusing to recognize the gods” of Athens. Aspasia, beloved mistress of Pericles, was tried for …

(From the Diary of Joseph) April 15, 2019: Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, the Cathedral in honor of my girl Mary, has been ravaged by fire. Early reports suggested that it would burn to the ground. There was a suspicion that Islamic terrorists were behind the devastation, but French police attributed the fire to an electrical …

When the treasured Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris suffered a devastating fire in 2019—beginning on the evening of Monday, April 15, and burning for over twelve hours—few could ignore the irony. Occurring during Holy Week (Easter Day was April 21), the horrific event may have seemed to supernaturalists to represent the wrath of God unleashed, or …

In “Humanism’s Chasm” (FI, February/March 2019), I reflected on the differences between older and younger unbelievers, especially regarding their views of themselves as members of a marginalized group (the young tend not to see themselves this way) and the importance they attach to antireligious activism (the young tend not to see the point). My essay …

Seven years ago, I was sitting alone in my room in Malaysia, having earned my diploma the month before. I was filled with depression and despair while many of my friends who had just graduated were filled with happiness and were set to either continue their studies or get to work. My student visa in …

In the wake of the 2001 Boston Globe exposures that did the most to uncover the depth of the Catholic pedophile scandals, many imagined that the issue would recede with time. That is not happening. Instead, increasing numbers of governments are mounting large-scale investigations into incidents of abuse within their borders, and the Church of …

I am a man—and I am beginning to be ashamed of that. The great majority of men, it would appear, somehow manage to scrub from their minds the multitudinous, indeed incalculable, ways in which women have been subjugated, degraded, and scorned over countless millennia; it is, quite frankly, too horrible a prospect to face honestly. …

Christchurch, New Zealand, is a beautiful, peaceful city located on the country’s south island. Its people have suffered in recent years from a series of earthquakes (2010 to 2012) that ruined much of the city’s infrastructure and cultural heritage. Christchurch became internationally notorious on March 15, 2019, when a fanatical racist and anti-Muslim bigot, subsequently …

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States found itself the sole superpower of the world. Instead of relishing this great stroke of luck; instead of enjoying this “unipolar moment”; instead of reducing its military footprint around the world; instead of focusing on its people, their health, education, and opportunity, it decided to …

I’ve figured out who it is that President Trump really reminds me of—not Roy Cohn, not Hitler, not Bernie Madoff, though they all certainly resemble bits of him. The guy who all but shouts “Donald Trump” is the original Peak Narcissist himself, Mister God. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that’s a good thing. …

Here we are, half a century after the first moon landing, and not much new has happened regarding humans in deep space. Yet with SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and talk of deep space tourism, moon bases, mining asteroids, and Mars colonization, it might look like Homo sapiens is about to become a space species. …

Among its many frustrating attributes, the year-end holiday season is a graveyard for news stories. Want to make sure no one pays attention? Release your story in late December. That seems to be what happened, if perhaps inadvertently, to this December 20 item by veteran New York Times journalist Sabrina Tavernise: “Growth Rate in Population …

The literary critic Lionel Trilling wrote in Sincerity and Authenticity: “The concerted effort of a culture or of a segment of a culture to achieve authenticity generates its own conventions, its generalities, its commonplaces, its maxims, what Sartre, taking the word from Heidegger, calls the ‘gabble.’” test Trilling said that in 1970, but it hasn’t …

A recent Canadian case, The Queen v. Sears and St. Germaine, involved the now-familiar issues of free speech, dehumanizing propaganda, and public expression of hatred. Decided in late January 2019, the case ended with convictions for James Sears and LeRoy St. Germaine, the editor and publisher, respectively, of Your Ward News (YWN), a loathsome “community …

Pity the poor white nationalist! He (and it is almost always a he) is not faring well these days. You think otherwise? Au contraire, mes amis! Take no notice of the fact that incidents of abuse and violence against persons of color committed by white racists are, in numerical terms, on the rise—whether it be …

The American Founders did not romanticize democracy. They were liberal democrats, which means they were liberals first and democrats second. They thought that liberal principles such as the rights to life and liberty and the freedom of thought and speech were more fundamental than democratic principles such as elections and majority rule. In our time, …

I am approaching my sixth year since I landed in the United States as a refugee from Iraq. Since then, there have been so many changes—gaining eighty pounds is the most obvious of them—but I can say now that I can speak with some authority when I engage in discussions about extremism, and in particular …

As a young Royal Air Force officer, Arthur C. Clarke helped develop a radar landing system as part of a team with Louis Alvarez, who then aided the Manhattan project, later helped determine when the three shots were fired at president Kennedy, and then  proposed that a meteor impact wiped out the dinosaurs. Shortly after …

Let’s step back a bit. At a time when we are constantly bombarded with information (true, false, biased, or fabricated), it can be difficult to take note of broader social and cultural developments that have radically changed the simple act of living in the United States at this moment in history—and, in my view, changed …

In her editorial in this issue, Robyn E. Blumner recounts her discovery of “forgotten suffragist” Matilda Joslyn Gage. That discovery was facilitated by Blumner’s participation in the Silver Anniversary celebration of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum held in Syracuse, New York, this past August. A presentation there reviewed Gage’s life and work in preparation …

The slogan “No platforms for fascists” came from events in the United Kingdom during the 1970s. It was aimed at propagandists and recruiters for violent, indubitably fascist, organizations such as the National Front. This was also a time of protests against the South African regime’s odious Apartheid policy, and student unions in the United Kingdom …

Americans tend to have a romantic view of democracy as government of the people, by the people, and for the people. They imagine that democracy is identical to freedom and self-government. They forget that democracy is primarily rule of the majority. They forget that the majority can be hoodwinked by the propaganda of demagogues, oligarchs, …

It’s a funny thing that many people take amateur medical (or “wellness”) advice seriously if it comes from a shiny blonde movie star with a pleasing smile. The public doesn’t flock to buy health products promoted by car mechanics or dog groomers, but people who read lines in front of a camera—now that’s a whole …

The Council for Secular Humanism has announced the recipients of the 2017 Forkosch Awards, recognizing the book and Free Inquiry article that made the greatest contributions toward the advancement of secular humanism during that year. The Morris D. Forkosch Award for Best Book of 2017 goes to novelist and public radio host Kurt Andersen for …

Kennedy’s Retirement from the Supreme Court Is a Disaster The president has nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. If we are to rescue whatever is left of legally protected equality for nonbelievers, it is urgent that we oppose this nomination. The Proper Understanding of …

When the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan said in a famous law review article that state courts must “step into the breach,” he was urging defenders of individual rights to start litigating in state court, using state constitutions to continue expanding evolving concepts of liberty. Brennan’s call in “State Constitutions and the Protection …

I’ve been a practicing lawyer for thirteen years this summer, with three years of law school before that. The overwhelming majority of that practice and study has been focused on the federal court system, which means, in the final analysis, the Supreme Court. For those sixteen years, one person more than any has dominated the …

I first discovered that church-state jurisprudence existed—and that it could enhance my life—at age seven. On June 17, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 8–1 verdict in the combined cases Abington School District v. Schempp and Murray v. Curlett. Both concerned state-sponsored Bible reading in public schools; the High Court thundered that this practice violated separation …

The day after Scott Pruitt resigned as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Norman Eisen and Noah Bookbinder, of the watchdog organization Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, D.C., wrote an op-ed in The New York Times on the ethical trainwreck of Pruitt’s tenure. They recalled a long string of horrors, and then …

Every year or so, I re-read John Stuart Mill’s great statement of liberal principles and values, On Liberty (first published in 1859). More than any other, I suspect, this book has shaped my own thinking about politics, law, and society. Each time I read it, I notice new twists and subtleties. It’s always worth returning …

For those not used to seeing them, a face veil can be frightening to behold on a person. One is tempted to gawk at women covered from head to toe with their individuality stripped away. If they are wearing a niqab, it is possible to glimpse a set of eyes through a slit in the …

Ever since the debate between Patrick Devlin and John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century, conservatives and liberals have been arguing over the proper role of law in society. Devlin thought that the function of law is to uphold the moral values of society. In contrast, Mill thought that using the law to enforce the …

Some months ago, a conservative firebrand named Kevin Williamson was chosen as a columnist for the venerable magazine The Atlantic. The thinking, evidently, was that the magazine’s generally liberal readership might profit (it was never clarified exactly how) by absorbing a point of view remote from and generally hostile to its customary presuppositions. But then …

A few issues back, I proposed a possible longer-term goal for the secular humanist/atheist/freethought movement (“A Modest Proposal: Get Religion Out of the Charity Business,” FI, December 2017/January 2018). I admitted that seeking to end religion’s role in providing social services was a long shot, perhaps “unattainable.” In this op-ed, I’d like to propose a more …