Why the Christ-Myth Controversy Won't Go Away

In its February/March 2018 issue, Free Inquiry presented a symposium by authors defending—and opposing—the Christ-myth theory: the contention that Jesus of Nazareth never existed in history and should be regarded as mythical. In the introduction to that feature, I wrote: Was there a historical Jesus of Nazareth? Or is he best understood as, pardon the …

Reassessing the Mythical Jesus Symposium The “mini-symposium” in the February/March 2018 issue of Free Inquiry attempted to put to rest the debate between those who contend that Jesus was a man and those who insist he was a myth. This argument was precipitated by Senior Editor Bill Cooke’s articles “Why Secular Humanists Should Abandon the …

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, …

Irrespective of one’s experience as a law enforcement officer, it was my police department’s policy to have interested parties apply, test, and interview for specialized positions within the agency. At what turned out to be the midpoint of my career, I decided to submit my name for the tactical response team, our version of SWAT. …

Enforced religion stole a large chunk of my life. This is precious time that I will never get back because a religion was forced on me, scarring my childhood in the process. At five years old, I was forced to attend Qur’an classes where I was taught stories about messengers of God who slaughtered their …

At the end of 2018, a majority of Ireland’s population voted to remove the country’s blasphemy law from its constitution. The debate around the issue provided a very public reminder that such laws still exist in Europe. According to a 2017 report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), seventy-one countries have blasphemy …

Christian Theological Background Christian theologians from Catholic and mainstream Protestant traditions have addressed the subject of ethical responsibility toward animals since the Middle Ages. Although he was not the first, Saint Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) is the best-known patron saint of animals. For those interested, an excellent review of the role of animals in Christian …

The following is adapted from Clay Farris Naff’s remarks when invited to speak on atheism at a liberal church in the city where he lives on November 3, 2019. —Eds. Thanks. I’m here in a private capacity to share my views, and the first that I want to share is my great respect for First-Plymouth …

In this feature, we continue the Freethought Trail’s celebration of the centenary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which established women’s right to vote. The Trail is for anyone who wants to learn more about often-obscure radical reform history. But it’s especially for history buffs who yearn to visit the …

President Trump’s personal appearance at the so-called March for Life, the first by a sitting president, solidified what has been apparent since his inauguration: Trump sees eliminating all daylight between himself and the religious Right as his best path to retaining power. “Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” Trump …

In this op-ed, I set aside my secular humanist hat. Today I write as a journalist and a concerned user of the English language. My opinions are my own. A growing movement seeks to repurpose the third-person plural personal pronouns they and them as singular (more accurately, number-agnostic). The goal behind it is laudable: to …

Since the rise of a recognizably modern form of science early in the seventeenth century—associated above all with Galileo—science has emerged as “our most authoritative source of knowledge about the natural world” (Heather E. Douglas, whose work partly inspired this column) within which I include knowledge of a general kind about ourselves. Almost everyone agrees …

The spineless corruption of the current Republican Party has led many liberals and Democrats to romanticize the good old days when the GOP was dominated by neoconservatives. Democrats picture the neoconservatives as men of principle, conviction, and intellect—patriots who cared about their country, unlike the pathetic crop of cowards eager to curry favor with a …

In his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman wrote that of the two great twentieth-century dystopian warnings, it wasn’t Orwell’s Stalinist Big Brother we had to worry about so much as the seductions of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that …

It being 2020, this is the year to celebrate the decade that began to radically alter western societies toward the modern, highly secularized nations rich in personal liberties that we—despite constant challenges from the patriarchal, paternalistic religious Right—enjoy today: the 1920s. Think about it. In 1910, the religious Right pretty much owned this nation and …

The wide array of current religions, plus the many that died in the past, are impossible to count. As a blind guess, I estimate the grand total at perhaps 50,000. Alongside major world faiths are hundreds of branches and thousands of small sects, cults, and tribal folk groups in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. “There are …

“The political changes since [the overthrow of Poland’s Communist regime in] 1989 have not raised living standards for the majority of people, nor led to improvements in the state of education … . The increasingly strong position of the Catholic church—despite the change of political parties in government—may lead to the formation of a religious …

“[S]cientific materialism is currently posing a new challenge to religious belief because up to this time no one has thought through the full implications for religion of the Darwinian evolution of the mind. Consider, for example … ‘the epigenetic rules.’ These are the features by which the mind is assembled. In some instances they are …

For the first time, a freethinkers’ meeting site has received an official historical marker. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation funds roadside historical markers in New York (the state no longer does so). Working with Town of Huron Historian Rosa Fox, in 2019 the Pomeroy Foundation delivered a marker for the James Madison Cosad farmstead, the …

Free Inquiry now welcomes digital submission of unsolicited articles. In the past, unsolicited articles had to be sent by postal mail (three copies with an electronic copy on CD or thumb drive). This method is still available for those who prefer it, but unsolicited articles can now be submitted online. All article submissions will be …

Overall I am amused by the fact that the writers published in your magazine seem to think that expressing themselves in a “professorial manner” ratifies their intellectual abilities, i.e., never say in a short sentence what can be said with “big words” in long paragraphs. As an agnostic who suspends judgment concerning the existence of …

Democracy in America is under increasing threat, just as it is in Brazil, India, and many other countries. Voter suppression. Gerrymandering. Shrinkage of responsible mainstream print and electronic news media. Expansion of extremist religio-political media. A Senate that is stacked to favor less populous over more populous states. A faulty electoral college that allowed a …

People with nothing important to think about may wonder what qualifies me to write for Free Inquiry. I am, after all, no expert on humanism. I’m no expert in theology, either. (But then, neither are theologians, unless expertise in the dealings of a nonexistent being is a thing.) And I can neither confirm nor deny …

“I know there’s a god,” someone once told me, “because I need there to be.” This was said at the end of a routine god/no-god debate. Amicable beer-drinking continued thereafter, but that specific conversation had clearly ended with that bit of insight. It was something of an epiphany for both of us. This was the …

I know, or at least firmly believe, that I am a person whose name is David Berman. I also believe that I am the same person now as I was an hour ago or ten years ago. Why? Because I believe I can remember my past actions and other happenings in my life. This is …

It is a commonplace belief that there is a war between science and religion. From the standpoint of science, the anthropologist Leslie White has argued that as science gains knowledge in one sphere after another, religion is forced to retreat. Thus, for instance, the rise of psychology has meant the decline of religious explanations of …

Edd Doerr was born on December 21, 1930, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of Eugene Henry and Mary Catherine (Burk) Doerr. He received his Bachelor of Science from Indiana University in 1956. A former teacher of history and Spanish, he is the author, coauthor, editor, or translator of twenty books, including My Life as a …

Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again, by Marty Essen (Victor, Montana: Encante Press, 2019, ISBN 978-0-9778599-6-2). 236 pp. Softcover, $14.95.   Behold, born to us is a sequel to Marty Essen’s Time Is Irreverent, the madcap sci-fi metanovel that I reviewed favorably in these pages (FI, October/November 2018). As before, the book is …

The clematis vines into its top knot of magenta, each petal as bold as the arm of a starfish. My child, his attention unfixed, strokes the white keys of the piano as his violin teacher opens the hutch to feed Attila the Bun. The mimosa flowers in the garden color the air like the notes …

1. “Kiss me, once,” she said. … I kiss her, once. … “Kiss me twice,” she said. … I kiss her twice. … “Kiss me, once again,” she said. … I kiss her, once again. 2. “Miss me, once,” she said. … I miss her, once. … “Miss me twice,” she said. … I miss …

Had I known I’d find my way into this full-blown love, might I have creased my brow less? The boy with his violin, the daughter with her social ease, the husband plotting out the design of Mexican tiles across the floor. In this little house, where the wooden stairs creak and he must sometimes duck …

1. “Write a love poem,” she said. … “Only if you write one, too,” I said … She writes a love poem. … I read her love poem. … I write my love poem. … She reads my love poem. 2. “Write a last love poem,” she said. … “Only if you write a last …