When I posted last, it was about the first inkling that I had that the common god was not for me, an artifact of the supposition that god was both all-powerful and good, and the obvious illogic of those suppositions in actual practice. That is to say, the god with which I was being presented in church was clearly not a force that was operating in the real world. What struck me as I analyzed this again was how much … Read on…
Having recently started thinking about faith again, I find myself remembering what seems like another life (or another person’s life) long ago, in which I was generally undecided in the matter of religious belief. I was a pre-teen, drawn to a local Southern Baptist church by the spectacle and the fellowship. And, if truth be known, by the enthusiastic singing and the excellent box lunches. I had thought, then, of becoming a pastor, perhaps in the same way that many … Read on…
You may have noticed that we have been gone for a while. We may continue to be gone, in fact. However, there may yet be a vacancy or two at this unbeliever’s inn, odd since my person is now just a few miles away from Bethlehem, PA. A coincidence? Absolutely. Life has been more than interesting for the last several years, and during that time this writer has remade himself yet again. There has simply been no time for writing … Read on…
The esteemed professor, an expert on interstellar civilizations, is giving a public lecture about the area of her specialization. For years she has been studying the distant planet of Lipar, where intelligent life once existed but has been long extinct. Tonight she discusses some of her findings: Good evening. Almost half a billion years ago (435 million years ago to be more precise) the civilization of the Neans, a highly advanced species on the planet of Lipar, which orbits a … Read on…
Editor’s Introduction: The Eloquent Atheist has decided to publish comments by Ronald Aronson, (who was interviewed by co-editor Marilyn Westfall about a month ago), which were made in response to a critique of “The New Atheists” by Baptist Center for Ethics Executive Director Robert Parham. In his critique of the New Atheism, Parham labeled atheists in general as “God despisers” and the “faithless” who pluck sympathy from “the liberal media, a significant slice of the hedonistic entertainment culture and angry … Read on…
Why might that be That the universe Needs A local habitation And a name? Why might that be That all that is Needs A pet name and A personality? Why might that be That mystery Needs Turned to our ends? To our purposes? Why might that be That our Needs Demand a personality And a name? Why might that be That we Need Gods when all That is is?
I remember a moment when I was 5 and peeing under a tree and thinking about life and about bodies– my body emptying itself under the body of that tree, the huge house of it as I looked up through the muscular branches which seemed as thick around as grown men, and I remember looking down and seeing directly across from me another body– a tiny black foraging body– I was still peeing as I followed it with my eyes … Read on…
Co-Dean of the Humanist Institute. Carol Wintermute’s undergraduate work was at Denison University in Ohio where she received a Bachelor or Fine Arts degree. She did post-graduate work in psychology at the University of Minnesota. Her graduate studies were in family social science at Minnesota where she completed the course work for a MA and Ph.D. degree. She is also a graduate of the Humanist Institute. Her passions are philosophy, psychology, art and literature. Over the years, she has been … Read on…
Ronald Aronson is the author of Living Without God New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists and the Undecided. Ronald Aronson is Distinguished Professor of the History of Ideas at Wayne State University and the author or editor of nine books, including Camus & Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It, After Marxism, and “Stay out of Politics!” A Philosopher Views South Africa. He has published articles in The Nation, Bookforum, The Yale Review, The Chronicle … Read on…
How clever, he who thought to name a sin For many things to which we’re so inclined, Since after all, such things must be defined As devilish before we can begin To shed our natures like a serpent’s skin, And give our souls to God; but we’re designed To smile and nod and say that we don’t mind, While countless agonies recoil within. The faithful love to gluttonise their creed, While envying the ones who in their pride Can cast … Read on…