Right, Wrong, and the Universe

There is almost endless debate about the worth of a god in the process of teaching ethics. One side of that discussion argues that without an almighty god, and the twin concepts of heaven and hell to use as reward and punishment, all people would instantly succumb to every temptation to rape, murder, pillage, and steal pencils from the cabinet at work. As an atheist, I do not blame god for anything, since I do not believe that god exists; … Read on…

An Interview With Roy Speckhardt

Roy Speckhardt is the Executive Director for the American Humanist Association, the oldest and largest Humanist organization in the United States. He is also a board member of the Humanist Institute, and an advisory board member of both the Secular Student Alliance and The Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program. Previously, he served as deputy director for the Interfaith Alliance. He lives in Maryland with his wife Charlene Gomes and daughters Johanna and Riley. (Roy’s Web Site). Q: Roy … Read on…

Ground Rules For The Eloquent Atheist

We have had a few comments over the last few days from Jonathan Blake regarding the Mormon series that we ran recently, in four parts. More than anything else, that series was a light-hearted reminiscence about a non-Mormon growing up in Mormon territory. It is probably the most even-handed, friendly, and good-natured handling of the Mormon religion that you are ever going to see on an Atheist site. Mr. Blake, however, insists upon arguing about a few points of religious … Read on…

Hallelujah

Hallelujah latest Earth and strong selves, grafted with sportive grace, to birth or bury all, except who, with sputtered wills, still move themselves to and fro. This furious world, frail and forward, by which our minds and hands pervert from hells, continuing a religious legacy of reaching utmost, has tamely sat and turned us longstanding, over such perilous, mass deaths, each abyss of our deities, every molten shake of our knowledge.

An Interview with Herb Silverman

Herb Silverman is a native of Philadelphia. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Syracuse University and has been a Professor of Mathematics at the College of Charleston since 1976. He has published over 100 research papers in mathematics journals, and is also the recipient of the Distinguished Research Award. In the 1990s, after learning that atheists were ineligible, by law, to hold elected office in South Carolina, he ran for office and pursued overturning the law in court, succeeding … Read on…

Telescope and Microscope

The diffident nova is affronted. In a lens, because in spite I focus, and against my living crutch, I, as a planet, perch the matter of spoiled bodies a distance from my own, who’s lethal activity is viewed through the scope, as is mine. For grubs I give gods, and the birth of time. I am untethered from imminence or evanescence, each but mirrors, delightful, ember-spitting, but I would concede a revelation for grubs; they are illustrations of the soul … Read on…

The Bad Virus

Think of religion as a collection of viruses, specialists in modifying a host’s behavior in specific ways, that somehow got into our ancestors during the long period of human biological evolution. As they settled in and adjusted to their environment, they developed various degrees of symbiosis with the host and each other. The host evolved both physically and in terms of cognitive powers; in the process, new needs appeared that some of the religion viruses were able to fill, including … Read on…

Preacher Man

Preacher Man slithers to town. Gonna solve problems that we never had – before. Gonna tell us ‘bout sins that we never did – before. He’s packin’ the pews and we’re payin’ big dues to hear his raunchy sermons. Descriptions so good and scenes so hot he leaves us dying to try it. He grins real big at sumptuous sin but tells us not to taste it. Oh, but the fruit so juicy and smells so sweet – seems a … Read on…

An Interview with Ellen Johnson

Ellen Johnson has been an activist for American Atheists (AA) since 1978. In addition to having served on the AA Board of Directors, she was also the New Jersey representative for ten years. Currently, she is the President of AA. She considers herself “one of the fortunate few who grew up in an Atheist home.” She is raising her two children in an Atheist environment. American Atheists is an organization dedicated to securing the civil liberties of Atheists and the … Read on…

The Old Idol

Springtime, the final week of March, but shivering at the garden gate, its hinges frozen shut, I push open the heavy planks and fresh snow tumbles from pickets, lands softer than birds on the white backyard. Where summer roses climbed, now stretches a trellis of gray and cracked cedar, each crotch in its diamond pattern glassy with ice, as is the crisscrossed wooden niche,