Global Warming – The Eloquent Engineer

In today’s politically charged environment, we are increasingly confronted with people supporting their particular agenda with misinformation and distortion. This form of dialog has reared its ugly head in our politics, in our schools, and even in the slightest interaction with strangers. Commentaries printed on the opinion pages of my local newspaper the last few weeks are prime examples of this rising epidemic of global hot air. The authors are not interested in reason, logic, or facts, just in pursuing … Read on…

The Great Divide

My excursions into classical philosophy and the great world religions have always left me disappointed. Plato and Aristotle were brilliant, the Old Testament prophets were inspiring, and Christ and his followers were lovable, but when you put them all together in a blender, as we have done with our so-called Judeo-Christian ethic, what I end up with is a confusing farrago of ideas all based on a profound misreading of the nature of life in general and humanity in particular. … Read on…

An Interview With Jason Torpy

An Interview With Jason Torpy President, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers Jason enlisted in the Army in 1994 as an Intelligence Interceptor. After earning top graduate honors from two intelligence training programs, Jason was offered direct admission to the United States Military Academy. Upon graduation, Jason was commissioned and served for five years in Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq with the Army’s 1st Armored Division. Jason left the service in 2005 at the rank of Captain.

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…

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…

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…

Mormon Heaven Part 2 (of four)

The History of the LDS Church Let’s begin with a capsule history of the Church. The founder, Joseph Smith, was born on a farm in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century. That area later became known as The Burned-Over District, a nickname alluding to the many fire-and-brimstone preachers who roamed the area delivering jeremiads to the local residents in tent shows and so-called camp meetings, urging them to repent their sinful ways lest they burn eternally in Hell. … Read on…

Atheism or Humanism?

Atheists and humanists are united in the conclusion that the supernatural isn’t real. This means that both are without a belief in a god or gods and both hold that people have to take final responsibility for their actions. The buck stops here. In this regard, both also see themselves as at least as capable to lead sane and moral lives as people who believe in confession, absolution, and an afterlife. And by their fruits we know them: the large … Read on…

An Interview With August E. Brunsman IV

August E. Brunsman IV, Executive Director, Secular Student Alliance Brunsman has been the unpaid Executive Director of the SSA since 2001 and has been the paid ED since October 2004. Before that, he worked as a programmer for the Institute for Humanist Studies for three years. In 1997 he founded Students for Freethought at the Ohio State University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa majoring in psychology and minoring in mathematics and cognitive science in 2001. Brunsman is also the … Read on…

Mission Dolores Part III (of four)

At Mission Delores, San Francisco: Religious Romance & Genocide III – The Cemetery, Graves & Roses At the entrance to the mission cemetery, I hear traffic flow on Dolores Street, which parallels the mission but is blocked from sight by a wall landscaped with trees and shrubs. Tires drone, now a tailpipe or muffler drags on the road and clatters. Rap music builds until I feel its tremor that soon diffuses to echo. An engine’s high-pitched whine goes silent. Immediately, … Read on…