Reading Time: 4 minutes When I hear, “Donald Trump doesn’t represent the America I know,” it makes me wonder what America they’re speaking of.
History
Exploring history and prehistory from a secular, nonreligious perspective.
Posted inHistory
E Pluribus Unum: It’s time to bring back our motto
Reading Time: 5 minutes Our national motto is “In God We Trust.” Not only does it disenfranchise non-Christians, it steps on the Constitution. When pressed, Christian supporters admit the problem. We must return to E Pluribus Unum.
Posted inReligion
Fascism in India: The weaponization of religious custom
Reading Time: 8 minutes Where I live, Navidad and Semana Santa are significant religious affairs, times when the hustle and bustle of city life eases for a month and a week respectively: to observe Catholic customs, to be with family, or simply to travel to nearby towns and farms. One side effect, though, is the impact of reduced foot […]
Posted inReligious News
Does a newly-discovered Hebrew tablet prove the Bible is older than initially believed?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Christians and Jews have been excited as of late due to an archaeological discovery that has caused quite a stir. A tablet, which contains the words of an ancient Hebrew curse has been found in Israel that pre-dates the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls, whose oldest fragments and scrolls date back to the […]
Posted inHistory
Graphic novel breathes new life into ‘filthy little atheist’ Thomas Paine
Reading Time: 4 minutes Revolutionary political campaigner Thomas Paine (1774–1809) wrote in The Age of Reason (1792): “Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It […]
Posted inPolitics
Fascism in India: The global turn toward nationalist politics
Reading Time: 9 minutes Although I never needed to “deconvert” from a religious tradition, I was fascinated by New Atheism’s debate circuits at the turn of the century: The eloquence of its speeches. All those witty rejoinders. The rallying of knowledge from a range of disciplines to out-fact an opponent. It was easy to fall prey to the idea […]
Posted inReligion
Analyzing Ehrman and Licona’s 7-hour Resurrection debate
Reading Time: 7 minutes Recently, there was a seven-hour debate between Mike Licona (Christian) and Bart Ehrman (Agnostic), on the subject of “Did the Resurrection of Jesus Really Happen?” that had been well-anticipated by people in certain corners of the internet. The Resurrection of Jesus has been a topic of much discussion here at A Tippling Philosopher due to […]
Posted inHistory
Fascism in India: The role of Nazis in Hindu nationalism
Reading Time: 7 minutes When writing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in Hindu extremism, I committed the cardinal sin of not defining a key term: fascism. This was a conscious choice, because I’ve written before on how quickly we mire ourselves in political word games. Better to start with the government figure that Western media keeps centering, as […]
Posted inHistory
Fascism in India: Who’s ‘in charge’ of 1.4 billion?
Reading Time: 8 minutes There’s something fascinating, if also disturbing, about Western incuriosity around the world’s largest democracy. 1.4 billion of our world’s 7.8 live in India, a country a third the size of the US, which has under a quarter of India’s population. How can the fortunes of so many mean so little? Nevertheless, India exists in the […]
Posted inWar and Peace
Beyond Ukraine: The global response to (un)civil wars
Reading Time: 6 minutes With Western attention on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s easy to forget the added pain of people from regions where crimes against humanity have been raging all this time. But it’s a whole different level of heartbreak for many to witness European borders suddenly opening wide, stronger sanctions put in place, and international organizations rallying […]