Reading Time: 8 minutes A pastor recently said people are leaving their faith because it’s sexy. But if approval had really been our goal, we’d have stayed.
Meaning & Purpose
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
The resurrection of Ethical Culture
Reading Time: 5 minutes This one’s for my people. My Ethical Culture people, the people I spoke to in my last column declaring Ethical Culture “dead.” I have heard from a lot of you in the day since my column was published. Some of you are angry. Some of you are sad. Some of you are relieved that someone […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Problem of Evil: the Soul-Making defense
Reading Time: 4 minutes A secular worldview sees life’s silver lining, and sometimes good comes from hardship. Maybe God needs this excuse as well.
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Ethical Culture is dead. Long live congregational humanism!
Reading Time: 10 minutes I can pinpoint the exact moment I realized Ethical Culture was dead. I had just struggled through yet another virtual board meeting, the discussion dominated by an issue that had riven our tiny federation of humanist congregations for months. Once again, institutional dysfunction was getting in the way of progress. We had a clear opportunity […]
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Problem of Evil: the Free Will defense
Reading Time: 5 minutes Why the Problem of Evil, where bad things happen to good people? Maybe the bad is a consequence of free will, but free will is mandatory.
Posted inSecularism
Why OnlySky? Reasons to delight in a secular space
Reading Time: 5 minutes What this secular space might do to improve the state of sociopolitical discourse for us all.
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
How can you be a humanist when you can’t stand humans?
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’m not feeling good right now. I feel sad, and tired, and lonely, and empty. It’s my spark. I’ve lost my spark—which is funny, because I never knew where it was to begin with. There’s an episode of The West Wing where Toby, speechwriter for the President, talks about his inability to write. He says, […]
Posted inEthics, Meaning & Purpose
Doubting the Lessons from Doubting Thomas: Responding to Dave Armstrong Again
Reading Time: 5 minutes I started off this debate the other day with a short piece about the unfairness of the distribution of evidence as exemplified by the Doubting Thomas episode in gJohn. Catholic Dave Armstrong replied, and I duly responded. I then finally found a comment in one of my threads, by Dave, that actually dealt with my […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Meaning of life: Humans and other animals
Reading Time: 2 minutes I was looking out of the window today and watching two Cabbage White butterflies fluttering about in the jolting aerial dance that they go through in their almost random-looking ritual of sex selection. Of course, it is not random, but tried and tested over generations, embedded by the machinations of evolution. I had a sudden […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Meaning of Life: Telic vs Atelic Activities
Reading Time: 4 minutes I wrote a piece yesterday looking at happiness, the meaning of life, and the inherent desire in humans to do more meaningful activities in order to find drive and momentum in life. The idea as that atheism presents a challenge to humans in the fact that there is no ultimate purpose because there is no […]