Reading Time: 13 minutes We took an unintended hiatus last week for Humanist Book Club, but hopefully for the better. Comments to date on this series suggest that many folks aren’t reading the book directly, but responding to my summaries and analysis of author commentary. This places an added burden to ensure that I’m articulating key points properly, and […]
myths
Posted inMyth & Folklore
What the world can teach us about religiosity at home
Reading Time: 8 minutes The man who sells newspapers in my barrio is an Evangelical Christian, and also a deeply angry person living in a lot of pain. He lost his wife to COVID-19, he spent the vast majority of his life barely making ends meet, and he attributes not killing himself to the knowledge that his god will […]
Posted inStrange Customs with Sasha Sagan
Nicole Richie—The Conspiracy
NICOLE RICHIE talks to Sasha Sagan about her long, happy relationship with a very common, very strange custom.
We’ll also hear from experimental psychologist DR. ROHAN KAPITANY, a specialist in rituals and supernatural beliefs, about this and other lesser deities who populate the minds of our children—usually because we put them there ourselves.
Posted inCritical thinking
From razor blades to fentanyl: What’s not hiding in your kid’s Halloween candy
Reading Time: 3 minutes Growing up in the 80s, one of the most frustrating but mandatory Halloween rituals was dumping out my bag of candy for inspection. Up until I was a teenager, I was strictly forbidden to eat a single piece until my mother searched my candy thoroughly. The reason, my mother said, was so that she could […]
Posted inMyth & Folklore
Friday the 13th: A good day to get lucky
Reading Time: 2 minutes I love the number 13. I mean… what’s not to love? A baker’s dozen is 12 plus 1. An extra donut? Yes, please. In a hurry at the grocery store? Checkout lane number 13 is probably shorter. Looking for an apartment in a tall building? Units on the 13th floor could be cheaper. Need a […]
Posted inHistory
The unmaking of Enlightenment myth
Reading Time: 2 minutes In this week’s first column, “The Enlightenment didn’t change everything,” I explored how vaguely gesturing at histories of “The Enlightenment” does a disservice to the present. There was no magical transformation in human neurobiology in the 17th and 18th centuries. No sudden shift from a time of mystic thinking to an era without. Enlightenment myth […]
Posted inHistory
The Enlightenment didn’t change everything
Reading Time: 9 minutes My eldest nephew was three years old the first time I let him down. We were watching a video about deep-space exploration, and I had just finished explaining that “we” had launched Voyagers 1 and 2 in 1977, to study the outer solar system and interstellar space. “We? Did you do that?” “Well, no, I […]
Posted inBooks
Why myths matter: A guest editorial by author David Fletcher
Reading Time: 5 minutes For a number of years, I co-hosted the award winning Reasonable Doubts podcast. On Reasonable Doubts, I did a regular segment called PolyAtheism wherein I explored some of the vast array of gods, goddesses and other mythological figures that have been worshipped, and/or feared throughout the history of the world. For nearly a decade now, […]
Posted inGeneral
Debunking the Genesis Flood I
Reading Time: 7 minutes I can’t believe I’m going to have to do this, but it will hopefully be useful to some people. I am going to run through the gamut of arguments in the hope that someone like Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong recognises the terminal problems associated with a Mosaic authorship of a literally true Pentateuch in terms […]
Posted inUncategorized
Common Mythconceptions
Reading Time: < 1 minute This is a pretty neat infographic.