Reading Time: 2 minutes Big-money evangelists who get rich from religion are a blemish on America—and one currently is tangled in criminal charges.
Religious Morality
Posted inCulture
Give me a head with hair
Reading Time: 2 minutes When it comes to hair and the religions: similar strokes for similar folks. For most religions, long well kept hair signifies full-bodied sexuality. Given the ambivalent relation between holiness and sex, it stands to reason that the religions would insist upon certain dulling arrangements for hair. Holy hairstyles for men For some sects of Hinduism […]
Posted inDeep Dive
Who owns morality?
Reading Time: 4 minutes At some point during our merry journey through secularism, we all encounter some benighted religious people who incredulously ask: “If you don’t believe in a god, where does your morality come from?” Religious people believe that the source of their morality is their god and that their religious belief is the exercise of that morality. […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
Please allow Denis Diderot to instruct you on religious and irreligious morality
Reading Time: < 1 minute French Enlightenment philosopher, encyclopedist, and atheist (and contemporary of Voltaire) Denis Diderot succinctly explained religious and irreligious morality in a brief piece he called, ‘Conversations with a Christian Lady.’ It will be most effective if you read this aloud in your best French accent. The characters are no one in particular. La Marechale: Are you […]
Posted inFilm/TV
Q and Yahweh: Unworthy gods
Reading Time: 5 minutes Star Trek’s omnipotent prankster Q shows the folly of worshipping beings who possess superior power, but not superior morality or wisdom.
Posted inEthics and Morality
No, Jesus wasn’t a progressive
Reading Time: 5 minutes Encouraging individuals to do good deeds isn’t the same as calling for reform of oppressive power structures.
Posted inReligion
Beautiful ideas, beautiful buildings, terrible evils
Reading Time: 5 minutes Religion exemplifies the dichotomy of the human spirit: the same churches that gave birth to uplifting philosophies and great works of art are also guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity.
Posted inHistory
Morality evolves
Reading Time: 2 minutes Alan Turing’s life is an example of how bigotry in the name of “God’s law” has gradually been dropped.
Posted inReligion
What makes evangelicals so sure that the pandemic isn’t God’s judgment on them?
Reading Time: 6 minutes [Previous: Are COVID deaths natural selection in action?] Although the Omicron wave is receding, the threat of COVID isn’t over. Over a thousand people are still dying each and every day in the U.S. alone, many more around the world. Vaccination rates remain stubbornly low, and very young children still have no approved vaccine at […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
Beyond carrot-and-stick morality
Reading Time: 6 minutes OnlySky · Beyond carrot and stick morality | Jonathan MS Pearce Sarah looks after vulnerable children on weekends at a children’s sheltered home. During the week, she trains to be a social worker. In her early thirties, she is still feeling her way, looking for fulfillment. She doesn’t believe in God. She did once, but […]