Reading Time: 6 minutes Already influential, secular voters will soon be the dominant voice in US elections, says political analyst Juhem Navarro-Rivera.
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Posted inThe Secular
What is an atheist, really?
Reading Time: 2 minutes In ages past, an ‘atheist’ was the one unsure of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman pantheons. He doubted the fairies and the forest elves too. No matter the time period, the atheist’s theological suspicions were aroused. And time after time, time proved the atheist right. Suppose an ancient Egyptian doubted the existence of his […]
Posted inThe Secular
20 secular moral beacons
Reading Time: 15 minutes Mother Teresa. The Dalai Lama. Martin Luther King. Gandhi. If you ask most people to think of prominent individuals who represent the highest of moral activism, the apex of humanitarianism, the aspirational essence of care, compassion, and justice —these are the names that will spring quickest from their lips. It’s a fine list. Aside from […]
Posted inThe Secular
The challenge of being an agnostic chaplain in the US government
Reading Time: 5 minutes I remember the first time I saw the enemy. They weren’t anything like what I expected. I think I was picturing an Al-Qaeda version of a Navy SEAL, bulging muscles, armed to the teeth, all-around intimidating warfighters. But what I saw were young men hardly old enough to grow a beard, with a skinny physique and wearing […]
Posted inBooks
The weirdness of being secular
Reading Time: 4 minutes Is organized atheism too much like a religion? Is it okay for secular people to participate in rituals? If a humanist holds beliefs, is this dogmatic? Can a nonreligious person say “bless you” after someone sneezes? Probably every atheist or nonreligious person has, at some point in their lives, asked themselves or been asked questions […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
Secular grief: How I learned to cope without heaven
Reading Time: 4 minutes Shortly before my mother went in for surgery to correct an issue with her bowels, I drove up to her rural northern California home to help her prepare. I sat on the piano bench in her living room and waited for her to retrieve something she just had to show me. She returned from her […]
Posted inThe Secular
Less grey, less white: How to reach younger, more diverse seculars
Reading Time: 4 minutes We are a social species, and we do our best work together. But without a church, synagogue, or mosque in which to congregate, secular people must depend on local, state, and national organizations to create opportunities to network. National conferences occupy an especially large role in fostering engagement. I attended the 2021 Freedom From Religion […]
Posted inThe Secular
The secular corner of South America
Reading Time: 8 minutes In recent years, international scholars have been developing new methods to understand two challenging belief categories: religious believers without affiliation to any religious institution, and those who define themselves as unbelievers—the “nones.” Several quantitative studies have reported clear disparities among the countries in Latin America. This article explores the characteristics of these two groups based […]
Posted inCritical thinking
The atheist case for free speech
Reading Time: 10 minutes It was about 15 years ago, at Pitzer College, a small liberal arts institution in California, in my Sociology of Religion class. The morning’s lecture was “The Origins of Mormonism.” A main point of the lecture was to illustrate the way in which this recently-established world religion emerged not because of any supernatural magic, but […]
Posted inLeaving Religion
How humanism helped me let go of God
Reading Time: 3 minutes I grew up with the idea that goodness came from God. My family was sort of Catholic—the soft Catholicism that meant we didn’t read the bible or go to church unless it was absolutely necessary. And while hell was a concept I was familiar with, it wasn’t the main focus of our religion. The main […]