Reading Time: 7 minutes None of this would have landed in my purview if I hadn’t stepped out on Christmas Eve last year with the last of my seasonal food hampers. I knew that only folks having the roughest of times would be out during Nochebuena, a holiday that finds folks here, from the poorest to the richest, with […]
secular humanism
Posted inEconomics
What should regulatory burdens look like in the secular world?
Reading Time: 11 minutes It’s a tale as old as Constantine: churches benefit from tax-exempt status. In medieval centuries, the church was often configured as an essential extension of monarchy: critical for upholding the myth of divine royalty, and key for delivering social welfare in societies with few other dedicated institutions. In Britain’s North American colonies, taxation itself became […]
Posted inDeep Dive
How we create truth
Reading Time: 10 minutes White women have a storied history of fabricating assault at the hands of BIPOC men. On March 14, 22-year-old Eleanor Williams became part of a small subset of people to face legal consequences for false claims of abuse, which here sparked a season of hate crimes and drove three men to attempt suicide. Her elaborate […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
When an atheist sits with spiritual people in need
Reading Time: 8 minutes There’s a common idea in dogmatic religious circles, that “there are no atheists in foxholes”: that the moment an atheist is in serious peril, they’ll call out for divinity. That hasn’t been true to my experiences as an adult: even when robbed at gunpoint, or unfortunately when violently assaulted, I’ve never magically flipped a switch […]
Posted inThe Secular
Should secularists help build a better idea of God?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Since secularists have no immediate hope of a society-wide rejection of God belief, secularists should welcome a better idea of God. If people are going to have belief in God, then perhaps they can at least embrace a smart and humane idea of God. From the theist perspective, might theists welcome secularist critiques of God […]
Posted inLaw
A 2002 gang rape in India is still revealing worlds of injustice
Reading Time: 8 minutes Christopher Hitchens was once asked to defend atheism from the charge of hopelessness, by a Christian who found comfort in the idea of a god who would remedy all earthly injustice after death. In answer, Hitchens spoke of Elisabeth Fritzl, who spent 24 years as her father’s captive, sexually abused and birthing children also trapped […]
Posted inDeep Dive
How do we make astronomy more humanist?
Reading Time: 4 minutes While I wait for my early morning exercise class, I listen to the chatter of yellow-breasted bichofué, and watch a city worker use a long husk of palm branch to sweep the night’s detritus from the square. On my warmup run, I tuned into a local news podcast, for analysis of the new president’s first […]
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 inCritical thinking
What might a secular humanist view on economics be?
Reading Time: 7 minutes Taxonomically, my family is Freethinker (including atheists, skeptics, agnostics), my genus is Humanist (including the religion-based), and my species is Secular.” — John Rafferty ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford. Amrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary Economics is understandably a […]
Posted inReligion
Stop using the ‘not very Christ-like’ argument with right wing Christians
Reading Time: 13 minutes Humanists know that there is so much to do in our hurting world. It’s frustrating when a given cultural moment nevertheless compels us to dwell on toxic religious turf instead. Every time we do? We’re not working together to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Not grappling with rising environmental and war refugeeism, and reshaping […]