Latest Articles
Webinars All the Way Down
May 12, 2023While you weren’t looking, the editor of your favorite secular humanist magazine (let’s assume) has been serving as the MW (like an MC, but it’s a Master of Webinars) for some of the recent Skeptical Inquirer Presents live online events. My role is a simple one, of course. The stars are the wicked-smart presenters who …
Save the World for Pennies a Day
May 5, 2023To stop global warming we need to remove as much CO2 as we emit each year. Here’s a modest proposal to pay for it. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), at our current rate of carbon emission—36 billion tons per year—the atmospheric temperature will rise by 1.5℃ within twelve years. This is because …
Julia Sweeney on the Gospels…with Pizzazz!
April 20, 2023After you hear Julia Sweeney compare the Gospels to drafts of a screenplay, you may have trouble ever thinking of them in any other way. Aside from the fact that there was no cinema when these were written, I’m pretty sure Julia’s nailed it. Oh, wow, pun not intended, but embraced after the fact. Toward …
Podcast: Jennifer Michael Hecht and the Wonder Paradox
April 17, 2023I recently had the absolute privilege of speaking with one of my favorite authors, Jennifer Michael Hecht, for the Point of Inquiry podcast. She’s the author of several books, two of which in particular have been invaluable to me: Doubt: A History and The Happiness Myth. We talked about the ideas behind her most recent …
Popular Articles
Have Christians Accepted the Scientific Conclusion That God Does Not Answer Intercessory Prayer?
Volume 39, No. 1December 2018 / January 2019
In 1982, a young cardiologist at the San Francisco General Medical Center named Randolph Byrd had a brilliant insight that would motivate several important investigations of prayer during the following two decades. He realized that the standard research paradigm known as the double-blind randomized clinical trial could be used to test the efficacy of intercessory …
Why I Am Pro-Abortion, Not Just Pro-Choice
Volume 36, No. 5August / September 2016
Why be pro-abortion? Because of all the genuine, unquestioned goods it makes possible.
The Importance of Being Blasphemous
Volume 35, No. 6October / November 2015
Looking back on the Satanic Verses affair from the time of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, it is clear that Western culture has hemorrhaged away its courage.
Popular Articles
Have Christians Accepted the Scientific Conclusion That God Does Not Answer Intercessory Prayer?
Volume 39, No. 1December 2018 / January 2019
In 1982, a young cardiologist at the San Francisco General Medical Center named Randolph Byrd had a brilliant insight that would motivate several important investigations of prayer during the following two decades. He realized that the standard research paradigm known as the double-blind randomized clinical trial could be used to test the efficacy of intercessory …
Why I Am Pro-Abortion, Not Just Pro-Choice
Volume 36, No. 5August / September 2016
Why be pro-abortion? Because of all the genuine, unquestioned goods it makes possible.
Looking Back
Hobby Lobby, Steve Green, and the New Bible Empire
Volume 35, No. 3April / May 2015
Fresh from his Supreme Court victory, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green has a terrifying plan to Christianize America. And he has enough money to push it through.
The Real Old-Time Religion: Magic, Superstition, and the Challenge to Fundamentalism
Volume 35, No. 3April / May 2015
Fundamentalists who think that they want a return to “old-time religion” should think again.
One Easter Five Ways
Volume 35, No. 3April / May 2015
Christians cannot look to the Bible to provide an internally consistent Easter narrative.
Hobby Lobby, Steve Green, and the New Bible Empire
Volume 35, No. 3April / May 2015
Fresh from his Supreme Court victory, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green has a terrifying plan to Christianize America. And he has enough money to push it through.
The Real Old-Time Religion: Magic, Superstition, and the Challenge to Fundamentalism
Volume 35, No. 3April / May 2015
Fundamentalists who think that they want a return to “old-time religion” should think again.