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Throughout history, young humans have endured careful moral instruction on the difference between right and wrong. Yet humanity owns a spectacular history of violent conflict between holders of relatively minor differences of opinion in the interpretation of moral tenets.  Catholicism versus Protestantism and Shi’ite versus Sunni Islam are just two of the culture wars that …

Do You Believe in God? You are in conversation with a neighbor, friend, associate at work, or family member, and they pointedly ask you the question, “Do you believe in God?” I most certainly did, quite some time ago, and throughout my twenty-five years as a Christian minister I spent a great deal of my …

Logical fallacies within a religious text are problematic for followers of that religion. This is because fallacies call into question the religion’s validity, especially if the follower proclaims that their deity is infallible. It is thus a common strategy for theists to highlight the fallacies of rival religions in hopes that the opposition will rationally …

It has been estimated by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity that in the world there are some 45,000 different denominations of what is commonly called “Christianity,” a religion wholly based (so they all affirm) on the words of a man named Jesus. He lived in the place now called Palestine about 2,000 …

Many former believers never escape the remnant radiation from the religious calendar. For example, every year during the Jewish High Holy Days, my thoughts turn to the meaning of my life. But the contemplation, as you can read below, can be unsettling when it leads to the subject of death. Secularists may disagree about what …

One of the truly wonderful things about being human is that we have a relatively brief lifespan. Fewer than eighty years. And, let’s face it, eighty years ought to be enough for anybody. Eighty years is enough to read all the great books you should be reading but aren’t. I personally am about to turn …

I grew up in New Jersey as a child of immigrants. My family wasn’t particularly religious; we simply never talked about it much. I guess you could say we were nominally Christian, although church was just one of those activities that fell under the category of Things Other People Do, like bridge clubs, bar mitzvahs, …

Back in 2007, when I was working on my first master’s degree at Boston University, I was thrilled to learn that, because of the Boston Theological Institute (a consortium of religion and theology schools in Boston), I could take classes at Harvard. Jumping at the chance, I signed up for an introduction to Zoroastrianism taught …

Part of my daily routine is to begin my morning with a cup of coffee. In the past week, that morning routine has been literally shattered to pieces, and, in those broken pieces, a transformation has begun. Some twenty-seven years ago, in my early forties, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Over those years, the …

I want to strongly second the motion of former Free Inquiry Editor Paul Fidalgo1: atheists should focus less on what they reject and instead work together to make life better for everyone regardless of their theological dispositions. They must unite on what he calls the Last Mission: the ongoing endeavor to advance the higher universalist …