Search

“World belongs to humanity.” —Dalai Lama “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” —Yogi Berra We are at a crossroads. Prove me wrong. The two sentences above are among the most worn-out expressions in the English language, used to produce a very predictable and short-lived adrenaline rush that lasts about 100 …

Shortly after the turn of the third millennium, the New Atheists set the stage for the generations who grew up abused by religion. Gen X and baby boomer atheists and secular humanists heralded authors such as Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett for bringing some scientific perspective (as well some scrappy philosophy in Harris’s The Moral …

As long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with the unknown. I wasn’t the kid who could be placated with a simple answer. I wanted to know, and I was intuitive enough to understand that “magic” or “God” wasn’t a real answer; it was a cop-out by exasperated adults. I was open to the …

During his life and especially after his death in 2013, Nelson Mandela’s faith has been hotly debated. On the one hand are those such as British journalist Anthony Sampson, who, in his 1999 biography, flatly stated that Mandela “was not a formal believer like Oliver Tambo1; he did not quote the Bible or discuss theology. …

In the High Sierra mountain range of California where I used to live, there are places where crystal-clear water—cleaner and purer than anything you ever get at home—runs on the ground. It falls in the mountains in winter as delicate white flakes, compresses down to rock-hard frozen snowpack that can be twenty or more feet …

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court voted 5–4 to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which permitted abortion nationwide until fetal viability. The 2022 majority opinion (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), written by Justice Samuel Alito, essentially said that the U.S. Constitution does not mention abortion and contains no language that …

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to read more, might I humbly suggest a slim volume of satisfying intellectual nourishment titled Liberalism and Its Discontents by the insightful political scientist and philosopher Francis Fukuyama? This is a book for people who embrace classical liberalism with its undeniably humanistic undergirding and are worried that …

I am one of the neurodivergent, those whose brains are wired in such a way that our qualitative experience of the world is substantively different from those with “neurotypical” brains. Those of us on the autism spectrum, with ADHD, dyslexia, social anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, bipolar disorder, and even those with Down syndrome; …

Historically, monopolistic state establishment of religion and accompanying blasphemy laws have been the preferred method for religious authorities to direct and control societies according to the precepts of the official faith. This system was supplemented by the threat of force by the Inquisition in Catholic lands into the nineteenth century and today by Muslim religious …

Hamline University is a small institution of higher education located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Its Latin motto translates as “Divinity, Writing, Liberty,” though we might wonder about the “Liberty” part. In any event, I doubt that many of my readers would have heard of this obscure private university if …