We are not in complete control but we are agents of change. It is important for each of us to examine our goals and our gods to see how they shape us and compel or impede our mutual accountability and care for our common earth. The seasons turn for us all.

Our religious and political institutions have been polluted by words without action, which have resulted in liturgies and platforms that are hollow and meaningless. Young people are tired of words.

If we want to look for inspiration on combating communal violence -- religious or ethnic -- we take examples from diverse cities that do it right. The answers to religious and communal violence is out there, we just need to look in the right places.

The traditional religious emphasis on copious reproduction and common teachings against the use of contraception are having a direct impact on population growth, especially in countries that can't afford it.

The issue that I address is particularly to my fellow Christians, but it is also relevant to people of all religions, ideologies and persuasions. How can we live together in peace and harmony when we hold such fundamentally different viewpoints?

Atheism cannot simply be about setting individuals free. It needs to address the deep suffering of society and take aim at dismantling the socio-economic structures that privilege the few while oppressing the many.

It is a basic, knee-jerk reaction in the Western world to rail against any politician who seeks to justify a position by referencing their faith. I wonder, however, how we have gotten away with perpetuating this misconception that somehow our religious traditions do not have anything constructive to contribute to our political realities.

As a Universalist deist, I believe that regardless of the claims by various religious apologists, it is humans who are looking up at the sky, imagining what the Divine First Cause might be. We can no more understand its scope than plankton can understand the ocean.

The two-inch-wide steel cable felt cold and wet beneath the elk-skin-soled moccasins my mother had made me. I slid one foot forward, then the other. Below was the lip of Niagara Falls, where 600,000 gallons of water per second plunged 170 feet straight down to jagged rocks.