Victor Stenger

Physicist, Ph.D., bestselling author, author of 'God and the Atom'

In particular, academic freedom is not to be confused with the First Amendment right of freedom of speech. With academic freedom comes academic responsibility and scholarly integrity.

Robert Fuller

Author, 'Somebodies and Nobodies' and 'The Rowan Tree: A Novel'

One reading of the human story emphasizes war and domination. Another telling highlights overthrowing tyrants and progressively emancipating ourselves. The key to deciding which of these perspectives is predictive of the human future lies in a paradoxical property of power.

Charles J. Reid, Jr.

Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas

Christians have not always been such enemies of science. Aside from the occasional embarrassment, science often thrived in explicitly Christian settings. This is the heritage that Christians must reclaim and reassert.

Karl Giberson, Ph.D

Professor, Stonehill College

The most interesting strategy employed by anti-evolutionists over the last century and a half has been to report that "Darwinism is Dead" or "Evolution has Collapsed." The exercise is all but meaningless in terms of scientific discussion.

Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman

Associate Rabbi, Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester

True learning never stops; it pushes us out ever-farther into uncharted territory. As both space exploration and Torah study show us, each new discovery spurs new lines of inquiry.

Harry Boyte

Director, Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College

In the face of the climate crisis, many express panic. The biblical story of the years in the Wilderness, in which the fractious and "stiff-necked" people of Israel agreed to a covenant with God and created a new way of life, offers solutions to the challenge.

Varda Epstein

Writer

If Stephen Hawking wishes to join the BDS movement, he must immediately stop using all Israeli-made goods and services, including the chip from his tablet that allows him to communicate his thoughts with the world.

Baruch Sterman, Ph.D.

Co-Author, 'The Rarest Blue: The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered'

When the Hasidim of Kotzk prayed, they did not move. Any external sign of piety was deemed pretentious. The story is told of a great student, who after one prayer session -- though someone observing from the side would not even have noticed that he was praying -- was bathed in sweat and had actually cracked two of his teeth.

Robert Fuller

Author, 'Somebodies and Nobodies' and 'The Rowan Tree: A Novel'

Many insist that man's predatory practices are undiminished and ineradicable. But an opposing trend is becoming visible. While admitting that "the arc of the moral universe is long," Martin Luther King Jr. believed that "it bends toward justice."

Rabbi David Wolpe

Author and Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles

Dawkins on biology is an elegant, lucid and even enchanting explicator of science. Dawkins on religion is historically uninformed, outrageously partisan and morally obtuse. If Dawkins is indeed our best, the life of the mind is in a precarious state.

William Grassie

Metanexus Institute

Philosophy and theology departments are increasingly irrelevant backwaters in the modern university, engaged in seemingly solipsistic debates. If they want to reclaim exalted status in the university and society, they would do well to embrace Big History.

Diana Butler Bass

Author, "Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening"

We've enrolled prayer and reason as weapons in the culture wars. But how about a National Day for Prayer and Reason? Because there are plenty of Americans who do not want to separate the two.

Rev. Michael Dowd

Religious naturalist, evidential mystic, big history evangelist, and author of 'Thank God for Evolution'

Christianity is shipwrecked on the rock of "biblical authority." Twelve hundred people a day leave the church. The Bible, once an asset, has become a liability.

Dan_Weiss

Associate professor of psychology and linguistics

Unwittingly, some components of Ronald Fisher's theory of runaway selection can aptly describe the emergence of exaggerated religious traits as well. Take for example the recent photo of an orthodox Jewish man ensconced in a full-size plastic bag during a flight to Tel Aviv.

Alexander Sanger

Chair, International Planned Parenthood Council

Several U.S. states are falling over themselves -- and in some cases failing -- to ban abortion, abortion clinics and access to the few clinics that remain. This is not a new phenomenon.

Rev. Adam J. Copeland

Religion Faculty, Concordia College

While traditional notions of stewardship are well and good, Revelation suggests another reason to care: At the end of the world, God comes home to live on earth.