The view of God as a supernatural being like us, only more powerful, is one of the principal reasons behind the rise of atheism in the Western world and the spiritual apathy of many people today.

As we head into 2011, humanist leaders around the world have resolved to give more and get their fellow freethinkers to do the same.

It's been my observation that there hasn't been much talk of God for decades of Christmas, ur, rather "holiday" seasons. Seems to me that God and faith have been oh-so-politically incorrect.

Religious believers, like everyone else in the public domain, must subject their moral principles and standards to the political test of scrutiny and analysis.

This diverse, unorganized mish-mash of open-minded seekers tends to approach spirituality in a reasonable, rational and pragmatic manner, and it's the fastest-growing religious category in America: spiritual but not religious.

Is it not arrogant to imagine that something as puny as a human being can have a purpose, but to assert that something as grand as the universe cannot?

Maybe religion is beneficial, after all. That's the natural inference to draw from psychologist Susan Blackmore's sudden reversal of her long-held position that religion is a parasite on human existence.

The squabbles between fundamentalists and the New Atheists are tragic because left-leaning religious communities and progressive atheists cannot find each other, thus failing to make common cause on a shared vision of ecological and social justice.

Those of us who think that science and religion can be reconciled need to keep searching for a satisfactory solution to the puzzle of the necessity of humans and the non-directionality of Darwinism.

But I believe both the New Atheists (advocating life over God) and the Constitutional Evangelicals (advocating life under God) are far closer in their values and worldview than either would like to acknowledge.

The rule that many Christians seem to follow when they lay their hands on their keyboards is "Ridicule your enemies; misrepresent those who hate you; caricature and malign those that mistreat you."

The Catholic Church shows no concern whatsoever for its victims of abuse, only fear of the story getting out. It is corrupt and should be eradicated.

Converts to theism are disproportionately from upper and upper-middle-class social groups while converts to atheism are disproportionately from lower social groups.

If God created through miracle, why do organisms all carry the marks of a lawbound origin, evolution through natural selection? If He created through law, why did He use such a painful and at times dysfunctional mechanism as natural selection?

For those of you who grew up being taught to believe in unseen and unknowable forces but are now feeling like you've been hoodwinked, don't be afraid to say so.

If there's no connection to evolution, then why is it called social Darwinism? It shouldn't be -- and it's time we changed the name to stop the confusion.

The Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia is bringing together more than 2,000 scientists, philosophers, writers, and comedians to celebra...

I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. But now I have been awakened from my unconscionable slumber on this issue.