Imagine a future in which we can simply toggle the default on human fertility, so that accidental pregnancy is a thing of the past and women become fertile only when they want to become pregnant. By nature, adolescence switches our fertility default to "on" and it is stuck there for...

This week the citizens of Mississippi will vote whether to legally assign the status of "personhood" to any human egg that has been penetrated by a sperm. I, for one, think that being a person is a serious...

On reading an early draft "Trusting Doubt," which looks at my old evangelical beliefs from my current vantage as a nontheist, one reviewer commented, "This is a very spiritual book."

What?! I thought. A part of me protested: I don't believe in...

Valerie Tarico interviews Janet Heimlich, author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment. During eight years working for NPR, Heimlich never shied away from controversial topics. She won nine journalism awards, in part by doggedly...

(Part 1 of a three part series on religious boundary violations in the U.S. military and what soldiers are doing to fight back.)

When American soldiers come forward with tales of...

How many times have you seen football players -- on the screen or just off the field -- huddling for prayer before a game? You know what they're asking for, right? They're asking God to tweak the rules of biology...

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

When research in recent years suggested that churchgoers give more than others, some freethinkers protested that recruiting costs (aka proselytizing missions) shouldn't be considered giving, nor...

You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do. --Anne Lamott

Divorce, fags, figs, workers of iniquity, homophobes, Lady Gaga, remarriage, Ireland, techno, furries, war, a coward, shrimp, lying lips, abortion, your outfit, bad manners, amputees,...

Is the holiday season more glitter than glow for you lately? Are you a former Christian who finds that hymns don't resonate anymore? Do you roll your eyes about the "war on Christmas" manufactroversy? Does the cherubic little Jesus-in-a-Manger fail to flood your body with sweetness? Do you...

Note: This is Part Seven in a series, "God's Emotions: Why the Biblical God is so Very Human." Parts 1-6 are available at this website or at www.awaypoint.wordpress.com.

I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does -- The Smiths

In Ira Levin's...

Editor's Note: This is Part 5 in the series God's Emotions: Why the Biblical God is So Very Human.

[Wicked men] are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell. And the reason why they do not go...

Faith based social services; Christian language from the presidential bully pulpit; executive support for Arizona tax credits that divert dollars away from public coffers and into religious schools...

As a child I liked Thanksgiving hymns even better than Christmas carols -- perhaps because I've always been a bit of a contrarian. My daughter, Brynn, is the same way. Case in point: the animals that elicit her protective instinct aren't those with soft fur and big eyes but those...

The following is an interview with Thom Stark, a scholar of ancient and modern religious texts. Stark is currently an M.A.R. student at Emmanuel School of Religion in Johnson City, Tenn. His first book, released in October, is called The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It...

Editor's note: This is Part Four in a series, "God's Emotions: Why the Biblical God is so Very Human."

Emotion is an energetic horse that, wild and rampant, brings us all to grief
And Reason must constrain to keep on course, establishing command and being its chief....

Editor's note: This is Part Three in a series, "God's Emotions: Why the Biblical God is so Very Human."

Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;
(For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you)...

What Psychology Can and Can't Say About God

"Prove that God exists," says the skeptic.

"Prove that He doesn't," says the believer.

"The burden of proof is yours," says the skeptic, with a sneer in his voice. "Exceptional claims and all that."

"I can't hear you," says the believer with...

One of the most striking aspects of the Protestant clergy sex abuse pattern is that most people don't realize it is a pattern. The Catholic Church has taken a well deserved beating in the courts and in the court of public opinion as former altar boys, orphans and ordinary parishioners...

Do you remember the joke about the little Scottish boy who refuses to eat two nasty, shriveled prunes on his plate? His mother cajoles and pleads. Finally she tells him, as she has many times before, that if he doesn't obey her, God will be angry. Usually it works, but...

At a bright, arty youth hostel in Cape Town, my teenage daughters crossed paths with a local guest, a young man who seemed to spend most of his time watching late night television. At one point he said, "I want to have twelve children."

Both girls were indignant. "Doesn't...