When it comes to matters of individual conscience, Washington State voters have a don't-mess-with-us attitude that makes Texans look like cattle--and it goes way back.

In 2012 Washington voters flexed their muscle by legalizing recreational marijuana use and marriage for same-sex couples. In 2008, death with dignity passed some...

Our ancestors struggled to get enough calories just to stay alive. Now, as we try to keep our weight in a healthy range, we look at all kinds of factors: diet, exercise, sleep, supplements, meditation, hypnosis, psychotherapy, prayer, or even surgery that might help us tip the scales a little...

How can we reclaim the moral high ground in the debate about abortion as a part of thoughtful, wise loving and living?

Most Americans think of childbearing as a deeply personal or even sacred decision. So do most reproductive rights advocates. That is why we don't think anybody's boss...

How often do you want to have your period?

When modern contraceptives first got formulated, back in the 1950s, the men in charge made a simple assumption that would affect millions of women over the next half century:  They assumed that women wanted to bleed every month.  A...

Anybody who says that talking about reproductive rights is a distraction from talking about economics is not running the numbers.

On October 4, a study of 9,000 women showed that access to free contraception radically dropped the rate of unintended pregnancies, two-thirds of which according to the Guttmacher...

We've all heard stories, apocryphal or not, of women who picket family planning clinics and then cross the line when they find themselves with a problem pregnancy. One doctor tells of a patient in stirrups saying, "I don't belong here, you know." The subtext: "I'm not one of them."

...

You've heard that an IUD can give you five to twelve years of never-have-to-think-about-it contraception. You've also heard that, depending on which IUD you choose, you can have your period decrease by (on average) 90 percent. You've heard that in real world use IUDs are more...

Does religion help or harm children? Viewpoints range from those who believe that it is impossible to raise loving, moral children without faith to those who see religious immersion as child abuse. A new effort,...

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...