In the mail last week, I found a copy of November 2010’s Awake! magazine sent to me by a Jehovah’s Witness. It has a cover story on “Is Atheism on the March?” and the person who sent it to me politely indicated that it may be to my benefit. I have no idea how I became … Awake!

Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham’s creationist outfit, appears to be following up their successful (and scientifically hilarious) creation museum with a full-scale theme park: The theme park, to be called Ark Encounter, . . . is envisioned as a full-scale wooden ark that would include associated museums, theaters, amenities, event venues and outdoor parking. That alone … Creationist theme park

In light of recurrent news items concerning desecrations of the Quran, I thought I should contribute. After all, I don’t treat the Quran as a special book. In both my offices—at home and on campus—it’s not unusual to see books strewn and stacked on the floor. And it occurs to me that I have, in … Desecrating the Quran

Thanksgiving is one of the nicer USAnian holidays: it’s very light on the religion and nationalism, and the consumerist frenzy is postponed to the day after. Still, on the Christian radio channels I occasionally listen to, I’ve noticed an effort to Christianize Thanksgiving—to inject some Jesus into it. Sigh. I don’t mind if they want … Thanksgiving

There is some substance to the perennial debate over whether the existence of gods is largely a philosophical problem or a scientific matter. But I also wonder whether much of the debate is an artifact of existing academic disciplinary boundaries. So here’s a suspicion to consider: most of this dispute is due to an artificial, … Turf war?

Here’s an interesting corrective to the notion that Turkey is a “secular state” as so often described in Western media reports. The Diyanet (the Turkish Directorate of Religious Services) has long been one of the largest government departments, and is devoted to Sunni Islam. In Turkey, clergy are government employees. With recent expansions, the number … Unsecular Turkey

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I would like to bring a hitherto much-neglected example of divine fine-tuning to the attention of the public: the fine-tuning of human history. Moreover, this fine-tuning is reaching a critical point now. Let us set aside religious sources as interested parties, and restrict ourselves to arguments with a secular pedigree. Even with this restriction, it is clear … Historical fine-tuning

Some time ago, on the local Christian radio station, I was listening to a preacher explain how Jesus’s death on the cross saved us all by paying the penalty for all our human sins against God. He used the analogy of a judge who lets a convicted person go, because some other person, innocent of … Atonement as satisfying a vendetta

I’ve been reading Bassam Tibi’s Political Islam, World Politics and Europe. Don’t bother with the book itself: it’s almost unreadable. This is not, by the way, Tibi’s fault. He’s a Syrian social scientist who spent his life in Germany—English must be his third language. This book was in desperate need of a good editor, and … Secular asabiyya?