A student who took an internet quiz and got diagnosed as a “secular humanist” emailed me, asking me what I thought secular humanism was all about. Good question. I said that “‘Secular humanist’ is most often a label adopted by people who are skeptical of supernatural entities, and who identify with political and moral views … Deriving morality

Here’s a nice lead paragraph to a story: Bankers are not the cause of the global economic crisis, according to the president of the Institute for the Works of Religion. Rather, the cause is ordinary people who do not “believe in the future” and have few or no children. We owe this insight to Ettore … The Vatican has an economist

It’s easy to run into conversion and deconversion narratives: atheist becomes Christian, Christian loses faith, so on and so forth. Where nonbelief is involved, however, I’m probably too partisan. Maybe looking at conversions between different religions is a better way to get a handle on what is going on. Here’s an interesting example: Jerald F. … Minister who converted to Islam

There is a very popular form of apologetic literature among Muslims, based on the notion that modern science and technology is congruent with, or even foreshadowed in, the sacred sources of Islam. It’s bad enough that this species of pseudoscience has a large following among the general public. What is worse is that significant numbers … Cardiologists losing it

A reader pointed me to this video. (Thanks!) It was fun, so here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_9lC3OSZx0 Your name Your email Subject Your message (optional)

Is the Universe Rational? Your name Your email Subject Your message (optional)

Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman are a pair of names I’m running across more frequently on the New Age bullshit circuit. They’re a couple of seriously ignorant people. Here, for example, is an example from an interview on a “progressive” political site. (Leftish politics has a soft spot for New Age religion.) In the current … New Age bullshit

The ACLU has just issued a one-year assessment of the Obama administration’s actions on civil liberties, called “America Unrestored.” As the title indicates, Obama has not been all that good for abolishing Bush-era disgraces. There have been some symbolic acts, yes, but by and large, having centrist Democrats in power seems to mean a halting … Obama: almost as bad as a Republican

You sometimes have to admire the comprehensive ambitions of Muslim scholars. They have to have a ruling for everything. Hence my favorite fatwa of the week. Some guy asks if he is religiously obligated to return an “al-salaamu ‘alaykum” greeting spoken by a parrot. The scholar duly answers, comparing the parrot situation to tape recordings. … Parrot Fatwa

A Turkish conservative newspaper columnist yesterday published an op-ed in which he acted as an Islamic version of Pat Robertson. Observing that “The Quran tells us that if collective sins are not met with collective repentance, that some disasters will occur in that region,” Nuh Gönültaş then says that “The fundamental reality of [Haiti] is … Turkish Pat Robertson