Many (most?) nonbelievers are convinced that supernatural believers would be better off without their religion. That’s hard to evaluate, particularly since important beliefs such as religious convictions are not merely instrumental in letting us achieve our purposes. Instead, they strongly shape what our deepest interests are. Unless we have a way of figuring out who … Taking advantage of religion

There is a subset of the supernatural being fan club whose members are enamored of improbability arguments. That is, they will calculate the probability of some feature of the universe, get a very small number, and declare that since the probability is so low under a naturalistic scenario, supernatural intervention is required. Usually there are … Zero probabilities

Hell is a strange, strange notion.

One reason I don’t fully trust arguments against God that revolve around the problem of evil is that I don’t have that clear an idea about what a more perfect world would look like. Sure, I can suggest some improvements to the universe. But if I were able to fundamentally mess with the way the … Would we want divine intervention?

According to the Washington Post, a foreign policy task force has decided that “Western secularism” is impeding US foreign policy goals. The US needs to make religion “an integral part of our foreign policy.” Some of this might be based on a degree of reality. If our imperial masters have been ignoring religion as a … Secularism bashed by foreign policy group

With conservative religious people, you always have to worry that they actually believe what they say. Today’s example: State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas, Virginia. The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its … Old Testament in action

The Pew Research Center has a new report out, entitled “Religion Among the Millennials: Less Religiously Active Than Older Americans, But Fairly Traditional In Other Ways.” Short summary: the younger generation of Americans are weaker in their institutional religious affiliations, though the vast majority is still tied to a religion. Where supernatural beliefs are concerned, … Young Americans remain believers

Much of liberal secular moral thought, including notions of human rights, seeks common ground between people who might have differing comprehensive moral or religious convictions. We want secular government, because we think that everyone’s interests would be best served by a government that does not play favorites. We want human rights to be respected, because … Human rights and universal human interests

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