Around this time last year, I wrote a post titled "On Atheist Janitors", addressing an e-mail from reader Serban Tanasa that asked whether atheism has something to offer to people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. The other day he wrote back to me with a follow-up post addressing some of the issues first discussed here, and I wanted to offer some further thoughts. Atheist forces and their agnostic coalition members have launched devastating artillery barrages against the veracity of … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality
October 6, 2008 By 22 Comments
(Editor's Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site's policy for such reviews.) Summary: A quiet, thoughtful, non-polemical book. At times Comte-Sponville comes close to conceding more than he should, but his positive evocation of atheism is a much-needed effort and may be appealing to theists grappling with the first stirrings of deconversion. Andre Comte-Sponville's The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality is a unique book. Though written by an … [Read more...]
This World Is My Home
September 2, 2008 By 9 Comments
A famous Christian gospel hymn titled "This World Is Not My Home" sums up how religious views of an afterlife shape believers' views of this life: This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through, My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue; The angels beckon me from heaven's open door, And I can't feel at home in this world anymore. For millions of people, this verse is more than a … [Read more...]
Immanence
November 28, 2007 By 13 Comments
Last month, while I was on vacation in Puerto Rico, I had a chance to visit the great radio observatory at Arecibo. That was one of the highlights of my trip, but there was another. Puerto Rico has the only tropical rainforest in the United States national park system. On the northeast coast of the islands, at the foot of the Luquillo Mountains, is the 28,000-acre preserve of El Yunque National Forest. Set aside in 1876 by the Spanish king Alfonso XII, El Yunque is one of the oldest nature … [Read more...]
An Exercise in Perspective
June 9, 2007 By 98 Comments
If you're not familiar with the HubbleSite, you should be. The official website of the Hubble Space Telescope is rich with scientific background, news releases and announcements of new discoveries, and of course, jaw-dropping imagery of the cosmos, taken by one of humanity's most justifiably famous scientific instruments. One of Hubble's newest images has left me feeling inspired, and I'd like to say a few words about it. But first, the picture itself: This stunningly gorgeous image is a … [Read more...]
Other Shores
March 26, 2007 By 21 Comments
When we were young, we looked up at the twinkling lights in the night sky and wondered. Most of them were immovable, fixed stars rising and setting in the same place every night as if pinned to the dome of the firmament. However, a very few of those lights were not so steady. Instead, they seemed to meander, moving perceptibly across the sky from night to night - sometimes even changing course and moving backwards for a time, as if in a spirit of play. We named these vagabond stars planets, … [Read more...]
All Days Are Holy
December 30, 2006 By 12 Comments
The word "holiday" comes directly from the phrase "holy day". This designation, in turn, is based on the curious notion that a particular event happening on a certain date forever afterward gives that date some special sacredness or magical quality. The day of Halloween, for example, was once believed to be a time when barriers between our world and the other world grew thin and restless spirits could return to haunt the land of the living, and other supernatural events are often tied to the … [Read more...]
Cathedral of Suns: A Humanist Sermon
April 10, 2006 By 27 Comments
In my encounters with religious proselytizers, I have occasionally been told that atheism robs the world of the sense of awe and wonder, that my lack of belief in a god who miraculously created us all must mean that my life is lacking in the intangible qualities that makes it worth living. I have been told, as well, that I reject the possibility of a god too great for me to understand. This is my reply to those claims. There is a famous photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a region … [Read more...]
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