It’s tough to even write this out, but Dale McGowan, who began Foundation Beyond Belief and served as its Executive Director since the beginning, has decided to step down from his position. There’s no problem with the organization and it was Dale’s decision alone to pursue other interests, but it means we (the board) are looking for a new leader. Read more
Dale McGowan explains how he came to his non-religious beliefs and how he gave his kids, including his youngest daughter, the ability to figure it out for themselves: Read more
My friend Dale McGowan, who has already written two incredibly popular books on raising children as an atheist parent — Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers — has just published his latest book about atheists who are in relationships with believers. It’s called In Faith and In Doubt: How Religious Believers and Nonbelievers Can Create Strong Marriages and Loving Families: In the exclusive excerpt below, McGowan talks about the benefits of those mixed-faith relationships: Read more
According to Dale McGowan, author of the forthcoming book In Faith and In Doubt (about relationships between atheists and believers), one in six “religiously unaffiliated” people have spouses who are religious. One in six. Think about that. Then read this article’s subtitle and see if you can spot the math error… Read more
Though I don’t have children, I’ve long assumed that when the time comes, Santa Claus would be a part of their upbringing. I mean, it’s harmless, right? Plus, as Dale McGowan wrote in Parenting Beyond Belief, it’s kind of like training wheels for God: By allowing our children to participate in the Santa myth and find their own way out of it through skeptical inquiry, we give them a priceless opportunity to see a mass cultural illusion first from the inside, then from the outside. A very casual line of post-Santa questioning can lead kids to recognize how completely we all can snow ourselves if the enticements are attractive enough. Such a lesson, viewed from the top of the hill after exiting a belief system under their own power, can gird kids against the best efforts of the evangelists — and far better than secondhand knowledge could ever hope to do. Now, Sam Harris makes the case that introducing your children to Santa is harmful. Not because of the connection to religion, but because it exposes you as someone willing to lie to your kids for temporary amusement. (It’s an argument he makes in his book Lying.) It all stems from a recent Jimmy Kimmel stunt where he asked parents to videotape themselves telling their children they ate all their Halloween candy…: Read more
My friend Dale McGowan is working on a book about mixed-faith couples (like atheists married to Christians) and he’d like some feedback from people who are in an atheist/theist relationship, whether you’re married or seriously committed to each other. If you can help, please fill out this survey! Read more
Dale McGowan’s new book Atheism for Dummies arrived at my house last week and I’ve been having a wonderful time leafing through it. The writing is extremely accessible and the book is a thorough, helpful introduction to atheism both as a philosophy and as a movement. If you read this book cover-to-cover, you’d have a very good idea of what sorts of issues atheists are dealing with in our society. Read more
It sounds weird to say this about a Dummies book, but I am *so* excited to read Dale McGowan’s contribution to the series, Atheism for Dummies: Read more
My friend Dale McGowan recently published a book about atheism we’re not used to seeing: A reference book with letters, essays, blog posts, book excerpts, monologues, and all sorts of other writings by atheists — from all over the world and encompassing modern history. It’s called Voices of Unbelief: Documents from Atheists and Agnostics. Read more
