We have our work cut out for us: with the 2016 presidential election and its crowded, combative field full of Religious Rightists dedicated to ending the Separation of Church and State, it’s time for us fight back—hard. We need to be at the table when decisions are made by our elected officials. We need strategies,…
As reported on December 2, 2014 in the Religious News Service (RNS): Should clergy divorce themselves from civil marriage? In a survey of 2,000 American adults, the Nashville-based Christian research company (LifeWay Research) found that 36 percent of them said that clergy should no longer be involved in the stateʼs licensing of marriage. LifeWay also…
We’re New Yorkers, citizens of the greatest city in America! And since we represent the saner people in our city, we’re also the most enlightened and influential of New Yorkers! We are a large and united voice to be respected and reckoned with! We cannot be ignored. Hear us roar! Well, not so much. Our…
Can we Atheists ever convince any believer that they are wrong to put their faith in fantasies? Indeed, can anyone ever even change anyoneʼs mind about anything? Most people would answer this question with a resounding no! The prevailing view is that no matter what evidence or logic you present, people are unwilling, even incapable,…
The vast majority of people, religious or not, have great difficulty understanding and remembering, let alone articulating, what seems like absurdly nuanced differences between a dizzyingly variety of religious denominations. Whether it be Pentecostals, Adventists, Baptists, or Evangelicals, to name just a few, even those who deeply self-identify with one of these groups are typically…
DESTROYING SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE BEGINS AT HOME Recent news articles have reported that Mayor de Blasio, attempting to expand his pre-Kindergarten school program for four-year-olds, has invited the participation of New York’s Hasidic Jewish community. Mayor de Blasio with pre-kindergarten students As a condition of their participation, the community’s Yeshivas (schools for Orthodox…
Somewhere in my 10-year tenure as president of NYC Atheists, it occurred to me that I am basically an Atheist “activist.” And that NYCA is a group composed mainly of Atheist activists. Oh, not that reading Atheist books or listening to Atheist lectures isn’t worthy in itself; in fact, we do plenty of that. Lectures…
The claims are often made by some that we humans are inherently religious, that deep belief in the supernatural is our default state and that it is somehow wrong to struggle against our most innate tendencies in a futile effort to reject our nature. It is easy to see why religious types would advance this…
Recently we Americans have been forced to confront real questions arising from our use of torture. Do we rationalize its use in certain circumstances but not others? Even ignoring the question of whether it actually works, does the end ever really justify the means? Is torture acceptable when our government is responsible but unacceptable when…
Most of us who are reading this article pride ourselves in our fact-based understanding of objective reality. When it comes to most things that we experience in the external world, we hold fast to soundly scientific explanations. But when it comes to our inner world, to our consciousness and perception of self, we often exceed…