We face a multi-pronged existential crisis in this country. A perfect storm of anti-science dumbing down of critical thinking, a growing intolerance for those who may be different than the majority, and an increasingly dangerous march toward an imbalance of…

One of the most striking differences between the United States and Britain is the level of religiosity paraded in the public square. In England, which has an official church and a monarchy in which the King is the titular head…

BREAKING NEWS Recently uncovered in a hack into Mr. Trump’s campaign is a list of the updated Ten Commandments proposed to be required reading and forced memorization in all schools, workplaces, and the public square. And Our Lord Trump Doth…

I don’t know if there ever was an eleventh commandment although I have seen the video of Moses walking down the mountain from his talk with the burning bush carrying three stone tablets, He announces “Behold, I bring you the…

A misquote attributed to J. D. Salinger in the book Catcher in the Rye goes something like this. “If Christ could see Christmas, he’d puke.” But like many “quotes” attributed to famous people—to give them the weight of intellectual or…

…There is no virgin willing to conceive in the heat of any bloody Sunday. You crippled children lying in cries on Derry’s streets, pushing your innocence to the full flush face of Christian guns, battling the blame on each other,…

Intelligent design, a version of religious creationism camouflaged as science, has many adherents but little actual science to support it. It is a hypothesis essentially premised on ignorance—we cannot explain something, say the origin of life on the planet, so…

I have this memory of a Cumberland High School English class in 1972 where the teacher—whose name I do not recall, but was likely just a few years older than the students— in an effort to be “cool,” asked about…

“One may safely affirm that all popular theology has a kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction…. While their gloomy apprehensions make them ascribe to Him measures of conduct which in human creatures would be blamed, they must still affect…

In Muslim culture, they greet one another in this way.  “As-salaam Alaykum,” meaning “Peace be upon you” and answered by “wa ʿalaykumu s-salām” meaning “and peace be upon you too.” (Apologies if I got the spelling wrong) What’s wrong with…