Kiosk

As a rebuttal to Glen Miller's apologetic piece that appears on the Christian Thinktank website, Tim Simmons delves deeply into the biblical story of Jehu and the killings at Jezreel to show that indeed there is a contradiction to be found between 2nd Kings 10:30 and Hoseah 1:4. A fascinating read.

The conversation that day with Douglas covered almost the entire range of thought about horses ... trees ... grass ... mountains ... law ... philosophy ... religion ... Learned Hand ... Brandeis ... Holmes ... bourbon ... scotch ... marriage ... divorce ... his father (a Presbyterian minister who died very young) ... his living in a tent while graduating with honors at Whitman college ... his passion for animals and the land ... conservation....

David Payne takes us to the Middle East for a weekend of mystery, intrigue and sinkholes and Uzis - with the Clash's "Rock the Casaba" playing in the background. With a pulpish flavor a la Jim Thompson we learn a great deal about the origin and evolution of humankind.

Philip Paulson dispels the old cliche that there are no atheists in foxholes by recounting his experiences in the military. (Note: This piece was written in 1989 and first appeared in The Humanist magazine.)

The author explores an important issue that continues to be a topic of hot debate. How much power should religion have over the life and death of a child and where must we draw the line?

Exploring the popular writing and thinkers from the start of the common era, the author discovers that there is little mention of Jesus, the Christ and the Savior. Considering the miracles of Jesus, His resurrection and the profound impact this all is said to have made upon the land and its people, Salisbury is astounded by the silence of history - unless, of course, the stories are false.

infallibility

Religions are based on emotional needs, and most religions fulfill the great tribal need to belong to something larger and more powerful than ourselves. With the sole exception of pure science, objective truth will usually be sacrificed in favor of personal and tribal emotional needs.

When asked "what am I?" I always answer by saying I think of myself as being within the historical stream of mysticism, where there is no violence, no dualism and no absolutes.

John Paul does not have enough days left in his life to say "For my part ... I am sorry" to all of the millions and millions of human beings slaughtered by the Christian church ... to all new discoveries of truth ... slaughtered by the church ... or to a legacy that has promoted sexism ... racism ... the desecration of the natural environment and the intolerance of other world spiritual traditions from Buddhism to the American Indian.

The insidious and seductive cliche that seems to saturate the wimpish mind is that you should not be critical of another person's religious beliefs. They all deserve respect, no matter how ignorant ... how bigoted ... how ugly ... how false ... how cruel ... how superstitious ... they all deserve "respect".

Using passages from the Bible, Neal Matson shows that just about any commandment can be gleaned from the Good Book - both ideas of great worth and ideas that are outdated and no longer applicable to humankind. As with many of the ideas printed in the pages of books throughout history, humans have provided much food for thought.

"Dividing the people on racial lines through dubious pseudo-scientific theories has always been a ploy of the Church not only in India but also in different parts of the world." Indian scholar Aravindan Neelakandan.S., studying missionary strategy and conversion tactics, explores the "theory" of Aryan race and their invasion of ancient India.

Richard Dawkins, after learning about the terrible news of Douglas Adams' death, writes a heart-wrenching lament to the science-fiction writer, humorist and all-together great mind who will be sadly missed by many.

The wonderful varieties of the Ten Commandments...

Drawing on his own experiences as a devotee of a New Age religion, Tabash argues that the universality of searching for the transcendental, and the different sources attributed by people of different perspectives as the cause of lofty experiences, yields no additional evidence in our world of a supernatural being that undergirds reality.

Should atheists want everyone to embrace atheism? Should atheism become a universally held view? Many atheists seem to think so.

Barefoot criticises Tattersall's defense of naturalism, supporting C.S. Lewis' argument that reason cannot be produced by any mechanical organism and therefore must be supernatural.

Richard Carrier looks at a prime example of the "genre" of medical literature that declares Jesus died, and finds it hopelessly wanting, especially for their incompetent historical method.

It was a fleeting but effective life...

For two millennia in Christendom every generation has been the last generation. Just in time, Edward Babinski is here to explain the delay.

Did you know that our familiar calendar is pagan through and through? This intolerable situation must be stopped! A call to action for all true Christians.

There is so much blabbering God talk coming from the phony politicians today that you want to throw up. They can't make a statement without ending it with "God bless you ... and God bless America." Our first six Presidents, Humanists and Deists, would find this talk repugnant.

You are not going to believe you are reading the next paragraph. You had better go get another cup of coffee and sit down, maybe even hold tight to the edge of the breakfast table for balance.

Infidel Bill Schultz answers an evangelical Christian's political assumptions about nonbelief, school prayer, violence, and oh so much more!

Tired of seeing Christian conservatives have all the fun of grousing at welfare queens getting free rides at taxpayer expense? It's time to get them to pay for the free ride their imaginary superfriend has been enjoying!

We have broken the code used to encrypt the files on the history of the virus they call the Mensa Flu...

Gerkin takes us on a wild ride through the subtle differences between atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers.

An unbelieving firefighter puts a challenge to the Christian God, using a perspective through the eyes of a profession where the disconcerting tragedy of child deaths cut to your core and, unfortunately, is dealt with all too frequently.

While grieving over his grandfather's passing and preparing a eulogy for him, Lankford discovers some crucial differences between the way believers and nonbelievers handle death.