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According to centrist religious supernaturalists whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever, not only are they not the ones not responsible for the ills of modern societies, they are part of the levelheaded solution. In their opinion it seems eminently logical that the proposition that middle of the road moderate as well as liberal religion is more beneficial than either of the contentious extremes of fundamentalist theism on the one hand or assertive atheism on the other. Surely it is the common sense center that best understands how to run the societal show, not those extremist zealots on either side. Right? Wrong!

This article charges the Revelation of John to be among the most hateful and heartless books ever written, which, if it does not negate the "gospels" of God's Love, then exposes what is really meant by the words "For God so Loved the World."

"How can God be both a perfect being and the creator of the universe? Doesn't the fact that he created the world imply that he had a need or want? Otherwise, why would he bother creating anything at all? But then, if he had a need that implied the existence of the universe in order to be fulfilled, it seems he is not perfect: he lacks something. But by definition, a perfect being could not lack anything. So if the universe exists, God is not perfect, so God does not exist."

"I'm not sure how I would prove that my cousin's unicycle isn't a god; perhaps it is inscrutable and isn't showing its powers right now. The same goes for the carton of grapefruit juice sitting in my refrigerator right now. When the definitions are wide open, when gods are allowed to be careful not to leave fingerprints, agnosticism looks like it's forced on us."

What is unique about Jesus, in a way more extreme than the others, is his lack of soul. To put it in mythological terms, "Jesus was emptied out on the cross"—he is unique among mortals in that his soul was completely annihilated on the cross. He became a cipher, a projection screen: he lacks any depth or reality in himself, and yet retains enough integrity to hold our ideals up.

Undergoing life-saving surgery, Ronald Aronson realized that there is a force beyond ourselves giving our lives meaning. It just isn't God.

One will sometimes hear theists "argue" for god's existence by posing the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" (I am treating the case where the theist is not giving the cosmological argument but rather simply trying to get this question to do all of the existential work). The atheist's inability to give a naturalistic explanation is taken to be proof of god. I argue that this is no argument at all. Rather, it is the identification of a problem that requires explanation. God, of course, is one explanation, but then evidence must be marshaled to support god's existence (or whatever explanatory principle one invokes), and that evidence must go beyond the mere existence of the universe—the thing to be explained cannot be evidence for the explanatory principle.

Lisa Hickey was asked how she reconciles all of the religious ceremonies of the day with the fact that she is an atheist. Here is her answer.

The fundamental question in the 21st century is whether Muslims all over the world want to send their children to religious schools to learn scriptures and divine revelations or to secular schools to study modern science, psychology and philosophy. Crucial to the future of humanity is the choice Muslims in the Middle East will make: to create fundamentalist, militant and theocratic Islamic states, or democratic, secular and humanistic states.

We humans have long been haunted by the awareness of our own mortality. In the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, the alewife Siduri warns Gilgamesh that his quest for eternal life is certain to end in failure. In a similar vein to Siduri, Albert Camus the famous French-Algerian existentialist thinker and author, depicted human existence as a futile labour of Sisyphus. In our view, the philosophy of Siduri and Camus is a philosophy of despair and surrender which is based on a view of human existence as a closed circle. We believe that the human journey is an open-ended and not a closed-ended affair, and that there's a good chance that the fate of our species lies not in the hands of the gods but in our own hands!

An ontological argument is one that uses reason and intuition alone to come to a conclusion, most often the conclusion that God exists. Well-known Christian apologists William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga use ontological arguments for this very purpose. DeLaney argues, however, that we cannot derive knowledge regarding external reality simply by manipulating words, and that that every attempt to generate knowledge must be grounded in empirical observations.

In spite of its popularity, the traditional Christian doctrine of heaven and hell is riddled with problems. It implies that God is cruel, unjust, and evil, and it contradicts fundamental Christian doctrines. One does not need to dig very deep to uncover these problems.

When it comes to the resurrection of Jesus, there is intense interest in the historicity of Jesus' discovered empty tomb and his postmortem appearances to his followers. The historian, or the interested lay person, can ask, did these two key events reported in the gospels really happen, or are they legendary embellishments on a resurrection belief that was arrived at by other means?

The modern Islamic "cult of death baffles most Westerners. Logical minds cannot comprehend why idealistic young men, and even a few women, volunteer to sacrifice their lives to slaughter unsuspecting, unarmed folks. It makes no sense.

Creationists claim that science cannot demonstrate evolution in the lab before their eyes. Creationists demand that they need this kind of proof if they are to accept evolution. Gosling sets the record straight.

Could it be that Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and a well-known critic of religion, believes in transcendence—and perhaps even in God? Author Lisa Miller of Newsweek International seems to think so. What are the facts?

The problem of time is a serious conundrum for Christian and other Abrahamic religions: God, since he must have always existed, evidently waited a very long time before creating the world. In fact, he waited for an eternity. How can this be? How can it be that the author of the universe and everything in it spent an eternity before creating the cosmos? This question is relevant both to theism and to Deism; it is central to the question of any deity whatever.

A humorous, irreverent and succinct look at the (inexplicable?) history of Christianity.

Skeptics say the Bible is difficult to understand, that its structure and narrative don't make sense, that it contradicts itself, even within the same book. But how did the authors let this happen? Why did the ancients themselves produce what can look like such an unevenly edited jumble?

Do vestigial organs exist? Answers in Genesis says no. Craig Gosling says yes. Who is right? Does it matter? What is the significance of vestigial organs if they do exist?

In 1984, Josef Fritzl lured his teenage daughter, Elisabeth—whom he had already abused on previous occasions—into the basement of the family home. What Elisabeth did not know was that her father had converted the basement into a dungeon, in which Elisabeth would be confined for the next twenty-four years. During this period, Fritzl raped his daughter on numerous occasions, and Elisabeth gave birth to seven children, some of whom never saw the light of day until they were rescued many years later. How might a Christian apologist such as William Lane Craig explain the suffering of Elisabeth Fritzl and her children? What we will see is that Dr. Craig's attempts to explain evil and human suffering in conjunction with the existence of the traditional God of theism fall far short of meeting their mark.

After eleven years in the Catholic priesthood, Dr. Uhl followed his agnostic conscience, left the Church and became a family psychologist. Much of his joy and success in his psychology practice came from helping his clients deal with their superstition-based guilt and fears. This article on atheist ethics is based on his presentation at the 2009 AAI (Atheist Alliance International) Convention in Burbank, CA.

I decided to write this story as a way of explaining my position as an atheist. Like the teen in the dialogue, I believe that there is no objective meaning to life and that we have an opportunity to create our own subjective meaning. "Imagine" by John Lennon is my favorite song because of its beautiful melody, voice, and the message it tells. I thought that a fictional dialogue would be a satisfying method to express my views. The idea of a dialogue between a minister and a dying person was inspired by the Marquis de Sade's work Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man, wherein a priest tries to convert a Man to Christianity before he dies.

People are watching for the Anti-Christ to trigger the end times. Although there are wildly divergent schools of thought on the topic, it appears that most people who believe in the inevitability of the Anti-Christ as part of the eschatological terrain also believe that he will be a wolf in sheep's clothing or, more precisely, a demon in savior's robe. The Anti-Christ will portray himself to be Jesus, and people will likely fall for the ruse to Jesus' great detriment. Can prosecutors indict and convict the Anti-Christ for identity theft? This article explores that possibility and explores some of the obstacles that prosecutors are likely to face.

Atheism is not a worldview and provides no understanding of the nature of the universe; it is simply a denial of the existence of God and it is essentially useless as a contribution to our understanding of the world. So, the question arises—if there is no God, what is the nature of the universe and how can we understand it and our place in it?

"Most religious individuals have the best intentions at heart, and truly believe that their god and their way of life is what is best for everyone; if these ideals become law they will only end up alienating and incriminating the innocent."

"It is misguided to regard the growth of Creationism as a major threat to Western civilization. On the contrary, Creationism is exactly what we can expect to see from a collapsing religion. It's last-ditch defensive behavior—the equivalent of a hedgehog rolling into a ball. It's what's left of Christianity when all the behavioral precepts have been discarded. It is belief for the sake of belief. So if you're an atheist, please don't waste too much energy on Creationism."

"Let me be succinct and clear: prayer is a useless exercise, undertaken by those who, in a fit of childish delusion, believe they can effect change in the real world by falling to their knees and murmuring to themselves. These people, oftentimes adults who have been properly educated and who can function in day-to-day society quite serviceably, are under the distinctly infantile impression that muttering under their breath can affect the outcome of some circumstance in which they have a stake, emotional or otherwise."

"One huge problem I have with football (one that certainly crops up elsewhere in our society) is the preponderance of players and coaches who continually invoke the Almighty as a major force in their lives, and in the progress of their careers. Certainly if they're hell-bent, so to speak, on deluding themselves about the nature of the universe and their place in it, that's their own affair. But at the start of the 2009 season, I noticed yet another reminder about the level many football players (and other athletes, to be sure) are willing to take this nonsense to."

Given the overwhelming majority people of faith have in holding positions of leadership in this country, we must not fear to ask: what role does the willingness to treat unsubstantiated and even absurd suppositions that haven't a shred of evidence to support them as unassailable facts play in their decision-making process? And what role should it play?