What do the Holy Bible, Fifty Shades of Grey, and Captain Underpants have in Common?
It looks like the Bible won’t become the official book of Tennessee, after Gov. Bill Haslam vetoed a bill last Thursday that would have made Christianity’s sacred book the top tome of the Volunteer State. Incidentally,... Read More
Book of Numbers
BOOK BY JOSHUA COHEN RANDOM HOUSE, 2015 580 PP.; $28.00 Midway through Joshua Cohen’s latest novel, Book of Numbers, a man unsuccessfully searches online to find the object of his affection: an abaya-wearing woman with... Read More
The Evolution of Everything and Ultrasociety
THE EVOLUTION OF EVERYTHING BOOK BY MATT RIDLEY HARPER, 2015 368 PP.; $28.99 ULTRASOCIETY BOOK BY PETER TURCHIN BERESTA BOOKS, 2015 272 PP.; $18.95 Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, and their followers have given us a... Read More
Book Review: The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America
BOOK BY ANN NEUMANN BEACON PRESS; 2016 248 PP.; $26.95 With the appearance of The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America, author Ann Neumann (a visiting scholar at the Center for Religion and... Read More
Book Review: James A. Lindsay’s Everybody is Wrong About God
Is it time to move the societal debate about God’s existence to a new place? In his book Everybody is Wrong About God, author James A. Lindsay does indeed say that everyone is approaching the... Read More
Muggles’ Magical Thinking: Why J.K. Rowling’s Cultural Appropriation is a Problem
One of the cornerstones of the humanist philosophy is compassion. This is a motivation that inspires the very lifestance of humanism, according to Humanist Manifesto III. Part and parcel to compassion is empathy, the capacity... Read More
Humanism in Literature: Ten Authors to Read
In his essay, “Humanist Literature in Perspective,” Dr. Arthur Dobrin, professor emeritus at Hofstra University and leader emeritus of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island, writes, ‘Humanist literature’ is an ambiguous term. Does it... Read More