A long time ago I used to be a Roman Catholic, and in those days we talked a lot about tests of faith. They happened when you were confronted with facts that clearly challenged the... Read More

In his study of the psychological damage wrought by World War II, historian Paul Fussell details a soldier’s view of death in combat as a “slowly dawning and dreadful realization” that begins with the rationalization:... Read More

Jane Cooper’s book, Embroidering History, opens wide a window into the workings of an early humanitarian aid project in a complex emergency, namely the refugee crisis of Polish peasants from 1924-1925. Cooper has ably edited... Read More

A friend recently passed on a slick magazine to me published by a religious right group. The cover depicted a close-up shot of a large steamroller under dark and threatening skies. The headline read, “Secularism:... Read More

I came to the humanist movement in the 1970s, not as a refugee or rebel against the abusive teachings of organized religion but as one already born into an atheistic humanist family who was longing... Read More

This article is an excerpt from Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels (forthcoming February 2013). This article first appeared in The Feminist Wire. The 24-hour prayer sessions are the true test of a warrior for... Read More

There’s a tendency among humanist and atheist writers to make their books dense and detailed, recognizing that the usual audience wants all the facts comprehensively collected in one place. Their readers may not need or... Read More