January / February 2014

The Oprah-Nyad Affair

Atheists have one thing in common: they lack a belief in any god. But that commonality tells us very little about what they do believe and what they do experience in lieu of the divine. For instance, do atheists have experiences they consider “spiritual” or awe-inspiring? And if one doesn’t...

Read More

Features

Up Front

Grinch or Greater Good

As the holiday season got into full swing, the American Humanist Association (AHA) took some heat from the religious right for blocking a public school from participating in Operation Christmas Child, which distributes shoeboxes containing toys...

Read More

Columns

Reviews

Elsewhere in the Humanist:

The Black Practice of Disbelief

The following excerpt is from a new book from Beacon Press, set to be published in May 2024. Introduction I have grown to like “nontheist” as a broad-spectrum term that carries less baggage than more commonly used words such as “atheist” or...

Read All

Elsewhere in the Humanist:

“I Stand for Freedom for All”

This text is excerpted from the remarks of Commissioner Mohamed Magid of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom made at the launch event for the 2023 Freedom of Thought Report from Humanists International. The event was held on Capitol Hill in...

Read All

Elsewhere in the Humanist:

The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence

Editor’s note: OpenAI’s now famous ChatGPT bot was used by the Humanist to generate this article as an experiment to discover what today’s AI knows 
and will tell about the dangers posed by AI technology. IN RECENT YEARS, the rapid advancements in...

Read All

Elsewhere in the Humanist:

The Fragility of Truth in the Existential Crisis

Dr. Michael E. Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. He is director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and...

Read All