Jesus as the new Moses
Jesus is many things to many people. To the early Christians, authors of the Gospels, he was certainly a construction of sorts. For example, for Matthew, Jesus was written in a way that
Jonathan MS Pearce
Missouri lawmakers adopt strict dress code for women
With the regression in laws that seem to have overwhelmingly affected women over the last few years, Americans may be forgiven for thinking that The Handmaid's Tale on TV is a
Are the Biden documents a Trumpian parallel? Not even close
It might be easy to think that the recent Biden classified documents blunder is one that mirrors the Trump debacle, but you would be wrong. Here's why. First, let's
The illusion of choice in what we believe
There is a phenomenon that has been taking place, particularly in the US, with greater regularity over the last few decades—the behavior of "church shopping." The congregant attends a church
Two days of infamy
President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared December 7, 1941 to be “a day of infamy.” That was two weeks before my fifth birthday. January 6, 2021 was also a day of infamy. That was
How do a conservative Christian and a liberal atheist agree on Ukraine?
A conservative Christian and a liberal atheist walk into a...YouTube interview and discuss their agreement on Ukraine. You could be forgiven for thinking there is little scope for agreement, but you would
Death: Every year, the probability increases
I was fortunate enough to swan through most of my life only rarely coming into contact with death. My grandparents, eventually (while I was away from home, either abroad or at university), one
Are my children missing out on 'True Christmas'?
I am a fully-fledged secular atheist. I also love Christmas. It is probably a learned thing involving decades of cultural normalization following a childhood ensconced in an at least nominally Christian Christmas tradition.
Musk's Twitter polls: the slopey moral shoulders of deferring decisions
The Great Elon Musk Twitter Saga continues. Most recently, Musk reignited the culture wars with his decision to "temporarily suspend" a range of journalists for apparently doxxing his 2-year-old son. Except
"I'm a free speech absolutist!"*
Free speech is a thoroughly thorny issue, not just because it is divisive in online and offline debates, but because it is philosophically troublesome and potentially an unsolvable quandary. We all have our
He shouted too early: The impotence of Putin
The war in Ukraine is just about to have its terrible ten-month anniversary with no immediate end in sight. But even though it is not going to end in the coming weeks (absent
Over 70% of people live in countries that 'severely discriminate' against nonreligious
In the recent and incredibly important annual Freedom of Thought Report, published by Humanists International, research shows that most of the world lives in countries that openly discriminate against the nonreligious. The report