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Atheism and Agnosticism

The Sun Interview

Moral Combat

Chris Hedges On War, Faith, And Fundamentalism

You can spend your whole life struggling against war and end up with a world that’s more violent than when you began, but resistance is what gives you spiritual strength. You trust that the work is worth doing and that it’s helping somewhere, though perhaps evidence of that won’t be apparent in your lifetime. You find self-worth in the ability to stand up and fight back without worrying too much about what you can accomplish. That is part of being human. We’re not God. We have a limited capacity to fight evil. We use the gifts and tools we’ve been given and trust that life is meaningful, even if everything we try to do seems to fail.

By Bethany Saltman December 2008
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

My God Journal

Tonight was my third Christmas Eve service. My friend Diana was playing the organ and invited me into the choir loft with her. I sat looking down at the pews, which were two-thirds full. These people had braved the midnight cold of the Catskills to praise the birth of a king in a barn.

By Sparrow August 2008
The Sun Interview

The Temple Of Reason

Sam Harris On How Religion Puts The World At Risk

If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion. I think more people are dying as a result of our religious myths than as a result of any other ideology. I would not say that all human conflict is born of religion or religious differences, but for the human community to be fractured on the basis of religious doctrines that are fundamentally incompatible, in an age when nuclear weapons are proliferating, is a terrifying scenario. I think we do the world a disservice when we suggest that religions are generally benign and not fundamentally divisive.

By Bethany Saltman September 2006
Quotations

Sunbeams

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you will always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

H.L. Mencken

September 2006
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Ending My Religion

I grew up in the hyper-Christian culture of Charlotte, North Carolina, within spitting distance of Jim and Tammy Bakker’s ill-fated Praise the Lord Ministry and other evangelical fiefdoms too numerous to count. But because my mother believed in Faulkner and Steinbeck above all other gods, my upbringing was more literary than religious; for that, my gratitude to her knows no bounds.

By D. Patrick Miller April 2002
Quotations

Sunbeams

Man is the only animal who has to be encouraged to live.

Friedrich Nietzsche

March 2001
Fiction

Some Keep The Sabbath

I stopped going to church the night Diane Pearson announced God filled her cavities. That same night, in the spring of 1973, the police arrested my sister, Sheila.

By Janis Bultman January 1998
Fiction

The Vulgar Soul

As his sessions with the psychiatrist progressed, the stigmata bled less frequently. Hogue was getting more sleep, and though he continued to lose weight, he managed to eat something every day. He felt cautiously hopeful.

By John Biguenet September 1997
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Uncommon Prayer

Toward A New Liturgy

There is something that loves you in the world. The voice that speaks to you within, in the worst despair, is not different from the voice that called the world into being.

By Catherine Madsen June 1992