Anthea Butler caught flack for arguing the Zimmerman verdict exposed that a god-complex tied to white supremacy remains powerfully at work within U.S. society. She’s right, but I propose that the only religious response is to be atheist.
The famed primatologist’s latest book is a conversation about the common ground among atheists and bonobos, both of whom make it clear that religion has, lamentably and unjustifiably, been given credit for human morality.
The absence of historical and sociological context for atheist politics, and its disconnection from social justice activism, will keep it in the lily-white one-percent column.
This month at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a select group of students will show their humanitarian spirit by participating in the Bleedin’ Heathens Blood Drive. Later in the month, they will eat cake to celebrate Darwin Day, and earlier this year, they performed “de-baptism” ceremonies to celebrate Blasphemy Day, attended a War on Christmas Party, and set up Hug An Atheist and Ask An Atheist booths in the campus quad.
The Dalai Lama recommends a radical new approach: a religionless religion, stripped of myth, superstition, and narrow dogmatism, and focused on the practical work of transforming human behavior.
Media excitement continues over the latest Pew poll showing continued growth in the religiously affiliated. But do such data really tell us what we need to know about the Four F’s of Contemporary American Spirituality: Family, Fido, Friends, and Food?