Author Archives: The Secular Community

by James A. Haught Several research studies find that skeptics are brighter than religious believers. More than 60 scientific reports were analyzed in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, which said the results “showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity.” Newsweek (May 18, 2017) summed up the article: “Atheists tend to be more intelligent […]

by Gary M. Linscott I doubt you need to be reminded: We are living through extremely troubling times. Threats to the very survival of humankind abound. Unless quarreling nations can work in harmony to rapidly bring global warming under control, it seems inevitable that catastrophic climate change will occur in our lifetimes. Now a pandemic […]

Many people around the world, rightfully, are focused on the coronavirus (also referred to as COVID-19), its spread and impact.  This past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a pandemic.  WHO defines a pandemic as a disease for which people do not have an immunity and has spread across the globe. Pandemics […]

by James A. Haught Here in Appalachia’s Bible Belt, conservatives in the Legislature want to force all West Virginia public high schools to teach Bible classes, as occurs in several other Republican-controlled states. I wonder how such classes handle Bible topics like these: First, the Bible decrees that gay males must be killed. Leviticus 20:13 says: “If a […]

Humans are consuming more of Earth’s resources than can be replenished in a given year, that is, we are using resources that should be available in the future to support our present mode of living.  Earth Overshoot Day marks the date each year that our demand on the Earth’s resources exceeds what can be regenerated […]

By James Haught Jim Haught is editor of West Virginia’s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette, and a senior editor of Free Inquiry. This article first appeared in Free Inquiry, Fall 2000. Young seekers of truth go through a phase of wondering whether life has any discernible meaning. Why are we here? Why does the universe exist? Is there a […]

Over the past few weeks, a series of crazed gunmen took the lives of more than 30 innocent people in three separate mass killings in the United States.  Among the dead were multiple children.  Of course, children dying, in and of itself, is not a particularly newsworthy event.  Children die every day, from disease, hunger, […]

On June 30th, Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres told a meeting on climate change in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that “the world is facing a grave emergency” from climate change, that “climate disruption is happening now and it is happening to all of us.”  He added that climate change is “outpacing our […]

By Teresa Roberts There’s something about the concept of systemic sexism that causes confusion. Just the mention of it can trigger anger. Even those with whom developing self-awareness has been a goal are not immune. Individuals become defensive, because they don’t understand that systemic sexism isn’t about them. It’s about the culture they inherited. This […]

This is our first in what we hope will be a long and meaningful string of blog posts.  For this first posting, we thought we would start a discussion on a particularly difficult question – what is God? Fundamental to a discussion of religion and its pros and cons is the question of defining God […]