Articles
117 open-access articles · page 4 of 6
Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and ScienceExplaining the Secularity of Academics: Historical Questions and Psychological Findings
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi
Religious beliefs are the products of natural, intuitive human thinking, and are shared by most humans. Academic research, or science, is the product of counter-intuitive, unnatural psychological processes, and the resulting concepts are beyond the reach of mo…
28 Jul 2015- Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions by Phil Zuckerman, Penguin Press, 2014, 288 pp. $25.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1594205088
Amanda Schutz
Living the Secular Life begins with a popular assumption: life without religion is empty and meaningless. Without religion, one cannot develop a moral compass, raise decent and happy children, navigate tragedy, or cooperate effectively with others in society.…
28 Jul 2015 - Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
The New Atheist Novel: Fiction, Philosophy, and Polemic after 9/11, Arthur Bradley & Andrew Tate, London and New York, NY: Continuum Publishing, 2010, 136pp.
Marcus Mann
As the story goes, on the morning of September 12, 2001, Sam Harris, a graduate student in neuroscience at the University of California – Los Angeles, woke up with an itch. He had been shaken to his core by the events of the previous day and found himsel…
28 Jul 2015 - Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
When Rabbis Lose Faith: Twelve Rabbis Tell their Stories about their Loss of Belief in God
Rabbi Paul Shrell-Fox
Religious intuition evolves over time. To the degree that belief in a supernatural God is a derivative of religious intuition, it is safe to assume that over one’s lifetime, intuition and attitudes towards a belief in God is subject to fluctuation. Denne…
28 Jul 2015 - Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
Discourse Analysis and the Definition of Atheism
Ethan G. Quillen
In recent years the study of Atheism has grown in popularity, leading to both positive and negative results. On one end, this has engendered a polyvocal and polyfocal discourse, garnering perspectives from a number of different methodological and theoretical a…
27 Jul 2015 - Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
Atheism, Wellbeing, and the Wager: Why Not Believing in God (With Others) is Good for You
Luke Galen
The majority of social science research on religiosity and associated variables has tended to focus on putative beneficial aspects, implying that the absence of religious belief is accompanied by liabilities. However, a closer examination of the literature rev…
27 Jul 2015 - Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
Atheism Looking In: On the Goals and Strategies of Organized Nonbelief
Joseph Langston, Joseph Hammer, Ryan T. Cragun
This exploratory study contributed to research on nonbelievers, their communities, and the atheist movement in general by dividing nonbelievers (N=1,939) into four groups based on degree of formal affiliation and assessing attitudes, perceptions, and preferenc…
27 Jul 2015 - Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
A Profile of the Members of the British Humanist Association
Gareth Longden
In 1967 Campbell published the first detailed survey of the members of the British Humanist Association. His survey of 931 members represented the most comprehensive study of the members of the organisation then published. The current research builds on…
27 Jul 2015 
Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and ScienceSimple Markov Model for Estimating the Growth of Nonreligion in the United States
John Stinespring, Ryan T. Cragun
The authors develop a simple Markov model to forecast future rates of religious nonaffiliation. A two-period, two-variable Markov switching model is used which yields a tractable steady state solution and growth path for the share of the population that is non…
27 Jul 2015
Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and ScienceThe NonReligious-NonSpiritual Scale (NRNSS): Measuring Everyone from Atheists to Zionists
Ryan T. Cragun, Joseph H. Hammer, Michael Nielsen
Although hundreds of measures of personal religiousness and spirituality exist, none are capable of reliably and validly assessing individuals who identify as nonreligious and nonspiritual. There is a need to develop a valid and reliable measure of (non)religi…
27 Jul 2015- Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
On (not) defining (non)religion
Jonathan Jong
Social scientific research on religion (and related phenomena, including nonreligion, atheism, and secularity) is invariably prefaced by sheepish attempts to define these terms, followed by apologies for the inevitable inadequacy of the proposed definiti…
27 Jul 2015 - Special Issue: Atheism, Secularity, and Science
An Introduction to Atheism, Secularity, and Science
Thomas J. Coleman III, Ralph W. Hood Jr, John R. Shook
Over the past 10 years research and scholarship on secularity in general, and atheism in particular, has increased significantly. Moreover, these phenomena have been researched, studied and documented by multiple disciplines ranging from cognitive science to r…
26 Jul 2015 - Articles
Justified Belief in Miracles is Impossible
David Kyle Johnson
If one claims that some religious belief is justified by the occurrence of a miracle, that religious belief is justified only if the belief that the miracle occurred is justified. Hume famously argued that testimony cannot justify belief in the miraculous (and…
16 Jun 2015 - Articles
The Tower of Babel Account: A Linguistic Consideration
Dallin D. Oaks
The biblical account of the Tower of Babel has generally not been taken seriously by scholars in historical linguistics, but what are regarded by some as problematic aspects of the account may actually relate to claims that have been incorrectly attributed to…
25 Mar 2015 - Book Review
Marwa Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950, The University of Chicago Press, 2013, HB, ISBN 978-0-226-00130-2 (cloth); 978-0-226-00144-9 (e-book)
Yashab Tur
The title is indeed tantalizing, the time span transforming, and the opening view panoramic: Imagine a world still living with centuries-old routines and patterns of individual and communal life, submerged in the slow rhythm of a pre-modern era, about to encou…
26 Feb 2015 - Book Review
J. David Pleins, The Evolving God: Charles Darwin on the Naturalness of Religion, Bloomsbury Academic, 2013, 192 pp., $26.96, ISBN-10: 1623562473
Thomas J. Coleman III
Who owns Darwin? More specifically, who gets to claim both the man and his theory in support of their ideological worldview? If you were like me, at first glance this would be an obvious answer: godless naturalism intertwined with the “New Atheism”…
26 Feb 2015 - Special Issue: Islam, Culture, and the Charlie Hebdo Affair
On Terrorism and Blasphemy
Varadaraja V. Raman
The term terrorism usually refers to any act (pre-determined and/or methodical) whose goal is to frighten and possibly kill people. Invading soldiers over the ages have terrorized innocent civilians in many regions of the world. Governments have terrorized the…
23 Jan 2015 - Special Issue: Islam, Culture, and the Charlie Hebdo Affair
The Dilemma of Islamic Terrorism
Ali Sina
The recent massacres in Paris of the staff of Charlie Hebdo and the Jews in a kosher supermarket have made more people concerned about the rise of terrorism.Tens of thousands have come out to demonstrate.
23 Jan 2015 - Special Issue: Islam, Culture, and the Charlie Hebdo Affair
When Satire Meets Islamic Fundamentalism: Are We All Charlie?
Frank Griffel
After the attacks of January 7 on the editorial offices of “Charlie Hebdo” and the hostage taking at a Jewish supermarket two days later, yet another Western country asked itself why do they attack us? Why do they hate us? France experiences a mome…
23 Jan 2015 - Special Issue: Islam, Culture, and the Charlie Hebdo Affair
Believe the Terrorists: Religion, Violence, and the Power of Beliefs
Michael Shermer
Pop quiz: What did the assailants shout after murder- ing 17 people in Paris in January, 2015, including edi- tors and cartoonists of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo? A. “Moses rocks!” B. “Jesus saves!” C. “Vishnu lives!&r…
23 Jan 2015