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Thomas Jefferson’s Bible Rejected the Supernatural Jesus in Response to the ‘Stupidity’ of Those Who Deified Him

By Gordon Haber

…ho has written a number of pieces for RD. Gordon Haber spoke to Manseau by phone. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Tell us about the Jefferson Bible. What is it? Why did he do it? Jefferson wanted to distill the Gospels down to core teachings of Jesus as a moral teacher. So he went through copies of the Bible and cut out with a penknife everything that had to do with Jesus’s life and teachings as opposed to the mystical and s…

Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

By John Horgan

…the concept of a unified self (which is a necessary precondition for free will) are illusions, according to Wegner. He quotes the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s remark that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Because we cannot possibly understand how the fantastically complex machines in our skulls really work, Wegner contends, we explain our behavior—and that of others—in terms of such primitive, mag…

‘The Quiet Damage’ Details the Heartbreaking Effect of QAnon on Five American Families — But Critical Questions Linger

By Susannah Crockford

…n trying to amateur “deprogram” his mom demonstrates, in heart-rending detail, the failure of debunking, and points to the gap between reality and QAnon claims that, for example, Trump won the 2020 election. Human connection proves to be more effective than fact checking in the stories of those relatives who are able to be there for their QAnon-following family members without confirming their beliefs and, when appropriate, gently encouraging them…

Eclipseville, USA: The Birthplace of ‘Little Green Men’ Proudly Hosts The Point of Greatest Eclipse

By Matthew Bowman

…and moon toward what’s called totality, birds will stop singing. Chickens will, eerily, stand on one leg. The wind will change direction and odd shadows will flicker across beaches. Annie Dillard describes how colors become wrong and landscapes devastated. It is not terribly surprising that ancient Americans offered human sacrifice to save the sun as the sky darkened, nor that medieval Catholics flocked to confession when an eclipse approached—and…

Religion or Insanity? Two Upcoming Murder Trials Will Ask the (Burning) Question

By Joseph Laycock

…e with his religious beliefs, and therefore was not mentally ill. In an eerily similar case, Pamela Christensen of Montgomery, Illinois, is awaiting trial for attempting to kill her three daughters so they could “meet Jesus Christ.” Like Dobson, Christensen tried to drug and stab her loved ones before attempting to kill herself. Christensen claimed she was responding to a phone call from her husband, a pastor, who announced that the world was endi…

I Owe, Therefore I Am: Why Struggling Against the Banks is a Holy Obligation

By Peter Laarman

…e abolished. Whether historic Israel ever fully implemented Sabbath and Jubilee prescriptions is beside the point: Sabbath and Jubilee remain moral economy touchstones for the prophets, for Jesus, and for us. Thus Isaiah to his bankers in the eighth century BCE: “The spoil of the poor is in your houses; what do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?” (Isa. 3:14f) And thus Jesus to his bankers—to the money changers in the…

Gay Suicide and the Ethic of Love: A Progressive Christian Response

By Eric Reitan

…fight. If someone had pressed into his fingers at that pivotal moment the phone number for The Trevor Project, he might reach out and hear a voice of reassurance, a voice that gave him hope for life by, in part, repudiating the so-called biblical teaching that who he is amounts to an offense against God. If he’d had a sense of belonging to a community that embraced him for who he is, maybe his hope wouldn’t be so fully shattered. But while other…

Missouri Pastor Goes Viral on Gawker: ‘Separation of Church and Hate’

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…e most surprising thing about the reaction? I was having dinner with my family and my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. To be honest—as lame as this might sound—the most surprising part of all this craziness was how quickly it all took off. Even though I thought the speech would only be heard by those at the City Council meeting, I owe a lot to Gawker, George Takei, and many others for sharing it, because it helps show that people of faith across the c…

Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

By Lauri Lebo

…ou need to know to keep on reading? I’d cheerfully watch that man read the phone book. So, when my buddy Rev. El Mundo sent me the link to the comedian’s message, I eagerly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the pie…

A Valentine for the World…and for the Church I Left

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…lly. The long-awaited fruit not appearing, just some hard and bitter facsimile, while I gritted my teeth and tried to keep myself from the fire. While I remain ambivalent about life out here with the dogs, my children are adamant that the only real life is an empirically measured life, what we see and hear and touch and taste and smell—this is all that can be trusted. But I grow weary of such easy dismissal. There is such arrogance on both sides o…