As a freshman, I came into university life starry-eyed and full of questions. Coming from a video game generation, I was bred on fantasy role-playing games, music television and grunge music. Of course, none of these provided me with any sense of reality. The only thing I knew was that I was not content with the way things were…

We all have but one life to live. In this finite time we have but a moment to understand who we are and where we come from. Unable to prove that we live beyond mental and physical death any more than the ant we crush with our index finger, our life is immeasurably precious…

I have met many people who turned away from their faith because they could no longer endure religious hypocrisy. Religious morality is really an anachronism that has become ethically bankrupt. First off, religious morality should have outlawed slavery from the very beginning…

Stan Hudson is a wonderfully nice man who gave me an authentic Triceratops tooth he believes to be only about 4,700 years old. The consensus in science is that the tooth is about 60 million years old. Hudson is also the one who told me that. He knows the established estimates but believes they are wrong…

The human is a conflicted animal. On the one hand, we have evolved a capacity for deep and passionate love that determines and channels our lives. Our novels, movies, and songs are filled with the joy and lamentations of romantic love. On the other hand, humans are often not content or unsatisfied and suffer from the constant itch of disloyalty and unfaithfulness…

Our animal heritage, evolved out of the jungles of Africa and into the diverse flora and fauna of the globe, produced a homicidal and genocidal killer. Our instincts are engineered to care for those only within our immediate in-group. Those outside the circle of our limited perceptions and understanding are no more to us then the killed animals we consume for our daily meals…

On Friday, Kenneth Starr, the Republican attack dog during the Monica Lewinsky affair, defended Proposition 8 to the Supreme Court of California. Those who voted for Prop 8 decided only heterosexuals could love each other in a legally binding contract – called marriage – that gives shared inheritance…

We are all products of circumstance from which must we find our way. We are born to a body – not chosen – raised by a family forced upon us, and schooled by a particular culture, within a specific geographic location imposed by happenstance. Our lives are not our choice; we exist because one life-changing sperm among millions found an egg…

If you like to eat meat, eating your dog is both an ethical and honest act. While in China during break, I saw dogs eaten beside other edible critters, which made me realize that eating dogs is better than eating most other animals. There are many good reasons to eat your dog…

Christopher Hitchens’ charismatic talk on Feb. 10 was a plea to recognize the violence inherent in competing religious doctrines and the necessity of a secular state. But he also was trying to make clear a much deeper problem. In modern society, passionate religious belief is an obstacle to cultural pluralism and toleration…

Feb. 12 marks Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th year since the publication of “The Origin of Species.” Darwin’s accomplishment was to posit a simple theory based on natural selection and survival of the fittest that revolutionized humanity’s understanding of its place in the world…

Religious institutions are extremely organized. They have regular donations and enthusiastic adherents who travel the world looking for converts. Well-funded organizations fill our highways and streets with their slogans. Nonbelievers have a history of going undetected…

Barack Obama’s inauguration speech was heard around the world, and it was not lost on nonbelievers. For the first time, nonbelievers were publicly recognized in an inaugural address by the highest officer in the nation. Some atheists and agnostics might not be impressed with a solitary mention in a speech filled with God references; However…

The greatest achievement of the modern education system is its liberty from the chains of superstition. Our education today has become entirely secularized in both the sciences and the humanities. Old forms of pseudo-science, such as alchemy and astrology…

Because I do not believe in God, Christians of all stripes and colors always ask what forms the basis of my morality. They assume that without God there can be no morality. Many Christians I have met even argue that the existence of morality proves God’s existence…