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As Rushdie humanised Muhammad – as he was always meant to be – Rushdie also humanised the faith.

I’m not sure any of the reader suggestions to replace the deeply unpopular term “redistribution” will quite cut it as bumper sticker slogans for the fall election.  But leaving aside proposals from […]

For most of human history creativity was something that came from the muses; it was about flashes of insight from another world. Today we know that creativity is something that […]

Like most people, I’ve been thinking a lot about the shootings in Aurora, Colorado.  And over the past week, I’ve seen the tragedy dissected in all manner of ways.  I’ve […]

The year of magical thinking about marriage, reproduction and vaginas (see reviews of Naomi’s Wolf’s hilariously trashed book) continues.  The conservative Heritage Foundation released a report last week that reprises […]

According to former White House Special Advisor Van Jones, it will require a patient mindset to get us to the place where the country can run on cleaner and more renewable forms of energy.

Thanks to 3D printers, digital Internet files will soon take on a new direction. They will include design specifications for 3D objects ranging from a pair of sneakers to a new car.

If you’re an American, you probably know that this week is income-tax time. (If you didn’t already know that, sorry to tell you, but you missed the deadline.) Most people […]

At Netroots Nation last week, I attended a panel on Citizens United, the infamous case in which the Supreme Court tossed aside decades of campaign finance laws and ruled that […]

In a post last May, entitled The First Trillionaires Will Make Their Fortunes in Space, we speculated about how the future explorers of space will be chasing unimaginable riches: As Peter Diamandis […]

On a late winter day in 1922, the sound of a gun shot resounded with a loud boom in the hills surrounding the house of three-year-old Edgar Curtis. The sound itself wasn’t out of the ordinary, since the Curtises lived near a firing range. What was extraordinary was the question the boy turned to ask his mother: “What is that big, black noise?”   

Over the weekend, JT linked to this post on Patheos by Ben Witherington, an evangelical Bible scholar, opining about the legal basis for separation of church and state in America. […]

New research out of Cambridge University in the U.K. finds that husbands who do households chores are happier and experience greater wellbeing. This finding surprised the researchers, who hypothesized that […]

What’s the Big Idea? The paradox of hiring during times of economic hardship is that even when unemployment is high, even when businesses have a vast pool of potential hires […]

[Author’s Note: I’m reposting some old favorites while I’m away on vacation this week. This post was originally from August 2010.] I’ve been writing since the beginning of Daylight Atheism […]

I am beginning to think that Republicans in the House of Representatives need to go whole hog on this Eric Holder contempt of Congress vote and have the U. S. […]

In an illuminating piece, the Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein traces the trajectory of the constitutional argument against the individual mandate from preposterous, fringe position to a real, greatly-feared legal possibility. The concept […]

What’s the Big Idea? Your colleague asks whether you agree with her perspective on a key issue, forcing you to take sides. Your six-year-old throws a fit just before bedtime, […]

The tight squeeze in science funding means the best are forced to be even better. In an economic downturn, it’s like that across industries, but in no other area do […]

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” asks the gospel of Mark. Verily, I know not. But in […]

It’s a big challenge being a spiritual teacher in a secular culture. What could be more disconcerting than being a religious authority in a world where there is no consensus […]

     Want to live a longer healthier life? Chill out. And stop lying. For the same reason. Stress is really REALLY bad for your health.             Chronic stress is bad […]

In addition to in-house R&D, big businesses like Best Buy and Blue Cross Blue Shield are funding start ups to create new product lines and innovate the direction of the company. 

Entrepreneurship is booming: we can see it in all the startup accelerators, incubators, and hackathons filling up and expanding around the world.  But for every success story there are hundreds […]

Matt Yglesias replies to an argument from Mike Konczal: Mike Konczal has a fairly compelling argument that it would make sense to dismantle the entire crazy quilt of “submerged state” […]

Back in January, I wrote about Jessica Ahlquist’s court victory over an illegal “School Prayer” banner in her high school in Cranston, Rhode Island. That was almost the end of […]

In his superb essay about his years as a Mormon (one of the best pieces about faith I have read in a long time) Walter Kirn notes that he said […]

It is true, of course, that exceptional can just mean strikingly different—an exception to the rule.

The Guardian reports that some English schools are opting out of HPV vaccination programmes because their pupils, say the schools, “follow strict Christian principles” and “do not practise sex outside […]

Are we somehow becoming “more than human”?