8th Jun 2007 : In his latest book, "God Is Not Great," Christopher Hitchens makes the case against religion and for "free inquiry and open-mindedness." Hitchens, of course, is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School, and author of many books. He spoke recently with Truthdig's Jon Wiener.

8th Jun 2007 : A short questionnaire with Richard Dawkins.

8th Jun 2007 : The House gave final Congressional approval on Thursday to legislation aimed at easing restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research, but Democratic leaders in both chambers conceded they were short of the votes needed to override a veto threatened by President Bush.

7th Jun 2007 : As a woman in the male-dominated kingdom, Times reporter Megan Stack quietly fumed beneath her abaya. Even beyond its borders, her experience taints her perception of the sexes.

7th Jun 2007 : "The only thing worse for these candidates than another terrorist attack would be a gay hero stopping it."

7th Jun 2007 : And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated.

7th Jun 2007 : OFTEN WHEN I hear atheism mentioned it's followed by the bewildered statement, "How can you be sure God doesn't exist?" I would like to attempt to clear up a few common misconceptions about atheism. Namely that atheism requires faith, that outspoken atheists are "fundamentalists," and that agnostics are weak or non-committal while self-professed atheists are arrogant.

7th Jun 2007 : This hour On Point: Christopher Hitchens versus God.

7th Jun 2007 : The time has come for secularists to provide alternative secular curricula, for implementation within or alongside of the schools, in which the best scientific, historical, aesthetic, and humanistic education is made available. By this, I don't mean that we should seek to replace or abandon the public schools, but simply to supplement the education they provide by offering particular programs and courses of learning. I submit that there's an urgent need to do so.

7th Jun 2007 : Dr. Lawrence Krauss, Professor of Physics & Professor of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University speaks at the gates of "Answers in Genesis" (AiG) in Northern Kentucky to let the world know that many rational Americans do not share the primitive world view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, as presented by the 27 million dollar plus "Creation Museum" opening Memorial Day, May 28, 2007. Various groups, representing both religious and secular orientations, will join together to protest this destructive world view.

6th Jun 2007 : Whether he knows it or not, Brownback's forthright declarations, denying any possibility that empirical matters of fact might differ from those assumed by his creed, amount to nothing less than a rejection of the whole institution of science. Who is "we", and where did "our" conviction and certainty come from? Would Brownback believe these "spiritual truths" if he hadn't been taught them as a child, or brought up in the United States instead of China?

6th Jun 2007 : The ignorance of some Republican Candidates for president is truly astounding. Delay joins the ranks of . . . and Chris Matthews has a little fun with him.

6th Jun 2007 : A recent spate of books and films from atheists have incorrectly blamed religion for humankind's misery, but the true culprit is much closer to home

6th Jun 2007 : God knocking is on the increase but the criticisms levelled at religion by militant atheists are often crude and short-sighted.

6th Jun 2007 : "OK, let's be frank: Hitchens absolutely mopped the floor with Hedges. It was an embarrassment, really. Scroll down to watch the videos of Hitchens' performance to see what I mean."

5th Jun 2007 : In a rare public discussion of her husband's infidelity, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God.

5th Jun 2007 : THE Catholic archdiocese of Sydney wants its 167 school principals, its deputy principals and religious education co-ordinators to publicly commit to a "vow of fidelity" by adhering to church teaching on homosexuality, birth control and women's ordination.

4th Jun 2007 : JAMES D. WATSON, who helped crack the DNA code half a century ago, last week became the first person handed the full text of his own DNA on a small computer disk. But he won't be the last.

4th Jun 2007 : A short video clip of kindergarten-age boys and girls in Palestine. The boys perform a play dressed as Hamas soldiers.

4th Jun 2007 : However, despite all the effort and rhetoric about protecting children and their rights, there is a severe shortcoming in the global campaign to protect children: the influence of religion and its continuing contribution to many forms of child abuse all around the world.

4th Jun 2007 : One cannot criticize religious dogmatism for long without encountering the following claim, advanced as though it were a self-evident fact of nature: there is no secular basis for morality.

3rd Jun 2007 : My road to atheism was long and difficult. I've only actively identified myself as an unbeliever for less than a year, but the questioning started long before that. I'd like to explore, for my own benefit, and hopefully the benefit of anyone under similar circumstances, what took me so long.

3rd Jun 2007 : The science has long been clear that smoking causes cancer, but new research shows that children could inherit genetic damage from a father who smokes.

3rd Jun 2007 : The search for alien life is yielding weird new worlds at a remarkable rate

3rd Jun 2007 : Two prominent defenders of science exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers

3rd Jun 2007 : A massive blast of radiation from space once almost sterilized the Earth

3rd Jun 2007 : St. Francis deacon blesses Members Only club and 240 of its closest friends

2nd Jun 2007 : For ungodly folk, the soaraway success of Dawkins's anti-clerical diatribe has been a source of considerable pleasure. Indeed, it has been impossible not to laugh out loud at the injured squeakings of some irate reviewers of the hardback version, a book, we should note, that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since publication eight months ago. At this rate, Dawkins may become non-fiction's answer to Harry Potter.

2nd Jun 2007 : ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A Christian was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammed, and a human rights activist Friday urged Pakistan's president to spare his life.

2nd Jun 2007 : Richard Dawkins, the author of the NY Times bestseller - The God Delusion - has been interviewed many a time recently. The questions asked were mainly related to his book, the views on atheism, morality and present world.

He answered all questions in a flawless and confident way. Each and every answer speaks about his passion and eagerness to explain his stance on every point. It's an amazing experience to watch him speak. I have tried to pick up a few commonly asked questions and his answers on different topics.

1st Jun 2007 : "ALL of the things all the religions teach us may be nonsense, yet some kind of god might still exist. If we can't prove God doesn't exist, shouldn't we be calling ourselves agnostics rather than atheists?" a member of a Melbourne audience asked French philosopher Michel Onfray this week (writes Pamela Bone).

1st Jun 2007 : OTTAWA — Frank McKenna, Canada's former ambassador to Washington, referred to the United States on Friday as "a theocratic state" in which Christian evangelicalism plays a big role in the Republican administration.

1st Jun 2007 : I recently attended a national meeting of biologists, gathered in dismay over the way we teach medicine in the United States, at least regarding basics of biology. At the top of their list was the failure of medical schools to adequately teach principles of evolution. They blamed such ignorance for what we all face now -- an unwanted and dangerous experiment in microbe evolution.

1st Jun 2007 : Here are some photos from The God Delusion event in Second LIfe.

31st May 2007 : In our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves.

31st May 2007 : This interview was filmed for the TV documentary "Root of All Evil?" but was left out of the final version. Time restrictions dictated that not all interviews filmed could be used. This was especially regrettable in the case of the McGrath interview, which is therefore offered here now, unedited.

30th May 2007 : In fact, scientific reasoning can explain nearly every stage of life from the Big Bang to the present day. I say "nearly" because the period that scientists claim lasted from roughly 205 to 250 million years ago, commonly known as the Triassic period, was quite obviously the work of the Lord God Almighty.

30th May 2007 : The purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for me and to document the destruction of my faith.

30th May 2007 : The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and three orangutans. But if you think Iowa might be a strange place for them to live, don't say it out loud … these apes understand English.

30th May 2007 : The developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and will be especially strong if there is a non-scientific alternative that is rooted in common sense and championed by people who are taken as reliable and trustworthy.

30th May 2007 : The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.

30th May 2007 : The other day many Americans observed the National Day of Prayer. Leading up to it, volunteers turned out on the West Lawn of the Capitol to hold a Bible reading marathon. Foreign participants were offered Bibles in languages other than English. In the shadow of the Capitol and blocks from the White House, it was a reminder that the wall between church and state in America more closely resembles Swiss cheese.

30th May 2007 : A fun little debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dennis Prager

29th May 2007 : Another short interview of Richard Dawkins from the Hay Festival.

29th May 2007 : Christopher Hitchens speaks about his new book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

29th May 2007 : Richard Dawkins demolishes the justifications for religious belief with flair, but what he doesn't get is why people persist in believing all the same.

29th May 2007 : Scientists should form a closer alliance with mainstream religion in order to better fight extremism, the president of the Royal Society said yesterday.

29th May 2007 : Don't ask me to cosy up to religious moderates when there are other enemies of the Enlightenment to contend with, argued Richard Dawkins at Hay.

29th May 2007 : I am hopeful that the editors at Truthdig will eventually post the unedited video/audio of my debate with Chris Hedges to the website. Once these files are available, readers will be able to judge for themselves which of us made more sense on the subject of religion. I would, however, like to offer a few remarks in the meantime.

29th May 2007 : Many festival stars do much more than turn up and chat about their book. Richard Dawkins clearly welcomes the chance to take on religious-minded folk, listen to their arguments and explain kindly, but with great precision - that they're wrong logically and they're fundamentally imbeciles. His session was full of special pleadings from non-atheists, like doomed martial arts amateurs lining up for a crack at Bruce Lee.