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By Richard Potts People thrive all across the globe, at every temperature, altitude and landscape. How did human beings become so successful at adapting to whatever environment we wind up in? Human origins researchers like me are interested in how this quintessential human trait, adaptability, evolved. At a site in Kenya, my colleagues and I have been working …

By George Yancy In five previous interviews in this series we’ve explored the Buddhist, Jain, Taoist, Jewish and Christian views on death and the afterlife. But what about those without any religious faith or belief in God? Why not, some readers have asked, interview an atheist? So we did. Today’s conversation is with Todd May, the author …

By Jack Jenkins Christian recording artist Sean Feucht is slated to bring his worship protest tour to the nation’s capital this Sunday (Oct. 25) despite concerns around mass gatherings during a pandemic. Feucht’s tour has received widespread criticism from public health officials and other faith leaders who challenge the wisdom of hosting events where neither …

By Margalit Fox James Randi, a MacArthur award-winning magician who turned his formidable savvy to investigating claims of spoon bending, mind reading, fortunetelling, ghost whispering, water dowsing, faith healing, U.F.O. spotting and sundry varieties of bamboozlement, bunco, chicanery, flimflam, flummery, humbuggery, mountebankery, pettifoggery and out-and-out quacksalvery, as he quite often saw fit to call them, …

I was a clergy member of the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) roughly one year ago, but it began to frustrate me to hear of the certainty that faithful adherents had of God’s hand in their life – certainty that never matched any falsifiable evidence! They would say they had been …

I was a clergy member of the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) roughly one year ago, but it began to frustrate me to hear of the certainty that faithful adherents had of God’s hand in their life – certainty that never matched any falsifiable evidence! They would say they had been …

By Christie Aschwanden In May, the Brazilian city of Manaus was devastated by a large outbreak of COVID-19. Hospitals were overwhelmed and the city was digging new grave sites in the surrounding forest. But by August, something had shifted. Despite relaxing social-distancing requirements in early June, the city of 2 million people had reduced its …

By Reed Abelson New York State accused a major Christian group on Tuesday of deceiving customers by illegally offering health insurance to as many as 40,000 residents since 2016. The state filed civil charges against Trinity Healthshare, the Christian group, and Aliera, a for-profit company that markets the plans. The state insurance regulators’ complaint included a list …

By Michael Wilner, Bryan Lowry, and Alex Daugherty State Department employees complained this month after members of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s advance team discovered overtly anti-gay flyers when scoping out the site of a Florida event with a conservative Christian group that promotes conversion therapy for LGBTQ individuals. Pompeo’s decision to address the Florida …

By Delia Gallagher Pope Francis has declared support for civil unions for same-sex couples for the first time, according to the Catholic News Agency. The Pope made the historic remarks in a new documentary film, “Francesco,” which was released in Rome on Wednesday. “Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They’re children of God and …

By Tessa Koumoundouros Early life may have been far more like animals than we thought, suggests new research that shows bacteria can ‘develop’ like an embryo. When bacteria band together, they ooze out a protective communal home of slime to form thriving, densely packed colonies known as biofilms. Together these teeny organisms are more powerful. …

By Mohamed Hisham I am Mohamed, an Egyptian human rights activist. When I was a small child, my parents had a keen interest in my religious education. I attended a school to learn the Koran by heart and I prayed several times a day in a mosque.  Islam took over much of my childhood and …