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Monday, May 5, 2025

Jim Downard

Jim Downard is a Spokane native (with a sojourn in Southern California back in the early 1960s) who was raised in a secular family, so says had no personal faith to lose. He's always been a history and science buff (getting a bachelor's in the former area at what was then Eastern Washington University in the early 1970s).

Ask An Atheist: Stranger in Strange Land

I'm a Stranger in a Strange Land in many ways, not just the religious angle.

Ask An Atheist: Why do you pose ‘annoyingly hard’ questions to Christians?

Why do most atheists ask annoyingly hard questions like, 'if God created man then who created God?,' the moment someone reveals that they're Christian?

Out in the World of Non-Belief

Everybody has beliefs. We’d have to be a block of wood not to.

Voting in a Time of Division

Our editor asked “How should people of faith vote in the Cathy/Lisa campaign and why?”  Well, don’t leave out the non-faith people too.  Here’s this secularist’s take.

Ask An Atheist: Why aren’t Atheists included in memorial services?

I can't claim to know whether every Memorial Day or Veterans Day observance excludes non-believers from the official observance when religious invocations are done, but it is fair to say we aren't taken note of generally.

Ask An Atheist: How do you explain design throughout the universe?

If we take the "throughout the universe" part seriously, since the only life we know of is here, the rest of the universe is just stars and apparently lots of planets.  Do any of those appear to be "designed"?  Not that I know of, nor do we find even design advocates going out of their way to point to some weirdly located gas giant orbiting a small star as a herald of divine planet making.

Ask An Atheist: Why is the PNW so unchurched?

There does appear to be no shortage of physical churches in Spokane, though, they're far commoner block on block than Starbuck's or Zip's.

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