There is nostalgia. And there is memory. Sometimes the two intersect and the experience is transporting. For one evening, in the midst of mayhem and tragedy, I was transported to a better place and time – alone in New York, a seedy hotel and a sandwich with apple pie. That memory is a perfect seasonal gift.
secular songs about religion tend to do things that wouldn't pass muster in a house of worship: assume God's perspective, cast God as a villain, or just take a sardonic view of God's relationship with humankind.
Now to the fun. The Discovery Institute’s John West talked on “The Darwinian Challenge to Faith, Ethics, and Culture,” in which he characterized Darwinism as a block of militant atheists out to squash all opposition to their godless materialist agenda. Along the way West happened to show some slides of “Darwin Day” celebrations where atheist sentiments were on hand to suggest that Darwin Day was really a secularist religious holiday.
Jacques Berlinerblau wastes no ink in his new book trying to flatter his fellow nonbelievers. “American atheist movements, though fancying themselves a lion, are more like the gimpy little zebra crossing the river full of crocs,” he writes in “How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom.”
As millions of Americans bow their heads next Thursday (May 3) for the annual National Day of Prayer, atheists, humanists and other nontheists will mark a day of their own.