I just drove home listening to a show called "Religious Leaders Lose Their Faith" on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." I pulled over -- never safe to drive and talk on the phone! -- and called in 17 times, but the line was busy. I would have loved to be part of the conversation...

What do the Pope and the feeding tubes doctors are giving to brides so they can lose 10-20 pounds to fit into their wedding dresses have in common? Both are dedicated to making women smaller. Last week was a big week. The Vatican disciplined U.S. nuns last week for...

Have you ever thought about attending a writing workshop? Do you have a story you are longing to tell? I will be teaching a writing workshop this summer in Taos--July 15 though July 22--and I'd love for you to join me! It is open to all levels of writings, and it is...

(For Maylen) I’ve been noticing that much of the resolution energy at the beginning of this year (at the beginning of every year) has been directed at women. Telling us to lose weight. Telling us to be smaller. Telling us to take up less space. I’m tired of this. Tired...

I asked my lovely readers to choose the gift that should be NUMBER ONE on the Top Ten Atheist Xmas List Countdown . . . and this is what you geniuses came up with:  ×        Two round-trip tickets to Vegas  ×      The “Adventures of Lil Cthulhu,” a DVD that’ll keep...

The more I read the Bible, the stranger the book becomes. And it’s safe to say that most people who quote the Bible at other people probably haven’t read it, or at least not all of it, and though they criticize “liberal Christians” for picking and choosing the parts...

Part of what drove me out of institutional Christianity was the problem of theodicy, which, simply stated is the problem of how you can have a good, omnipotent God and still have so much suffering in the world. It is a theological version of the question: Why do bad things...

Atheists sometimes need reminding that religion is not all bad. One way to do that is to show them examples of religious leaders who fought for justice and equality for all people—as opposed to the religious leaders who tend to get the most press these days as they work...

“We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.”  –Carl Sagan Watching episodes of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was church for my agnostic husband Eric when he was growing up, so it had to be on the list. Sagan’s Cosmos, Eric told me, demonstrated the perfect blend of curiosity...