"On no account should the church allow infidels to have power over the faithful or to be set above them in any way. ... The church is above the state ... kings must be subject to priests." (Thomas Aquinas)

Stephen said he never lost his faith because he never had any and helped to bring Thomas Henry Huxley's newly coined word, "agnostic," into vogue.

And the Lord said: I burn down your cities — how blind you must be I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we You all must be crazy to put your faith in me That's why I love mankind... —"God's Song"

Rude-but-obvious questions are not encouraged, such as: Why did God allow the Muslim Turks to take control of Palestine in the first place? And: Why couldn't the Pope ask God, rather than soldiers, to liberate the holy lands?

Does being an atheist make you a Freethinker? Does believing in a God keep you from being a freethinker?

The three days of feasting, dancing, singing and game-playing at the first Thanksgiving would not have fit the decorum dictated by Pilgrim piety.

I’m not sure what the demeaning part was. The fact that women have orgasms, too? Or would the ad have been more effective if the main character was a man getting excited?

"[O]nly in popular education can man erect the structure of an enduring civilization."

Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632) It was on this date, November 24, 1632, that Portuguese-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to a family settled in Holland. The family were Portuguese crypto-Jews — that is, Jews forcibly converted to Christianity while secretly remaining Jewish. Spinoza was a bright student in the Talmud Torah school and […]

The evening of his "definite conversion" (November 23)... was the occasion of what Pascal remembered as a two-hour mystical vision, but what might just have been a misinterpretation of the aura and shimmering lights that occasionally precede a migraine headache. Some of the common triggers for migraines are being tired, stressed or depressed and the let-down after a stressful event — like nearly falling off a bridge.