Atheists and agnostics are more driven by compassion to help others than are highly religious people, a new study finds. That doesn’t mean highly religious people don’t give, according to the research to be published in the July 2012 issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. But compassion seems to drive religious people’s [...]

I spent Saturday afternoon in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol at the Unite Against the War on Women rally. Overcast skies and cooler-than-normal temperatures didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of this crowd. Attendees were determined to send a message: Americans won’t stand for an oppressive combination of church and state making our personal decisions for [...]

The Darwin-Wallace Mystery Solved: Darwin Vindicated from Accusations of Deceit – A National University of Singapore study has traced historical shipping records and vindicated Darwin from accusations of deceit. For the past four decades, Charles Darwin had been accused of keeping the essay of fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace for a fortnight, thereby enabling him [...]

The Reason Rally recently hosted upwards of 20,000 atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheists on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The program included opening ceremonies hosted by the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers. Colonel (Retired) Kirk Lamb oversaw a tribute including a color guard of atheists in foxoles, the national anthem performed by [...]

Complex organic compounds, including many important to life on Earth, were readily produced under conditions that likely prevailed in the primordial solar system. Scientists at the University of Chicago and NASA Ames Research Center came to this conclusion after linking computer simulations to laboratory experiments. Fred Ciesla, assistant professor in geophysical sciences at UChicago, simulated [...]

Kirk Cameron’s new movie “Monumental” gets released tonight in select theaters around the country, and I don’t think it’s going to be a hit with people like you and me. Cameron is an actor best known for his role in the ‘80s TV sitcom “Growing Pains.” Today he’s a fundamentalist Christian best known for…well, not [...]

Sometime in the late fall, unless a federal court intervenes, ninth-graders at the public high school in rural Dover, Pa., will witness an unusual scene in biology class. The superintendent of schools, Richard Nilsen, will enter the classroom to read a three-paragraph statement mandated by the local school board as a cautionary preamble to the [...]