Welcome, President Biden—Um, Remember Us?
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus—and nonbelievers. —Barack Obama, January 20, 2009 Like many Free Inquiry readers, I greeted President Joe Biden’s inauguration with elation...
View ArticleScientology’s Tale of Disgrace
I’ve watched every episode of the three seasons of Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (A&E). This deep dive into Scientology’s history, precepts, abuses, and the personal travails of its...
View ArticleLeaving the Allah Delusion Behind, Part II
L’Islam en Questions One work published before February 1989, when Khomeini’s fatwa on Rushdie was pronounced, deserves mention. In L’Islam en Questions (Grasset, 1986), twenty-four Arab writers reply...
View ArticleThe Christian Roots of Racism against Black Americans
On June 1, 2020, federal troops using tear gas and flash grenades cleared Washington, D.C., streets of Black Lives Matter protesters so that President Donald Trump could walk across the street to pose...
View ArticleFrench Secularism: Agent Provocateur or Peacemaker?
The beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen-born teenager hit France particularly hard and, again, brought to the fore the long-running debate on “French values” and the place of Muslims...
View ArticlePivot Point – One Book Did It
Simon Blackburn, Think Scott Cullen-Benson Before I can write about my pivot point, I must say a little about what came before. I was raised a Lutheran (in one of the more liberal synods) in a very...
View ArticlePost-Humans on a Sterile Promontory: The New Myths of Transhumanism and the...
Not too long ago, humans believed that the stars determined their fate. Some still do. It was a belief born of naïveté, misunderstanding the nature of those diamonds in the night sky. But it was also...
View ArticleIs Intelligence Toxic?
Introduction Once upon a time, as a young researcher in the nascent field of artificial intelligence (AI), I was full of excitement and optimism. Sooner or later AI was going to be the secret sauce...
View ArticleHow to Build a Conscious Robot
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a misleading term. It is often misunderstood, at least by the general public. Robots or machines with advanced programs are already in use today, and in the future...
View ArticlePossible Futures: Utopias, Dystopias, AI, and Artificial Personhood Introduction
Even in this time of COVID-19 and economic dislocation, of social unrest and climate threats, it pays to consider the farther future. Assuming that humanity survives our admittedly staggering...
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