Category: Uncommon Ground

Interview with William Keener – President of the Hickory Humanist Alliance

December 10, 2016 | by | 0 Comments
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your family and personal story – culture, education, and geography? My German (Lutheran and Reformed) and Scots Irish (Presbyterian) ancestors immigrated to the American colonies in the mid-Eighteenth Century and settled in the North Carolina backcountry near what is now the city of Hickory (about 35 miles northwest of Charlotte). […] Read more

Interview with Linda LaScola – Editor of Rational Doubt, Clinical Social Worker, Psychotherapist, & Qualitative Researcher

December 5, 2016 | by | 0 Comments
Linda LaScola is a research consultant. She recently re-released her book (with Daniel Dennett) based on work in which she interviewed non-believing clergy, Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind, with updates and additions. Linda co-founded the Clergy Project. The site features members of the clergy project.  She also blogs on Patheos at Rational Doubt, […] Read more

The Siege of Aleppo Has No Easy Answers

November 28, 2016 | by | 0 Comments
Eighty-two men, women and children shot on the spot. Homes and buildings bombed to smithereens to create a landscape reminiscent of Dresden. Innocents blasted into oblivion by indiscriminate ‘air strikes’ or trapped under tonnes of rubble. Children freezing to death in the Syrian winter cold, their young minds shaped irreparably by the trauma of war. […] Read more

Prophetic Christianity and its ‘Doom-contents’ in Africa

November 27, 2016 | by | 0 Comments
The image of a South African pastor spraying his congregation with a pesticide called Doom during a ‘healing session’ has sparked a wave of outrage and condemnation across the world. This self-proclaimed prophet, Lethebo Rabalago, heads a church called Mount of Zion General Assembly in Limpopo province. A member of his congregation had an eye infection and […] Read more

Interview with Dana L. Morganroth ​- Advisory Board Member and Vice President of CFI-Pittsburgh

November 25, 2016 | by | 0 Comments
Dana L. Morganroth is an advisory Board-Member and Vice President of CFI-Pittsburgh, and a Board-Member and Vice President Sunday Assembly Pittsburgh. What began the interest in critical thinking, science, and scepticism for you? During high school, I was an active member of a Christian youth group that spawned the Willow Creek Community (mega) Church outside […] Read more

Sound the Trumpet

November 16, 2016 | by | 0 Comments
This article is originally featured on the Open Democracy 5050 website Trump offered white voters the illusion they could prosper. We have to offer all our people a way to move forward together and save the planet. In the weeks leading up to Nov. 8, as the election loomed like a cloud about to burst, […] Read more