Nobody taught me to pray, that is, to raise my voice to a higher power when I feel thwarted, threatened, bereaved, ecstatic. Why, then, do I do it?

Anyone who believes in a divine being can legitimately ask that of me and point to the seemingly instinctive act of praying as evidence that there must be a god listening to our prayers. It’s a fair and instructive question that cannot be dismissed.

The key word in what has been said so far, I think, is ‘instinctive.’ When we are infants, and until we are perhaps entering our teens, we ‘instinctively’ call out first to our mothers, then to our fathers and mothers, for sustenance, protection, affirmation.

By adulthood – as young men and women – we become self-reliant, rebellious. We no longer look to our parents for succour, safety and guidance. But the need and habit for maternal and paternal intervention is deep-seated. Could it be that we perpetuate the security and comforts we once cried out to parents for in the person of an eternal, externalized archetype named God?

That seems a thesis worth studying, but I will leave it as a mere suggestion that there are responses, aside from puzzlement, to the question: If there is no God, why would we invent one? Why would we pray?

By Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester

Despite what we’re told, religion isn’t inherently peaceful. The assumption is largely based on the Protestant idea that religion is something spiritual and internal to the individual and that it’s corrupted by politics and other mundane matters.

But people kill in the name of religion, just as they love in its name. To claim that one of these alternatives is more authentic than the other is not only problematic, it’s historically incorrect.

By R. Kelly Garrett, The Ohio State University

Following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death on February 13, a former criminal investigator for Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department named William O. Ritchie took to Facebook.

“My gut tells me there is something fishy going on in Texas,” he wrote.

With those words, Ritchie helped draw national attention to an emerging conspiracy theory: that Scalia may have been murdered.

By Rebecca Hale and Jennifer Kalmanson, originally published on TheHumanist.com.

Editor's note: This article was written by leaders of the American Humanist Association. While we are legally separate organization, we share a mission of promoting secular humanism and social justice. To help shape our own strategic plan, consider becoming a member and running for our board of directors. Our AGM will be coming up later this spring.

The rising tide of nonreligious people in the United States is accompanied by an intense focus on the “New Atheism,” which, rightly or wrongly, is critiqued as being not vocal enough or downright anti-progressive when it comes to social justice issues like women’s rights, racial equality, and the environment. Those familiar with the movement understand that when one declares themselves to be an “atheist,” they are simply saying that they do not believe in any gods; it doesn’t naturally imply a commitment to any particular social contract, whereas “humanist” means something additional. Atheism is what we don’t believe; humanism is what we do believe.

By Becky Garrison, originally published on TheHumanist.com

Seven years after the United Church of Canada minister Gretta Vosper penned With or Without God (Harper Collins, 2008), the UCC chose to examine her suitability for ministry. In 2001 Vosper had begun exploring, with her West Hill United Church in Scarborough, Ontario, how to create services that enable those who wish to come together in community to do so around aspirational values and without the presence of a supernatural, interventionist God.

Last week we won a major victory for secularism. Not only did the politicians on Parliament's assisted dying committee put the rights of patients first, they cited our arguments when they recommended "that if a health care facility is publicly funded, it must provide medical assistance in dying."

If this recommendation is adopted by Parliament, it would mean that the billion dollars that BC is giving to religious hospitals could be withheld unless those institutions uphold patients' rights.

We still face an uphill battle though. Catholic Providence Healthcare, which runs St Paul's in downtown Vancouver, has refused to allow assisted dying in its facilities and BC Health Minister Terry Lake is lining up to defend their privilege to do so.

Please make a donation to help us make the case that people, not buildings, have rights and that Catholic bishops shouldn't have a veto on the healthcare of Canadians.

St. Augustine asks: Where, then is evil? What is its origin? How did it steal into the world? What is the root or seed from which it grew?

My answer: Any instance of one creature deriving pleasure from the suffering of another is evil.

Editor's note: This post is by Luis Granados and originally appeared on TheHumanist.com. It discusses US hospitals but our recent analysis showed the Government of BC provides nearly $1 billion to religious healthcare institutions.

Common decency took another sucker punch from the God industry last month in a case decided in California.

Late in her pregnancy, Rebecca Chamorro and her doctor agreed that immediately after delivering her third child by Caesarian section, her doctor would perform a tubal ligation (more commonly known as “getting your tubes tied”) to prevent her from becoming pregnant again. The fact that she knew in advance she needed a C-section for this birth indicates that any future pregnancies would be riskier than average for her, and three children were as many as she and her husband wanted to raise. Each year, about 700,000 American women make the same choice.

In their report to Parliament, MPs and Senators on the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying have presented a set of bold recommendations to allow suffering Canadians to choose a medically-assisted death.

The report is already receiving praise from organizations in support of choice in dying, including the BC Humanist Association and Dying With Dignity Canada.

Editor's note: This article is by Vic Sizemore and was first published on TheHumanist.com. It deals with a specific Christian college in the USA but is relevant to us here in BC in light of the ongoing debate over Trinity Western University's proposed law school.

On February 10, Wheaton College officials and Wheaton Professor Larycia Hawkins gave a press conference in which they announced they had mutually agreed to part ways. “Publicly the school and Dr. Hawkins say they are in agreement about terms of her departure,” but the details remain confidential.