Trickster gods are fundamentally untrustworthy; they operate by their own rules. They are rarely omniscient or omnipotent, so they can be bargained with, tricked, and fooled–though always at the human’s own risk. The bargains struck with these godlike beings are usually very one-sided–and often end with the human making the bargain being shorted in some way. Stories about tricksters are stories about up-ending expectations and normalcy, the ultimate “what if…?” of imagination.

Please stick to the original plan, which you were going to stick to anyway. Amen.

We managed a year of Charlie Hebdo, Franklin Graham, Ted Cruz, Josh Duggar and more creationism. The year just past was, for rationalists, an unremitting annus horribilis. It leaves us with little reason to think 2016 will be much better.

Brian Dalton (aka Mr. Deity) examines the issue: can arguments settle the question of God's existence?

Mathematician: Before jumping into this question, it is important to realize that probabilities are not objective, observer independent quantities. We can think of the claim that a particular outcome will happen with a probability of 0.30 as meaning (loosely speaking) that given the information available to me right now, if I could replay this scenario many times, then in about 30% of those occurrences I would expect that particular outcome would occur.

Carl Lentz, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Tom Papa debate whether scientific knowledge poses a threat to religious faith in light of a surge in nonbelieving millennials. (14:06)

Schools must teach pupils that Britain is a Christian country and are entitled to prioritise the views of established religions over atheism, the Education Secretary has said. Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, today publishes new guidance to non-faith schools which makes clear that they do not need to give "equal parity" to non-religious views.

As someone who has never had a non-secular Christmas, I find the hand-wringing over atheists celebrating Christmas puzzling. To me, Christmas is a storytelling holiday. It brings us together out of the dark and cold to share indulgent food, spicy drinks, sparkling lights, music, and mutual generosity. And stories.

About a year ago, towards the end of my deconversion, I wasn’t comfortable saying I was a “Capital A” Atheist. I still kept praying and wanting some belief. I dabbled in paganism for a bit, trying to plan a solstice celebration of sorts because the solstice was on a new moon, which I thought was special, but I didn’t know enough about solstices or new moons to do anything.

Apparently, I need to periodically explain what freethought means, because right now I’m being helpfully informed by many people who don’t have a clue that it means thinking any damn thing you want.

You see, the Prince here is suffering from a bit of culture shock. He doesn’t get what he sees and hears around New York City; it’s all pretty foreign to him. He’s lost… a happy lost, but lost nonetheless. This is kinda how an atheist lifer feels around religion of any kind. Sometimes, even around ex-theists.

Stavrova used data from the World Values Survey conducted over a couple of waves in 2001-2006. It asked questions about how religious people were (Stavrova combined questions about attendance and belief), and also asked people to report how healthy they felt.

Atheists are stereotyped as Philistines with no grasp of aesthetics or ritual. That described my church upbringing more than it describes me.

There seems to be a lot of confusion around the burden of proof with respect to default positions and with respect to what it is - and isn't. Here's a quick "propositional logic 101" look at the burden of proof.

Pope Francis has recognized a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, paving her way to sainthood.

Why Christians think it's awesome to consider themselves children--and why they think it's okay to treat others like children.

I appreciate the fact that group support is especially helpful when one is trying to break away from the nastier coils of religion or from personal problems like addiction. Nevertheless, in more ordinary circumstances, and without other people clustering around, there are comforts for the atheist.

Christian conservatives say their greatest religious rival is secularism, which is growing among Americans. Banning acts like school prayer, they say, amounts to favoring the "religion of secularism."

Burkeman contends that a new book out by theologian David Bentley Hart titled The Experience of God argues that atheists have all this time been arguing against the wrong kind of god, that of some kind of superhero like all the other gods of history, and that Hart’s god is something else entirely.

Consider the following situation. Say some guy was gonna have his head cutoff by a terrorist. Supe’ is close by and doesn’t do a thing other than watch it. What would you think about it? Pretty awful right? Tie some kryptonite chains around him though and make it his friend that is getting murdered and it is a whole different story.