Archive for the ‘Essays’ Category
Posted on July 14, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
Four tips on writing a serial novel
For a new writer, the problem is getting noticed. The amount of new fiction released each month, whether in book stores or blogs, is huge. Most of it is from people readers have never heard of and most of it is, sadly, terrible. For the new writer, then, the guy or gal toiling away over [...]
Posted on July 10, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
What I learned from writing a novel
Five things I learned while writing my first novel that I wish I’d known before I started.
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
The Trouble With Prayer
Examines the dilemma of prayer. If God doesn’t answer prayers, then he doesn’t care about us. But if he does, then we must abandon free will and label God evil.
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
The Primacy of Secular Morality
Religionists often accuse humanists of being without morals. This is wrong. The difference is that humanists ground their morality in actions impacting this world and not in those that might determine our place in the next. We recognize that morality does not exist without a crowd, that actions are to be judged [...]
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
What Atheism Offers: Life’s Mysteries
One of the profound and fundamental misunderstandings theists have of atheists is the belief that the latter lead a cold and narrow existence, unconcerned with the mysteries of the universe. Anything that can’t be immediately, rationally known must be rejected. Wonder is sapped from life. What’s happening when this view is articulated, however, is an [...]
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
What Atheism Offers: Freedom from Sin
Theistic religion of the Christian variety espouses two kinds of morality, both owing their existence to god and his scriptural commandments. The first is familiar to all moral systems and forms the groundwork of humanist ethics. The second, however, is wholly alien to a secular worldview, one outside of the bounds of belief [...]
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
What Atheism Offers: Justifying a Life’s Purpose
There exists a need among theists to justify life’s purpose. Far from being content with self made goals, with personal achievements set by the individual for his own existential benefit, they desire an authority handing down purpose, telling them this is how they ought to live or this is the proper role they are [...]
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
What Atheism Offers: How Should the Atheist Act?
Mormons believe the North American continent was once populated by a race of white Christians, emigrants from Israel who built an advanced civilization in the new world over a thousand years before Columbus. These Christians eventually split into two warring factions, with the “bad guys” slaughtering entirely the “good guys.” God cursed the [...]
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
What Atheism Offers: A Sense of Purpose
Without religion, won’t life be meaningless? Won’t we all collapse into nihilism, muttering “What’s the point?” while we waste away our years in front of the television, waiting for it all to end? Not at all. In fact, exactly the opposite. The religious obsession with life after death, with the entrance [...]
Posted on April 19, 2008 - by Aaron Ross Powell
What Atheism Offers: The Value of Life
Citing Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, religious believers frequently condemn atheists for not valuing human life, and condoning and causing widespread death and human misery. Setting aside the genuine question of Hitler’s religious standing, it ought to be clear that these atrocities, while committed by men who professed a lack of faith, were not enacted [...]
