Marvin Belzer is an associate professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. In the essay “Mere Stranger” (in Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life), he tells of growing up in an evangelical Christian home but gradually dropping his religious beliefs through the process of reflection and study.

Elizabeth S. Anderson is a professor of philosophy and women’s studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She contributed the essay “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” to Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (2007).

Keith Parsons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston-Clear Lake and author of God and the Burden of Proof. He is a member of the Council for Secular Humanism’s speakers bureau.

Robert B. Talisse is a professor of philosophy and political science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He is co-author of Reasonable Atheism (2011) and the author of Democracy and Moral Conflict (2009).

Tim Murphy is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama. He teaches a course on modern atheism.

Scott Aikin is senior lecturer in the philosophy department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He is co-author of the book Reasonable Atheism and wrote an essay titled “The Problem of Worship” for the summer 2010 issue of Think.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is the Chauncey Stillman Professor in Practical Ethics in the philosophy department and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University in Durham, N.C. His essay “Overcoming Christianity” is included in Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (2007). His books include Morality Without God? (2009) and (as co-author) God?: A Debate Between a Christian and […]

Jennifer Hancock is a former executive director of the Humanists of Florida Association. She writes a freelance column on humanism for the Bradenton Herald; her Aug. 21, 2010, column discusses how humanism helped her cope with tragedies in her life.

Martin L. Cowen III is the founder of Atlanta’s Fellowship of Reason, an organization whose members “believe each individual’s purpose and success in life are derived from, and ultimately determined by, the individual — not a supernatural authority.” He wrote in the group’s October 2007 newsletter that he does not want to be called an atheist, though, as […]