Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the most admired and influential architects of the 20th century. He was a flamboyant, unabashedly arrogant man who viewed himself from an early age as a genius. Others tended to agree. In 1991, The American Institute of Architects named Wright the greatest American architect of all time.

The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould famously said that science and religion are “nonoverlapping magisteria”:
The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value.

Alan Watts began popularizing the teachings of Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism in America during the 1950s.

According to Buddhist scholar and translator Robert Thurman (father of Uma), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or Bardo Thodol, “organizes the experiences of the between—(Tibetan, bar-do) usually referring to the state between death and rebirth.

When Christopher Hitchens died, it didn’t take long for humorists to imagine the comic scenario: what happens when the surly atheist comes face to face with God? It’s amusing to consider. And when it comes to Richard Dawkins, the humorists aren’t waiting for the biologist’s demise to play things out.

The so-called New (or “Gnu”) Atheism arrived at a time when fear, anger, and confusion over extremist religion had hit a fever pitch.

The English logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell was convinced that the religions of the world are not merely untrue, but that they do grievous harm to people. That conviction is very much in evidence in his 1927 speech, “Why I Am Not a Christian,” read here in its complete form by the British actor Terrence Hardiman.

Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement of his retirement yesterday morning sent the internet into a tizzy, not to mention the thousands of Catholic institutions across the world. The first question on everyone’s lips seemed to be “can he do that?” And since no pope has in 600 years, there doesn’t seem to be much precedent for it.

Before I saw Monty Python’s Life of Brian, I only knew that religious people didn’t like it, which intrigued me. Then I found out that some religious people like it very much indeed, which really intrigued me. Building its story on a satirical parallel of the life of Jesus Christ, Life of Brian could never have helped drawing fire.

Pope John Paul II had a mixed legacy. Some good, some bad. But whatever your take on him, you have to give him this — the Pontiff could swing a good bat. Visiting California in 1987, the 67 year-old Pope headed to the batting cages and started lining singles and doubles, maybe even a few triples.