Author David Fitzgerald is an award-winning writer, historical researcher and an atheist activist who lectures internationally at universities and secular events, and is a frequent guest on many podcasts. He has been a passionate advocate for atheism, civil rights, counter-apologetics and secular humanism his entire adult life. Starting in the 1990’s, he was called one of the busiest atheist activists in the San Francisco Bay Area, serving on the board of San Francisco Atheists and CFI-SF for over a decade. He was the Director/Co-Founder of both the world’s first Atheist Film Festival and Evolutionpalooza!, San Francisco’s oldest annual Darwin Day celebration.
Over the years David has worn many other hats in the secular community. He has served on the Speaker’s Bureaus for the Center for Inquiry and The Secular Student Alliance, co-founded the Godless Perverts Story Hour, been a guest speaker for Camp Quest West, American Humanist Association, American Atheists, Skepticon, Apostacon, Ask-a-Scientist, Darwin Day, the Sheffield, UK Freethought Convention, Rapture Day, The Garrison-Martineau Project, California Freethought Day and many other organized events.
He is the former Secular Student Alliance Regional Campus Organizer for California/Nevada (and former content developer for the SSA). He has debated and lectured at Stanford and UC Berkeley, has been a book reviewer for the Journal of Higher Criticism and the star of his own podcast, The Myth of Jesus with David Fitzgerald. More information about David can be found on his website at davidfitzgerald.org.
His writings have appeared in print and online in Secular Inquirer, Slate, Secular World, American Atheists Magazine, and elsewhere. Recently, he finished up The Secret History of Mormonism series on Derek Lambert’s Mythvision Podcast, along with his co-host, Naked Mormonism’s Bryce Blankenagel. He also contributed the opening chapter (“Why Mythicism Matters”) to Robert M. Price & John Loftus’ anthology The Varieties of Mythicism, arguing for the value of the ongoing Jesus mythicist/historicist debate for atheists (and Christians, for that matter) no matter which side ultimately triumphs.
As a historical researcher, he has been actively investigating the Historical Jesus question for over twenty years, and was an associate member of CSER (the former Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion). He is the author of The Complete Heretic’s Guide to Western Religion series (including The Mormons); His books NAILED: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All and Jesus: Mything in Action, examine the secular arguments for the Historic Jesus.
At his most recent appearances at the Global Center for Religious Research’s International eConference on the Historical Jesus, he presented some surprising facts, not just about Jesus, but the origins and founder figures of the other major world religions; his latest book on these findings, PLAYING GOD: An Evolutionary History of World Religion is coming soon (see Facebook or his website davidfitzgerald.org for updates).
With his wife, actress and author Dana Fredsti, he is also co-author of the science fiction trilogy Time Shards from Titan Books, UK. In 2020, they left their beloved Bay Area after 30 years, and bought a home in the seaside town of Eureka, in Northern California
David’s Presentation
Playing God: An Evolutionary History of World Religion Recently there have been some fascinating and jaw-dropping discoveries in the field of global religious history—including ones that overturn so much of what we think we know about the founders and origins of our major world religions…