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In “Sen v. Bauer: On What Do Rights Stand?” (FI, June/July 2010), I examined the basis of so-called natural rights under various forms of political economy. Reader Stephen E. Silver responded with a letter in which he commented, in part: . . . Human rights do not stand on anything. These rights, when first promulgated …

Some defenders of religion have argued that religion is like sex—efforts to repress or eradicate it are futile, unrealistic, and inhuman because it’s part of human nature. Repressing religion is like repressing sex—it is not only impossible, it’s disastrous. Like sex, religion doesn’t go away; it comes back with a vengeance in the most outlandish …

I have been a vegetarian for almost as long as I have been an atheist. By age fourteen, I had made the conscious decision not to consume any animals, and I have not eaten meat since. For the most part, I have not made a habit of flaunting my decades-long vegetarianism or harassing others about …

If a pollster asked how much you give to charity, what would you say? Some pretty exhaustive analyses from Arthur Brooks (a professor of business and government policy at Syracuse University) suggest that if you’re nonreligious, the figure you’ll report to the pollster will likely be smaller, on average, than the numbers claimed by the …

Early in 2010, multiple news articles described how some Latinos are converting to Islam, apparently a new trend among Latinos in the United States. Because Latinos are an overwhelmingly Christian ethnic group, an increase in Latinos identifying with Islam is by itself an interesting subject. It is even more interesting because the media’s coverage of …

Education “reform,” whatever that might mean, is on the front burner. George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) plan has led to a frenzy of testing that has narrowed and weakened curric ula, led to an epidemic of “teaching to the test,” and stimulated the proliferation of charter schools, which have on balance done …

Philosophy and science were invented in ancient Greece by people uncorrupted by the monotheism that has shaped our culture. With the exception of Plato, Greeks tended to be humanists, naturalists, and religious skeptics. Though many of their scientific theories are wrong, there is a wealth of wisdom to be gained from studying their views on …

In September 2005, Rita, a huge Category 5 hurricane, was bearing down on Texas’s Gulf shores. The desperately frightened Texas governor ordered over a million people to make their exodus inland. After issuing historically dire warnings to these anxious citizens, the good governor told them to “say a prayer for Texas.” One of our oldest …

The question of the religious or antireligious mind-set of the National Socialists has received frequent attention. Not long ago, for example, Free Inquiry devoted significant space to this question, particularly to the purported atheism of Hitler and the other Nazi leaders (Gregory S. Paul, “The Great Scandal: Christianity in the Rise of the Nazis,” October/November …

Recent surveys have shown that the number of Americans who describe themselves as having no religion has grown in recent years. To the secular community, this would appear to be welcome news; however, we shouldn’t necessarily interpret it as a rush to the secular exits by religious Americans. Many of those who profess to be …

Getting out of my car at the local gas station, I was greeted by a friendly “Hello.” I returned the acknowledgment with an equally friendly reply. Without another thought, I began the steps required to fill my tank. Once the gas was flowing, I tightened my coat and leaned back against my car. “How are …

At sunset, lie down outside, face up with your back against the earth. Try to feel viscerally what you know to be true: as the brilliant sun dips below the horizon, filling the sky with celestial color, it is actually the massive planet you feel on the back of your head, torso, and arms that …

C Street:The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, by Jeff Sharlet (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2010, ISBN 978-0-316-09107-7) 352 pp. Cloth $26.99. C Street is the continuation of The Family:The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (reviewed in FI, February/March 2010). Soon after The Family came out, there were sensational subsequent developments. …

The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, by Marci McDonald (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN 978-0-307-35646-8) 432 pp. Cloth $27. The problematic intersection of religion and politics is much more on the surface of public life south of the U.S.–Canada border than it is to the north, so much so that …

Christmas—Philosophy for Everyone: Better Than a Lump of Coal, edited by Scott C. Lowe (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, ISBN 1-4443-3090-8) 352 pp. Paper $19.95. Philosophy for Everyone is an Anglo-American book series “meant to promote philosophical reflection on everyday activities.” Series editor Fritz Allhoff has assembled nontechnical but incisive volumes on topics including beer, wine, …

I In the beginning, church was fun, because I thought the priest was God, a person I Could see, perceive: a man with hairy jaws, A voice, and glasses on his nose; but, by And, by a thought intruded, unexpected, That measured Priest and found his mien unlike What Heaven’s host should be; now doubt-infected, …

Secular humanism has a long, proud history as a champion of the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. As Ronald A. Lindsay notes in his introductory article, in the West the focus of that activism has shifted over decades from protecting the mere legality of homosexual behavior to fighting for—and often …

Secular humanism has been identified with support for gay rights for decades. The Council for Secular Humanism was founded in 1980 in part to counter the influence of religion on law and public policy and to promote fundamental human rights. In the context of sexual relations, this agenda resulted in a commitment to work to …

Those who oppose gay marriage believe deeply that marriage is sacred and divine, a blessed sacrament between man and woman as ordained in the Bible. If they are right, then the entire concept of marriage has no place in our civil society, which recognizes the separation between the sacred and the secular, between church and …

In Africa, issues concerning sex are treated with utmost secrecy. Talking openly about one’s sexual life is taboo. Discussing sexual feelings, acts, and experiences in public is frowned upon. Little or no sex education takes place in African schools or homes. Parents and teachers are reluctant to teach children about matters relating to sexuality because …

Malawi is a landlocked country situated in Southern Africa and bordered by Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia. When Malawi became independent of Britain in 1964, its constitution enshrined a bill of rights. However, when the country reorganized as a single-party state two years later, a new constitution was promulgated, and the bill of rights was removed. …

Since its emergence from the clutches of apartheid, South Africa has attempted to insert itself back into global politics without raising eyebrows. The “legacy” of apartheid is not so much a memory as it is the nation’s current condition. All too often, political promises are defined by their failure to bear fruit; disappointment remains constant. …

Throughout 2010, Free Inquiry is publishing special features to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Council for Secular Humanism. In the pages that follow, Timothy J. Madigan and David Koepsell, two figures who were instrumental in the growth and development of the Council, reminisce. —The Editors Growing up in Buffalo, New York, …

Tom Flynn recently offered me the opportunity to write about my four years as head of the Council for Secular Humanism (from late 2003 to 2008). To sweeten the deal, he assured me that I could write whatever I wanted. Well, such an offer could hardly go unanswered! But as I thought back on my …

I have been following faith healers for several years, fascinated by the psychology of those who attend and by the performances offered by the “healers.” Of particular interest has been Walter Vinson Grant Jr., who as W. V. Grant achieved worldwide fame in the 1980s and 1990s. During that rise to fame, skeptics looked into …

Center for Inquiry CEO Ronald A. Lindsay and I will be taking turns in the magazine’s lead editorial slot. (His editorial “Expressing One’s Views on Religion” appeared in the August/September 2010 issue.) In this issue, I’d like to open a dialogue about the varying meanings secular humanism can hold. What does the lifestance we share …

S.T. Joshi is a prolific author and critic credited with almost single-handedly bringing H.P. Lovecraft, once denigrated as a mere pulp writer, into the literary mainstream and winning him recognition as the father of modern horror fiction. Joshi’s restored original texts are available from Arkham House as well as in a series of annotated collections …

The Florida Supreme Court has cleared the way for Council for Secular Humanism v. McNeil to proceed to trial. It denied the defendants’ motion seeking a review of the Council’s recent appellate court victory. The suit challenges the use of Florida taxpayer dollars to pay for the faith-based substance abuse transitional housing programs under contract …

Analyzing the Affirmations With a skosh of trepidation I take exception to Paul Kurtz’s exceptional, comprehensive “Affirmations of Humanism.” I dissent not just from several specifics butalso itsgeneral tone and purpose: so many “We believe . . .” (eg., “We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence”). These theses—although mailed and not nailed—seem, both in …

The argument about whether or not to have a memorial mosque in the vicinity of the Ground Zero of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on downtown New York City is currently being conducted on lines that are distressingly simplistic. As with some similar disputes in Europe, it seems to pit chauvinistic and xenophobic forces …

From the very moment of its invention by Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity has been in need of reinvention. So unpalatable was the religion of Jesus that the overwhelming success of Christianity could not have been possible had it not been for the ingenuity of the Catholic Church. To triumph, the Church had to obscure the …

What is going on in the drug and device industry? Hardly a month goes by without a medication or medical device being identified as having dangerous side-effects, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) holding hearings, lawyers taking out ads looking for victims, class-action suits getting filed, or patients being left to talk with their equally …

Last May, a team of scientists led by Craig Venter announced that they had created a synthetic form of life: a bacterium with a genome designed and created from chemicals in a laboratory. They thus brought us a step closer to an ancient alchemists’ dream: the artificial creation of life. The new bacterium, nicknamed “Synthia,” …

Since the 1950s, I’ve been reporting on education from the pre-kindergarten to college and university levels. But I’ve been remiss in not exploring law schools—though I’ve lectured at some of them. I will report on them from now on, however—after sixty-nine of the two hundred law school deans in the country wrote the Senate Judiciary …

What happens to the soul when the brain is split in half? Well, if you define the soul as a person’s essential personality, then science can give an answer. Remarkably, patients whose brain hemispheres have been surgically separated act as though they have two separate consciousnesses residing in the same body. What’s more, it seems …

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) did more than any other American to impress upon late – nineteenth – and twentieth-century thought the idea that science and religion are enemies locked in combat on an almost military scale. Ironically, this was precisely the opposite of his intent. Born on November 7, 1832, in Homer, New York, into …

Meet the latest critics of the New Atheists: the old humanists. It is not enough, they say, to take a stand against religionwe must stand up something in its place. Humanists are right to think that there is more to life than denying God but wrong to think that they are the ones to provide …

In Part 1 (June/July 2010), Ibn Warraq chronicled a series of seemingly disingenuous comments by scholars of the Qur’an insisting that their findings regarding the history of the Qur’an and Islam itself have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the religion. He referred to a letter in the New Statesman by scholar Michael …

The great majority of believers in God would answer my title question with a resounding “On the contrary!” Far from destroying our duty of compassion, they’d say, the existence of God gives us a duty to act compassionately toward others. Some would go so far as to say that it also works in reverse: a …

Jean-Paul Sartre was not a tranquil personality. When he found himself disagreeing with other intellectuals of his time—which was often—his first instinct was to dash off an amphetamine fueled essay in defense of his position. One such essay, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” was written in 1946 during one of his attempts to unseat Martin Heidegger …