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Christmas is a perennial problem for secularists: the tender sensibilities of the Christian majority are grievously offended by neutral phrases like “Happy Holidays” and “Season’s Greetings,” yet the same majoritarians seem unmoved by the nonreligious minority’s reciprocal displeasure with the obsessively repeated “Merry Christmas.” It’s been a long time since this country’s population could be …

You cant get The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back by Charles Pellegrino at a bookstore. Amazon has used copies at ridiculous prices. A library might have it; I have a review copy. The publisher, according to the author, has recalled most copies not to the warehouse but for pulping and recycling (I …

The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism, by Paul Cliteur (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4443-3521-7) 328 pp. Paper $29.95. Secularism is one of those concepts that is widely used without a clear notion of what it is. Dutch humanist philosopher Paul Cliteur’s The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism …

 The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism, by Mary Eberstadt (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-58617-431-6) 148 pp. Paper $13.95. Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity, by S.E. Cupp (New York: Threshold Editions, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4391-7316-9) 269 pp. Cloth $24.00. Shortly after the 1994 United Nations …

Cognitive scientist George Lakoff, writing in his 2004 book Don’t Think of an Elephant, attacked George W. Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education “refor m” legislation. NCLB instituted a regime of testing, not only of students but also of schools. “Failing” schools could have their funding cut back. Wrote Lakoff: “Less funding in …

One last time. I saw her, alone, in the Garden: Standing. In white. She was without a sign. “Why is that?” “I have given in . . . ” she said. “Why is that?” “No one dares to . . . ” she said. “Humans are like that,” I said. “Humans—” she said. “What, now?” …

At the Center for Inquiry, we have always known that if we are to achieve our mission of a secular society based on science, reason, free inquiry, and humanist values, we must engage young skeptics, freethinkers, and atheists now and help them become the leaders of tomorrow. Our CFI/On Campus program does exactly that. Since …

Yale University: Censoring ‘Sissy’ and the Muhammad cartoons Despite its unequivocal public commitments to free speech and academic freedom, Yale University failed to live up to these ideals last year in two well-publicized incidents. One is somewhat comical, the other far more sinister—but each illustrates that the endemic will to censor is all too common …

What do I mean distinctively by education? The learning process, the process of expanding the dimensions of experience and intelligence, the increase in imagination and understanding, the ability to adapt and adjust. Now let me make it clear that although schools are essential to this educative process, they are not the only institutions that should …

It was well past 2:00 A.M. when I finally made it back to my room for the evening. I was covered in chalk and had had two police encounters that night-the first concerning an assault and the second concerning harassment. I was exhausted, having spent the previous four hours biking around campus passing groups praying, …

As the saying goes, sometimes the defense of free speech compels us to defend speech we otherwise abhor. It apt ly describes a situation that occurred this year at my school, the University of Oregon (UO). UO received national attention for a free-speech controversy that divided students, faculty, and community members. Associated Press covered the …

Across the Midwest: ‘Draw Muhammad’ Protest Sparks Discussion, Profanity, but No Violence In May, three Center for Inquiry/On Campus-affiliated groups organized activism campaigns in reaction to threats made by RevolutionMuslim.com against South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The radical Muslim Web site posted a statement warning the two entertainers that they would likely …

  The sun created life on earth and made the earth green. It drives the seasons and keeps the earth warm. It created human beings, actually shaped us from the matter of the earth. It radiates enough energy each second to supply all present human energy needs for a million years. No god conceived by …

There has been much discussion among humanists and other secularists, including in the pages of this journal (“Toward a Kinder and Gentler Humanism” by Paul Kurtz, FI, June/July 2010), about the limits on criticism of religion-and in particular whether secularists have an obligation to avoid commenting on religion in a way that might offend believers. …

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Pennsylvania State University faculty and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. He was a lead author of the chapter “Observed Climate Variability and Change” in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report published in 2001. Mann has been at …

Kind and Gentle Humanism Why a more kind and gentle Humanism? Paul Kurtz’s “Toward a Kinder and Gentler Humanism” (FI, June/July 2010) has little to do with the reality of the twenty-first century. New religions and a ll kinds of Christianity are surfacing. Why continue a dream of “noble tradition” especially when confronted by fake …

Potential Watershed Case Can Now Proceed to Florida Supreme Court The Council for Secular Humanism applauds an important decision rendered by the Florida First District Court of Appeal on April 27 in Council for Secular Humanism v. McNeil that sets the stage for a likely appeal to the state Supreme Court. (For background on this …

  A lot of people say atheists don’t donate to charity, and that’s of course a load of bollocks. We just don’t do it in the name of atheism or in the hope of adding another sheeple to the herd. -A post on the U.K.-Skeptics blog Pardon the length of this essay: I’ll be tackling …

The sound of collapsing scenery from the general direction of the Vatican is deafening enough, but it is nothing compared with the screeching noises given off by the pope’s apologists. One gets the sense that some sort of desperate “line of the day” was promulgated around the time of Easter and that it was agreed …

If you type “genetic testing” into a search engine and take a quick trip around the Internet, you will be in for quite a journey. You will find companies offering to test your DNA so that you can trace your genealogy back across the eons of time. Some offer to find you a mate by …

Have facts ever been less relevant in political debates? Have fictions ever been harder to disprove? Contempt for what an aide to George W. Bush famously called the “reality-based community” is an old story by now, although, thanks partly to Fox News and leading propagandists on the Right (Palin and Limbaugh, among others), it’s a …

Having often walked up the marble steps to the massive bronze front doors of the Supreme Court while interviewing Justice William Brennan for a New Yorker profile and for my book Living the Bill of Rights, I was startled to see in the May 3 Washington Post that the doors have been permanently locked. We …

It looks like both the postmodern literary theorist Stanley Fish and the German neo-Marxist Jürgen Habermas have concluded that human communities cannot cut it without religion or—at least in Fish’s view—that something is missing from the view that human communities could do quite well without it, that a secular culture can be just fine all …

A few years ago, after reading an essay in The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) by a respected Pennsylvania State University professor of meteorology,* I felt that itchy-finger sensation common to every writer when a hot retort is in order. At the time, I was a practicing broadcast meteorologist with modest BA and …

Q: What do these countries have in common: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States? A: All have been in the news this year regarding the ongoing clerical sexual-abuse scandals roiling the Catholic Church. Even the briefest summary of the …

Cognitive behavioral therapy is now a worthy replacement for psychoanalysis. It didn’t come into use until long after I received my medical training. But lately, I have gained some insig ht into how it works—and realized that in my sixty years of general medical practice, I had been applying the technique without knowing it! By …

The Campaign for Free Expression was launched by the Center for Inquiry early this year to focus efforts and attention on one of the most crucial components of freethought: the right of individuals to express their viewpoints, opinions, and beliefs about all subjects—especially religion. To encourage free expression and to emphasize the importance of this …

50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, edited by Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk (Chichester, U.K.: Publisher, 2009, cloth ISBN 978-1-4051-9045-9) and paper 978-1-4051-9046-6) 346 pp. Cloth $69.25. Paper $26. 95. “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God,” Psalms declares and adds, “They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, …

In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Ethics and Violence, by John Teehan (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4051-8381-9) 258 pp. Paper $16.47. Evolutionary and cognitive psychology are now at the forefront of explaining the origin and function of human morality. In this book, In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins …

A century’s gone since the poet walked In darkened dread along this pebbled shore As waves of faith in fruitless effort stalked And spent themselves against the steadfast rock Of Universal Nature’s Law that bore No hope for ancient superstitious lore. Against the slowly spreading coast we share, Millennial waves of myth enfeebled grind, Helpless …

Regardless of who you are or where you came from—despite ethnic differences, political distinctions, and racial tensions—we are all African. With these four words we can understand the truth of our human ancestry and in so doing learn a great deal about ourselves and our place on this planet. With these four words there is …

Secularization failed early in the Muslim world. It was a lengthy process that unfolded in four stages. The first stage began as early as the fourth century c.e., when Christians and Jews—not the Muslims, as popularly supposed—undertook the translation of Greek philosophy into Arabic. The Muslim Arab philosophers al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna benefited from these …

The debate about what kind of political economy is best for people isn’t carried out only in the domestic arena. To be sure, the health-care insurance controversy has dominated domestic attention of late, and though there seems to be wide consensus on the appropriateness of greater government involvement, not all welcome that consensus. Is there …

Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel. —Ovid Can one doubt that we live in a culture antithetical to humanism? The pace of modern life, the proliferation of intrusive technologies, the triumph of consumerism and fundamentalism shape a culture indifferent to, yet at …

In his article “The ‘True Unbeliever’” in the December 2009/January 2010 Free Inquiry, Paul Kurtz offers a misleadin g and unfair analysis of the so-called New Atheists. Kurtz uses such labels as “fundamentalist” and “true believer” to refer to persons who hold strong beliefs and are determined not to change them. He then generalizes the …

In my brief editorial, “The ‘True Unbeliever,’” I pointed out that fundamentalist theists have their “atheist counterparts.” Are there such persons, or is this a figment of my imagination? The term unbeliever refers to those who reject the claims of theistic religion;but these may include atheists, agnostics, skeptics, nontheists, igtheists, or those who are simply …

May I reaffirm the convictions that have guided the editorial policies ofFree Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism in the first thirty years of our existence? Religious dissent is a noble tradition in democratic societies that needs to be respected and honored. Critics of religious claims have every right to be heard. In fact, …

A Neo-Humanist Statement Irecently drafted, with the help of many secular humanists and scientists, a “Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and Values.” At latest count, some one hundred distinguished public intellectuals worldwide have endorsed it. Since we do not have space to run the entire statement in this issue, I am running a brief excerpt …

It is with profound sorrow that I wish to comment on the passing of Antony Flew, one of the leading British philosophers of our time, who died at the age of eighty-seven. For more than a half century, he was considered one of the most important atheist philosophers in the world, a position that he …

An Example to Follow I have been listening to the Point of Inquiry podcast and reading Free Inquiry for several years. Although I am “late” to the secular humanist/rationalist world, I am so wonderfully “fed” by both endeavors. Thank you. I am writing in particular about an interview Paul Kurtz did with D.J. Grothe about …