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The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is the newest star on the cultural horizon. Readers of this magazine should by now be familiar with its existence. The Center for Inquiry–International in Amherst, New York, is headquarters of the Council for Secular Humanism, publisher of Free Inquiry. Since there are now over a dozen Centers for Inquiry …

Religion and Morality Though I agree with much of the editorial by Paul Kurtz (“The Principles of Fairness contra ‘Gott Mit Uns!’” June/ July 2004), I disagree with enough of what he said to make me uncomfortable with his brand of humanism, that is, “secular humanism.” Dr. Kurtz contrasts principles of fairness with traditional religious …

In my previous column (Free Inquiry, June/July 2004), I raised the question of the Darwinian survival value of religion. Why, given that natural selection abhors waste and extravagance, is religious behavior a human universal? I discussed various suggestions of direct advantages to religion, all more or less unconvincing, and promised to return to something more …

In the rising resistance against John Ashcroft’s USA Patriot Act and subsequent executive orders revising sections of the Bill of Rights, the attorney general has been particularly irritated by the attention the media are paying to the many librarians around the country who are expunging the records of borrowed books as soon as they are returned—in …

I once heard the late Abba Eban, formerly foreign minister of Israel, address a dovish Jewish audience in New York. In that rather plummy British-English accent of his, he began by saying that what struck the eye first, in any contemplation of the Israel-Palestine dispute, was the simplicity and ease of its solution. That was …

One of the major problems of cities with mild winter climates is the number of homeless people on the street. As social services are being curtailed, almost every large city in the United States has a major problem of dealing with the poor, the mentally ill, the long-term unemployed, the drug addicted, and others who …

“I should like particularly, to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act.”1 Those are the words of Pope John Paul II, speaking in March 2004 to an international congress held in Rome. The conference was on …

The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out. —Walt Whitman, “Carol of Words” On September 19, 2003, I joined Jeff Lowder and Jim Still—both board members of Internet Infidels—on a trek …

SIDE/LINES Atheists: Fear Them — Researchers conducting the three-year American Mosaic Project are surveying Americans’ attitudes toward race and religion. Among many other questions, participants were asked what religious group was the most threatening or dangerous. Fifty-four percent answered “Atheists.” Maybe white, conservative Christians dominated the pool: that group revealed the most antipathy toward diversity, …

What is the optimum population of the U.S.? The world? Overpopulation long mattered to me. A high schooler when the Club of Rome issued The Limits to Growth, I had already embraced its agenda.1 If too many people burdened the planet, I would add no more. I resolved not to father children, and remain child-free to …

Overview The great majority of people around the world never ask, “ Is the world overpopulated?” They don’t know what it might mean to them, any more than members of an endangered species rapidly losing habitat to human encroachment can comprehend the cause of their predicament. That the human population of the world is over …

Overcoming ‘Growthmania’ The very idea of defining an “optimum population” challenges centuries of economic and political assumptions that growth is by definition a good thing. So be it. The challenge of overcoming that assumption is at least as important as any optimum population number we may calculate. How ‘Growthmania’ Began Before the 1300s, unlimited growth …

How many are too many? The earth’s ability to support human life is usually described as the potential productivity of the world’s food supply enhanced by human technological invention. The term most often applied is carrying capacity, which refers to the maximum size of any population (including people) that available resources can support without themselves …

How the environmental establishment changed its tune on U.S. overpopulation The Era of Concern In the heady days of the new environmental awareness, at the first big Earth Day celebration in April 1970, the ecological threat posed by U.S. population growth was part of every discussion. David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club, had …