Author: Ronald A. Lindsay

Jon Guy has written an impassioned essay taking strong exception to a 2015 editorial in which we maintained, among other things, that the American Humanist Association (AHA) had employed an inadvisable legal strategy in its representation of an Oregon inmate, James Holden. AHA filed a lawsuit on Holden’s behalf when his federal correctional institution denied …

The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism, by Russell Blackford (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, ISBN 978-1-3500-5600-8). 244 pp. Paperback, $26.95.   A liberal Muslim who opposes Islamists, is critical of Islamic fundamentalism, and calls for Muslims to accept secular government is labeled an anti-Muslim extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center. An …

What Haley and McGowan advocate seems less like the future of secularism than like a betrayal of it. Jeff Haley and Dale McGowan vigorously contend that public school educators should affirmatively teach there are “no gods, souls, or afterlife.” Of course, they recognize that their view of the appropriate curriculum for public schools has no …

Sharing Reality: How to Bring Secularism and Science to an Evolving Religious World, by Jeff T. Haley and Dale McGowan (Durham, N.C.: Pitchstone Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-1634311267) 151 pp. Paperback, $14.95.   Some atheists embrace missionary work. They maintain we should strive, through peaceful persuasion, to eradicate belief in gods. There are no deities, and …

Most of us think that moral norms are binding on us. For example, “Don’t kill a child for pleasure” is not a rule we can simply choose to follow or not, depending on our current desires and attitudes. Indeed, one point of the institution of morality seems to be to subordinate our personal preferences to the common good.

Scalia, the great originalist, indulged in motivated reasoning at least as often as the justices and judges he ridiculed.

Though religions claim a monopoly on hope, the brightest hope for humanity’s future lies in humanism.

Without free expression, the other rights we revere stand on quicksand. Religious ideas and leaders must be as subject as any others to criticism and even satire.

We can make the world a better place, but whether we do so depends on us—that’s both the promise and the challenge of humanism.

Sound science and secularism are firm allies; that’s why the recent merger into CFI Inc. is not only wise but necessary.

Conceding from its opening move that humanism is a religion, the American Humanist Association damaged the movement while defending one prisoner’s rights.

Appeals to God cannot settle ethical dilemmas. God can’t tell us what to do; we need to figure that out for ourselves.

A review of Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.

Morality is neither objective nor subjective—it’s a practical enterprise enmeshed in human relationships. That gives it objectivity enough.

A flawed Supreme Court decision should dispel any illusion that America is quickly becoming more accepting of the nonreligious.

The Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases may prompt the Supreme Court to overextend the religious-liberty rights of corporate employers.

Although faith cannot be rationally justified, this doesn’t prevent theologians from trying their best to make faith seem not only reasonable but a good thing.

Reynold Spector has provided us with an ambitious and thought-provoking, if somewhat idiosyncratic, essay on ethics and the law. It makes for an interesting read, and he has several insightful observations. That said, I do have some areas of disagreement. More fundamentally, his argument as a whole is on my view inconsistent and self-defeating. To …

The 2013–2014 term of the U.S. Supreme Court could be its most important in years with respect to church-state issues. We already know that the court will hear a case involving the constitutionality of invocations in local government settings such as city hall or county board meetings: Town of Greece v. Galloway (No. 12-696). By …

Without God, our lives have no meaning. The faithful can take comfort in eternal life, in knowing that they and their loved ones will survive death. The atheist can have no hope, no solace, because for the atheist only the grave awaits. How often have we heard these claims? Too often, but recently we’ve been …

This issue of Free Inquiry highlights two very important concerns: namely, the need to ensure that people throughout the world can freely express their views about religion and the need to promote women’s rights and end sexism, both outside of and within the secular movement. Some might think these concerns are unconnected. They would be …

In the United States, politics dominates the news as we gear up for the fall elections. Not only will we have to decide on a president, but there are contests for Congress and most state legislatures, as well as state referenda on numerous issues, some of which have important public policy implications. It’s at times …

The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights, by Austin Dacey (New York: Continuum, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4411-8392-7) 208 pp. Paper, $19.95. The word blasphemy has such an antique ring to it that one is tempted to think it went the way of the Spanish Inquisition. But prohibitions on speech …

Don’t look now, but we’re in the middle of a revolution in human attitudes and belief. In Europe and North America, large portions of the population are nonreligious; that is, they reject belief in God and transcendent spiritual entities of any sort. This is an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of humanity. Widespread religious skepticism …

Through drugs and implanted medical devices, we can now enhance the capacities of humans. The changes brought about so far are still relatively minor (for example, using Ritalin to increase the ability to concentrate), but it’s highly likely that we will develop the means to modify an increasing variety of human traits within ten to …

God rewards the faithful, either in this life or the next. The faithful do not know when these rewards will come, but they can be confident that they will come—eventually. Moreover, God does not ask for much in exchange. God requires only that the faithful be faithful, that is, that they trust in him and …

Secularism is a scary word for some, especially those on the religious Right. Moreover, as we are now officially into the 2012 presidential election campaign, you can expect to hear a lot more about the alleged evils of secularism. Before his recent political implosion, self-appointed intellectual Newt Gingrich was busy inveighing against secularism in articles, …

Almost all of us want to continue living, and we will endure much suffering, if necessary, to stay alive. But some are confronted with circ umstances that they consider insufferable. Each day, hundreds in the United States and other Western countries hasten their own deaths, accelerating the day they otherwise would have died due to …

Do we want to convert the religious? Should one of the primary functions of organizations such as the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry be to persuade the religious to abandon their beliefs? To answer these questions properly, we should first ask: What objectives would be served by converting the religious? The …

Secular humanism is a comprehensive, nonreligious lifestance. It is comprehensive because it touches every aspect of life, including issues of value, meaning, and identity. Presumably, th e two foregoing statements provide an accurate description of secular humanism because they appear on the website of the Council for Secular Humanism. But permit me to register a …

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 …

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. …

The Case for God, by Karen Armstrong (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, ISBN 978-0-307-26918-8) 406 pp. Cloth $27.95. Karen Armstrong vigorously advocates silence as the best means for understanding God. And in The Case for God, she uses more than three hundred pages of chatty text to prove her point. The title of Armstrong’s …

Secular humanists often assert that they offer something more than critiquing religion, that they have a “positive outlook” and offer affirmative alternatives to religion. When I encounter statements of this sort, I admit I am sometimes puzzled—particularly when what follows these words is some recitation of vague principles to which religious individuals can subscribe as …

Few moral issues attract as much attention from moral philosophers these days as the ethics of human enhancement—of using pharmacological agents, genetic engineering, or biomedical implants to improve our memory, intelligence, strength, endurance, agility, or personality. To analyze the morality of enhancements, we must consider new technologies, review scientific developments, make predictions about the future, …

The following article was developed as a position paper by the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C., and released on February 6, 2009. The reviewers were Paul Kurtz, Derek Araujo, Ronald A. Lindsay, and Toni Van Pelt.—Eds. Government-funded social-service programs conducted by religious organizations are becoming increasingly sectarian. The Center for …

The Supreme Court has decided to hear the case of Salazar v. Buono, an interesting church-state dispute—interesting in no small part because it may tell us much about the Obama administration’s approach to establishment-clause issues. For most of the past seventy years, there has been an eight-foot cross set atop Sunrise Rock in the Mojave …

Please look at the back cover of this magazine. There you will find a list setting forth “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles.” Secular humanism is not a religion, nor is the Council for Secular Humanism a church. We have no dogma and no heretics. There is no humanist pope or hierarchy, nor is …

A random observation: members and supporters of secular (humanist/atheist/freethought, etc.) organizations are seldom reluctant to voice their disagreement with a particular point of view. This is not necessarily bad. In fact, it can be a desirable trait, at least when contrasted with the submissiveness one sometimes finds among the religious. Nonetheless, a tendency to be …

The Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry (CFI) share a long-standing interest in undertaking legal work in support of our mission, which includes not only maintaining the separation of church and state but also the protection and promotion of fundamental rights. For example, when I was in private practice, I had the …