Category: Editorial

Increasingly, world civilization is becoming secular; that is, it emphasizes worldly rather than religious values. This is especially true of Europe, which is widely considered post-religious and post-Christian (though with a small Islamic minority). Secularist winds are also blowing strong in Asia, notably in Japan and China. The United States has been an anomaly in …

The planetary community faces a breathtaking economic crisis. It comes as a rude shock to many, particularly Baby Boomers who have little knowledge of the Great Depression of the 1930s, which I lived through and remember very well. Although I was only four when the 1929 crash occurred, I vividly recall its aftermath in the …

The secular humanist movement has often been characterized, by friends and foes alike, primarily in terms of its unbelief: its atheism or agnosticism. Unfortunately, this tends to accentuate the negative aspects of secular humanism, giving short shrift to its affirmative ethical outlook. In fact, secular humanists strongly affirm a new planetary ethic. Secularists are making …

September 2008 marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the issuance of Humanist Manifesto II, which was published in 1973. Since I am the author of that document, it is perhaps useful for the historical record to say something about its origin. I was at that time editor of The Humanist. Ed Wilson, editor emeritus of that …

The next century can be and should be the humanistic century. Dramatic scientific, technological, and ever-accelerating social and political changes crowd our awareness. We have virtually conquered the planet, explored the Moon, overcome the natural limits of travel and communication; we stand at the dawn of a new age, ready to move farther into space …

The secular humanist is often challenged thusly: “If you do not base your ethics on religious foundations, then in what sense can you be good?” The ethics of secularism has a long history in human culture. In the fol lowing, I wish to present four contemporary aspects of the ethics of secular humanism: liberation, enlightened …

The recent grand tour of the eastern United States by Pope Benedict XVI was a carefully choreographed propaganda event. Its purpose was, apparently, to rescue America’s Roman Catholic Church and perhaps restore it to its former power—which has been hemorrhaging with church closings and the long decline in recruitment of priests and nuns. The obscene …

A recent survey indicates that Americans have been changing their religions at a rapid rate. Remarkably, some 44 percent have moved from their religions of birth into other denominations, other religions, or none at all. This Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey, released in February of 2008 and based on 35,000 responses, also …

We are chagrined that during the current U.S. presidential campaign, secular Americans cannot point to a single candidate who is willing to maintain a clear distinction between religion and public policy, insisting on the strict separation of church and state. On the GOP side, this is not altogether surprising, given the way in which many …

The culture wars of the past two decades continue to be waged, most overtly in a presidential election campaign of extraordinary duration and ferocity. Much has been said about domestic policies and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet in all the heated campaign rhetoric, another issue is almost totally ignored. A vital foreign policy …

The battle for secularism has leaped to center stage worldwide; we find it being contested or defended everywhere. Of the world’s fifty-seven Islamic countries, virtually all except Turkey and Tunisia attempt to safeguard or enact Islamic law (sharia) as embodied in the Qur’an. Radical Islamists wage jihad against the secular society. Pope Benedict XVI rails …

Naturalism has been the dominant voice in American philosophy for most of the twentieth century. Beginning with pragmatism in the early part of the century and cresting with John Dewey in the latter half, it has included philosophers such as W.V. Quine, Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, and Adolf Grünbaum, …

In the current discussion of the “new atheism,” one point is often totally overlooked by most commentators: the positive dimensions of unbelief. Conservative religious critics have deplored the denigration of religion as an assault on the moral order and social fabric. They ask, “What does secular humanism have to offer?” I respond with neo-humanism, a …

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 …

The term Enlightenment refers to a unique set of ideas and ideals that came to fru­ition in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It began with Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and other philosophers who sought a universal method for establishing knowl­edge. They looked to science as the model for knowl­edge and debated whether reason or …

The question is constantly asked: What is the ethics of humanism? Can a society or person be moral without religion? Yes, indeed, affirm secular humanists. Morality is deeply rooted in the “common moral decencies” (these relate to moral behavior in society) and the “ethical excellences” (as they apply to a person’s own life). The Common …

In the last issue of Free Inquiry, we published an editorial criticizing the morality of the pre-emptive war against Iraq. It was written before the war began and published after its start. Several readers objected strongly to this. This raises the basic question: Should secular humanism as a movement ever take political positions? Surely individual …