Category: Humanist Soapbox

In an age simultaneously still reeling from the decline of religion and one in which science has yet to fully deliver on its promises, it seems to me agnosticism is surely the only mature response. Both theism and its opposite certainly have their merits and bright ideas; Lord above knows I’ve dabbled in both, myself, …

Examining the claims and doctrines of the world’s major religions reveals clearly that there are profound controversies. There is one claim, however, for which there is virtually no disagreement: Religions provide comfort and satisfaction to their adherents. I think this is an understatement. Religious faith provides spectacular rewards to its followers. These include intense feelings …

The secular humanist, atheist, and agnostic community places great emphasis on reason—on our ability as humans to reason from assumptions to conclusions, to think critically, and to arrive at the truth. We also believe reasoned argument will allow us to convince others when they are mistaken. We like to think that our superior reason explains …

Several years ago, I was having lunch with an old friend from middle school. When I mentioned that in some political race I had voted Libertarian, he said with a scarcely veiled hint of sarcasm in his voice: “In other words, you voted for the Democrats.” And a couple of decades ago, when I told …

In July, I spoke at a debate hosted by the Black Ed movement, a group that seeks racial justice at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland). The debate concerned a petition created by my fellow student Elizabeth Lund asking to rename a university building called David Hume Tower.1 David Hume was found by Lund to be …

I am a scientist. Perhaps because I am a scientist, I have always felt that changing a belief I hold is a cause for celebration. New information that causes a belief to become untenable is a reason for joy. I am now eighty years old. This means that of all the scientific, engineering, and medical …

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we are being inundated by analyses and speculation about its effects on the world economy, political campaigning, democratic norms, civil liberties, social solidarity, the viability of regimes of fragile states, ongoing armed conflicts, camps of refugees and displaced persons, business practices, income inequality, provision of safety nets, the …

It’s hardly headline news these days that we Americans are dividing more and more into warring camps. Our social media are partly to blame, driving us into mutually hostile and suspicious “siloes” of opinion. I have a genuinely modest suggestion of one practice for dealing with these “interesting times” of ours—that old Chinese curse, “May …

Sixteen years ago, Free Inquiry published a remarkable and prescient article by Laurence W. Britt about the encroachment of fascism in various nations throughout the world, including the United States (“Fascism, Anyone?,” Spring 2003). This writer wishes to revisit the essence of that article—or perhaps, oracle—with the intention of alerting, and even alarming, all readers …

We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domestic plants and animals, but rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves. —Arnold Toynbee Some time ago, in some lab somewhere, some fruit flies were put into a closed container of some size, given some nectar, and patiently observed. The nectar supply kept up with …

Tertullian (Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus, c. 155 AD–c. 225 AD) was a quipster who might have enjoyed a Henny Youngman–type success had he been born about eighteen centuries later. The Henny Youngman of more recent fame became the king of one-liners: he concentrated on human incongruences for the sake of human humor. On the contrary, …

The recent dispute in Free Inquiry over whether or not humans are apes spotlights a very important controversy that keeps popping up in the secular and skeptical communities. As is usual, the dispute was between non-biologists. In the biological community, there is no disagreement on the matter. As an active paleozoologist who publishes in the …

I greatly enjoyed the dialogue between historian Yuval Noah Harari and philosopher A. P. Norman (“The Meaning and Legacy of Humanism,” FI, April/May 2018). Who would have thought that a debate over the definition of a single word could be so interesting and thought-provoking? Apparently the definition of humanism varies not only according to personal perception …

Every reader of this publication will know of Thomas Malthus, the man who first warned of human overpopulation. His warnings that exponential human population growth would outpace food production have become so well known since his death (in 1834) as to give birth to that adjective Malthusian. And for the past half century or so, …

Pilots have a saying: there are bold pilots and old pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. I am a good geologist (now retired), and geologists have a comparable, mutually exclusive saying: there are good geologists, and there are religious geologists, but there are no good, religious geologists. Geologists, as a group, are probably …

The rise of the GOP and the decline of compassion go hand-in-glove. This dreadful phenomenon affects not only the old, sick, and struggling of our own nation but also rejects all hope for desperate people in many war-afflicted nations as they struggle to survive, eat, drink, and escape catastrophic carnage. To have witnessed this increasingly …

One opponent of sexual harassment realizes that he’s been less than blameless.

The United Kingdom’s June 2016 vote to leave the European Union was of a piece with the general tendency since the latter part of the twentieth century toward secession, fragmentation, and “local control.”

“Equating a human life with a heartbeat is emotionally powerful but objectively false.”

“All opinions should
be free, whether they’re called
religious’ or not.”

“… It’s one great mystery why this supposedly loving and compassionate deity does not simply imbue all his creatures at least with the knowledge and certitude of his existence, his nature, and exactly how he wished to be worshipped… .”

Religious extremists are crazy, right? Not so fast.

Part 4 of the entire four-part article just as the author submitted it.

Part 3 of the entire four-part article just as the author submitted it.

Part 2 of the entire four-part article just as the author submitted it.

Does the world need one more label for people who lead lives of reason? Yes, and that label is genuism.

Part 1 of the entire four-part article just as the author submitted it.

The Dalai Lama carries some serious baggage, which scarcely anyone in an unfairly adoring West will dare to speak about.