Category: Op-Ed

Some secular humanists do not consider the war on Iraq a “core issue” for the humanist movement to address. To them the foundation of secular humanism is atheism, with no political convictions implied. True, a healthy humanist movement should never become so politically partisan as to ignore or denounce conflicting points of view. Ethical nonbelievers …

What’s the difference between self-proclaimed psychics who write books predicting future events and self-proclaimed psychics who read palms, tarot cards, or crystal balls? The book-writing psychics are endowed with virtually undisputed First Amendment rights, nationwide. The storefront psychics may or may not enjoy constitutional protection, or any right to prophesy for profit, depending on where …

On February 7, there appeared on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity an eighty-six-page draft of the Justice Department’s proposed sequel to the USA PATRIOT Act. It so radically subverts the constitutional rights of Americans—far more than even the original USA PATRIOT Act—and so appalled a member of John Ashcroft’s staff that …

I have just published a book about my maternal grandfather, David Oppenheim. A Viennese of Jewish descent, he was a member first of Sigmund Freud’s circle and later of that of Alfred Adler. But despite his abiding interest in exploring human psychology, he underestimated the Nazi threat and did not leave quickly enough after the …

I found myself profoundly depressed by the decision of American atheists and nonbelievers to hold a demonstration and rally, the Godless Americans March on Washington, last November, and, although I live in the nation’s capital, I made no effort to add myself or my family to the turnout. This refusal was for two reasons. First, …

There is a tendency in our society to put people in little boxes. If one is a female, we put that person in a box marked “female,” which makes her different from a male. But how different? Obviously, there is a difference in genitalia and in reproductive capacity, but even with these distinctions there is …

Religious people claiming they’re the victims of excessive secular-ism generally have about as much credibility as conservatives complaining about the liberal media. America has only a subculture of disbelief, inhabited by a small, maligned minority who probably have less influence on law and policy than marginalized left-wing magazines. Aspiring theocrats, like Supreme Court Justice Antonin …

In his book A Charge to Keep, George W. Bush writes of his decision to “recommit my heart to Jesus Christ.” He traces it to a walk along the beach in Maine with the Christian evangelist Billy Graham. Conversing with Graham, Bush was “humbled to learn that God had sent His Son to die for …

Perhaps the most amazing feature of reality we have encountered so far is ourselves. We are perplexing, too, for what else in nature reflects on itself, criticizes and commends, blames and praises its own kind, does good and evil and the whole gamut in-between, creates and destroys to unheard-of degrees, and then debates endlessly whether …

Bill Dembski, one of the leading proponents of modern intelligent design “theory,” is an interesting animal. But before turning to him, I should explain why I am telling readers of a freethought magazine about the latest attempt by religiously inspired intellectuals to advance their pseudo-scientific agenda. Surely few readers of Free InquIry would give much …

Who could imagine the people of a great democracy turning over the right to harass and propagandize themselves on their own public airwaves to a handful of gigantic corporations and the billionaire press lords who control those corporations? But that is what we have done. The media are busily creating a mob-like democracy—feeding a mass …

Throughout our history, the Bill of Rights has been often held in contempt by our government—witness the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts; Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the mass jailing of opponents of his policies during the Civil War; Woodrow Wilson’s near-extinction of the First Amendment during the First World War; the “Red …

Hey, how about us! Over here, yeah, here we are. And what do we want? What did Johnny Rocco want in Key Largo, baby? More. More. That’s right, more! We want more exposure, more access, more product! In the name of equal time, fairness, and that much-prized, Hollywood-embraced concept of diversity. Our time has come, …

Free Inquiry readers may pause to read the “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” on the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And …

The ongoing scandal of Catholic pedophile priests has exposed the privileged position organized religion undeservedly retains in the twenty-first century. Despite the glar-ing hypocrisy of presumptive moral exemplars violating the most vulnerable of victims, the Catholic Church’s misdeeds have not met the level of outrage, and the demands for action, that would be expected if …

Suicide and the ‘New Prohibitionists’ This issue’s special section on physician-assisted suicide puts me in mind of a larger issue: suicide, period. While suicide has never been exactly popular, a new assault on our right to suicide is brewing. It’s something secular humanists ought to resist. Not long ago, the right to suicide and the …