No. 3 | Free Inquiry (original) (raw)
America's Greatest Thinker?
The Humanism of John Dewey, Introduction John Shook
Among twentieth-century humanists, none stands higher than the American John Dewey, professor of philosophy at Columbia University during the first half of the century. Dewey taught the world what a sound naturalism, humanism, secularism, and atheism should look like. In his pragmatist philosophy, these four isms not only cooperated but mutually supported each other. Subtract …
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America's Greatest Thinker?
Freedom John Dewey
The old saying that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” has especial significance at the present time. Freedom from oppression was such a controlling purpose in the foundation of the American Republic, and the idea of freedom is so intimately connected with the very idea of democratic institutions, that it might seem as if …
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America's Greatest Thinker?
Philosophy and the Conduct of Life: Dewey’s New Paradigm James Gouinlock
Metaphysics is commonly regarded as an esoteric discipline, but in John Dewey’s hands it became directly pertinent to common life. I use metaphysics to refer to the systematic attempt to distinguish the most noteworthy characteristics of reality and to demonstrate the pertinence of such traits to human conduct and ideals. A metaphysics is developed in …
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America's Greatest Thinker?
Narrative Naturalism Judith Walker
In our time, John Dewey might be called a “religious humanist,” although if he were able he might object. I am a secular humanist. Dewey’s philosophy informs many of my most significant interactions, but I do not explore in them, as Dewey did, what it means to be religious. Naturalistic philosophy and the sciences support …
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America's Greatest Thinker?
John Dewey’s Spiritual Values Larry A. Hickman
As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of John Dewey, we should recall that he was a deeply spiritual person, both personally and professionally. Dewey’s spirituality was not defined by organized religion. It was instead a part of his commitment to a philosophically informed version of naturalism. Dewey was an ardent opponent of …
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America's Greatest Thinker?
Looking Ahead: Future Prospects for Dewey’s Philosophy Paul Kurtz
The 150th anniversary of John Dewey’s birth is an auspicious opportunity to celebrate the life and work of one of America’s leading, perhaps foremost, philosophers. His influence on public affairs beyond the academy surely qualifies him for that distinction. In addition, he was the most influential intellectual voice of liberalism, broadly construed, for a good …
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Editorial
Activist Court Undermines American Democracy Paul Kurtz
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, permitting unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns, cast a devastating blow against democracy. By a 5 – 4 vote, the high court’s conservative majority abandoned longstanding legal precedents dating back over a century, to 1907, and culminating in the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002. It …
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A Plea for Unity Tom Flynn’s review of Greg Epstein’s book Good Without God (FI, February/March 2010) illustrates the problem (or perhaps futility) of attempting to place those who reject supernaturalism into neat categories . By emphasizing the differences between “religious humanism” and “secular humanism,” Flynn seems to push Epstein into one corner (that of …
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Leading Questions
Taking a Stand for the New Atheists
Free Inquiry: Isn’t the New Atheism just the same old atheism? Victor J. Stenger: Yes and no. The New Atheism is more popular now, and I think it takes a harder line. It says that we shouldn’t be treating religion with kid gloves or avoid offending moderate Christians merely because we need their support for …
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News Beat
Council Fights Appeal of Its Florida Court Victory Nathan Bupp
Council Fights Appeal of Its Florida Court Victory The twists and turns continue in the Council for Secular Humanism’s case challenging the use of Florida taxpayer dollars for faith-based substance-abuse transitional housing programs in Florida state prisons. The Council won an important victory on December 15, 2009, when the Florida First District Court of Appeal …
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Op-Ed
Hope, Despair, Dread, and Religion Ronald A. Lindsay
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 …
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Op-Ed
Who Says the Nonreligious Don’t Give? Christopher Hitchens
In January 2010, I was a guest on the excellent national radio show hosted by the devout Christian Hugh Hewitt. The people of Port-au-Prince had just been buried in rubble, and his first question to me was rightly about the calamity that had overtaken an already miserable Haiti. I informed him that the former presidential …
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Op-Ed
Should the State Force-feed Prisoners? Arthur Caplan
When you think of hunger strikes, two images likely come to mind. In 1980, seven Northern Irish Republican prisoners launched a hunger strike in Belfast’s Maze prison. They were protesting the revocation of their prisoner-of-war status by the British government. This initial hunger strike led to a series of others, during which Bobbie Sands became …
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Op-Ed
Ethics without God Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek
In this issue, I turn my space over to a guest columnist, Dr. Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, who teaches ethics at the University of Lodz, in Poland. The column below first appeared in Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland’s leading newspapers. Dr. de Lazari-Radek, who also did the English translation, tells me that the article received an …
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Op-Ed
Lessons in Fear Nat Hentoff
Schools Under Surveillance: Cultures of Control in Public Education (Rutgers University Press) is a new book that should be of interest to at least some public school students and their parents. Its publication performs a ne eded public service. In this anthology, editors Torin Monahan and Rodolfo Torres and other academics around the nation ask: …
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Reflections
The Tribulations of an African Humanist Norm R. Allen Jr.
Leo Igwe is the executive director of both the Center for Inquiry in Nigeria and the Nigerian Humanist Movement. It would be difficult to find a humanist activist with greater courage, determination, and persistence anywhere in the world. On more than one occasion, Igwe has been physically attacked by religious extremists. He has been pursued …
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Church-State Update
Church-State Update – Vol. 30, No. 3 Edd Doerr
Sainthood for Pius 12? (Gasp!) Tone-deaf, arrogant, Orwellian, Kafkaesque—the Holy See (the Vatican) is hell-bent on conferring sainthood on World War II-era Pope Pius 12 (née Eugenio Pacelli), known for his timidity regarding the Nazis’ attempt to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and other “Untermenschen.” Pius’s canonization, though an internal church matter, would be a grave …
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Faith and Reason
The Vital Spark Lawrence Rifkin
As he performed the autopsy, Edward Curtis removed Abraham Lincoln’s brain. “We proceeded to remove the entire brain, when, as I was lifting the latter from the cavity of the skull, suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin …
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It's Only Natural
On Defining Naturalism as a Worldview Richard Carrier
What is naturalism? As a worldview distinct from any form of “supernaturalism,” “naturalism” is the belief that nature is (probably) all there is, and nothing supernatural exists. Of course, the word naturalism can be used in other ways. In the art world, it means one thing; as a special term in epistemology, it means something …
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Faith and the Law
Is Hell Illegal? The Implications of the Warren Jeffs Decision Chris Edwards
In September 2007, a jury in Utah found Warren Jeffs, a Mormon-fundamentalist religious leader, guilty of being an accomplice to child rape. The trial was a bit of a sideshow—and for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), which has desperately been trying to jettison the facets of its doctrine that are …
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Reviews
Getting It Wrong Ophelia Benson
The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures, by Nicholas Wade (New York: Penguin, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59420-228-5) 310 pp. Cloth $29.95. Recently, Pope Benedict XVI told his followers and other Christians, “While we are on the path towards full communion, we are called to offer a shared witness against the ever more complex …
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Reviews
Grandeur in Life and Genius Benjamin Radford
Creation, directed by Jon Amiel. 2010. Screenplay by John Collee based on the biography by Randal Keynes. 108 minutes. The image most people have of Charles Darwin is that of an old man with a long white beard sitting in a chair, perhaps lost in contemplation about the common ancestry between apes and humans. That’s …
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Reviews
Christianity Refuted, English Merely Challenged Tom Flynn
Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity, by John W. Loftus (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59102-592-4) 428 pp. Paper $19.95. John W. Loftus was a Church of Christ minister among whose mentors was William Lane Craig, America’s best-known Christian apologist debater. For years, Loftus specialized in marshaling rational argumentation to …
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Reviews
Du Bois Uncensored Norm R. Allen Jr.
W.E.B. Du Bois: Toward Agnosticism 1868–1934, by Brian L. Johnson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008, ISBN 13: 978-0-7425-6449-7) 141 pp. Cloth $65.00. W. E.B. Du Bois was one of the most important intellectuals and activists of the twentieth century. He helped establish the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and served as …
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Reviews
Conservatism’s Last Stand? Edd Doerr
The Death of Conservatism, by Sam Tanenhaus (New York: Random House, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4000-6884-5) 123 pp. Cloth $17.00. In The Death of Conservatism, Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review and the Times’ “Week in Review” section, has given us a useful analysis of the evolution of the conservative movement in the …
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Contest Essays
Why I Am Not a … Contest Winners Announced
In our previous issue, we announced the second in our series of thirtieth-anniversary-year contests, “Why I Am Not A . . . ” We asked readers, “If you came to secular humanism from another tradition . . . what did you formerly believe? How was it taught to you? What made you change?” The editors …
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Poem
Le Jongleur / ‘SPLC Wins $2.5 Million Verdict against Klans of America’ David Park Musella
I. Le Jongleur Order and balance provide the paths to chaos, Repeatedly tying pretzel knots in the air. Manual motions produce the cascade, rising And falling in the Ouroboros flights of spheres. The Juggler founds these oscillations, prime mover Of a universe spun separate from our own. Its bodies move by order of his will …
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