No. 5 | Free Inquiry (original) (raw)
Defending Society and the World
The Power Worshippers Katherine Stewart
The following is adapted by the author from The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (Bloomsbury Publishing). Stewart is the recipient of the Council for Secular Humanism’s Morris D. Forkosch Award for best humanist book of 2020. —Eds. Most of us are by now familiar with the public face of Christian nationalism. …
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Defending Society and the World
Avoiding a ‘Ghastly Future’: Hard Truths on the State of the Planet Carl Safina
A group of the world’s top ecologists have issued a stark warning about the snowballing crisis caused by climate change, population growth, and unchecked development.[1] Their assessment is grim, but big-picture societal changes on a global scale can still avert a disastrous future. Within the lifetime of anyone born at the start of the Baby …
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Exploring the Connection between Cambridge Analytica and Conservative Christianity Becky Garrison
In the documentary People You May Know, Charles Kriel, special adviser to the U.K. Parliament on disinformation, and filmmaker Katharina Gellein Viken unpacked the political connections between religious fundamentalists, oligarchs, and the company Cambridge Analytica, whose infamous mishandling of the personal data of millions of Facebook users was revealed in 2008. Even though Donald J. …
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Does Prayer Work? Dariusz Jemielniak
Even though about 84 percent of the world population is religiously affiliated, the question of whether praying for someone can give that person some health benefits is still relatively understudied. This likely is because the topic is controversial: for religious people, applying quantified measures to the effects of prayer sounds blasphemous. Similarly, for secular ones, …
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Shadow Gosplan and Other Lies Edward Tesler
Edward Tesler lived in the USSR until he moved to the United States in 1980. —Eds. “I love boxing. You are sitting in a comfortable chair, looking at the ring, and somebody else gets hit in the face.” This joke sounds apolitical, but it too reflects big politics. Everybody knows about the centralized planning of …
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Ethnographic Evidence for Unbelief in Non-Western Cultures: Unbelief in China and Siam Ibn Warraq
Chinese thinking is a history of a gradual distancing of man from supernatural beings and their influence, ending in an essentially humanistic approach to life. From the Ch’un Ch’iu period (722–481 BCE) onward, there is a progressively more humanistic interpretation of laws and statutes, regarded previously as being of divine origin. Confucius (551–479 BCE Kǒng …
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On the Fact-Theory Issue Wayne Gustave Johnson
Most scientists consider evolution a firmly supported theory. This article does not challenge these scientists. But do scientists generally agree that evolution is a fact? Some scientists and philosophers of science maintain that a very well-supported theory deserves to be called a fact. Others maintain that a theory never becomes a fact even if it …
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Editorial
Courting Disaster: Public Safety vs. Religion Robyn E. Blumner
At this point, we all know claims of religious freedom can work like magic words. Say “religious freedom,” and you can demand tax money for your school or social service program even if you proselytize and discriminate, and you can ignore inconvenient employment laws. Just say that your religion demands it, and even public health …
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Op-Ed
Will World Population Drop Far Enough, Fast Enough? Tom Flynn
Full disclosure: I admire the New York Times and its commitment to cover the world in depth when so many news outlets have abandoned that mission. Still, the Times has its blind spots, among them a relentless natalism. The paper seems glued to the notion that human numbers (to say nothing of the economy) must …
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Op-Ed
Beyond Humanity Gregory Paul
Beyond Humanity was the title of a book I coauthored in 1996 with Earl Cox. It was an early look at the possibility, if not probability, that in the not too distant future, quite possibly in this century, self-aware devices of extreme intelligence will be developed. If such a thing happens, the book predicted, it …
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Op-Ed
Civil War, Anyone? S. T. Joshi
There has been much loose talk of late about an impending civil war in the United States. For some desperate individuals, our stark political differences—compounded or, indeed, caused by differences in education, socioeconomic status, and religious (or nonreligious) belief—are so extreme that one’s opponents are not regarded merely as antagonists to be defeated at the …
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Announcement
Ingersoll Museum Endowment Appeal Exceeds Target
The campaign to complete the endowment fund of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum exceeded its ambitious target following unprecedented donor response to a spring fundraising campaign. In early March, an email appeal announced a seed gift of 40,000byMuseumDirectorTomFlynn,whichwouldbeusedtomatchthefirst40,000 by Museum Director Tom Flynn, which would be used to match the first 40,000byMuseumDirectorTomFlynn,whichwouldbeusedtomatchthefirst40,000 in donor …
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Appreciation
Richard Thompson Hull, Philosopher and Author, Dies at Eighty-One Nicole Scott
Philosophy professor and ethics collaborator Richard Thompson Hull died on March 15, 2021, in Tallahassee, Florida, after several years of health problems. Born December 29, 1939, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Hull served in the U.S. Army after high school for six months and then served in the Army Reserve for six years before attending undergraduate …
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Appreciation
Hector Avalos, Atheist Biblical Scholar, Dies at Sixty-Two Nicole Scott
Hector Avalos, a respected biblical scholar despite his open atheism, died after a battle with cancer on April 12, 2021. Born October 8, 1958, in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, Avalos completed his undergraduate studies at the University at Arizona. He was awarded a master of theological studies from Harvard Divinity School. In 1991, he received a …
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Looking Back
Looking Back – Vol. 41 No. 5
35 Years Ago in Free Inquiry “High in the back area of the Coliseum, using an electronic scanner receiver, Bob Steiner and Alec Jason had quickly located the frequency used by the Popoffs—39.17 Megahertz. A tape recorder was attached to the receiver, and every word was heard. When Popoff made his entrance, we heard Mrs. …
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Scientology Robyn E. Blumner’s editorial “Scientology’s Tale of Disgrace,” (FI, April/May 2021) reminded me of my one and only encounter with Scientology. In 1992, I spent a summer doing mathematical research with colleagues at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. While walking downtown one day, my wife, Sharon, and I saw a Scientology storefront mission. …
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Great Minds
A Little-Known Atheist ‘Titan’ and His Disagreement with Ingersoll over ‘Obscenity’ Laws Mark Kolsen
In December 1885, Robert Green Ingersoll wrote a tribute to Elizur Wright, who had died the previous month. Ingersoll said Wright had been “one of the Titans who attacked the monsters, the Gods, of his time … at the peril of his life.” Because during Wright’s lifetime “a majority of Christians were willing to enslave …
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Humanistically Speaking
Jefferson, Jesus, and Slavery Brian Bolton
In his favorable review of The Jefferson Bible: A Biography by Peter Manseau, Rob Boston notes with approval that Manseau “holds Jefferson to account for one of his most disturbing inconsistencies” (Church & State, November 2020, 19–20). Boston specifies this inconsistency: Thomas Jefferson seemed to admire Jesus’s morals while enjoying a comfortable life built on …
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Humanist Soapbox
The Morality of Third-Party Voting Charles Wukasch
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 …
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The Faith I Left Behind
Raca at Sacred Heart Church Timothy Olson
Not paying attention during Mass was a sin, and I did my best to pay attention—even though most of the time, the service was painfully dull. But one Sunday in 1962 when I was twelve, the celebrating priest read a quote from Jesus that was not dull but quite shocking: “But I say to you, …
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High Heresy
Chipping Away at the Cement and Imaginary Walls Shari Stone-Mediatore
“[T]his is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen … that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. … It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.” —James Baldwin, “Letter to My Nephew” As …
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Humanism at Large
Go to Hell Gary Shugar
Having read the stories that religious people invent to make themselves feel better, I realized that atheists do not have similar made-up stories to make us feel better. Here is my vision of what the afterlife might be for nonbelievers. The next time someone says to you, “You can go to Hell,” the correct response …
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Review
Can Cogento Save the Day? Tom Flynn
Cogento, by Thü, translated from German by Lena Blos and Thü; English editing and proofreading by Camille De Kok (Baar, Switzerland: Ecliptic Planetary Publishing, 2019, ISBN 978-3-033-07501-6). 493 pp. Hardcover, $28.00. Also available in e-book formats for all devices. One thing’s for sure: you’ve never read anything quite like Cogento. Author Thü (a.k.a. Thomas Hürlimann) …
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Review
The Price of Purity Tom Flynn
Wayward: A Memoir of Spiritual Warfare and Sexual Purity, by Alice Greczyn. (Austin, Texas: River Grove Books, 2021, ISBN 1632993546). 366 pp. Softcover, $19.95. This harrowing memoir (excerpted in Free Inquiry’s previous issue) offers the most disturbing picture yet of growing up in the purity-focused Christian fundamentalist subculture of the past three decades—and that’s …
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Review
On Rationalism and the Future of Planet Earth Anthony J. Mendonca
All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, by Michael T. Klare (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2019, ISBN 978-1-62779-248-6). 293 pp. Hardcover, $30.00. “There is, therefore, a direct clash between current White House doctrine on climate change and the Pentagon’s determination to overcome climate related threats to military preparedness.”—Michael T. Klare “We …
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Poem
Simultaneity Patty Seyburn
Scott Joplin died in a mental institution the year my father was born in Toronto, the final card in his parents’ hand, almost enough for a game of gin. King of ragtime, Joplin suffered a breakdown when his opus work, “Treemonisha,” met with no success. Another genius depressive, Rachmaninoff, felt stifled by being asked to …
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Poem
At the Rodin Museum, May 18, 2014 Araby Thornewill
Dear Andrew … we went to the Rodin Museum today. You, me, and Alice. First, we had brunch—a lovely brunch, outside, easy conversation, “get to know you” conversation, still, “the mother is visiting and I’m meeting her” conversation. You were lovely, contained, warm, engaged, funny. And then we went to the Rodin Museum. It wasn’t …
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Fox's Lair
The Parable of the M&Ms Hank Fox
There’s this thing deeply religious people do that always leaves me at a loss. Their basic approach to any mystery that confronts them—and mystery here can mean anything from well-known facts that they as individuals somehow failed to pick up to the complex unknowns of the larger universe—is “If I can’t explain it, if you …
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