Closer Look at Rift Between Humanists Reveals Deeper Divisions
October 1, 2010
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/us/02beliefs.html...Mr. [Paul] Kurtz, an 84-year-old...is the exiled founder of the
Center for Inquiry, which is devoted to promoting humanism and criticizing religion. He founded the center's two affiliates: the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, which investigates claims of the paranormal, like U.F.O. sightings and mental telepathy, and the
Council for Secular Humanism, which promotes ethics and values without God.
...In 2008, looking to spend less time running the center, he supported his board's decision to hire Ronald A. Lindsay, a corporate lawyer from Washington, as chief executive. He soon regretted the decision. ...First, ...Mr. Lindsay changed the work culture...employees were interrogated for minor infractions...and several were let go. ...second complaint...Mr. Lindsay was turning the center away from Mr. Kurtz's humanist philosophy and toward negative, angry atheism.
According to Mr. Kurtz, skeptics must do more than just deride religion. "
If religion is being weakened, what replaces it in secular society?" he asked.
In books like "
What Is Secular Humanism?" Mr. Kurtz has argued for a universal but nonreligious ethics, one he now calls "planetary humanism." Its first principle is that "every person on the planet should be considered equal in dignity and value." ...
"Angry
atheism does not work," Mr. Kurtz said. "It
has to be friendly, cooperative relations with people of other points of view." To that end, he and several former employees of the center are starting a new organization, the
Institute for Science and Human Values. ...
Locked
