Free Inquiry back issues from December 1996:
Assisted suicide: will the Supreme Court respect the autonomy rights of dying patients?
Dec 22, 1996; ... In October 1996, the Supreme Court announced that it will review decisions by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits that have held that a state's blanket prohibition of assisted suicide for terminally ill patients is inconsistent with the Constitution. (The Second ...
Euthanasia in the Netherlands.
Dec 22, 1996; ... In an opinion poll, carried out in 1993 in The Netherlands, one of the questions asked was: "Do you think that Someone always has the right to have his life terminated when he is in an unacceptable position without any prospect?" The outcome was clear: 78% said "yes," 10% said "no," and 12% ...
Catholic primate clings to evolution. (Catholic Church on the evolution theory)
Dec 22, 1996; ... Surprisingly, on October 24, 1996, Pope John Paul II endorsed evolution as "more than just a theory" and thereby biblical fundamentalism as so-called scientific creationism was dealt yet another blow to its vacuous claims about the origin of this universe and the appearance of life-forms on ...
The Pope, evolution, and the soul. (use of apes and monkeys in research)
Dec 22, 1996; ... John Paul II has recently admitted that biological evolution is for real. This is no news: Pius XII had admitted it in 1953. But he had warned that evolution, far from happening spontaneously (naturally), is guided from above. (How did he find out?)If evolution had been steered at ...
Humanist world meets in Mexico City. (The Thirteenth World Humanist Congress)
Dec 22, 1996; ... The Thirteenth World Humanist Congress, held in Mexico City from November 14 to 19, 1996, brought together 250 humanists from six continents to discuss the theme "Global Humanism for the Cyber Age." The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) congress, co-organized by FREE INQUIRY ...
Humanists meet in Poland and Russia. (two conferences dealing on the need for humanism in Eastern Europe)
Dec 22, 1996; ... Last fall I had the pleasure of attending two conferences dealing with the need for humanism in Eastern Europe. The first, entitled "Humanist Visions of European Integration," was held September 26 to 29, 1996, in Warsaw, Poland, and was hosted by the Federation of Polish Humanist ...
The Polish church as an enemy of the open society.
Dec 22, 1996; ... In The Open Society and Its Enemies, first published half a century ago, Karl Popper distinguished between two kinds of economic-political systems: closed societies and open societies. The former have a semi-organic nature and place submission to authority among the highest values; the ...
By any means necessary: the campaign to overturn Felton V. Aguilar. (a landmark lawsuit brought by Public Education and Religious Liberty)
Dec 22, 1996; ... After last year's Newsday reports on the assorted inequities of the New York City Board of Education's deluxe remedial education program for religious schools, New York's education authorities adopted a new media strategy: After years of stonewalling, the Board of Education, together with ...
Student freethought group embarks on productive path. (Campus Freethought Alliance)
Dec 22, 1996; ... During the first weekend of November 1996 the Center for Inquiry hosted the first official meeting of the recently formed Campus Freethought Alliance. Students from several colleges across the United States and Canada convened to discuss plans for the future of the Alliance. The weekend ...
The need for a universal declaration of human values. (continuous support for the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights')
Dec 22, 1996; ... All traditional ideological/religious systems are, at present, in acute conflict, if not in collapse. We need a system of agreed values that rises above all these wrangles and can be agreed as a moral blueprint for mankind. ... An International Declaration of Human Values should be prepared ...
Camp Quest '96. (summer camp for children from secular humanist families)
Dec 22, 1996; ... The Creation and Inauguration of the First Summer Camp for Children of Secular Humanist FamiliesThe idea for a camp for children of secular humanist families was taken on in late 1995 and taken on as a project by the Free Inquiry Group, Inc., of the Greater Cincinnati and Northern ...
Breaking the last taboo. (open agnosticism)
Dec 22, 1996; ... Few Americans know that Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to John Adams:The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. ...
The infomedia revolution: opportunities for global humanism.
Dec 22, 1996; ... This article is adapted from Paul Kurtz's keynote address to the Thirteenth Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in Mexico City in November 1996. The theme of the Congress was "Global Humanism and the Cyber Age." It was the first humanist World Congress held outside of ...
The immortal David Hume (1711-1776). (eigteenth century humanist)
Dec 22, 1996; ... The eighteenth century in Scotland was a period that witnessed the blooming of new ideas in medicine, chemistry, geology, economics, engineering, and other fields of knowledge. It came to be known as the "Scottish Enlightenment." Scotland then has been referred to as "a hotbed of genius." ...
Lucy Stone: woman of firsts. (humanist Lucy Stone)
Dec 22, 1996; ... Lucy Stone made history. Elizabeth Cady Stanton considered her "the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question," and her biographer, Elinor Rice Hays, called her "Morning Star."Independent in mind and spirit from her earliest ...
The re-discovery of Ludwig Feuerbach. (atheist Ludwig Feuerbach)
Dec 22, 1996; ... In the nineteenth century, he was recognized as Europe's most famous and powerful atheist, the herald of a new anti-Christian and anti-idealist era. In the twentieth, he is mentioned only in passing as one of the influences on the young Karl Marx and as a precursor of Sigmund Freud, who ...
Dr. Persinger's God machine. (scientist Michael Persinger)
Dec 22, 1996; ... One day in January 1993, while researching a book on religious conversions and the evangelical revival, I was leafing through a back number of Numinus, the journal put out by the Alister Hardy Centre in Oxford (which collects and analyzes case histories of religious experience). In a ...
Three ways to beat religious political extremists.
Dec 22, 1996; ... Many mistakenly think that if we could just catch Pat Robertson in bed with a cohost of the "700 Club" - either Ben or Terri - the religious right would self-destruct. Some think the Christian Coalition would sink if the Internal Revenue Service could nail it on tax violations or illegal ...
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
Dec 22, 1996; ... There is convincing scientific, historical, and psychological evidence of two basic facts regarding the fate of Jews in Hitler's Europe. Ignoring them leads to sloppy thinking and worse.1. Adolf Hitler was paranoid (delusional) about the Jews (though he hated and slaughtered ...
Feminism Under Fire.
Dec 22, 1996; ... All who are involved with feminism, either in the academy and Women s Studies departments as teachers or administrators or in the community at large as politicians and scientists, will find Feminism Under Fire of interest, if only as a testament to the scope of current feminist concerns ....
Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example.
Dec 22, 1996; ... Outing historical individuals as homosexual or lesbian is a rather risky task, even more so if a strongly organized religion is involved. D. Michael Quinn, a former history professor at Brigham Young University and now an excommunicated member of the Mormon church, has found this out by ...
The End of Science.
Dec 22, 1996; ... Over the millennia countless hours of human time have been spent wondering what stars are. Then something weird happened. Science found out. Now we know what stars are made of, how big they are, how old they are, how far away they are, how they shine, where they came from, how they die, how ...
Freethought Across the Centuries: Toward a New Age of Enlightenment.
Dec 22, 1996; ... Those who would like to pronounce funeral rites over the Enlightenment that emerged in Europe and America in the days of Ben Franklin, David Hume, J. S. Bach, and English scientist John Dalton would do well to read Freethought Across the Centuries. Freethought came into being only because a ...
The First Man.
Dec 22, 1996; ... . . . . Struggling against the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyond, and to discover, discover before dying, discover at last, in order "to be," just once "to be," not for a single second, but forever.The literary world is ...
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals.
Dec 22, 1996; ... This is an important book for secular humanists. The most telling objection to a secular view of reality and the absence of gods is this argument: why would any person behave ethically without some divine power to direct and enforce such action? In the view of religion, morality comes from ...