The follow editorial is from the February-March 2006 issue of Free Inquiry
There is an ongoing debate among secular humanists as to what our priorities should be, and in particular, what should be the primary focus of Free Inquiry. Two subjects have been among the most hotly debated. First is the burning desire of many secular humanists that we engage in political activism. Many secularists, naturalists, and humanists believe that the United States faces so many critical problems that we need to focus far more intensely on the political battles of today, especially the culture wars with the Religious Right. Many insist that we come out strongly against the Bush administration on certain issues, the war in Iraq, recent appointments to the Supreme Court, and other hot-button issues of the day. Some also wish us to enter into the fray between libertarian advocates of the free market and social democrats who worry about the loss of American jobs and wish to restore principles of equity and fairness.
In answer to the political activists, we have indeed dealt with all of these issues but as ethical, not simply political, concerns. I have argued in these pages that we are not a political movement, for we recognize that secular humanists may differ about concrete political and economic issues. Our 501(c)(3) nonprofit exemption precludes us from endorsing candidates or parties. However, we have and will continue to deal with political issues, but only when the basic principles and ethical values of secular humanism are directly threatened, as they so often are.
Second, many desire Free Inquiry to focus primarily on the critique of religion, to deal with questions such as the existence of God and the human soul, and to defend atheism outright. Some of our critics constantly bash Free Inquiry for that. I have been identified as an "atheist poobah," whatever that means! Although I am nonreligious and skeptical of theistic religious claims, I surely do not wish to be known primarily as an atheist, for our secular humanist agenda is broader than that. I have often said that, although I do not believe in God because I think there is insufficient evidence for the claim, I surely do not define myself by what I am against, but rather by my positive stance. It's what I believe in deeply-what I am for-that matters more: we are naturalists, not supernaturalists; secularists, not theocrats; but beyond that, we wish to focus on free inquiry and humanistic ethics, and we have some confidence in a progressive future for humankind.
As the editor in chief of Free Inquiry for twenty-five years, I surely recognize the importance of the above two issues-political controversies as they emerge on the national and international scene and the need for basic criticisms of theological claims-and this magazine will continue to deal with these questions. But there is another approach in the culture war, which has become increasingly vital today and has emerged in the pages of this magazine. Thus, I submit that we need to focus on the positive and affirmative aspects of the naturalistic, secular, and humanistic outlook, not its negative critiques.
For many of us, it is important today that we define and defend constructive alternatives to the reigning religious moralities. Thus, we have argued:
Clearly, if God is dead for post-postmodern society, humans are alive-and have the responsibility to create a better world for themselves and their fellow human beings. It is not the death of God but the rebirth of human confidence in the courage to achieve that we especially need to herald.
This is in accord with the purposes of the Center for Inquiry (the broader organization with which the Council for Secular Humanism, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, and other organizations are affiliated). The Center is first and foremost a think tank; and Free Inquiry wishes to bring to its pages the leading secular thinkers of our time. We are concerned with educating the public about the ideals of naturalistic and humanistic eupraxsophy. That is why we call for a New Enlightenment, for we believe there is a need for a fundamental reformation of society-indeed, a new cultural renaissance. These goals are far more profound than simply focusing on the political vicissitudes of the day. Focusing on the need for free inquiry in all areas of human endeavor-including religion-seems to us to be a first step in this direction. And this is a goal that has inspired the growth of our Centers and Communities worldwide.
The Best Antidote for Religious Fanaticism
We are confronted today by the continued challenge of religious fundamentalism. The explosive growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the last half of the twentieth century has ignited conflagrations worldwide, as have the fearful responses to it. First and foremost among our concerns, of course, is the brutal war of attrition in Iraq and the continuing toll it exacts both on American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. American forces have suffered some 2,100 dead, 15,500 wounded (many seriously), and tens of thousands more who suffer possible long-range psychological impairment-this according to Representative John Murtha (D-Pa.), who recommends the immediate withdrawal and redeployment of American forces in the Middle East. Recently, all three factions in Iraq-the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds-have asked U.S. military forces to leave. The mounting death toll among innocent Iraqi civilians is rarely discussed in the United States. although President George W. Bush recently admitted to an estimate of thirty thousand casualties, we think that the number is probably higher.
Many people hope that the new Iraqi constitution will enable democratic institutions to develop, permit Iraqi forces to police their own nation, and allow American troops to come home. Unfortunately, insurgent attacks, far from abating, have increased, and suicide bombers continue to proliferate. We hope that democracy can be realized in the Middle East one day-and we hope that this is not simply a pious hope.
We at this magazine have opposed the Iraqi war because we thought that it would only exacerbate the conflicts between Islam and the rest of the world. We thought it would likely inflame hatred against the United States and recruit new terrorists-which it has tragically done. It surely has intensified hatred between Sunnis and Shiites and expanded their fratricidal warfare against one another.
Outside of Iraq, too, the conflict goes on as terrorist bombings continue worldwide-in Madrid and London, Tel Aviv and Indonesia, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Added to this unrest are the recent student riots and car burnings in France by disillusioned young Muslims. The growing Islamic minorities in Europe have aroused xenophobic fears among extreme nationalists such as France's Jean-Marie Le Pen. Liberal majorities in Western Europe are coming to question their earlier multicultural assumption that all cultures are equal in value-the code of Sharia, which assigns women a lesser station in society, is surely not morally equivalent to the ethics of contemporary democracy, which defends all human rights, including those of women.
I submit that one reason for this mistaken multiculturalist view is the belief that Islam is a "peaceful religion" or that the followers of Egyptian philosopher Sayyid Qutb and Osama bin Laden are simply misguided radicals who misconstrue the "real" meaning of Islam. Most Muslims take their religion as nominal and perhaps have not understood the implications of violence in the Qur'an and Hadith. On the contrary, there is considerable contextual support for violence and mayhem within these "sacred texts"; through history, this has frequently motivated passionate hatred against those who resist Islam. This is quite similar to the literal reading of the ancient Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that was used centuries ago to justify the Inquisition and the Crusades. We reiterate what we have said countless times in these pages: there needs to be public discussion of the convictions of fundamentalist religions, including Islam, which teach that they alone possess the absolute truth and the only guaranteed road to salvation and that they can impose their will on all others by violence and slaughter.
What Islam urgently needs today is a critical reading of the Qur'an and Hadith, both by independent scholars and by educated Muslims. Careful scientific examination carried out under the impetus of Ibn Warraq of the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society (ISIS) at the Center for Inquiry indicates that, contrary to the Muslim conviction that the Qur'an is the most unitary and consistent of all scriptures, there are many versions of the Qur'an, not just one. Scientific, scholarly, and historical investigations of how the Qur'an was compiled may weaken Muslim convictions as to its inerrancy; perhaps this will lead to a rise in metaphorical (not literal) interpretations of those scriptures. Current research into the origins of the Qur'an indicate that what is taken as the revealed word of Allah was influenced by writings from traditions other than those extant in Arab cultures, including extensive borrowings from Christian, Judaic, and Syriac sources.
The Protestant Reformation was able to tame the medieval churches of the West. The Renaissance in the West, as well as the development of biblical criticism and science, further weakened authoritarian forms of Christianity and Judaism. It is clear that there needs to be an Islamic Renaissance and Reformation, a flowering of Qur'anic criticism, and broad growth in appreciation for science. Only these can help to moderate the Qur'an and weaken its use by fundamentalists as a club to bludgeon dissent.
A similar fundamentalist mindset, of course, obtains among Christian believers in the Rapture in the United States today, who insist that the Bible is inerrant. We are faced in the United States with fundamentalist extremists who are convinced that only a relatively small number of devout Christian believers will go to heaven while all the rest of humankind will be condemned to hellfire. This is similar to the view held by devout disciples of jihad, who abandon any empathy for those they might kill and, in their view, will be cast into hell.
Terrorism of course needs to be rooted out and resisted wherever it appears. But long-range, an important antidote for all such nonsense is the pen, not the sword; the power of ideas, not blind faith; the willingness to engage in free inquiry, not the effort to suppress it by a fatwa or censorship. Most of all, sacred texts should not be held immune to intelligent examination.
Paul Kurtz is the editor in chief of Free Inquiry, a professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the chair of the Center for Inquiry.
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
Renew your FREE INQUIRY subscription