Toward a New Enlightenment

The Council for Secular Humanism will be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. From October 27th through the 30th, they will be hosting a conference in Amherst, New York, on the Enlightenment, secular democracy, moral education, science, and the importance of Enlightenment values.

According to the web site:

Religious fundamentalism throughout the world threatens our progress as the Cold War never did. Two competing eschatological views now face each other down, where mutual victory is ensured in the end of the world, whereas to the competing economic systems of the Cold War, mutual defeat was the inevitable result of a failure of the peace. Fundamentalism also threatens scientific and cultural progress and individual liberties as misguided religious codes battle for ideological supremacy, without regard for the truths uncovered by science or the battles for individual liberties that were fought for and won over authoritarianism and fear.

To date, the U.S. and Western Europe have been guiding lights in the march of progress and Enlightenment values, but the tide appears to be receding. While the forces of fundamentalism are girding their followers for battle against the values we have embraced, we must unite in a cause to defend those values more vehemently than ever before.

There is a long (and growing, I am told) list of speakers who will be attending. Some include: Antony Flew, Thomas Stephen Szasz, Nat Hentoff, Richard Dawkins, and Tariq Ismail. It looks like it will be really interesting and very much worth attending. I don't know yet if my schedule will allow for it, but I'm going to try...

Read More:

• Philosophy 101
• Critical Thinking
• Religion 101