The Cowboy, the Lesbian, and the Humanist

by Andy Norman A cowboy walks into a saloon. He removes his dusty hat, orders a whiskey, and sinks wearily onto a stool. He downs the whiskey, looks around, and notices that an attractive woman has joined him at the bar. She looks him over and asks, “Are you a real cowboy?”  The cowboy pauses …

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Reflections on the skeptic and atheist movements

by Massimo Pigliucci Groucho Marx, one of my favorite comedians of all time, famously wrote a telegram to a Hollywood club he had joined, that said: “Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” [1] I have recently considered sending such a letter to …

Virtue Ethics: an ancient solution to a modern problem

by Peter D.O. Smith Introduction This article is neither a defense of nor an attack against either religion or secularism. It treats them as well established sociological facts and no more than that. I take them as given and argue that a greater moral good can be achieved if the two belief systems find common …

Why you shouldn’t make naturalism a tenet of secular humanism

by Stephen Law Introduction I recently wrote a blog post titled “Secular Humanism: DON’T define it as requiring naturalism” [1] in which I suggest that it is a strategic mistake for secular humanists (such as myself) to make naturalism a tenet of secular humanism, so that signing up to naturalism is a requirement, rather than …

Stephen Law on humanism and naturalism

by Massimo Pigliucci This is going to be one of my “a colleague said this, I disagree, and I’m going to invite him to respond” sort of essays. This time the focus is on a recent short piece by Stephen Law, entitled “Secular Humanism: DON’T define it as requiring naturalism” [1], in which Stephen — …