Paul Kurtz: Humanist
Audio here!
It has a long history dating back to the Renaissance, picked up steam during the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, and became the umbrella philosophy for atheists, agnostics, skeptics and other freethinkers during the 20th Century. Does humanism have a voice for the 21st Century? Can we trace the evolu…tion of this rich philosophical outlook to today and shape a neo-humanistic worldview which could speak to the challenges – both intellectual and spiritual – of what could be either the most disastrous or most prosperous century for human kind? Saturday, we will be speaking to one of the founders of 20th Century humanism, and key figure in the Secular Humanist movement, Dr. Paul Kurtz.
Kurtz, who is now a spry 85 year old, is professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, founder and chairman of the Institute for Science and Human Values and founder of the Center for Inquiry Transnational and Prometheus Books. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and humanist laureate and president of the International Academy of Humanism. He is founder and chairman of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism.
Kurtz is also the author or editor of forty-eight books, including The Transcendental Temptation, The Courage to Become, Embracing the Power of Humanism, plus nine hundred articles and reviews.