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FI JJ 16.Indd TOM FLYNN: THE POPE IN THIN AIR CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY June/July 2016 Vol. 36 No.4 GUEST EDITOR: SIMON DAVIS PHIL TORRES INTERVIEWS LAWRENCE KRAUSS CAROL DELANEY PZ MYERS TANER EDIS CAITLIN DOUGHTY MADELINE WELD MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI Opinion by MATTHEW80% FACCIANI1.5 BWR PD HEINA DADABHOYJ/J 08 OPHELIA BENSON RUSSELL BLACKFORD 07 SHADIA DRURY MARK RUBINSTEIN Published by the Center for Inquiry in association with the Council for Secular Humanism 7725274 74957 Get Free Inquiry into your favorite library. All of it. nnouncing a new way to help your favorite Now we’ve combined our fi ve-year library gift public library shelve America’s foremost sec- subscription with the deepest discount we’ve ever ular humanist magazine: off ered on the full run of back issues. It’s never AFor many years, we’ve off ered a special, deep-dis- been more aff ordable to off er your favorite library count, fi ve-year gift subscription for donors who gift the complete run, 1980 to present—more than 160 a Free Inquiry subscription to a public or college issues, in all the permanence and dignity of print— library. Libraries sometimes balk at accepting gift plus guaranteed delivery of new issues for fi ve years! subscriptions out of concern about ending up with a Whether you’d like to gift a fi ve-year subscrip- short run of the title if the gift is not renewed. Being tion or the full-run plus fi ve years, now is the time able to guarantee that the magazine will keep coming to help your favorite library add Free Inquiry to for fi ve full years addresses that concern. its magazine holdings! To order, see form on page 35. Personal check/AmEx/Discover/MasterCard/Visa accepted. Get Free Inquiry into your favorite library. All of it. June/July 2016 Vol. 36 No.4 24 Why This Atheist Would Not Heina Dadabhoy CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY 27 Three Minutes before Midnight: DEATH: THOUGHTS ON THE FINAL SUBJECT An Interview with Lawrence Krauss about the Future of Humanity 14 Introduction: Phil Torres Atheism Is Scary Because It Reminds People of Death 32 How the Nonreligious Are Simon Davis Reshaping American Burial Simon Davis 16 Inevitable Death P Z Myers 34 Protecting Your Service Wishes When Your Loved Ones Are Religious The Future of Death 17 Simon Davis Caitlin Doughty 36 God the Concept 21 A Secular Stoic Perspective on Death Carol Delaney Massimo Pigliucci 39 Islam and the Eclipse of Secularism 23 Would You Pray With a Dying Believer? Taner Edis Simon Davis 42 Sadly, Malthus Was Right—Now What? 24 Why This Atheist Would Madeline Weld Matthew Facciani EDITORIAL LETTERS 56 Humanism at Large 4 Maybe It’s the Cabin Pressure 13 Tom Flynn The Rise of the Granfalloons: Overcoming the Stigma of NEWS OBITUARY Corporate Intangibility Dan Davis 6 Atheist Law Student 23 Tibor R. Machan, Killed in Bangladesh 1939–2016 REVIEWS OP-EDS DEPARTMENTS 59 Strange Gods: A Secular History 7 Revulsion and Habituation of Conversion Ophelia Benson 47 Doerr's Way by Susan Jacoby And Then There Were None(s) Reviewed by Tom Flynn 8 Suppress and Punish: The Dangerous Edd Doerr Impulse to Shut Down Speech 60 Elbow Room: The Varieties 49 God on Trial Russell Blackford of Free Will Worth Wanting ISIS, Moses, and Sex Slavery by Daniel C. Dennett Steve Sklar 9 Will the Neoconservatives Reviewed by Brooke Horvath Lose Their Grip on the GOP? Shadia B. Drury 50 Faith and Reason Angel Unaware: An Atheist’s 62 After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate 11 The Christian Moral Code, Perspective on Child Suffering by Mary Ziegler Part 2: Forgiveness Mark Cagnetta Reviewed by Tom Flynn Mark Rubinstein 54 The Faith I Left Behind Atheist in a Foxhole 64 Books in Brief LOOKING BACK (or Rather, an Unarmored Toyota) Doug Traversa 12 POEM 66 In Good We Trust by JO Frohbieter-Mueller Editor Thomas W. Flynn Managing Editor Andrea Szalanski Columnists Ophelia Benson, Russell Tom Flynn Editorial Blackford, Greta Christina, Edd Doerr, Shadia B. Drury, Nat Hentoff, Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, Mark Rubinstein Senior Editors Bill Cooke, Richard Dawkins, Edd Doerr, James A. Haught, Maybe It’s the Cabin Pressure Jim Herrick, Ronald A. Lindsay, Taslima Nasrin Contributing Editors Roy P. Fairfield, Charles Faulkner, Levi Fragell, Adolf Grünbaum, Marvin Kohl, Lee Nisbet ave you noticed? Riding on air- to use condoms. Perhaps David Willey planes makes Pope Francis say the OBE, the BBC’s longtime Vatican corre- Assistant Editors Julia Lavarnway darnedest things. Nicole Scott H spondent, summed it up best: “Despite On a July 2013 flight to Rome from the headlines, despite the almost uni- Literary Editor Cheryl Quimba Rio de Janeiro, Francis joined reporters versal perception that Pope Francis has Permissions Editor Julia Lavarnway for an impromptu eighty-minute Q&A. brought a whiff of fresh air through Art Director Christopher S. Fix Responding to a question about gay the corridors of the Vatican, I detect no Production Paul E. Loynes Sr. priests, he said: “If someone is gay and undue haste to undo the teachings of he searches for the Lord and has good- his predecessors.” Center for Inquiry Inc. will, who am I to judge?” World media If we look closely at what the pontiff Chair Edward Tabash went wild, hailing what they portrayed actually said in flight this February—as Board of Directors Brian Engler as a softening of church doctrine by opposed to what some news commen- Kendrick Frazier Barry A. Kosmin Recent History’s Most Lovable Pope. tators thought he said—it’s clear why Y. Sherry Sheng Fast-forward to February 17, 2016. no one should have expected the “lesser Leonard Tramiel Aboard a flight to Rome from Ciudad evil” remark to usher in real change. A Honorary: Rebecca Newberger Juarez, Mexico, the pontiff suggested reporter asked Francis whether in a case Goldstein that for Latin American women urged to such as the Zika outbreak, with its high Susan Jacoby delay pregnancy for fear of birth defects risk of birth defects, the resort to abor- Lawrence Krauss linked to the Zika virus, abortion is not tion or contraception might be consid- Chief Executive Officer Robyn E. Blumner an option—“it’s an absolute evil”—but ered a lesser evil. President Ronald A. Lindsay the use of contraception might be con- “Abortion is not a lesser evil—it’s a Director, Campus and sidered a “lesser evil.” Again the media crime,” Francis replied. “It’s an absolute Community Programs Debbie Goddard went wild. evil.” Then his tone softened. “Don’t Director, African Americans for Humanism Debbie Goddard Before we secular humanists get confuse avoiding pregnancy with abor- Director of swept away in ecumenical euphoria, it’s tion.” In extreme cases, he suggested, Development Martina Fern important to remember what resulted artificial birth control might be consid- Director of Libraries Timothy Binga from each of these boundary-shattering ered a “lesser evil.” Francis cited Cardinal Communications Director Paul Fidalgo statements: nothing. Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria It’s been nearly three years since Montini, who in the early 1960s con- Database Manager Jacalyn Mohr Francis’s remark regarding gay priests. In doned a theological paper suggesting Webmaster Matthew Licata that time, what has happened to soften that nuns in the then–Belgian Congo Staff Pat Beauchamp, the official Vatican line on gay priests might be permitted to use oral birth Melissa Braun, Shirley Brown, Lauren Foster, or regarding homosexuality in general? control because militants there were Roe Giambrone, Cody There’s been no follow-through, no tem- using rape as a weapon of war. (In 1963, Hashman, Nora Hurley, pering of church doctrine. In retrospect, Marc Kriedler, Stef Cardinal Montini became Pope Paul VI.) McGraw, Paul Paulin, “Who am I to judge?” was an empty Unlike abortion, Francis concluded, Anthony Santa Lucia, question. “avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute Diane Tobin, Vance Vigrass It’s already clear that Francis’s “lesser evil” in cases of extraordinary hazard. Council for Secular Humanism evil” remark is more of the same. It her- Note what was not said. Francis never alded no Vatican pronouncement autho- Executive Director Thomas W. Flynn said that pregnant women in countries rizing couples in Zika-infested countries where Zika is rife are facing an extraor- 4 FREE INQUIRY JUNE/JULY 2016 secularhumanism.org dinary hazard equivalent to the one harsh misogynistic doctrines on abor- that confronted nuns in the Congo fif- tion and contraception. A statement by FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published bimonthly by the Center for Inquiry in association with the Council for Secular Humanism, P.O. Box ty-odd years ago. And he never, ever the National Catholic Bioethics Center— 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Phone (716) 636-7571. Fax (716) 636- endorsed the conclusion to which any yes, issued after the pope’s statement— 1733. Copyright ©2016 by the Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism. All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be secular humanist would leap, namely, titled “Zika Does Not Justify Abortion reproduced without permission of the publisher. Periodicals postage paid that contraception is a lesser evil than at Buffalo, N.Y., and at additional mailing offices. National distribution by Disticor. FREE INQUIRY is indexed in Philosophers’ Index. Printed in giving birth to a baby with microcephaly. the United States. Postmaster: Send address changes to FREE INQUIRY, No, what Francis said was that in certain P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher.
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