ROBYN BLUMNER: IS INTOLERANCE OF INTOLERANCE INTOLERANT? CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY August/September 2016 Vol. 36 No.5 HOW A CREATIVE HUMANIST MINORITY RESHAPED AMERICA Leah Mickens FAISAL SAEED AL MUTAR A Plan to Fight Back against Radical Islam GRETA CHRISTINA and TOM FLYNN What Does Atheism Mean? 80% 1.5 BWR PD A/S 08 REMEMBERING ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 09 VALERIE TARICO JOE NICKELL Published by the Center for Inquiry in association 7725274 74957 MARK RUBINSTEIN with the Council for Secular Humanism a program of the Center for Inquiry 2 FREE INQUIRY AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016 secularhumanism.org AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2016 Volume 36 No.5 CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY HOW A CREATIVE HUMANIST MINORITY 29 Why I Am Pro-Abortion, RESHAPED THE NATION, PART 1 Not Just Pro-Choice Valerie Tarico 18 Introduction Tom Flynn 32 The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife: Fact or Fake? Creative Minority Report: 19 Joe Nickell How the Humanist Movement Changed America 36 Francis: A Pope Atheists, Leah Mickens Agnostics, and Freethinkers Can Believe In Nicholas S. Molinari EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTS 51 HUMANISM AT LARGE Pluto, Limburger Cheese, 4 Is My Intolerance of Your 38 DOERR'S WAY and God Intolerance Intolerant? Apocalypse 2016 Bert Bigelow Robyn E. Blumner Edd Doerr REVIEWS 40 GREAT MINDS OP-EDS Normalizing Blasphemy: 52 The Blackwell Companion 6 From Lahore to Brussels to Baghdad: Robert Ingersoll and Freethought’s to Naturalism A Plan to Fight Back Great Awakening edited by Kelly James Clark Faisal Saeed Al Mutar Dale DeBakcsy Reviewed by Russell Blackford 42 Some Mistakes of Moses 8 What Does Atheism Mean? 57 American Humanism: Robert Green Ingersoll Greta Christina The Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief Systems 44 FAITH AND REASON 9 What Doesn’t Atheism Mean? by Joseph O. Baker and Buster G. Smith Endless Absurdities Tom Flynn James A. Haught Secular Faith: How Culture Has 12 The Christian Moral Code, Trumped Religion in 46 THE FAITH I LEFT BEHIND Part 3: Humility American Politics Thoughts on Leaving Church Mark Rubinstein by Marc A. Smith Christy Hoffman Wiegand Reviewed by Wayne L. Trotta OBITUARY 48 LIVING WITHOUT RELIGION 61 How to Grow Old: Ancient 14 In Memoriam: Harry Kroto, What’s Wrong with Preaching Wisdom for the Second Half of Life 1939–2016 to the Choir? by Marcus Tullius Cicero Gary Whittenberger George Williamson and Richard Hull trans. Philip Freeman Reviewed by Brooke Horvath 50 THE HUMANIST SOAPBOX LOOKING BACK A Little Question for 63 BOOKS IN BRIEF Our Believer Friends 16 Malcolm Friedman POEM LETTERS 60 feeling 17 by Roger Desy of bigotry was an affront to their ROBYN E. BLUMNER sovereignty and a form of religious Editor Thomas W. Flynn EDITORIAL intolerance. Managing Editor Andrea Szalanski We were being intolerant of their intolerance. Columnists Ophelia Benson, Russell Blackford, Greta Christina, You can see how this distorted view Edd Doerr, Shadia B. Drury, can happen in a theocratic monarchy Nat Hentoff, Faisal Saeed such as Saudi Arabia’s. The Saudis Al Mutar, Mark Rubinstein Is My Intolerance have a lot riding on trying to convince Is My Intolerance Senior Editors Bill Cooke, Richard Dawkins, the West to keep quiet about the ugly Edd Doerr, James A. Haught, of Your Intolerance attitudes and backward rules that Jim Herrick, Ronald A. of Your Lindsay, Taslima Nasrin shape their country—a system built Intolerant? around religious pronouncements that Intolerance Contributing Editors Roy P. Fairfield, Charles women are less than men in law, com- Faulkner, Levi Fragell, merce, and the domestic sphere and Adolf Grünbaum, Marvin Kohl, Lee Nisbet magine the scene: a small group that anyone non-Muslim is worthy of Intolerant? of opinion writers from major persecution and, in many cases, death. Assistant Editors Julia Lavarnway newspapers in the United States You would think that the best Saudi Nicole Scott sit in a meeting room in Riyadh Arabia could hope for would be to keep Literary Editor Cheryl Quimba Iwith robed and keffiyeh-wearing of- its head down while asking the West to Permissions Editor Julia Lavarnway ficials from Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of ignore its peculiar institutions. But that’s Art Director Christopher S. Fix Education. The subject is intolerance. not Saudi Arabia’s MO. With preachy Production Paul E. Loynes Sr. As a syndicated columnist and edito- sanctimony, the Saudis proclaim that rial writer, I am among those journal- any criticism of their system violates in- ists. Our questions focus on textbooks ternational norms of human rights. Center for Inquiry Inc. used to educate millions of Saudi chil- Last year, at an international sum- Chair Edward Tabash dren in public schools. mit in France, Saudi Arabia lashed Board of Directors Brian Engler Why, we ask, are the books so full out at the media and countries that Kendrick Frazier Barry A. Kosmin of intolerance toward people of other value free speech for allowing reli- Y. Sherry Sheng faiths? They reek of degrading and gious criticism, according to the Saudi Leonard Tramiel insulting descriptions of Christians, Honorary: Gazette. “We have made it clear that Rebecca Newberger Jews, and anyone who doesn’t sub- freedom of expression without limits Goldstein scribe to the Saudis’ strict brand of or restrictions would lead to violation Susan Jacoby Islam. The textbooks condone—nay Lawrence Krauss and abuse of religious and ideological encourage—violence against people rights,” said Abdulmajeed Al-Omari, Chief Executive Officer Robyn E. Blumner of other faiths, claiming it is necessary director for external relations at the President Ronald A. Lindsay to protect the integrity of Wahhabism. Ministry of Islamic Affairs. “This re- Director, Campus and We ask: Aren’t you planting seeds of quires everyone to intensify efforts to Community Programs Debbie Goddard hate and setting up the conditions for criminalize insulting heavenly religions, Director, African Americans young people to be more easily re- prophets, holy books, religious sym- for Humanism Debbie Goddard cruited by terrorist organizations? bols, and places of worship.” Vice President for Philanthropy Martina Fern Relevant questions. The year was This from a country that doesn’t Director of Libraries Timothy Binga 2002. allow Christmas trees, teaches the Communications Director Paul Fidalgo We’d heard a lot of Orwellian Protocols of the Elders of Zion as his- thinking during that trip to the King- torical fact, and in 2005 sentenced a Database Manager Jacalyn Mohr dom of the House of Saud. Veiling schoolteacher to 750 lashes and three Webmaster Matthew Licata women is a form of freedom. Mossad and a half years in prison for praising Staff Pat Beauchamp, Melissa was behind the events of September Jews and discussing the Gospels. (The Braun, Shirley Brown, Lauren Foster, 11, 2001. Islam is a religion of peace. teacher was pardoned after protests.) Roe Giambrone, Cody But what we heard at the education In Saudi Arabia today, atheism Hashman, Nora Hurley, Marc Kriedler, Stef ministry was right up there on the is legally designated as terrorism. McGraw, Paul Paulin, delusion-meter. Earlier this year, a man who tweeted Anthony Santa Lucia, Diane Tobin, Vance Vigrass We were the intolerant ones, they on atheism was sentenced to ten said. Our impertinent questions were years in prison and two thousand Council for Secular Humanism proof. How dare we question their cul- lashes. The Center for Inquiry (CFI) Executive Director Thomas W. Flynn tural and religious traditions? Any sug- has been advocating on behalf of gestion that their textbooks smacked Saudi poet Ashraf Fayadh, who was 4 FREE INQUIRY AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016 secularhumanism.org sentenced to death in 2015 for apos- about women’s equality and homo- tasy, then resentenced on appeal ear- sexual rights except when Islamists lier this year to eight years in prison are the ones oppressing women and and eight hundred lashes. CFI sent gays—then the oppression is excused Free Inquiry (ISSN 0272-0701) is published bimonthly by the Cen- a letter to President Barack Obama out of hyper-cultural sensitivity. ter for Inquiry in association with the Council for Secular Humanism, to urge him to push for Fayadh’s re- Consider what happened last De- P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Phone (716) 636-7571. Fax (716) 636-1733. Copyright ©2016 by the Center for Inquiry and lease during his visit to Saudi Arabia cem ber to the courageous feminist the Council for Secular Humanism. All rights reserved. No part of this in April. And CFI has been drawing periodical may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. crusader and Islamic critic Maryam Periodicals postage paid at Buffalo, N.Y., and at additional mailing international attention to the case of Namazie. During Namazie’s talk on offices. National distribution by Disticor.Free Inquiry is indexed imprisoned Saudi human rights ac- in Philosophers’ Index. 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