Council for Secular Humanism

The Council for Secular Humanism (originally the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism, or CODESH) is a secular humanist organization headquartered in Amherst, New York. In 1980 CODESH issued A Secular Humanist Declaration, an argument for and statement of belief in Democratic Secular Humanism. The Council for Secular Humanism does not call itself religious and has never claimed tax-exemption as a religious organization; instead it has an educational exemption. The official symbol for the Council for Secular Humanism is a version of the Happy Human.

Activities

The council acts as an umbrella organization for a number of other groups, such as the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, Secular Organizations for Sobriety, African Americans for Humanism, and provides support for Center for Inquiry - On Campus. It also publishes several magazines and newsletters, including Free Inquiry. The council was founded by Dr. Paul Kurtz, who also founded CSICOP (now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and the Center for Inquiry.

The council is a member organisation of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and endorses both the IHEU minimum statement of Humanism (ref bylaw 5.1 [1]) and the Amsterdam Declaration 2002).

The Council for Secular Humanism with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health are all headquartered at the Center for Inquiry, adjacent to the State University of New York.

The council made news in 2006 when Borders Group refused to carry the April-May issue of Free Inquiry in their Borders and Waldenbooks stores because of the magazine's publication of 4 cartoons that originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and sparked violent worldwide Muslim protests. (The reason given by Borders for their decision was not sensitivity to religion but fear of illegal violence.) The Free Inquiry affair was reminiscent of a 1989 withdrawal of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses by Waldenbooks and B. Dalton in the aftermath of a death sentence issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against the British author.

Programs

The Council for Secular Humanism runs the following programs:^[1]

• The International Academy of Humanism was established to recognize great humanists and disseminate humanist thinking. According to its declared mission, members of the academy are devoted to free inquiry, are committed to a scientific outlook, and uphold humanist ethical values.^[2]
• The Society of Humanist Philosophers is a philosophical society that publishes Philo, a journal focused on defending Naturalism, especially in regards to ethics.^[3]
• African Americans for Humanism is engaged in developing humanism in the African American community.^[4]
• The Robert Green Ingersoll Memorial Committee is dedicated to preserving the memory of great 19th century agnostic philosopher Robert Green Ingersoll.^[5]

Notes and references

External links

• Council for Secular Humanism
• Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion