Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtzwas a prominent American skeptic and secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vassar, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for Social Research...
becoming call crisis cumulative last people starting
Over the last 14 months, we are starting to see a cumulative effect, what I would call a crisis in confidence. People are becoming more uncertain.
chipping cut eliminate everybody four games hard hopefully par practiced rounds short strokes three trying work year
They've been working hard on their games this year. I had them doing a lot of short-game practice. We practiced on the par 3 course, a lot of chipping and putting, really concentrating on the short game, trying to eliminate some strokes. Everybody has cut three or four strokes off their rounds this year. We'll keep doing the same things we've been doing all year and hopefully it'll work out for us.
hang match rattled team
They're the eighth-ranked team in the state. To us, it was a match where we had nothing to lose. I think we rattled their cage. I don't think we should hang our heads.
calling context defend government mistake responsibility security solve stronger terrorism
Calling for stronger security in the context of terrorism is a mistake. I think it is a mistake because the implication is that it is the government's responsibility to solve the problem. The government can?t defend all these networks.
leaving atheism deceit
The theist can only find meaning by leaving this life for a transcendental world beyond the grave. The human world as he finds it is empty of 'ultimate purpose' and hence meaningless. Theism thus is an attempt to escape from the human condition; it is a pathetic deceit.
other-worlds vision atheism
We need to be skeptical of utopianists who offer unreliable totalistic visions of other worlds and strive to take us there. We need some ideals, but we also need to protect ourselves from the miscalculations and misadventures of visionaries.
intelligent government people
We have never denied that it is possible, indeed probable, that other forms of life, even intelligent life, exist in the universe. But this is different from the belief that we are now being visited by extraterrestrial beings in spacecraft, that they are abducting people, and the there is a vast government cover-up.
religious principles silent
We cannot remain silent when someone of the Pope's stature and credibility confuses religious principles for science
religion atheism
No diety will save us; we must save ourselves.
ignorance caring keys
Three key humanist virtues are courage, cognition, and caring - not dependence, ignorance, or insensitivity to the needs of others.
religious philosophy roots
In contemporary society secular humanism has been singled out by critics and proponents alike as a position sharply distinguishable from any religious formulation. Religious fundamentalists in the United States have waged a campaign against secular humanism, claiming that it is a rival "religion" and seeking to root it out from American public life. Secular humanism is avowedly non-religious. It is a eupraxsophy (good practical wisdom), which draws its basic principles and ethical values from science, ethics, and philosophy.
blessed heart adventure
As I see it, creative achievement is the very heart of the human enterprise... The destiny of man, of all men and of each man, is that he is condemned to invent what he will be - condemned if he is fearful but blessed if he welcomes the great adventure. We are responsible in the last analysis, not simply for what we are, but for what we will become; and that is a source of either high excitement or distress.
moral-development creative excellence
Many humanists have argued that happiness involves a combination of hedonism and creative moral development; that an exuberant life fuses excellence and enjoyment, meaning and enrichment, emotion and cognition.
philosophical views afterlife
Secular humanism does not have the essential attributes of a religion: belief in a deity, the wish for some sort of afterlife, sacred dogma or texts, or an absolutist moral creed. Instead, it expresses a philosophical and ethical point of view, and it draws upon the scientific method in formulationg its naturalistic view of the nature.