Inquiring Minds That Don't Want to Know

The Center for Inquiry Quashes All Religions but Its Own

Background:

In 1976, atheist author and publisher Paul Kurtz founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, later renamed the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). Four years later, he founded the Council for Secular Humanism, and in 1991, the two merged into the Center for Inquiry (CFI). In 2016, it merged with the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, making CFI the largest expressly secular organization in the U.S.

CFI states its mission as "defending science and critical thinking in examining religion." It envisions "a world in which evidence, science, and compassion—rather than superstition, pseudoscience, or prejudice—guide public policy." It publishes Skeptical Inquirer magazine, which focuses on science, and Free Inquiry, which focuses on humanism, and it produces the weekly radio show and podcast, Point of Inquiry.

Reason for Surveillance:

CFI identifies itself as "an authoritative and credible voice that defends the scientific outlook in examining religion, humanistic values, and the borderlands of science." It further elucidates its values with four definitions:

Atheism is "the lack of belief in a god or gods. Atheism indicates what someone does not believe. It says nothing about what someone does believe." 

Secularism "applies to people who live without religion."

Secular Humanism is "a nonreligious worldview rooted in science, philosophical naturalism (rather than supernaturalism), and humanist ethics." 

Skepticism is "a way of thinking that allows us to welcome new ideas and yet cautions us to analyze them critically. It's an attitude that allows us to navigate, to the best of our abilities, the murky divide between sense and nonsense, science and pseudoscience."

So, in keeping with skepticism as a way of thinking that cautions us to analyze things critically, let's examine what CFI has told us about itself. First, science is an "outlook" "rooted" in "philosophical naturalism." This outlook, in turn, is based on a "lack of belief . . . what [its adherents do] not believe" At the same time, CFI envisions a world in which "evidence" guides public policy.

So where, a critical inquirer might ask, is the evidence for an outlook of philosophical naturalism? CFI offers none. Indeed, none can be offered because naturalism is a bare postulate accepted by dint of "lack of belief in a god or gods."

On occasion, CFI gets something right. For example, it has spoken against religious persecution in Islamic-dominated countries and argued for grammatical sanity instead of pronoun follies. But by and large, CFI is an outlet for censuring all outlooks not reducible to philosophical naturalism and pushing instead rigid, hard-left policies at the state and national level, often in terms of gross sensationalism. According to official CFI publications, for example, the world is on the brink of "ecological catastrophe," and the religious right is a "death cult."

Most Recent Campaign:

CFI recently launched its #Science­Saves campaign to "stand for public policy based on science" because "science gets too little credit for its massive contributions to human wellbeing." It's as if "Science" is some kind of underacknowledged deity. Notice, furthermore, what this deity does. It "saves." Setting aside for the moment that science also gave us the hydrogen bomb and the gas chamber, what CFI is propagating amounts to a pseudo Evangelion—an alternative, altogether secular gospel.

CFI fancies itself a voice for navigating the murky divide between sense and nonsense, science and pseudoscience. What it's actually doing is fusing its own nonsensical pseudo-religion with politics. And passing the whole thing off, sans evidence, under the guise of science.