The ISHV Cyber Think Tank is a digest of articles, interviews, and other musings compiled by ISHV Board Member Robert B. Tapp. Isaac Asimov: How to Never Run Out of Ideas Again, Gleb Tsipursky: Collaborative Truth-Seeking, and many others.

The ISHV Cyber Think Tank is a digest of articles, interviews, and other musings compiled by ISHV Board Member Robert B. Tapp. Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation, by Leigh Eric Schmidt.

“. . . a cultural landscape in which “the struggle over God, revelation, and religious affiliation unfolded at the grassroots, rather than in universities or literary bohemias.” Perry: “Self-censorship in the face of overwhelming cultural pressure is as much a part of the American atheist experience as irreverent provocation….Compared with the violence wrought along lines of race, gender, and class, the challenges faced by atheists can seem minor, or quaint, or even funny. And the University of Miami will soon run a search for an endowed chair in “the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics.” It took the donor more than 15 years and $2.2 million to get the university to agree to use the word “atheism” in the title, but the term might soon be an everyday presence.” 

And other links to articles and videos and audio.

The ISHV Cyber Think Tank is a digest of articles, interviews, and other musings compiled by ISHV Board Member Robert B. Tapp. Articles including: James A. Haught’s The Long, Slow Death of Religion, and many others.

“All those factors undoubtedly play a role. But I want to offer a simpler explanation: In the scientific 21st century, it’s less plausible to believe in invisible gods, devils, heavens, hells, angels, demons — plus virgin births, resurrections, miracles, messiahs, prophecies, faith-healings, visions, incarnations, divine visitations and other supernatural claims. Magical thinking is suspect, ludicrous. It’s not for intelligent, educated people.”

John Brockman’s new book, Universe, should be must reading for humanists, along with his unique set of programs. “Edge at its core, consists of the scientists, artists, philosophers, technologists, and entrepreneurs at the center of today’s intellectual, technological, and scientific landscape. Through its lectures, master classes, and annual dinners in California, London, Paris, and New York, Edge  gathers together the “third-culture” scientific intellectuals and technology pioneers exploring the themes of the post-industrial age. These are the people who are rewriting our global culture.

Alex Beam’s new book on Mormon beginnings reviewed by Benjamin Mosier. “After all, it may be easy to make fun of Mormon theology, but it is surely no more absurd to believe that the resurrected Christ visited America in A.D. 34 than it is to believe that Moses parted the Red Sea, or that Muhammad ascended to heaven on a winged horse, or that Jesus was born of a virgin. To see Mormonism in this broader context is to be constantly confronted with questions of belief, of how much nonsense humans will suffer for the sake of making sense of their lives.”

Roy Speckhardt urges humanists not to fight over labels. “any search for purity of name for members of the nonreligious movement is a losing battle that could unnecessarily constrain the movement in the long term and prevent people who don’t believe in a god, even if they still ascribe to religious traditions, from joining.”

Noam Chomsky’s unique role as a public intellectual is well-.summarized by Henry Giroux. Chomsky has “addressed how the new reign of neoliberal capital is normalized not only through military and economic relations but also through the production of new forms of subjectivity organized around the enslavement of debt, the security-surveillance state, the corporatization of higher education, the rise of finance capital, and the powerful corporate-controlled cultural apparatuses that give new power and force to the simultaneously educative and repressive nature of politics.”

Philip Kitcher interviewed by Gary Gutting on his new book “Life After Faith: the Case for Secular Humanism. Kitcher described himself as a humanist first and an atheist second. He finds examples of “refined religions” that focus on values rather than beliefs. “The supposed ‘transcendent’ toward which the world’s religions gesture is both a distraction and a detour.”

“In the long run, however, the church is being slowly undermined by the critical powers of inquiry it helped unleash.” But Baggini concludes: “History can enrich our understanding of the debate, but it cannot settle it.”