Malcolm X was saved from a life of crime by Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam (NOI). However, after Malcolm left the NOI, he said that he felt a sense of intellectual freedom. He no longer felt compelled to say "the Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us..." before every utterance. He no longer thought inside a box. He said that he felt free to think for himself.
Certainly, Black skeptics are to be found among members of such groups as the Black Skeptics. However, when many people think of skeptics, they think of individuals such as Michael Shermer, organizations such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP), and publications such as the Skeptical Inquirer.
Dear Doc,
I've been thinking about getting therapy again. It's worked for me before; indeed, I think it's done me more good than medication. I think I had CBT with a touch of Zen. My therapist stressed mindfulness and she was willing to work with me where I was at. She was Jewish (a convert to Judaism) who seemed to have a little bit of Zen going in her practice and I was a Secular Humanist. She got me which was something I really liked. When I get therapy again, I really hope I get her again and maybe we could go through Zen this time, a little more actively.
I've also thought about getting into DBT and wondered if you knew anything about that particular form of therapy. I mostly want to use it for weight loss; my boss is all about this therapy. She's read up on it and I believe she's had some training in it. She said it's helped her; I'm just looking for a variety of opinions on this subject from therapists and counselors.
Thank you,
Mindful and Wondering
The Institute for Science and Human Values has signed on to two amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs filed by the National Women’s Law Center in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: Virginia vs. Sebelius and Florida vs. US Department of Health and Human Services. Both briefs address the Affordable Care Act as curing a “moral and social wrong”, namely the disadvantages and discrimination women have faced in obtaining health care and health insurance. The Act does this by eliminating insurance companies’ ability to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions such as pregnancy, a previous Caesarian section, or a history of having survived domestic abuse, and by requiring individuals to be insured, thus making health insurance available to all who seek it.
What I think is rather unique about humanism today as a first principle is that “we are citoyen du monde;” that is, citizens of the world community, members of the human species over beyond our gender, national, racial, or religious affiliations, which all to often have separated human beings in the past.
The Rationalist Press Association was founded in 1899, the same year that Robert Ingersoll, the America's leading agnostic of the nineteenth century, died. Both shared the same commitment to rationalism. This rationalism spoke to the interests and needs of the nineteenth century, and it may seem a bit quaint today. The publishing program of the Rationalist Association made a major contribution in its day, and we look back to this with gratitude.
