The Human Prospect is a peer-reviewed, indexed journal focused on the development and refinement of humanist values and ethics, as well as ways the humanist movement can foster them throughout society. It also covers new scientific evidence, theories, and conclusions, as well as their impact upon and relationship to society, values, and ethics.
An oldie-but-goodie from self-proclaimed skeptic and agnostic James A. Haught, who’s written several books on atrocities and injustices wreaked in the name of religion. The subject of taboos wouldn’t be complete without this quintessential jeremiad originally published in the Winter 1996/97 issue of Free Inquiry (a journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary founded in 1980 by Paul Kurtz).
Whatever else they may be, truth and reality are stories we tell ourselves. Our senses diminish the universe but it is still overwhelming. Luckily, we have built-in cognitive biases that shape reality into coherent narratives that provide meaning. Unluckily, they also impede objectivity. Confirmation bias, for example, filters our senses by saving bits of information that support a trusted proposition and ignoring bits that don’t. Evidence supporting our beliefs piles up in our minds and opposing points of view come to seem malicious or moronic or, if we’re feeling generous, mistaken.
