About Humanist Perspectives
Humanist Perspectives is the only English language Humanist Magazine published in Canada and is operated as a not-for-profit charity. Your donations will help our dedicated team of writers, editors and service providers to continue publishing this rational perspective on both topical and timeless issues. Tax receipts are provided.
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CONTENT FOR ISSUE
In the News... What's the Big Secret? / Madeline Weld
On July 5, 2019, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, her husband Dr. Keding Cheng, and Qiu’s international Chinese students were escorted from the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Lab (NML), Canada’s only Level 4 biosafety lab, and stripped of their security clearance.
EDITORIAL: Contrition & Cancel Culture / Madeline Weld
Late in May, an estimated 215 unmarked graves were reported to have been found through ground-penetrating radar on the premises of a former residential school in Kamloops, BC.
The Origins of Timekeeping / Webmaster
Our pre-historic ancestors needed a way to predict the arrival of recurring natural phenomena. Hunters and gatherers needed to track the behaviour of animals that could be hunted, such as the timing of the annual migration of caribou and the emergence of bears from hibernation…
Diversity: Our Greatest Conundrum / Dale Branscombe
Is the promotion of diversity really Canada’s greatest strength, as our prime minister doesn’t tire of telling us? Or should we strive to create a society in which the rights of all citizens as individuals are recognized and we don’t strive to promote with government money all the cultural traditions...
The Paper Pogrom: Henry Ford, the Dearborn Independent and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion / Marc Luc Carrier
“Henry Ford: an iconic self-made man, a self-taught mechanical genius, a man of vision, a fearless innovator. And a virulent anti-Semite.” The man whose use of the assembly line made the car affordable for the average American, endorsed equal pay for equal work for women, and promoted many blacks to...
To Kill a Mockingbird of Merit / Sophie Dulesh
“Meritocracy has flourished in the West since the advent of capitalism and particularly since the 1960s in the form of ‘equality of opportunity and before the law’… Recent books, such as those mentioned above, voice concerns about the ethical failures and corrosive individualism of meritocracy…. But certainly, the abolition of...
Christianity 101: A reconstructed dialogue between two post-doctoral students of different backgrounds / Goldwin Emerson
A medical student named Li Min arrives from a foreign country to attend a university in Canada. She hopes to complete her studies in medicine and return to her own country as a doctor. On the first day of classes, she meets a friendly Canadian student, Kristen, who offers to...
From Where Do Ethics Originate? / Goldwin Emerson
“Within most religious beliefs, it is held that ethical principles originate from God. Religion usually affirms that God has planned and created the universe… Many secular philosophers think that ethical values originate in the minds and everyday social and cultural experiences of people who think about ethics.” Goldwin Emerson discusses...
Addressing the Homeless Phenomenon / Barry Mayhew
The problem of homelessness is not something that has only recently come to light. It has, in fact, been with us for decades but only been brought to the forefront of our social conscience within the past few years. While I don't consider myself a socialist, I do believe it...
The Collapse of Two Movements / Lorna Salzman
As Germany’s Green Party ascends in popularity and electoral support, American environmentalism slips deeper into eclipse than ever before… It was a similar situation with American socialists and their toothless appendage, the Democratic Socialists of America… These two movements share some critiques of industrial capitalism but have wildly different visions for human...
Book Review: Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can't Deliver (Smith) / George Williamson
There is much to praise in Christian Smith's Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can't Deliver. The prose is fresh and clear, and the ideas are painstakingly presented with considerable academic precision, yet with little of the endemic turgidity…
Book Review: Blip: Humanity’s 300 Year Self-Terminating Experiment With Industrialism (Clugston) / Frosty Wooldridge
America supports 330 million people who eat food, drive cars, consume everything in sight, and utilize over 80 different minerals and metals that make our civilization work. Those non-renewable natural resources (NNRs) allow us our extraordinarily mechanized, chemicalized and advanced society—as well as our extraordinary standard of living…
This Planet Ain’t Big Enough for All of Us / John K. Nixon
Two hundred years ago this small planet was inhabited by one billion humans. Now Earth has 7.8 billion and possibly 10 billion by 2060. Some argue that population growth will soon slow when rural people move to cities, but given the rapid population increases in cities in Africa, Central and...
Left Populism: A review of an organized mobbing / Llloyd Hawkeye Robertson
I stopped watching Don Cherry’s “Coaches’ Corner” more than two decades ago. If I was watching a hockey game and his program came on, I would turn the television off. Mute was not good enough. I did not even want to see his image on my screen.
Why Western Elites Can’t Keep Ignoring Africa’s Overpopulation Problem / Bradley Betters
In America today, talking about the problems of overpopulation is pretty much like placing oneself in the middle of two armies fighting. From the Left, you’re attacked as a Malthusian or, of course, a fascist. From the establishment Right, you’re accused of supporting Chinese totalitarianism or...
BC Humanist Association / Webmaster
The British Columbia Humanist Association has been providing a community and voice for Humanists, atheists, agnostics, and the non-religious of Metro Vancouver and British Columbia since 1982. We support the growth of Humanist communities across BC, provide Humanist ceremonies, and campaign for progressive and secular values.
Humanists, Atheists, & Agnostics of Manitoba / Webmaster
Today’s HAAM (Humanists, Atheists, & Agnostics of Manitoba) is just the latest of several Humanist organizations in Manitoba going back to the 1920s, with the Winnipeg Rationalist Society, and later, Marshall J. Gauvin’s Winnipeg Humanist Society. The current organization began around 1992 and was originally known as the Humanist Association...
Humanist Association of Toronto / Webmaster
Humanist Association of Ottawa / Webmaster
Mouvement laïque québécois / Webmaster
Le MLQ est un regroupement fondé en 1981, indépendant de toute affiliation à un parti, ouvert aux citoyennes et citoyens de toute croyance ou confession, qui partagent le même objectif fondamental, celui de la laïcisation complète de l’État et des institutions publiques du Québec. Ultimement, le MLQ veut contribuer à...
Original Artwork / Carol Matthews
Original Artwork by Carol Matthews. It is easy to see that American democracy often makes mistakes in the choice of men to whom it entrusts power, but it is not so easy to say why the state prospers in their hands. ~Alexis de Tocqueville, from Democracy in America
In the News... The Burden of Office / Gary Bauslaugh
The orderly functioning of society seems to require that certain powers are ceded to some individuals, on the implicit if not explicit understanding that those given such powers are meant to use them for the common good. This obligation is felt strongly by some, more mildly by others, and not...
EDITORIAL: The Abuse of Power (2) / Gary Bauslaugh
The common saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely has never struck me as quite right. Certainly we see the corrupt employment of power, perhaps never so dramatically and clearly, and drearily, than with Donald Trump, but his power did not make him what he is...
Poetry Section / Various Sources
Sea Lions During the American Election, Jay Ruzesky / Baffled in Ashdod, Blind in Gaza, Steven Heighton / Henry VIII, Timothy Brownlow / Wellness, delani valin / The River Speaks, Judy Rowe Michaels
Power, Love and Listening: an Observation of Shakespeare’s Drama / Gwyneth Evans
The urge to gain or hold onto power over other people is a prominent motive for the characters in Shakespeare’s plays, as it is in many – if not most – aspects of human life. Shakespeare’s kings, tyrants, military and ecclesiastical leaders, and also his parents, siblings, and even his...
