Humanist Perspectives: issue 205, Summer 2018
Issue 205, Summer 2018
Humanist Perspectives is a refreshing, rational analysis of modern events and culture and is available at select magazine stores or by online subscription.
Inside Front Cover
- Two Perspectives on MAID – Choose One
- Catholic doctrine vs. human compassion in the debate over medically-assisted death.
Editorial
- On Scorpions and Great Commissions
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Guest Editor Gary Bauslaugh reflects upon his earlier time, in the mid 2000’s, as Editor of HP. He continues to see the role of humanists as seeking “reason, justice and tolerance in the conduct of human affairs.”
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Features
- Belief in the Face of Contrary Evidence
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Psychologist James Alcock presents an excerpt from his recent book “Belief: what it means to believe and why our convictions are so compelling.”
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- Influences on Darwin, Part 1
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We can begin with the influence that the most important woman in Darwin’s life, Emma, had on him. Emma Wedgwood was born in 1808, in the Wedgwood family home, Maer Hall, in rural Staffordshire...
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- Belief and Reason in our Courts
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Gary Bauslaugh writes about the recent trial of Gerald Stanley, who shot and killed young First Nations man Colin Bouchie. The trial raised a number of troubling questions about certain beliefs that affect our justice system.
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- Free to Offend?
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Philosopher Trudy Govier explores reason and belief in regard to free speech, in a three-part dialogue. Does free speech mean the right to offend? How do we define offensiveness?
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- Lucretius and the Nature of Things
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Ian Johnson writes about Lucretius’ great humanist treatise “On the Nature of Things.” The lengthy Latin poem was rediscovered 600 years ago and still stands as “one of the most remarkable, influential and enduring visions of what it means to be a classical humanist.”
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- Nearly the Last Word: Reason and Beliefs about the Silver Tsunami
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Carol Matthews wonders about our beliefs concerning aging. Have we become “self-indulgent pleasure seekers?” Or are we victims of aging? Or should we just think of ourselves as humans?
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- Review of Pankaj Mishra’s “Age of Anger - A History of the Present”
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Pankaj Mishra claims that his book “aims to reveal some historically recurrent phenomena across the world, and their common underlying source in one of the most extraordinary events of human history: the advent of a commercial-industrial civilization in the West and then its replication elsewhere...
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- In addition, Humanist Perspectives offers a lively Letters-to-the-Editor section as well as Book Reviews, books available for review and snippets of international news of interest to humanists.