Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz (born
February 12,
1926 in
Newark, New Jersey) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the
State University of New York at Buffalo, founder and chairman of the
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (
CSICOP), the
Council for Secular Humanism, the Center for Inquiry and Prometheus Books, and editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, the official organ of the
Council for Secular Humanism. He is a former Co-President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). BA,
New York University; MA and PhD,
Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Humanist Laureate and President of the International Academy of Humanism. A former member of the
American Humanist Association, he contributed to the writing of Humanist Manifesto II. There is an asteroid named in his honor called
(6629) Kurtz.
Kurtz was left-wing in his youth. But
his experience in the US Army in WWII taught him the dangers
of ideology. He saw the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps
after they were liberated, he became disillusioned
with Communism when he encountered Russian slave laborers
who had been taken to Germany by force and refused to
return to the Soviet Union at the end of the war.
Paul Kurtz has published over 650 articles or reviews and authored or edited over 40 books.
Books
- The Courage to Become Praeger/Greenwood, 1997 ISBN 0275960161
- Living Without Religion: Eupraxophy ISBN 0879759291
- In Defense of Secular Humanism ISBN 0879752289
- Challenges to the Enlightenment: In Defense of Reason and Science by Paul Kurtz, et al, 1994 ISBN 0879758694
External links