16 April 2008

Back in New York City

I spent the last three days in D.C., during which I spoke at the Center for Inquiry as well as at the University of Delaware in nearby Newark, Delaware. Meanwhile, I tried to find out what, if anything, the U.S. Department of State plans to do about a resolution to shock the conscience adopted on March 28 by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which effectively establishes a blasphemy prohibition at the heart of the international human rights system.

Having just arrived back in New York City for a few days, I found myself watching the sun set over New York Harbor and catching up in conversation with DJ Grothe, who had just finished an interview with Chris Hedges. Apparently there were some fireworks, which I look forward to catching on Point of Inquiry. Hedges' new book is I Don't Believe in Atheists.

I just learned I'll be filling in for my boss Paul Kurtz at a lunchtime address at the New York Academy of Sciences here in Lower Manhattan tomorrow, April 17.

3 comments:

Mark said...

I'm sure you've seen the article in the New York Times about the Pope's visit

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/nationalspecial2/17pope.html?hp

Here's a line I think you'd agree with

“Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted.”
- Ratzinger (4/16/08)

Paulo said...

For many years I though religion was a private matter too. But one day a friend of mine started talking about (and defending) 'private religion', and I thought "That's silly, for someone who claims that morals come from religion; because that way moral will be a private matter, which is nonsense". And then I learned about sociobiology (not that I agree with all of it), and got thinking more seriously about the role others play in the way we are, in terms of phylogeny and ontology. And I started to see lots of things with a new look. Cheers!

Jason in York said...

i'm looking forward to the Chris Hedges interview on POI.
any word on when it will be posted online?