Austin Dacey

Last updated

Austin Warren Dacey
Born (1972-04-19) April 19, 1972 (age 52)
Era Contemporary philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Analytic philosophy
Main interests

Austin Dacey (born April 19, 1972) is an American philosopher, writer, and human rights activist [1] [2] whose work concerns secularism, religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience. He is the author of The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life, [3] The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights, [4] and a 2006 New York Times op-ed entitled "Believing in Doubt," which criticized the ethical views of Pope Benedict. [5] He is a representative to the United Nations for the International Humanist and Ethical Union [6] and the creator and director of The Impossible Music Sessions. [7]

Contents

Life and career

Dacey was raised in the rural Midwest by liberal Catholics. [8] His father Philip Dacey is a poet. [9] As a young teenager, Dacey became an evangelical Protestant, [10] playing in the Christian alternative rock band, The Swoon, which in 1990 released an EP produced by Charlie Peacock. [11] While studying music and philosophy at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, Dacey lost his religion, explaining later that "God stopped returning my calls." [12] He studied applied ethics and social philosophy at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, and was awarded a doctorate in 2002. [13] In 2005, he debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig over the existence of God. [14]

Beginning in 1999, Dacey worked for the Center for Inquiry (CFI), a think tank that seeks "to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values." [15] He opened the New York City branch office of CFI [16] and later served as the organization's representative to the United Nations. [17] In 2009, Dacey left CFI and published a critique of the secular movement. [18] In 2010, he created The Impossible Music Sessions, a forum in New York City for censored and persecuted musicians. [19] He has taught ethics at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

Secularism

Dacey has defended a form of secularism emphasizing the values of "individual autonomy, equal rights and freedom of conscience." [5] Religion News Service dubbed him a member of Atheism 3.0, [20] a designation he contests. [21] He claims that secularism is not atheistic, but instead that it comes "before God." [22] Aspects of Dacey's position have been embraced by religious thinkers such as Richard John Neuhaus, [23] Andrew Sullivan, [24] and Rabbi Marc Gellman [25] as well as secular figures such as Sam Harris, Susan Jacoby, Ibn Warraq, and Peter Singer. [26]

Theory of conscience

In The Secular Conscience, Dacey argues that contemporary secular liberalism has "lost its soul" due to misconceptions he labels the Privacy Fallacy and the Liberty Fallacy. The Privacy Fallacy lies in thinking that "because matters of conscience are private in the sense of nongovernmental, they are private in the sense of personal preference." [27] The Liberty Fallacy lies in thinking that "because conscience must be free from coercion, its moral conclusions must also be free from public criticism." [2] This confused thinking, according to Dacey, leads to "the conclusion that controversial religious and moral claims are beyond evaluation by reason, truth and objective standards of right and wrong, and should therefore be precluded from public conversation." [2]

In place of the "privacy of conscience," Dacey defends a model of the "openness of conscience," comparing conscience to a free press. It is to be protected from coercion so that it can be free to play an important role in the public sphere and free to follow its own objective standards. [28] Reasons of conscience are by their nature shareable, not subjective. [29] Dacey uses the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac to illustrate the thesis that "any act of faith depends on a prior act of conscience." [30]

Politics of conscience

By precluding conscience from public debate, secular liberals had hoped to prevent believers from introducing sectarian beliefs into politics. Instead, the "gag order" has prevented secular liberals from subjecting religious claims to "due public scrutiny" [31] and from advancing their own views in robustly moral terms, granting a "monopoly on the language of ethics and values" to the religious on the Right and the Left. [32] Dacey argues that claims of conscience—including religious claims—cannot be barred from public debate, but that they can and must be held to the same critical conversational standards as all serious contributions to public debate.

While advocating the separation of religion and state, Dacey has suggested that political institutions should be designed to protect the exercise of conscience, not religion as such. In "Against Religious Freedom", a 2010 article in Dissent co-authored with Colin Koproske, he argues that religious freedom should be regarded as "one manifestation of more fundamental rights held by all people, religious and secular alike: private property, personal autonomy, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and perhaps most important, freedom of conscience." [33]

Secularism and Islam

Criticizing the failure of some on the Left in the West to support secular liberal forces in the Arab and Muslim world, [34] [35] Dacey has stressed the importance of religious rationales for secularism. He has analogized religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries to dissident Protestant sects such as the Anabaptists who constructed theological arguments for toleration and church-state separation in early modern Europe. [36]

Dacey was a lead organizer of the Secular Islam Summit in March 2007, described by the Wall Street Journal as "a landmark." [37] The conference issued the St. Petersburg Declaration, a statement of principles endorsed by Mithal al-Alusi, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Shahriar Kabir among others. [38] Reviewing The Secular Conscience for Asharq Al-Awsat, Amir Taheri wrote, "[m]aking this book available in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other languages of the Muslim nations would be an immense service." [39]

Human rights

As a representative of civil society organizations at the United Nations, Dacey has participated in lobbying at Human Rights Council in Geneva. [40] to oppose efforts by some member states to diminish international standards of freedom of expression out of "respect for religions and beliefs." [41] "The ultimate aim of this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims," Dacey has commented, "but to protect illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular government and freedom." [42]

In defending a universal human right to blaspheme, Dacey has emphasized that it is a matter of freedom of conscience as much as just freedom of speech. In The Future of Blasphemy, Dacey contends that debates in the international community about religiously offensive expression should be understood as "contests over what counts as sacred" in which unbelievers and heterodox believers reserve a right of conscience to express their views. [43]

In September 2008, Dacey co-authored the CFI report, Islam and Human Rights: Defending Universality at the United Nations, which puts these efforts in the context of a campaign by the intergovernmental Organization of the Islamic Conference to promulgate culturally specific "Islamic human rights." [44]

Dacey also authored a CFI position paper accusing the UN Alliance of Civilizations of neglecting secular perspectives and perpetuating the "problematic division of the social world by religion" for which the "clash of civilizations" thesis is often faulted. There is a "clash of values" but it is taking place "within societies and cultures, not only between them." [45]

Freedom of music

In March 2010, Dacey launched The Impossible Music Sessions, a forum in Brooklyn that features "artists who cannot appear and the music they are not free to make." [46] Featured artists join via Internet streaming or phone as a counterpart with whom they have collaborated in advance performs a live interpretation of their music. [47] Mark LeVine wrote in the Huffington Post that the first Impossible Music Session "will go down in the annals of rock history." [48] The Sessions are produced in cooperation with Freemuse: The World Forum on Music and Censorship. [46]

In an interview, Dacey commented, "Ironically, in the Internet age, the live performance has become even more important. The thing that's frustrating for these groups is that while they can record on their Macbook in their basement and share the music with their friends, the government and other powerful forces in society—they control the public spaces. . . . there's something magical about standing in front of people and playing." [49]

Since 2010, the Sessions have facilitated collaborations between musicians in North America and musicians in Iran, Guinea Bissau, Cameroon, and Cuba. Dacey told the Wall Street Journal that the purpose is to "crosspollinate musically" and "banish isolation." [50]

Science and culture

From his early work with the Center for Inquiry, Dacey has been interested in the cultural implications of science. [51] In 2004 he argued in Skeptical Inquirer that "science is making us more ignorant" by unsettling received cultural understandings of the self, meaning, and morality without replacing them with coherent alternatives. [52] In a column for Skeptical Inquirer, Dacey explores the significance of the "culture of science" in Islamic, Chinese, and Indian cultural contexts. [53]

Dacey coined the term "accommodationism" to describe those "who either recognize no conflicts between religion and science, or who recognize such conflicts but are disinclined to discuss them publicly," [54] a usage which has been adopted in blogosphere debates about creationism and the New Atheism. [55]

A sympathetic critic of organized transhumanism, [56] Dacey is an advocate of culturing meat as an ethical alternative to using animals for meat. [57] [58]

Controversy

In a 2004 article for Free Inquiry magazine, "Atheism is Not a Civil Rights Issue," Dacey and co-author DJ Grothe criticized comparisons between the atheist cause in the United States and the causes of civil rights and LGBT rights, concluding that atheists "need a public awareness campaign, not a liberation movement." [59] The article was attacked by humanists [60] and the atheist blogger PZ Myers. [61]

The Secular Islam Summit was criticized by representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations as being organized by non-Muslims and "neo-cons" with no standing in Islam. [62]

The Guardian compared Dacey to the British conservative author Melanie Phillips and associated him with the idea that "our civilization depends on the freedom to publish racist cartoons." [63]

The New York Times questioned whether Dacey has fairly characterized secular liberalism, and commented that many people "will balk at his plea that liberalism place 'global resistance to theocratic Islam at the center of its agenda,' much the way a generation of cold-war liberals once mobilized around anti-Communism. [2]

Related Research Articles

Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secular humanism</span> Life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism

Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.

Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, rationalism, secularism and spiritual but not religious. These perspectives can vary, with individuals who identify as irreligious holding a diverse array of specific beliefs about religion or its role in their lives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State atheism</span> Official promotion of atheism by a government

State atheism or atheist state is the incorporation of hard atheism or non-theism into political regimes. It is considered the opposite of theocracy and may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments. To some extent, it is a religion-state relationship that is usually ideologically linked to irreligion and the promotion of irreligion or atheism. State atheism may refer to a government's promotion of anti-clericalism, which opposes religious institutional power and influence in all aspects of public and political life, including the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen. In some instances, religious symbols and public practices that were once held by religions were replaced with secularized versions of them. State atheism in these cases is considered as not being politically neutral toward religion, and therefore it is often considered non-secular.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humanists International</span> Secular humanism advocacy organization

Humanists International is an international non-governmental organisation championing secularism and human rights, motivated by secular humanist values. Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, it is an umbrella organisation made up of more than 160 secular humanist, atheist, rationalist, agnostic, skeptic, freethought and Ethical Culture organisations from over 80 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for Inquiry</span> American nonprofit organization

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal and to fight the influence of religion in government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Council of Australian Humanist Societies</span>

The Council of Australian Humanist Societies (CAHS) is an umbrella organisation for Australian humanist societies. It was founded in 1965. It is affiliated with Humanists International. The official symbol of CAHS is the Happy Human.

Some movements or sects within traditionally monotheistic or polytheistic religions recognize that it is possible to practice religious faith, spirituality and adherence to tenets without a belief in deities. People with what would be considered religious or spiritual belief in a supernatural controlling power are defined by some as adherents to a religion; the argument that atheism is a religion has been described as a contradiction in terms.

Discrimination against atheists, sometimes called atheophobia, atheistophobia, or anti-atheism, both at present and historically, includes persecution of and discrimination against people who are identified as atheists. Discrimination against atheists may be manifested by negative attitudes, prejudice, hostility, hatred, fear, or intolerance towards atheists and atheism or even the complete denial of atheists' existence. It is often expressed in distrust regardless of its manifestation. Perceived atheist prevalence seems to be correlated with reduction in prejudice. There is global prevalence of mistrust in moral perceptions of atheists found in even secular countries and among atheists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science</span> Non-profit organization

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is a division of Center for Inquiry (CFI) founded by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 2006 to promote scientific literacy and secularism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Copson</span> British humanist leader (born 1980)

Andrew James William Copson is a humanist leader and writer. He is the Chief Executive of Humanists UK and the President of Humanists International. He has worked for a number of civil and human rights organisations throughout his career in his capacity as executive committee member, director or trustee and has represented Humanist organisations before the House of Commons, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the United Nations. As a prominent spokesperson for the Humanist movement in the United Kingdom he is a frequent contributor to newspaper articles, news items, television and radio programmes and regularly speaks to Humanist and secular groups throughout Britain. Copson has contributed to several books on secularism and humanism and is the author of Secularism: Politics, Religion, and Freedom.

Alexander Aan is an Indonesian atheist and ex-Muslim of Minang descent. He was imprisoned in 2012 for posting comments and images to Facebook that were judged to be "disseminating information aimed at inciting religious hatred or hostility" by the Muaro Sijunjung district court. The sentence sparked national debate and caused Amnesty International to designate him a prisoner of conscience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irreligion in Egypt</span> Lack of religious belief or religion by some of Egypts population

Irreligion in Egypt is controversial due to the prominence of conservative social traditions and the persecution by the religious institutions in the country. It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists or agnostics in Egypt, as the stigma attached to being one makes it hard for irreligious Egyptians to publicly profess their views and beliefs.

China has the world's largest irreligious population, and the Chinese government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party have conducted antireligious campaigns throughout their rule. Religious freedom is protected under the Chinese constitution. Among the general Chinese population, there are a wide variety of religious practices. The Chinese government's attitude to religion is one of skepticism and non-promotion.

Irreligion in Iran has a long historical background, but is difficult to measure, as those who profess atheism are at risk of arbitrary detention, torture, and the death penalty. Non-religious citizens are officially unrecognized by the Iranian government. In the official 2011 census, 265,899 persons did not state any religion. Between 2017 and 2022, the World Values Survey found that 1.3% of Iranians identified as atheists, and a further 14.3% as not religious. In the 1999-2004 cycle, the WVS had found 1% identified as atheist and 3% as not religious.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dale McGowan</span> American writer and academic (born 1963)

Dale McGowan is an American author, educator, podcaster, and philanthropist who has written and edited several books related to nonreligious life, particularly parenting without religion.

Irreligion in the Middle East is the lack of religion in the Middle East. Though atheists in the Middle East are rarely public about their lack of belief, as they are persecuted in many countries where they are classified as terrorists, there are some atheist organizations in the Middle East. Islam dominates public and private life in most Middle Eastern countries. Nonetheless, there reside small numbers of irreligious individuals within those countries who often face serious formal and, in some cases, informal legal and social consequences.

The secular movement refers to a social and political trend in the United States, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, with the founding of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in 1925 and the American Humanist Association in 1941, in which atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, freethinkers, and other nonreligious and nontheistic Americans have grown in both numbers and visibility. There has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated, from under 10 percent in the 1990s to 20 percent in 2013. The trend is especially pronounced among young people, with about one in three Americans younger than 30 identifying as religiously unaffiliated, a figure that has nearly tripled since the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atheism in the African diaspora</span> Atheism experienced by black people outside of Africa

Atheism in the African diaspora is atheism as it is experienced by black people outside of Africa. In the United States, black people are less likely than any other ethnic groups to be religiously unaffiliated, let alone identifying as atheist. The demographics are similar in the United Kingdom. Atheists are individuals who do not hold a belief in God or gods. Atheism is a disbelief in God or gods or a denial of God or gods, or it is simply a lack of belief in gods. Some, but not all, atheists identify as secular humanists, who are individuals who believe that life has meaning and joy without the need for the supernatural or religion and that all individuals should live ethical lives which can provide for the greater good of humanity. Black atheists and secular humanists exist today and in history, though many were not always vocal in their beliefs or lack of belief.

References

  1. ↑ The Washington Post [ dead link ]
  2. 1 2 3 4 Steinfels, Peter (May 24, 2008). "Beliefs – Perceiving 2 Fallacies, a Secularist Faults His Fellows". NYTimes.com. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  3. ↑ Austin Dacey, The secular conscience: Why belief belongs in public life (Amherst: Prometheus Books 2008); ISBN   978-1-59102-604-4.
  4. ↑ Austin Dacey, The future of blasphemy: Speaking of the sacred in an age of human rights (London: Continuum Books, 2012); ISBN   978-1-4411-8392-7.
  5. 1 2 Dacey, Austin (February 3, 2006). "Believing in Doubt – New York Times". The New York Times . Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  6. ↑ International Humanist and Ethical Union. "IHEU organization | International Humanist and Ethical Union". Iheu.org. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  7. ↑ "About – The Impossible Music Sessions". Impossiblemusic.org. Archived from the original on January 1, 2012. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  8. ↑ Austin Dacey, "The Accidental Exorcist," in Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk, eds., 50 voices of disbelief: Why we are atheists (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2009), 178.
  9. ↑ "Philip Dacey's homepage". Philipdacey.com. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  10. ↑ Dacey, "The Accidental Exorcist," 178.
  11. ↑ "Charlie Peacock". AllMusic. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  12. ↑ Marshall Independent (May 24, 2008). "Religion's role –". Marshall Independent. Archived from the original on September 7, 2012. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  13. ↑ "BGSU :: Department of Philosophy :: PhD Dissertations and Placements". Bgsu.edu. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  14. ↑ Does God Exist? A debate between William Lane Craig and Austin Dacey. 2005. California State University, Fresno.
  15. ↑ "Home". Center for Inquiry. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  16. ↑ Associated Press, "Skeptics' Organization Seeks Better Coverage of Science by Media" (March 16, 2003).
  17. ↑ Peter Steinfels, "Perceiving 2 Fallacies, a Secularist Faults His Fellows," New York Times (May 24, 2010).
  18. ↑ "Decomposing Humanism: Why Replace Religion? | (A)theologies". Religion Dispatches. October 29, 2009. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  19. ↑ "Music You're Not Supposed To Hear". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  20. ↑ Burke, Daniel (October 19, 2009). "Atheism 3.0 finds a little more room for religion". Usatoday.Com. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  21. ↑ The Secularist case against atheism Archived November 17, 2013, at the Wayback Machine .
  22. ↑ Dacey, ibid.
  23. ↑ Richard John Neuhaus (March 11, 2008). "(11 March 2008)". Firstthings.com. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  24. ↑ "The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast". Andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com. Archived from the original on March 16, 2012. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  25. ↑ Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman, "The God Squad," Newsday (June 7, 2008).
  26. ↑ "The secular conscience". Archived from the original on December 24, 2010. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
  27. ↑ Austin Dacey, The secular conscience: Why belief belongs in public life (Amherst: Prometheus Books 2008), 25.
  28. ↑ Austin Dacey, "The Secular Conscience," Contemplate: The International Journal of Cultural Jewish Thought (2008–09), 54.
  29. ↑ Austin Dacey, The secular conscience: Why belief belongs in public life (Amherst: Prometheus Books 2008), 161.
  30. ↑ "Jenny Bunker – The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life by Austin Dacey". New Humanist. September 8, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  31. ↑ Austin Dacey, The secular conscience: Why belief belongs in public life (Amherst: Prometheus Books 2008), 21.
  32. ↑ "Sojourners | Sojourners".
  33. ↑ Austin Dacey and Colin Koproske, "Against Religious Freedom," Dissent (Summer 2011), 54–55.
  34. ↑ HW Library [ dead link ]
  35. ↑ Amy Rosenthal. "La Conscienza del Politico," Il Foglio Quotidiano (September 16, 2008).
  36. ↑ "Online Features – Who's Afraid of Shari'a?". Dissent Magazine. February 3, 2010. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  37. ↑ Stephens, Bret (March 6, 2007). "Islam's Other Radicals - WSJ.com". Online.wsj.com. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  38. ↑ "(5 April 2007)". Centerforinquiry.net. April 5, 2007. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  39. ↑ Taheri, Amir (July 17, 2011). "Loading". Asharq-e.com. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  40. ↑ Austin Dacey (November 29, 2008). "De vrijheidsmisvatting – Nieuws – TROUW" (in Dutch). Trouw.nl. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  41. ↑ "Religious Persecution Wolf in Anti-Defamation Sheep's Clothing | Politics". Religion Dispatches. March 30, 2009. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  42. ↑ "Johann Hari: Why should I respect these oppressive religions? – Johann Hari – Commentators". The Independent. London. January 28, 2009. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  43. ↑ Austin Dacey, The Future of Blasphemy.
  44. ↑ "CFI at the United Nations News". Center for Inquiry. September 17, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  45. ↑ "CFI at the United Nations". Center for Inquiry. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  46. 1 2 "about – The Impossible Music Sessions". Impossiblemusic.org. Archived from the original on January 1, 2012. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  47. ↑ Livesay, "Music You're Not Supposed to Hear."
  48. ↑ "Mark LeVine: The Evolution Will be ooVood". Huffingtonpost.com. March 11, 2010. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  49. ↑ "Discovery web site is down". Planetgreen.discovery.com. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  50. ↑ Melik Kaylan, "Muzzled Musicians."
  51. ↑ "New York Debunk'd". Village Voice. January 4, 2005. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  52. ↑ Austin Dacey. "CSI | Is Science Making Us More Ignorant?". Csicop.org. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  53. ↑ Dacey, Austin. "CSI | Circumnavigations". Csicop.org. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  54. ↑ Austin Dacey, "Evolution education and the science-religion conflict: Dispatches from a philosophical correspondent,” in Ariela Keysar and Barry A. Kosmin, eds., Secularism and Science in the 21st Century (Hartford, CT: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, 2008): 51–67.
  55. ↑ "The Reality Club: The Big Accommodationism Debate". Edge.org. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  56. ↑ Dacey, Austin. "Upgrading Humanity: Transhumanists call for improving health, extending life spans via technology By Austin Dacey". Beliefnet.com. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  57. ↑ Austin Dacey and Patrick Hopkins, "Vegetarian meat: Could Technology Save Animals and Satisfy Meat Eaters?” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 21 (January 2009): 579–596.
  58. ↑ "THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2009—Page 11". Edge.org. Archived from the original on January 21, 2012. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  59. ↑ "Council for Secular Humanism". Secularhumanism.org. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  60. ↑ Council for Secular Humanism. "Atheism is Indeed a Civil Rights Issue". Secularhumanism.org. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  61. ↑ ""Polarizing" is a dirty word, so atheists should surrender : Pharyngula". Scienceblogs.com. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  62. ↑ "Fighting for the Soul of Islam – U.S. News & World Report". Usnews.com. Archived from the original on January 29, 2012. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
  63. ↑ Steven Poole (April 19, 2008). "Et cetera: Apr 19 | Books". The Guardian. London. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
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