Dim Lights
Graeme Hunter on Elite Faith in Naturalism
For years, the annual get-together of Canada’s main academic organizations used to call itself “The Learned Societies.” They changed the name, probably because even the most pompous participants found it hard to take it seriously. Humorists and realists had grown fond of referring to those meetings as “The Stupids.” When the “Learned Societies” left us, our little joke lost its home. Until now. There is a new organization that may be able to use it: a lobby group wishing to organize the militantly non-religious, calling itself “The Brights.”
It is no surprise that the Brights are based in California. The organizers, Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell, are freelance education writers, whose passion is what they call “naturalism.” Naturalism defines itself as the belief that the world is “free of supernatural or mystical deities, forces, and entities.” If you believe this, then, according to the invitation on the Brights’ website, you can become one of them.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Graeme Hunter is a contributing editor to Touchstone and Research Professor of Philosophy at Dominican University College in Ottawa. He is the author of Radical Protestantism in Spinoza's Thought (Ashgate).
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
on the Brevity & Theology of Her Recorded Words by Judith Anderson
18.4—May 2005
The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian
19.10—December 2006
Workers of Another World United
A Personal Commemoration of Poland’s Solidarity 25 Years Later by John Harmon McElroy
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
