Paul Kurtz (1925-2012)

[theprestige]

Wow. What a depressing thread. Both for the news and the responses.

Perhaps if it were made more clear why the news is depressing, the responses might be more uplifting.

Usually, when a person dies, those who consider their deaths meaningful take the time to eulogize them. Where is your eulogy?

 

[theprestige]

Discuss why you feel this way

Because in the entire history of this board, I have yet to see you make a single post that is insightful or instructive in any way.

However, I admit that I've had you on ignore for at least a year or more, and I have not exhaustively examined your work prior to my membership. So feel free to link to the five--no! the ten!--contributions you consider most valuable to the JREF Forum, and if any of them are acclaimed in this thread to be more valuable than the OP, I will adopt the avatar of your choice for a year.















NOTE: For the purposes of this challenge, I'll accept acclamation on this page plus the following three pages of this thread, on default settings, not using Tapatalk or similar mobile applications.

 

[advancedatheist]

So did Kurtz convert to some religion on his deathbed, like his atheist friend who converted to Catholicism? Kurtz recounts this story in at least two of his books, so it must have bothered him somehow:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VG...olicism sclerosis&pg=PA97#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Because in the entire history of this board, I have yet to see you make a single post that is insightful or instructive in any way.

However, I admit that I've had you on ignore for at least a year or more, and I have not exhaustively examined your work prior to my membership. So feel free to link to the five--no! the ten!--contributions you consider most valuable to the JREF Forum, and if any of them are acclaimed in this thread to be more valuable than the OP, I will adopt the avatar of your choice for a year.

Apparently not. pwnage

Do you have anything to say about Mr. Kurtz?

 

[theprestige]

Apparently not. pwnage

Apparently not, indeed.

Do you have anything to say about Mr. Kurtz?

Based on the incidence of positive mention on the JREF forums, he was clearly not remotely as important as Richard Dawkins.

Do you have anything to say about Mr. Kurtz? Again, if you've been extolling his praises all along, I've probably missed it. So this is your chance to bring Mr. Kurtz's valuable work to a wider audience.

 

[AdMan]

One of the founding fathers of modern skepticism and secular humanism.

He's in Heaven now.

It's a sad day, but I've got to admit this was funny.

 

[ShadowSot]

Based on the incidence of positive mention on the JREF forums, he was clearly not remotely as important popular as Richard Dawkins.

ftfy

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Apparently not, indeed.


Based on the incidence of positive mention on the JREF forums, he was clearly not remotely as important as Richard Dawkins.

Do you have anything to say about Mr. Kurtz? Again, if you've been extolling his praises all along, I've probably missed it. So this is your chance to bring Mr. Kurtz's valuable work to a wider audience.

I never met the guy.

 

[angrysoba]

http://kurtz.pragmatism.org/

There seems to be some doubt about whether the report of his death is true or not.

Final edit. Seems to be confirmation here: http://atheists.org/memory-paul-kurtz

http://atheists.org/memory-paul-kurtz

Thanks if you were responding to my request for information about him.

One of the founding fathers of modern skepticism and secular humanism.

He's in Heaven now.

That was funny!

 

[Bikewer]

Years ago, I read an article by Kurtz in Free Inquiry (I think...) about "The New Skepticism", and thought he made a lot of sense.

 

[Stellafane]

ftfy

I agree. In my opinion, Professor Kurtz was an essential figure in the development of what I call (perhaps idiosyncratically) the modern skeptical activist movement. His strength was probably in the synthesis of several ideas into what could be referred to as a cohesive skeptical outlook or toolset. (I don't believe it's quite evolved to the point where the word "philosophy" is appropriate yet.) I suspect he came across to many as a dour academic, so it was left to other, more charismatic figures to popularize this message to the public. But that shouldn't diminish Professor Kurtz' inportant early role in helping to crystallize skeptical thought. Indeed, it was by reading Skeptical Inquirer, a publication he helped found, that I came to realize there was a name for that part of my personality.

The skeptical movement may or may not have evolved faster than his own personal views did. Be that as it may, I believe most of us who consider ourselves skeptics likely owe Professor Kurtz a debt of gratitute, whether we realize it or not.

 

[zooterkin]

I never met the guy.

I did, I sat next to him at TAM, last year or the year before, though I had no idea what he had been responsible for, at the time (no reflection on him, more my ignorance as a non-American; I had no idea who Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye were, either), though I learned that he was one of the founders of organised skepticism. I bought one of his books, though I haven't got around to reading it yet.

 

[Wolfman]

Having met with Paul Kurtz on several occasions, and worked with him on organizing a skeptical conference in China several years ago, I can say that my feelings about the man are very mixed.

I'd generally divide his life into two parts. In the earlier part, he was a pivotal figure in establishing skeptical organizations and publications; and was both an informative and inspiring writer. In fact, I'd rank him among the top most influential people during that period of time.

However, ego was a major problem with him, and he developed a "my way or the highway" attitude that led to some significant schisms within the skeptical community. Too many people who had previously worked with him as partners came to be perceived as his adversaries, simply because they didn't agree with him.

In the balance, the question is whether the good he did during the first period is greater than the damage he did during the latter period. And despite the fact that I personally did not like the man very much, I still respect what he did accomplish, and do believe that the positive outweighed the negative.

I hope that he'll be remembered more for his earlier life, and less for the latter. Not for any reasons of personal sentiment, but simply because the work he did and the things he wrote can still serve as both guide and inspiration to a new generation of skeptics.

And the mistakes he made? Hopefully, those can also serve as a lesson of what not to do, and how skeptics are also not immune to personal issues of hubris and bad judgement.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I agree. In my opinion, Professor Kurtz was an essential figure in the development of what I call (perhaps idiosyncratically) the modern skeptical activist movement. His strength was probably in the synthesis of several ideas into what could be referred to as a cohesive skeptical outlook or toolset. (I don't believe it's quite evolved to the point where the word "philosophy" is appropriate yet.) I suspect he came across to many as a dour academic, so it was left to other, more charismatic figures to popularize this message to the public. But that shouldn't diminish Professor Kurtz' inportant early role in helping to crystallize skeptical thought. Indeed, it was by reading Skeptical Inquirer, a publication he helped found, that I came to realize there was a name for that part of my personality.

The skeptical movement may or may not have evolved faster than his own personal views did. Be that as it may, I believe most of us who consider ourselves skeptics likely owe Professor Kurtz a debt of gratitute, whether we realize it or not.

I agree with this.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

And the mistakes he made? Hopefully, those can also serve as a lesson of what not to do, and how skeptics are also not immune to personal issues of hubris and bad judgement.

See: Atheism +

 

[walthrup48]

Damn, I'm sorry to hear this And Leon Jaroff gone too, what a lousy weekend

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Damn, I'm sorry to hear this And Leon Jaroff gone too, what a lousy weekend

I'm reading Jaroff's obit in the NYTimes now. IIRC, he spoke at a TAM, maybe around TAM 6?

 

[Humes fork]

Having met with Paul Kurtz on several occasions, and worked with him on organizing a skeptical conference in China several years ago, I can say that my feelings about the man are very mixed.

I'd generally divide his life into two parts. In the earlier part, he was a pivotal figure in establishing skeptical organizations and publications; and was both an informative and inspiring writer. In fact, I'd rank him among the top most influential people during that period of time.

However, ego was a major problem with him, and he developed a "my way or the highway" attitude that led to some significant schisms within the skeptical community. Too many people who had previously worked with him as partners came to be perceived as his adversaries, simply because they didn't agree with him.

In the balance, the question is whether the good he did during the first period is greater than the damage he did during the latter period. And despite the fact that I personally did not like the man very much, I still respect what he did accomplish, and do believe that the positive outweighed the negative.

I hope that he'll be remembered more for his earlier life, and less for the latter. Not for any reasons of personal sentiment, but simply because the work he did and the things he wrote can still serve as both guide and inspiration to a new generation of skeptics.

And the mistakes he made? Hopefully, those can also serve as a lesson of what not to do, and how skeptics are also not immune to personal issues of hubris and bad judgement.

I agree. However, I think there is more to be added.

Yes, he was bull-headed. I recal listening to him at the SGU interview, and he constantly interrupted Novella. I also recall him being interviewed by Groethe, and I didn't hear him saying anything that could possibly be considered controversial by any mainstream person in a Western society. I'm also at loss about what "the civic virtues of democracy" are and what the "democratic lifestyle" is.

Kurtz wanted to unite (if that's the proper word) the various disparate skeptic and atheist groups and individuals into a coherent movement that promoted secular humanism. In this he largely failed. Though Dawkins et al (and Sagan back in the days) would sign the manifesto, they rarely, if ever, self-labelled themselves as humanists, or became known as advocates of secular humanism, except possibly as an afterthought.

I agree with you that he was very much an academic, probably too much so for gaining mainstream appeal. Though Dawkins is an academic too (a retired one at least), he is acquainted enough with pop culture to appeal to people who would probably find a purely academic work too dry to read. Kurtz by contrast would rail against pop culture in a way that sounded like a social conservative.

Kurtz also disliked the more in-your-face approach taken by Dawkins, Harris etc. Though I suspect it is partly because of envy. The new atheists made more of a mark in less than a decade than he did over the span of several decades.

I think Kurtz's most important achievements are the creation of Prometheus Books and the number of scholars he was able to attract to the CFI (Ibn Warraq, Robert Price etc).

 

[Ian]

I met Kurtz and Randi on the same day in 1990. Randi and I became friends, but I never saw Kurtz again after that CSICOP conference. I was in the room when Randi spoke with Kurtz on the phone a few times, and I remember when there was a division between them. I am glad that they "mended fences", as a previous poster wrote.

 

[Wolfman]

Kurtz wanted to unite (if that's the proper word) the various disparate skeptic and atheist groups and individuals into a coherent movement that promoted secular humanism. In this he largely failed.

The reason he failed was that he didn't just want to unite them...he wanted to unite them with himself as unquestioned leader. He had his own vision about how to do things, and a very strong "if you're not with me, you're against me" attitude towards anyone who disagreed with him, or had other ideas.

About ten years ago, we were talking with his organization about gaining their support to help establish a Chinese skeptical organization. He informed the Chinese organizers in no uncertain terms that gaining his support meant that they were not allowed to cooperate with or form alliances with any other organizations, and that doing so would mean immediate cessation of support from his organization. He also demanded that the Chinese organization had to be run according to his ideas and principles. The fact that China has an entirely different culture, an entirely different political climate, and perhaps most importantly, entirely different issues, meant nothing. The worst part was that if you didn't agree with him, he not only would refuse to work with you, but in some cases took active steps to oppose the work you were doing. (Witness the case of CFI, where after he stepped down as the leader of the organization, and they started doing things he disagreed with, he tried to convince donors to stop supporting their work)

He may have had the goal of uniting everyone, but his methods were one of the main reasons for some major schisms in both the skeptical and the secular Humanist communities. His vision of "unity" was one with him as unquestioned leader...a vision that was never going to happen, and that I found quite perplexing in a man who generally called for others to question their leaders.

Like I said, there's a great deal to respect in what Kurtz did, and he was unquestionably a critical element in establishing the modern skeptical movement. But he also had some fairly major personality flaws that ultimately damaged much of what he wanted to do. We may have been able to benefit in China from his support...but the conditions he attached to it made such a cooperation essentially impossible.