On the Barricades

By Robert Basil

From its founding in 1980, Free Inquiry magazine has been "on the barricades" in America's great civil struggle between the forces of tolerance, reason, and humanism, and those of religious dogmatism.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879755636
• ISBN13: 9780879755638
• Release Date: November 1989
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

On the Barricades

The premiere issue of Free Inquiry magazine was put together in between the time Ronald Reagan was elected President in November 1980 and when he was inaugurated the following January. Reagan's victory was hailed by a confident and vocal coalition of fundamentalist "Christians," note the editors in their introduction to this stimulating collection of essays. "Their support for the new president was not based so much on his own religious practices. (Indeed, by all accounts Reagan was a rather lax churchgoer; it was Jimmy Carter who was powered by born-again zeal.) What the religious right saw was a savior of sorts: Here was a man who upheld 'traditional Judeo-Christian values,' who loathed feminism, who wanted the children of America to open their school days with prayer." Indeed, "with the founding of Free Inquiry, secular humanists and other 'unchurched' citizens finally had an intelligent, even combative voice. It has been disconcerting that, in a nation wholly pervaded by the media, criticism of religion remains taboo, and that until Free Inquiry nonbelievers could be subjected to malicious criticisms with impunity. It is not surprising, then, that the magazine quickly eveloped a large, singularly devoted readership." On the Barricades collects the very best articles of Free Inquiry into one volume. Ther are sections on "Humanism," "Critiquing the Religious Mind," "Faith-Healing and Televangelism," "Biblical Criticism," "Battles in Science," "Courting the Constitution," "The Free Inquiry Interview," and "The New Ethics." Contributors include Sidney Hook, E. O. Wilson, B. F. Skinner, Rita Swan, Paul Kurtz, Albert Ellis, Thomas Szasz, James Randi, Steve Allen, Isaac Asimov, Martin Gardner, and many more. This collection provides a unique perspective on a decade that saw religious intolerance and flim flannery self-righteously collide with the ideals of the United States Constitution and the methods of science. ---from book's back cover