1994 Newsletters

John Gunnison and the Mormons Could John Gunnison Have Changed the Mormons?An Analysis of Mormon History and the Path Not Taken, 1830-1857. Transcript of lecture presented by R. Kent Fielding, Ph.D., at the December 9, 1993 meeting of the...

Bible Teachings Mask Bigotry Against Gays Published in the  Salt Lake Tribune, November 7, 1993, as the Common Carrier article In the 1992 election, an Oregon initiative aiming to keep homosexuals from being employed as schoolteachers, p...

Are Humanists Human? Keynote address, annual reunion of the South Place Ethical Society, London, September 24, 1989, by Nicholas Walter My title sounds a silly question, because the obvious answer is yes , in that all the people here...

Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors:The Search for Who We Are ~Book Review ~ I love books that elucidate scientific thinking in terms that I can understand. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors , written by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, begins discussing g...

What It Means To Be Human During the summer of 1979 I had one of those learning experiences that has helped increase my perspective and understanding about what it means to be human. It was a very warm day. I arrived home about 5:30 p.m....

What Humanistic Education Is...And Is Not In the field of education and especially in society today, "humanistic education" is the subject of considerable interest and controversy. Many people of good will immediately react "for it" or "against...

Freedom and Humanism The conviction persists that freedom and humanity are somehow inseparably linked, and that we cannot hope to understand ourselves until we have some understanding of their relationship. We ask: "Am I free to direct my life,...

The Scientific Method Step One : The Occurrence of a Perplexity To perplex is to be unable to grasp something clearly or to think logically and decisively about something. Step Two : Clarification of The Perplexity To...

Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human ~Book Review~ Book review of Origins by Richard Leakey, and Roger Lewin, Doubleday, 1992 Richard Leakey is a world renowned paleoanthropologist (son of Louis and Mary...

The Nazi Virus Professor Ronald Smelser, speaking to the September 8, 1994 meeting of the Humanists of Utah, noted the appropriateness of his presentation. The United States military had just that day officially ended its occupation duties in...

How It Is On the subject of deism or theism, no one knows anything at all: it is all smoke and mirrors. The professional philosophers (but I don't know how much of a living one can make doing that or even if there are such people in this...

Death: Celebrate Life This past month I spoke at a memorial service for a life-long, close friend. As I looked over the group of people attending the service I realized how many of them had suffered the grief caused by the death of a loved one...