Category Archive: Vol. 1, No. 1

Conference Reflections:

A General Membership meeting with standing-room only is surely the dream of every initiator of a new Society. It was at that moment that the ISHS became a reality for me, and I was thrilled to look around the crowded seminar room on the 4^th floor of the Gallatin School. Shortly after the start of proceedings, I realized that this was no rubber-stamping, yes-nodding assembly, but an inquisitive (though not inquisitorial!), lively, smartly disputatious gathering, and I thoroughly enjoyed discussing the bylaws and probing the key terms and principles that inform our Society’s mission. It is a rarity nowadays to have a group of people who deliberately eschew both the culture of reflexive affirmation (the “positive thinking” school of corporate America where critical deviation is considered “bad” for company morale) and the knee-jerk partisan bickering that characterizes our political discourse. Here is a group, I thought, composed of people from different viewpoints—especially differing religious and non-religious viewpoints—who nevertheless manage to have a civilized, informed, constructive dialogue about matters of real import such as whether blasphemy is a “victimless crime.” Read the rest of this entry »