He has been called "the father of secular humanism."
Paul Kurtz advocated that humanism was secular.
His assertion that humanism was not religion and must never be considered religion earned him the unofficial title of "the father of secular humanism."
Kurtz died at the age of eighty-six on October 20, 2012 and left behind a legacy that will be remembered for generations.
He was a student and a professor of philosophy and one of the most prominent philosophers of the modern age.
Born in Newark, New Jersey on December 21, 1925 Kurtz later served in the U.S. Army during World War II where his humanist ideas began to take form.
After the war he attended philosophical studies at New York University.
He earned a PhD in philosophy at Columbia University in 1952.
He went on to teach at various colleges.
His many accomplishments included co-drafting the Humanist Manifesto II, becoming a leader in the American Humanist Association, founding the Council of Secular Humanism, and authoring several books and hundreds of articles about secular humanist values.
Paul Kurtz wrote this in the article "Beyond Humanist Manifesto II" in the September/October 1998 issue of The Humanist:
We should not leave to theistic religion the ethics of empathy and compassion; these virtues are also essential for ethical humanism. Forming the bedrock for this are 'the common moral decencies'--that is, the general moral virtues that are widely shared by humans of diverse cultural backgrounds.
More information about Paul Kurtz is available here.
The Atheist Community of Tulsa and the Humanist Association of Tulsa are affiliated with Paul Kurt's Council for Secular Humanism as well as the American Humanist Association.
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