Center for Inquiry

Paul Kurtz was the founder of the Center for Inquiry.

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit organization. Its main mission is to foster a secular society based on secular humanist values. CFI has headquarters in the United States and also has number of locations around the world.

The founder of the Center for Inquiry was Paul Kurtz.

Infighting and ouster of founder Paul Kurtz

See also: Atheist factions

Currently, there is an ideological struggle within the secular humanism faction of atheism concerning how militant the movement should be which primarily arose post New Atheism movement which is a more militant form of atheism. (see also: Militant atheism and Atheist factions). Paul Kurtz was against the secular humanism movement becoming more militant but some newer followers of secular humanism disagree with Kurtz.

On October 10, 2010, a contentious exchange between members of the Secular Humanism faction of atheism founded by Paul Kurtz and the atheist Ron Lindsay was caught on tape.Video - Part oneVideo - Part 2 During the exchange Ron Lindsay said that infighting has been occurring within the Secular Humanism faction of atheism for years. A Paul Kurtz supporter said that Kurtz was censored by Ron Lindsay and his supporters and driven out of the organization that he founded (Center for Inquiry). Lindsay claimed, however, that Kurtz voluntarily resigned from the organization he founded and Kurtz was never censored. Furthermore, Lindsay said that Kurtz's idea of a "planetary federation" was impractical. Kurtz countered that he was never allowed to publish why he resigned from the organization and that he was censored by the organization that he founded.

Atheist Sikivu Hutchinson's criticism of RDF and Center for Inquiry merger

Sikivu Hutchinson speaking ath the Center for Inquiry.

See also: Western atheism and race

Atheist Sikivu Hutchinson wrote:

“

The recent merger of the secular organization Center for Inquiry (CFI) and the Richard Dawkins Foundation (RDF) has been dubbed atheism's supergroup moment. Acknowledging the two organizations' outsized presence in the atheist world, Religion News Service acidly declared it a "royal wedding". The partnership, which gives Richard Dawkins a seat on the CFI board, smacks of a vindication of Dawkins' toxic, reactionary brand of damn-all-them-culturally-backward-Western-values-hating- Muslims New Atheism. As one of the most prominent global secular organizations, CFI's all-white board looks right at home with RDF's lily white board and staff.

”

David Gorski at Scienceblogs criticism of the Center for Inquiry

See also: Atheist nonprofit scandals

David Gorski at Scienceblogs wrote about atheist/skeptic organizations and financial mismanagement:

“

In any case, this makes me wonder: What is it about rationalist/skeptic groups that make them seemingly have such a hard time running their organizations well from a financial standpoint? After all, just a couple of months ago the Center for Inquiry (CFI) sent out letters desperately begging for more contributions. The reason was that CFI had one large benefactor whose yearly contribution funded approximately 20-25% of the yearly CFI budget. As clueless as I may be about finances, even I know that you don’t use such donations to run the operating expenses of an organization, because you can’t count on them from year to year and it’s too big a chunk. You use this money for special short-term projects and a rainy day fund. Not surprisingly, when this mysterious donor stopped donating earlier this year, suddently CFI was in deep doo-doo from a financial standpoint, prompting the desperate plea for donations and deep budget cuts. I realize that the down economy has played havoc with many nonprofit and charitable organizations, but these issues with skeptical organizations seem to go beyond just that.

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