The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) was based at the

Center for Inquiry The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a US nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal, as well as to fight the influence of religion in government. History The Center for Inquiry was established in 199 ...

in Amherst, New York. According to its mission statement, CSER was a research consultation devoted "to the study of

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

from the standpoint of

philosophical naturalism In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. According to philosopher Steven Lockwood, naturalism can be separated into an ontological sense and a m ...

and to the critical, nonparochial, and humanistic study of religious truth claims." The committee professed to serve both a "watchdog" function in relation to church-state and educational issues, and the academic community through generating original research and promoting religious literacy. The CSER was disbanded in 2010. CSER was described as a nonprofit educational organization which "locates its values in the

humanistic Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

principles of the American and European Enlightenment and the liberal critical traditions of post-Enlightenment culture." The committee consisted of approximately one hundred elected fellows chosen from academe and the professions. Past fellows included Van Harvey, Joseph L. Blau,

Carol Meyers Carol Lyons Meyers (born 1942) is an American feminist biblical scholar. She is the Mary Grace Wilson Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Duke University. Meyers' field of research is focused on biblical studies, archaeology in the Middle ...

Morton Smith Morton Smith (May 28, 1915 – July 11, 1991)Neusner, Jacob, ''Christianity, Judaism, and other Greco-Roman Cults. Part 1: New Testament'', ed. J. Neusner, ''Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty, vol 1, New Testament'' (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), p. ...

Karen Armstrong Karen Armstrong (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and ...

Vern Bullough Vern Leroy Bullough (July 24, 1928 – June 21, 2006) was an American historian and sexologist. He was a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University of New York ( SUNY) at Buffalo, Faculty President at California State University, No ...

Joseph Fletcher Joseph Francis Fletcher (April 10, 1905 in Newark, New Jersey - October 28, 1991 in Charlottesville, Virginia) was an American professor who founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s, and was a pioneer in the field of bioethics. Flet ...

, Lewis Feuer,

Theodor Gaster Theodor Herzl Gaster (July 21, 1906 – February 2, 1992) was a British-born American Biblical scholar known for work on comparative religion, mythology and the history of religion. He is noted for his books, ''Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in ...

, Gerd Luedemann,

Antony Flew Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught a ...

John Hick John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the are ...

David Noel Freedman David Noel Freedman (May 12, 1922 – April 8, 2008) was an American biblical scholar, author, editor, archaeologist, and, after his conversion from Judaism, a Presbyterian minister. He was one of the first Americans to work on the Dead Sea Scroll ...

John Dominic Crossan John Dominic Crossan (born 17 February 1934) is an Irish-American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, former Catholic priest who was a prominent member of the Jesus Seminar, and emeritus professor at DePaul University. His res ...

, Alan Ryan,

Don Cupitt Don Cupitt (born 22 May 1934) is an English philosopher of religion and scholar of Christian theology. He has been an Anglican priest and a lecturer in the University of Cambridge, though is better known as a popular writer, broadcaster and comm ...

, Margaret Chatterjee, Richard Taylor,

Susan Blackmore Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July 1951) is a British writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known ...

, Robert Carroll,

Arthur Peacocke Arthur Robert Peacocke (29 November 1924 – 21 October 2006) was an English Anglican theologian and biochemist. Biography Arthur Robert Peacocke was born in Watford, England, on 29 November 1924. He was educated at Watford Grammar School fo ...

Clinton Bennett Clinton Bennett (born 7 October 1955) is a British-American scholar of religions and participant in interfaith dialogue specialising in the study of Islam and Muslim-non-Muslim encounter. An ordained Baptist minister, he was a missionary in Ban ...

and

Peter Atkins Peter William Atkins (born 10 August 1940) is an English chemist and a Fellow of Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. He retired in 2007. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including ''Physical Chemistry'', ''Ino ...

History

The committee was formed in 1985 as an expansion of the Religion and Biblical Criticism Research Project founded by ''Free Inquiry'' magazine in 1982. The former group promoted a number of projects that scrutinized conservative and fundamentalist religious beliefs and institutions. The two men primarily responsible for organizing this group were the philosopher

Paul Kurtz Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was an American scientific skeptic and Secular humanism, secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University at Buff ...

and the professor of archaeology and Biblical history at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

Gerald A. Larue. One early project of this group was a national conference in Washington, DC. The conference, sponsored by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH), was in response to President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

’s signing of th
Congressional Resolution J-5018
which declared 1983 the " Year of the Bible." The conference included presentations by academics, politicians, and religious leaders who were concerned that the passage of the Resolution constituted a violation of the constitutional protection of freedom of conscience in religious matters and a circumvention of the principle of

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...

, as defined in the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

. The participants included Senators

Sam Ervin Samuel James Ervin Jr. (September 27, 1896April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Southern Democrats, Democrat, he served as a United States Senate, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, North Carolina, ...

(D-North Carolina),

Lowell Weicker Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr. (; born May 16, 1931) is an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the 85th Governor of Connecticut. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president in 1980. He was ...

(R-Connecticut), Professor James Robinson,

Henry Steele Commager Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) was an American historian. As one of the most active and prolific liberal intellectuals of his time, with 40 books and 700 essays and reviews, he helped define modern liberalism in the United States. In the 19 ...

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a spe ...

Michael Novak Michael John Novak Jr. (September 9, 1933 – February 17, 2017) was an American Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat. The author of more than forty books on the philosophy and theology of culture, Novak is most widely known ...

, and Gerald A. Larue. The founding members of CSER represented a wide variety of secular and religious viewpoints. Its "manifesto" was crafted in broadly humanistic language which pointed to public ignorance of Constitutional axioms, deficiencies in the public understanding of religion, science, and political history, and particular weaknesses in the American educational system in teaching about religion. Since 1983, CSER's conferences have presented religious studies scholarship to the public as well as to the academic community. The committee has widened its scope and membership base through the years to reflect its interest in the critical examination of religious traditions in a global context. CSER has sponsored educational programs and conferences in America,

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, and

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. Larue was elected the first Chair of CSER in 1983. R. Joseph Hoffmann (History of Religion, Center for Inquiry, Amherst, NY), formerly chair of the

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Centre for Critical Studies in Religion was elected CSER Chairperson in 2003. The committee published its own monograph series and a journal, ''CSER Quarterly''.

References

External links

Committee for the Scientific Examination of ReligionCouncil for Secular HumanismCenter For Inquiry Transnational
{{DEFAULTSORT:Committee For The Scientific Examination Of Religion Skeptic organizations in the United States Educational charities based in the United States Educational organizations based in the United States Humanist associations