History
Humanist Canada has its roots in the former Humanist Fellowship of Montreal. This fellowship was an organization of humanists that was founded in 1954 by Drs. R. K. Mishra, Ernest Poser, and Maria Jutta Cahn. Lord Bertrand Russell and Dr. Brock Chisholm were its first patrons.
Humanist Canada's first president was Dr. Henry Morgentaler, an active crusader for women's right to reproductive choice, in 1968.
In 1996, Humanist Canada was granted the authority by the Registrar General to certify humanist officiants to solemnize marriages in Ontario. The organization has several officiants who perform non-religious ceremonies including marriages, funerals, memorials and baby namings.
Humanist Canada's Humanist of the Year award has been received by prominent Canadians such as June Callwood, founder of Casey House, the world's first hospice for people with HIV/AIDS (2007, posthumous), and professor of bioethics and cognitive evolution Dr. Christopher diCarlo (2008).
Read more about this topic: Humanist Canada
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)