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
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“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
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