The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization dedicated to defending science and critical thinking in examining religion. CFI’s vision is a world in which evidence, science, and compassion—rather than superstition, pseudoscience, or prejudice—guide public policy.
To make a better world, we need to use our heads and our hearts. To confront the challenges that face us as a planetary civilization, we need to use the tools of science and reason guided by compassion and respect for the dignity of every individual.
To move forward, we need to discard old superstitions, prejudices, and magical thinking and embrace facts, evidence, and critical thinking.
It’s about more than whether or not God exists. It’s about more than whether ghosts roam among us, aliens hover above us, or psychics can see within us.
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) strives to foster a society free of the dogmatic influence of religion and pseudoscience; a society inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment, the wonders of science, and the limitless potential of human intelligence and creativity; a society in which beliefs are not granted the same rights as people, where the freedom of expression is enjoyed by all, and all ideas are open to the scrutiny of reason.
Secular government. Free inquiry. Critical thinking. Humanist values.
Seeking guidance through the crises of the tumultuous 1970s, many Americans looked to horoscopes, mystical gurus, spirits of the dead, super-advanced aliens, and countless other forms of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, and the paranormal. Rationality was in dangerously short supply. In 1976, humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz brought together an unprecedented assembly of some of the greatest minds of the era to promote scientific inquiry and critical thinking. Luminaries such as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, B. F. Skinner, Martin Gardner, Ray Hyman, and James Randi joined Kurtz to form what was then the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP—today known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, or CSI.
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