Project Reason

History

Project Reason is a 501 nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The project will draw on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers from a wide range of disciplines—science, law, literature, entertainment, information technology, etc.—to encourage critical thinking and wise public policy. It will convene conferences, produce films, sponsor scientific research and opinion polls, award grants to other non-profit organizations, and offer material support to religious dissidents and public intellectuals—with the purpose of eroding the influence of dogmatism, superstition and bigotry in the world.

Projects

Steve Wells, creator of the Skeptics Annotated Bible, Qur'an, and Book of Mormon has generously donated the full contents of his website to Project Reason. Using this as a foundation, we intend to make the Scripture Project the best source for scriptural criticism on the Internet.

I would like to announce that Project Reason has joined Hitchens and Dawkins in an effort to end the "diplomatic immunity" which the Vatican claims protects the Pope from any responsibility. We would greatly appreciate your support in this cause. All donations are tax-deductible in the United States.

The Secular Islam Sub-Project

This project is being run by foundation advisor Ibn Warraq and takes as its focus the pioneering work in Syriac and Arabic linguistics of Christof Luxenberg. Luxenberg is a native Arab speaker and linguist, living in the West and writing under a pseudonym. Luxenberg's work has given new impetus to the discipline of Koranic studies, largely by revealing that many acknowledged obscurities in the Koran can be clarified by treating certain passages as a poor translations of Syriac into Arabic.

Trustees and Advisory board

• Clifford S Asness — Managing and Founding Principal of AQR Capital Management
• Peter Atkins — professor of chemistry at the University of Oxford
• Jerry Coyne — professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago
• Richard Dawkins — Biologist, former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford
• Daniel C. Dennett — Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University
• Brent Forrester — Emmy Award-winning television writer
• Ricky Gervais —
• Rebecca Goldstein — philosopher and novelist
• Anthony Grayling — Professor of Philosophy at Birbeck College, University of London
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali — former member of the Dutch parliament; author of The Caged Virgin and the New York Times best selling memoir Infidel
• Christopher Hitchens — author, journalist, and literary critic; author of God Is Not Great
• Lawrence Krauss — Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Departments, Associate Director of the Beyond Center, Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative and Director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University
• Harold Kroto — chairman of the board of the Vega Science Trust; Nobel laureate in chemistry, 1996
• Janna Levin —
• Bill Maher — comedian, pundit, writer, and host of Real Time with Bill Maher
• Ian McEwan — award-winning novelist
• Dan Pallotta — nonprofit innovator and social entrepreneur. Founder of Pallotta TeamWorks.
• Steven Pinker — Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University
• Carolyn Porco —
• Salman Rushdie — Man Booker Prize-winning author
• Lee M. Silver — professor at Princeton University in the Department of Molecular Biology
• J. Craig Venter — biologist and entrepreneur known for being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for creating the first cell with a synthetic genome.
• Ibn Warraq — senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry specializing in Koranic criticism
• Steven Weinberg — Josey Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas at Austin; Nobel laureate in physics, 1979