Prometheus Books

Prometheus Books was a publishing company founded in August 1969 by the philosopher Paul Kurtz (who was also the founder of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). The publisher's name was derived from Prometheus, the Titan from Greek mythology who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to man. This act is often used as a metaphor for bringing knowledge or enlightenment. Prometheus Books published a range of books, focusing on topics such as science, freethought, secularism, humanism, and skepticism. It published in the "atheism" category since its founding in 1969, and is considered the "grandfather" of atheist publishing in America. Their headquarters was located in Amherst, New York, and they published worldwide. Jonathan Kurtz was an executive editor of Prometheus, which is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press. The publisher has roughly 1,700 books currently in print, and publishes approximately 95–100 books per year. Since its founding, Prometheus Books has published more than 2,500 books. Prometheus Books obtained the bulk of the books and manuscripts of Humanities Press International in 1998. It has been building and expanding this into a scholarly imprint named Humanity Books. This imprint publishes academic works across a wide spectrum of the humanities and is now distributed by the academic division of Rowman & Littlefield. In March 2005, Prometheus Books launched the science fiction and fantasy imprint Pyr. In October 2012 it launched the crime fiction imprint Seventh Street Books. In 2018, it sold both imprints. Prometheus has been involved in two "major libel lawsuits." In 1992 Uri Geller sued Victor J. Stenger and Prometheus Books for libel over his book Physics and Psychics. The suit was dismissed and Geller was required to pay more than $20,000 in costs to the defendant. Geller also sued Prometheus for publishing The Truth About Uri Geller by James Randi, a book that he said was defamatory.

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Related concepts (4)

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. The Center for Inquiry was established in 1991 by atheist philosopher and author Paul Kurtz. It brought together two organizations: the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (founded by Kurtz in 1976) and the Council for Secular Humanism (founded by Kurtz in 1980).

Atheism

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. The first individuals to identify themselves as atheists lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment.

Scientific skepticism

Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism), sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence. In practice, the term most commonly references the examination of claims and theories that appear to be beyond mainstream science, rather than the routine discussions and challenges among scientists.