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1464_35 | See alsoMonday Night FootballMonday Night Football results (1990–2009)
Monday Night Football results (2010–present)
ESPN Sunday Night Football results (1987–2005)
NBC Sunday Night Football results (2006–present)
NFL Network Run to the Playoffs results (2006–present)
References
Total Football II,'', Edited by Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, David Neft and John Thorn, Harper Collins Publishing, 1999. .
National Football League lists
Monday Night Football
National Football League on television results
ABC Sports |
1465_0 | Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a freethinker is "a person who forms their own ideas and opinions rather than accepting those of other people, especially in religious teaching." In some contemporary thought in particular, free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious belief systems. The cognitive application of free thought is known as "freethinking", and practitioners of free thought are known as "freethinkers". Modern freethinkers consider free thought to be a natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society. |
1465_1 | The term first came into use in the 17th century in order to refer to people who inquired into the basis of traditional beliefs which were often accepted unquestioningly. Today, freethinking is most closely linked with secularism, atheism, agnosticism, humanism, anti-clericalism, and religious critique. The Oxford English Dictionary defines freethinking as, "The free exercise of reason in matters of religious belief, unrestrained by deference to authority; the adoption of the principles of a free-thinker." Freethinkers hold that knowledge should be grounded in facts, scientific inquiry, and logic. The skeptical application of science implies freedom from the intellectually limiting effects of confirmation bias, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, urban myth, prejudice, or sectarianism. |
1465_2 | Definition
Atheist author Adam Lee defines free thought as thinking which is independent of revelation, tradition, established belief, and authority, and considers it as a "broader umbrella" than atheism "that embraces a rainbow of unorthodoxy, religious dissent, skepticism, and unconventional thinking."
The basic summarizing statement of the essay The Ethics of Belief by the 19th-century British mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford is: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." The essay became a rallying cry for freethinkers when published in the 1870s, and has been described as a point when freethinkers grabbed the moral high ground. Clifford was himself an organizer of free thought gatherings, the driving force behind the Congress of Liberal Thinkers held in 1878. |
1465_3 | Regarding religion, freethinkers typically hold that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of supernatural phenomena. According to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, "No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth." and "Freethinkers are convinced that religious claims have not withstood the tests of reason. Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable tool of reason on the altar of superstition. Most freethinkers consider religion to be not only untrue, but harmful."
However, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote the following in his 1944 essay "The Value of Free Thought:"
The whole first paragraph of the essay makes it clear that a freethinker is not necessarily an atheist or an agnostic, as long as he or she satisfies this definition: |
1465_4 | Fred Edwords, former executive of the American Humanist Association, suggests that by Russell's definition, liberal religionists who have challenged established orthodoxies can be considered freethinkers.
On the other hand, according to Bertrand Russell, atheists and/or agnostics are not necessarily freethinkers. As an example, he mentions Stalin, whom he compares to a "pope":
In the 18th and 19th century, many thinkers regarded as freethinkers were deists, arguing that the nature of God can only be known from a study of nature rather than from religious revelation. In the 18th century, "deism" was as much of a 'dirty word' as "atheism", and deists were often stigmatized as either atheists or at least as freethinkers by their Christian opponents. Deists today regard themselves as freethinkers, but are now arguably less prominent in the free thought movement than atheists. |
1465_5 | Characteristics
Among freethinkers, for a notion to be considered true it must be testable, verifiable, and logical. Many freethinkers tend to be humanists, who base morality on human needs and would find meaning in human compassion, social progress, art, personal happiness, love, and the furtherance of knowledge. Generally, freethinkers like to think for themselves, tend to be skeptical, respect critical thinking and reason, remain open to new concepts, and are sometimes proud of their own individuality. They would determine truth for themselves – based upon knowledge they gain, answers they receive, experiences they have and the balance they thus acquire. Freethinkers reject conformity for the sake of conformity, whereby they create their own beliefs by considering the way the world around them works and would possess the intellectual integrity and courage to think outside of accepted norms, which may or may not lead them to believe in some higher power.
Symbol |
1465_6 | The pansy serves as the long-established and enduring symbol of free thought; literature of the American Secular Union inaugurated its usage in the late 1800s. The reasoning behind the pansy as the symbol of free thought lies both in the flower's name and in its appearance. The pansy derives its name from the French word pensée, which means "thought". It allegedly received this name because the flower is perceived by some to bear resemblance to a human face, and in mid-to-late summer it nods forward as if deep in thought. Challenging Religious Dogma: A History of Free Thought, a pamphlet dating from the 1880s had this statement under the title "The Pansy Badge": There is . . . need of a badge which shall express at first glance, without complexity of detail, that basic principle of freedom of thought for which Liberals of all isms are contending. This need seems to have been met by the Freethinkers of France, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, who have adopted the pansy as their badge. We |
1465_7 | join with them in recommending this flower as a simple and inexpensive badge of Freethought...Let every patriot who is a Freethinker in this sense, adopt the pansy as his badge, to be worn at all times, as a silent and unobtrusive testimony of his principles. In this way we shall recognize our brethren in the cause, and the enthusiasm will spread; until, before long, the uplifted standard of the pansy, beneath the sheltering folds of the United States flag, shall everywhere thrill men's hearts as the symbol of religious liberty and freedom of conscience." |
1465_8 | History
Pre-modern movement
Critical thought has flourished in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, in the repositories of knowledge and wisdom in Ireland and in the Iranian civilizations (for example in the era of Khayyam (1048–1131) and his unorthodox Sufi Rubaiyat poems), and in other civilizations, such as the Chinese (note for example the seafaring renaissance of the Southern Song dynasty of 1127–1279), and on through heretical thinkers on esoteric alchemy or astrology, to the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation.
French physician and writer Rabelais celebrated "rabelaisian" freedom as well as good feasting and drinking (an expression and a symbol of freedom of the mind) in defiance of the hypocrisies of conformist orthodoxy in his utopian Thelema Abbey (from θέλημα: free "will"), the device of which was Do What Thou Wilt: |
1465_9 | So had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because free people ... act virtuously and avoid vice. They call this honor.
When Rabelais's hero Pantagruel journeys to the "Oracle of The Div(in)e Bottle", he learns the lesson of life in one simple word: "Trinch!", Drink! Enjoy the simple life, learn wisdom and knowledge, as a free human. Beyond puns, irony, and satire, Gargantua's prologue-metaphor instructs the reader to "break the bone and suck out the substance-full marrow" ("la substantifique moëlle"), the core of wisdom.
Modern movements
The year 1600 is considered a landmark in the era of modern free thought. It was the year of the execution in Italy of Giordano Bruno, a former Dominican friar, by the Inquisition. |
1465_10 | Australia
Prior to World War II, Australia had high rates of Protestantism and Catholicism. Post-war Australia has become a highly secularised country. Donald Horne, one of Australia's well-known public intellectuals, believed rising prosperity in post-war Australia influenced the decline in church-going and general lack of interest in religion. "Churches no longer matter very much to most Australians. If there is a happy eternal life it's for everyone ... For many Australians the pleasures of this life are sufficiently satisfying that religion offers nothing of great appeal", said Horne in his landmark work The Lucky Country (1964).
Belgium
The Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, along with the two Circles of Free Inquiry (Dutch and French speaking), defend the freedom of critical thought, lay philosophy and ethics, while rejecting the argument of authority. |
1465_11 | Canada
In 1873 a handful of secularists founded the earliest known secular organization in English Canada, the Toronto Freethought Association. Reorganized in 1877 and again in 1881, when it was renamed the Toronto Secular Society, the group formed the nucleus of the Canadian Secular Union, established in 1884 to bring together freethinkers from across the country.
A significant number of the early members appear to have come from the educated labour "aristocracy", including Alfred F. Jury, J. Ick Evans and J. I. Livingstone, all of whom were leading labour activists and secularists. The second president of the Toronto association, T. Phillips Thompson, became a central figure in the city's labour and social-reform movements during the 1880s and 1890s and arguably Canada's foremost late nineteenth-century labour intellectual. By the early 1880s scattered free thought organizations operated throughout southern Ontario and parts of Quebec, eliciting both urban and rural support. |
1465_12 | The principal organ of the free thought movement in Canada was Secular Thought (Toronto, 1887–1911). Founded and edited during its first several years by English freethinker Charles Watts (1835–1906), it came under the editorship of Toronto printer and publisher James Spencer Ellis in 1891 when Watts returned to England. In 1968 the Humanist Association of Canada (HAC) formed to serve as an umbrella group for humanists, atheists, and freethinkers, and to champion social justice issues and oppose religious influence on public policy—most notably in the fight to make access to abortion free and legal in Canada. |
1465_13 | England
The term freethinker emerged towards the end of the 17th century in England to describe those who stood in opposition to the institution of the Church, and the literal belief in the Bible. The beliefs of these individuals were centered on the concept that people could understand the world through consideration of nature. Such positions were formally documented for the first time in 1697 by William Molyneux in a widely publicized letter to John Locke, and more extensively in 1713, when Anthony Collins wrote his Discourse of Free-thinking, which gained substantial popularity. This essay attacks the clergy of all churches and it is a plea for deism.
The Freethinker magazine was first published in Britain in 1881. |
1465_14 | France
In France, the concept first appeared in publication in 1765 when Denis Diderot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Voltaire included an article on Liberté de penser in their Encyclopédie. The concept of free thought spread so widely that even places as remote as the Jotunheimen, in Norway, had well-known freethinkers such as Jo Gjende by the 19th century.
François-Jean Lefebvre de la Barre (1745–1766) was a young French nobleman, famous for having been tortured and beheaded before his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. La Barre is often said to have been executed for not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession, but the elements of the case were far more complex. |
1465_15 | In France, Lefebvre de la Barre is widely regarded a symbol of the victims of Christian religious intolerance; La Barre along with Jean Calas and Pierre-Paul Sirven, was championed by Voltaire. A second replacement statue to de la Barre stands nearby the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Paris at the summit of the butte Montmartre (itself named from the Temple of Mars), the highest point in Paris and an 18th arrondissement street nearby the Sacré-Cœur is also named after Lefebvre de la Barre.
The 19th century saw the emergence of a specific notion of Libre-Pensée ("free thought"), with writer Victor Hugo as one of its major early proponents. French Freethinkers (Libre-Penseurs) associate freedom of thought, political anti-clericalism and socialist leanings. The main organisation referring to this tradition to this day is the Fédération nationale de la libre pensée, created in 1890. |
1465_16 | Germany
In Germany, during the period 1815–1848 and before the March Revolution, the resistance of citizens against the dogma of the church increased. In 1844, under the influence of Johannes Ronge and Robert Blum, belief in the rights of man, tolerance among men, and humanism grew, and by 1859 they had established the Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands (literally Union of Free Religious Communities of Germany), an association of persons who consider themselves to be religious without adhering to any established and institutionalized church or sacerdotal cult. This union still exists today, and is included as a member in the umbrella organization of free humanists. In 1881 in Frankfurt am Main, Ludwig Büchner established the Deutscher Freidenkerbund (German Freethinkers League) as the first German organization for atheists and agnostics. In 1892 the Freidenker-Gesellschaft and in 1906 the Deutscher Monistenbund were formed. |
1465_17 | Free thought organizations developed the "Jugendweihe" (literally Youth consecration), a secular "confirmation" ceremony, and atheist funeral rites. The Union of Freethinkers for Cremation was founded in 1905, and the Central Union of German Proletariat Freethinker in 1908. The two groups merged in 1927, becoming the German Freethinking Association in 1930. |
1465_18 | More "bourgeois" organizations declined after World War I, and "proletarian" free thought groups proliferated, becoming an organization of socialist parties. European socialist free thought groups formed the International of Proletarian Freethinkers (IPF) in 1925. Activists agitated for Germans to disaffiliate from their respective Church and for seculari-zation of elementary schools; between 1919–21 and 1930–32 more than 2.5 million Germans, for the most part supporters of the Social Democratic and Communist parties, gave up church membership. Conflict developed between radical forces including the Soviet League of the Militant Godless and Social Democratic forces in Western Europe led by Theodor Hartwig and Max Sievers. In 1930 the Soviet and allied delegations, following a walk-out, took over the IPF and excluded the former leaders. |
1465_19 | Following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, most free thought organizations were banned, though some right-wing groups that worked with so-called Völkische Bünde (literally "ethnic" associations with nationalist, xenophobic and very often racist ideology) were tolerated by the Nazis until the mid-1930s. |
1465_20 | Netherlands
In the Netherlands, free thought has existed in organized form since the establishment of De Dageraad (now known as De Vrije Gedachte) in 1856. Among its most notable subscribing 19th century individuals were Johannes van Vloten, Multatuli, Adriaan Gerhard and Domela Nieuwenhuis.
In 2009, Frans van Dongen established the Atheist-Secular Party, which takes a considerably restrictive view of religion and public religious expressions. |
1465_21 | Since the 19th century, free thought in the Netherlands has become more well known as a political phenomenon through at least three currents: liberal freethinking, conservative freethinking, and classical freethinking. In other words, parties which identify as freethinking tend to favor non-doctrinal, rational approaches to their preferred ideologies, and arose as secular alternatives to both clerically aligned parties as well as labor-aligned parties. Common themes among freethinking political parties are "freedom", "liberty", and "individualism".
Switzerland
With the introduction of cantonal church taxes in the 1870s, anti-clericals began to organise themselves. Around 1870, a "freethinkers club" was founded in Zürich. During the debate on the Zürich church law in 1883, professor Friedrich Salomon Vögelin and city council member Kunz proposed to separate church and state. |
1465_22 | Turkey |
1465_23 | In the last years of the Ottoman Empire, free thought made its voice heard by the works of distinguished people such as Ahmet Rıza, Tevfik Fikret, Abdullah Cevdet, Kılıçzade Hakkı, and Celal Nuri İleri. These intellectuals affected the early period of the Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk –field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and founder of the secular Turkish nation state, serving as its first President from 1923 until his death in 1938– was the practitioner of their ideas. He made many reforms that modernized the country. Sources point out that Atatürk was a religious skeptic and a freethinker. He was a non-doctrinaire deist or an atheist, who was antireligious and anti-Islamic in general. According to Atatürk, the Turkish people do not know what Islam really is and do not read the Quran. People are influenced by Arabic sentences that they do not understand, and because of their customs they go to mosques. When the Turks read the Quran and think about it, they will |
1465_24 | leave Islam. Atatürk described Islam as the religion of the Arabs in his own work titled Vatandaş için Medeni Bilgiler by his own critical and nationalist views. |
1465_25 | Association of Atheism (Ateizm Derneği), the first official atheist organisation in Middle East and Caucasus, was founded in 2014. It serves to support irreligious people and freethinkers in Turkey who are discriminated against based on their views. In 2018 it was reported in some media outlets that the Ateizm Derneği would close down because of the pressure on its members and attacks by pro-government media, but the association itself issued a clarification that this was not the case and that it was still active. |
1465_26 | United States |
1465_27 | The Free Thought movement first organized itself in the United States as the "Free Press Association" in 1827 in defense of George Houston, publisher of The Correspondent, an early journal of Biblical criticism in an era when blasphemy convictions were still possible. Houston had helped found an Owenite community at Haverstraw, New York in 1826–27. The short-lived Correspondent was superseded by the Free Enquirer, the official organ of Robert Owen's New Harmony community in Indiana, edited by Robert Dale Owen and by Fanny Wright between 1828 and 1832 in New York. During this time Robert Dale Owen sought to introduce the philosophic skepticism of the Free Thought movement into the Workingmen's Party in New York City. The Free Enquirer'''s annual civic celebrations of Paine's birthday after 1825 finally coalesced in 1836 in the first national Free Thinkers organization, the "United States Moral and Philosophical Society for the General Diffusion of Useful Knowledge". It was founded on |
1465_28 | August 1, 1836, at a national convention at the Lyceum in Saratoga Springs with Isaac S. Smith of Buffalo, New York, as president. Smith was also the 1836 Equal Rights Party's candidate for Governor of New York and had also been the Workingmen's Party candidate for Lt. Governor of New York in 1830. The Moral and Philosophical Society published The Beacon, edited by Gilbert Vale. |
1465_29 | Driven by the revolutions of 1848 in the German states, the 19th century saw an immigration of German freethinkers and anti-clericalists to the United States (see Forty-Eighters). In the United States, they hoped to be able to live by their principles, without interference from government and church authorities.
Many Freethinkers settled in German immigrant strongholds, including St. Louis, Indianapolis, Wisconsin, and Texas, where they founded the town of Comfort, Texas, as well as others.
These groups of German Freethinkers referred to their organizations as Freie Gemeinden, or "free congregations". The first Freie Gemeinde was established in St. Louis in 1850. Others followed in Pennsylvania, California, Washington, D.C., New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, and other states.
Freethinkers tended to be liberal, espousing ideals such as racial, social, and sexual equality, and the abolition of slavery. |
1465_30 | The "Golden Age of Freethought" in the US came in the late 1800s. The dominant organization was the National Liberal League which formed in 1876 in Philadelphia. This group re-formed itself in 1885 as the American Secular Union under the leadership of the eminent agnostic orator Robert G. Ingersoll. Following Ingersoll's death in 1899 the organization declined, in part due to lack of effective leadership. |
1465_31 | Free thought in the United States declined in the early twentieth century. By the early twentieth century, most free thought congregations had disbanded or joined other mainstream churches. The longest continuously operating free thought congregation in America is the Free Congregation of Sauk County, Wisconsin, which was founded in 1852 and is still active . It affiliated with the American Unitarian Association (now the Unitarian Universalist Association) in 1955. D. M. Bennett was the founder and publisher of The Truth Seeker in 1873, a radical free thought and reform American periodical. |
1465_32 | German Freethinker settlements were located in:
Burlington, Racine County, Wisconsin
Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois
Castell, Llano County, Texas
Comfort, Kendall County, Texas
Davenport, Scott County, Iowa
Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin
Frelsburg, Colorado County, Texas
Hermann, Gasconade County, Missouri
Jefferson, Jefferson County, Wisconsin
Indianapolis, Indiana
Latium, Washington County, Texas
Manitowoc, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
Meyersville, DeWitt County, Texas
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Millheim, Austin County, Texas
Oshkosh, Winnebago County, Wisconsin
Ratcliffe, DeWitt County, Texas
Sauk City, Sauk County, Wisconsin
Shelby, Austin County, Texas
Sisterdale, Kendall County, Texas
St. Louis, Missouri
Tusculum, Kendall County, Texas
Two Rivers, Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
Watertown, Dodge County, Wisconsin
Anarchism |
1465_33 | United States tradition
Free thought influenced the development of anarchism in the United States of America. In the U.S., "free thought was a basically anti-Christian, anti-clerical movement, whose purpose was to make the individual politically and spiritually free to decide for himself on religious matters. A number of contributors to Liberty were prominent figures in both free thought and anarchism. The American individualist anarchist George MacDonald [(1857–1944)] was a co-editor of Freethought and, for a time, The Truth Seeker. E.C. Walker was co-editor of the freethought/free love journal Lucifer, the Light-Bearer." "Many of the anarchists were ardent freethinkers; reprints from free thought papers such as Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, Freethought and The Truth Seeker appeared in Liberty...The church was viewed as a common ally of the state and as a repressive force in and of itself." |
1465_34 | European tradition |
1465_35 | In Europe, a similar development occurred in French and Spanish individualist anarchist circles: "Anticlericalism, just as in the rest of the libertarian movement, in another of the frequent elements which will gain relevance related to the measure in which the (French) Republic begins to have conflicts with the church...Anti-clerical discourse, frequently called for by the French individualist André Lorulot [(1885-1963)], will have its impacts in Estudios (a Spanish individualist anarchist publication). There will be an attack on institutionalized religion for the responsibility that it had in the past on negative developments, for its irrationality which makes it a counterpoint of philosophical and scientific progress. There will be a criticism of proselytism and ideological manipulation which happens on both believers and agnostics". These tendencies would continue in French individualist anarchism in the work and activism of Charles-Auguste Bontemps (1893-1981) and others. In |
1465_36 | the Spanish individualist anarchist magazines Ética and Iniciales "there is a strong interest in publishing scientific news, usually linked to a certain atheist and anti-theist obsession, philosophy which will also work for pointing out the incompatibility between science and religion, faith, and reason. In this way there will be a lot of talk on Darwin's theories or on the negation of the existence of the soul". |
1465_37 | In 1901 the Catalan anarchist and freethinker Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia established "modern" or progressive schools in Barcelona in defiance of an educational system controlled by the Catholic Church.
The schools had the stated goal to "educate the working class in a rational, secular and non-coercive setting". Fiercely anti-clerical, Ferrer believed in "freedom in education", education free from the authority of church and state.
Ferrer's ideas, generally, formed the inspiration for a series of Modern Schools in the United States, Cuba, South America and London. The first of these started in New York City in 1911. Ferrer also inspired the Italian newspaper Università popolare, founded in 1901.
See also
Notes and references
Further reading |
1465_38 | Alexander, Nathan G. (2019). Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850-1914. New York/Manchester: New York University Press/Manchester University Press.
Alexander Nathan G. "Unclasping the Eagle's Talons: Mark Twain, American Freethought, and the Responses to Imperialism." The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 17, no. 3 (2018): 524–545.
Bury, John Bagnell. (1913). A History of Freedom of Thought. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Jacoby, Susan. (2004). Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Putnam, Samuel Porter. (1894). Four Hundred Years of Freethought. New York: Truth Seeker Company.
Royle, Edward. (1974). Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Royle, Edward. (1980). Radicals, Secularists and Republicans: popular freethought in Britain, 1866–1915. Manchester: Manchester University Press. |
1465_39 | Tribe, David. (1967). 100 Years of Freethought''. London: Elek Books. |
1465_40 | External links
Freethinker Indonesia
A History of Freethought
Young Freethought
Anarchist theory
Civil disobedience
Critical thinking
Criticism of religion
Empiricism
Epistemological theories
Epistemology of religion
Freedom of expression
History of logic
History of philosophy
History of religion
Humanism
Intellectual history
Intellectualism
Logic
Metaphysics of mind
Philosophical concepts
Progress
Psychological concepts
Rationalism
Reasoning
Secular humanism
Secularism
Skepticism
Thought
Truth |
1466_0 | Since the Catholic Church views abortion as gravely wrong, it considers it a duty to reduce its acceptance by the public and in civil legislation. While it considers that Catholics should not favour abortion in any field, it recognises that Catholics may accept compromises that, while permitting abortions, lessen their incidence by, for instance, restricting some forms or enacting remedies against the conditions that give rise to them. It is accepted that support may be given to a political platform that contains a clause in favour of abortion but also elements that will actually reduce the number of abortions, rather than to an anti-abortion platform that will lead to their increase.
United States |
1466_1 | Before the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that opened the door to the legalization of abortion, the right-to-life movement in the U.S. consisted of lawyers, politicians, and doctors, almost all of whom were Catholic. The only coordinated opposition to abortion during the early 1970s came from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Family Life Bureau, also a Catholic organization. Prior to Roe v. Wade decision, abortion was not a high priority for Catholic bishops in the United States.
Neither was abortion a prominent issue in American politics prior to Roe v. Wade. It was not a major platform plank for either party in the 1968 and 1972 elections. |
1466_2 | In the 60s and early 70s, there was a shift as a number of Catholics and Southern whites abandoned their traditional affiliation with the Democratic party and began to support the Republican party. This shift is evidenced by the fact that Nixon received only 33% of the Catholic vote in the 1968 election compared to 52% in 1972. As a group, Catholics represented a quarter of the nation's electorate and were now one of the nation's largest swing groups. Both parties began to aggressively woo both the Catholic voters. Although the Catholic hierarchy could not dictate who Catholics voted for, they did have a substantial influence over the faithful in their dioceses. Politicians were aware that the bishops could employ significant time, energy and money to support the issues that were important to them. From their perspective, the bishops were eager to regain some of the influence that their predecessors had wielded in the earlier part of the 20th century. |
1466_3 | After Roe v. Wade, the involvement of the Catholic hierarchy in American politics increased to an unprecedented level, with bishops devoting more time, energy and money to the issue of abortion than any other single issue. The substantial role of the Catholic Church in the abortion debate has received much attention in the American media .
Mobilization of a wide-scale pro-life movement among Catholics began quickly after the Roe v. Wade decision with the creation of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). The NRLC also organized non-Catholics, eventually becoming the largest pro-life organization in the United States. Connie Paige has been quoted as having said that, "[t]he Roman Catholic Church created the right-to-life movement. Without the church, the movement would not exist as such today."
In the two years following the Roe v. Wade decision, U.S. bishops focused on passage of a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would ban abortion. |
1466_4 | A Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities
In November 1975, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) published a document titled "A Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities" that outlined a strategic plan for anti-abortion activities by members of the Catholic clergy and laity. Laurence Tribe describes the document as "an extraordinary organizational blueprint for political action." The plan called for a "comprehensive pro-life legislative program" that would push for "passage of a constitutional amendment providing protection of the unborn child to the maximum degree possible." |
1466_5 | To accomplish its goals, the plan called for the formation of committees at the state level that would coordinate the political efforts in the dioceses and congressional districts of that state. Each diocese was to have a pro-life committee that would push for the passage of a "constitutional amendment to protect the unborn child." The plan also called for the creation of an "identifiable, tightly-knit and well-organized pro-life unit" in each congressional district to track voting records of elected officials vis-a-vis abortion and to mobilize resources for political action.
Despite the concern of some bishops that the Pastoral Plan was narrowly focused on just the issue of abortion, the plan was adopted in 1975 and subsequently re-approved in 1985 and 2001.
1976 presidential election |
1466_6 | Abortion became an issue early on in the race for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. Senator Birch Bayh, who had chaired hearings on a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, finally broke his silence on the issue and came out against the passage of such an amendment. Bayh's stance opposing the amendment was soon echoed by Frank Church and Sargent Shriver, a practicing Catholic. |
1466_7 | The Democratic Party began to fracture over pro-life and pro-choice lines. Pro-life Democrats sought a candidate sympathetic to their stance on the constitutional amendment. However, conservative Democrat George Wallace declared his support for such an amendment. Laurence Tribe attributes Jimmy Carter's victory in the Iowa caucuses to his having "fudged" his position on abortion although Carter publicly denied having done so.
On the Republican side, Ronald Reagan declared his support for a constitutional amendment that would effectively ban abortions. Although President Ford won the nomination of his party, Reagan's supporters were able to push through a plank in the party platform that called for a "constitutional amendment to restore the protection of the right to life of unborn children." |
1466_8 | The Democratic party platform included a plank that asserted that it was "undesirable to attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to overturn Roe v. Wade. In an attempt to mollify the displeasure of U.S. bishops, Carter arranged a meeting with six bishops to clarify his position that, although he had not yet seen a specific phrasing that he could support, he remained opposed to abortion and pledged that he "would never try to block" an amendment banning abortion. This stance failed to placate the bishops. Attempting to capitalize on Carter's failure, President Ford signaled his agreement with the bishops' position by inviting the NCCB/USCC's Executive Committee to the White House. After the meeting, the bishops declared that, while they were not totally satisfied with Ford's position, they were encouraged by it and that they felt that "support for the concept" of a constitutional amendment was more important than agreement on a "specific kind of amendment." |
1466_9 | However, in Laurence Tribe's estimation, abortion played a less significant role in the general election than it had in the primaries. When asked to rank fifteen issues in order of importance, voters ranked abortion as fifteenth.
According to exit interviews conducted by CBS News, the Catholic vote wound up favoring Carter by 54% to 44%, a wider margin than the general electorate which favored Carter over Ford by just 50% to 48%.
1980 presidential election
During the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan made the pro-life cause a key issue in his campaign. He endorsed a constitutional amendment banning abortion, promised to appoint pro-life judges to the federal bench and prohibit the use of federal funds for abortions except where necessary to save the life of the mother. According to the results of exit interviews published in the New York Times, Catholics favored Reagan over Carter by 51% to 40%, a margin very similar to that of the general electorate. |
1466_10 | 1984 presidential election
By 1984, the Republican party was fully aligned with traditional religious values including the pro-life movement. Whereas Catholics had generally voted Democratic until the late 1960s, this traditional affiliation had diminished by 1984 to a weighting in favor of the Republican party with abortion being one of the key drivers of the shift. |
1466_11 | Sharp criticism from Church authorities put Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro on the defensive throughout the entire campaign, with abortion opponents frequently protesting her appearances with a level of fervor not usually encountered by pro-choice Catholic male candidates such as Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy. Ferraro was criticized by name by Cardinal John O'Connor, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, and James Timlin, the Bishop of Scranton, for misrepresenting the Catholic Church's position on abortion. In a 1982 briefing for Congress Ferraro had written that, "the Catholic position on abortion is not monolithic and there can be a range of personal and political responses to the issue." Cardinal O'Connor publicly criticized Ferraro for making this statement. After several days of back-and-forth debate in the public media, Ferraro finally conceded that, "the Catholic Church's position on abortion is monolithic" but went on to say that "But I do believe |
1466_12 | that there are a lot of Catholics who do not share the view of the Catholic Church". |
1466_13 | The pro-choice group Catholics for a Free Choice placed an October 7, 1984, full-page ad in The New York Times titled "A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion". The advertisement stated that "direct abortion ...can sometimes be a moral choice" and that "responsible moral decisions can only be made in an atmosphere of freedom from fear of coercion."
Debate within the Catholic hierarchy |
1466_14 | Reagan's attempt to confirm and build up his ties with the religious base of his party injected a strong religious overtone to his re-election campaign. This new focus on religious values in politics caused the American bishops to evaluate the extent to which Catholic morality should interact with politics and public policy. The Catholic hierarchy was split because some bishops such as Archbishop Bernard Law and Archbishop John O'Connor favored focusing on the single issue of abortion whereas others such as Cardinal Joseph Bernardin favored a more balanced approach that brought attention to other issues such as the threat of nuclear warfare and the elimination of poverty. Cardinal Bernardin asserted that the Catholic hierarchy would be "severely pressured by those who wanted to push a particular issue with little or no regard for the rest of the bishops' positions." In order to prevent this from happening, Bernardin proposed that the bishops promote a "consistent ethic of life". |
1466_15 | Bernardin argued that, while it was not necessary or possible for every Catholic to be engaged on every issue, it was nonetheless "both possible and necessary for the Church as a whole to cultivate a conscious explicit connection among the several issues." Initially, Bernardin spoke out against nuclear war and abortion. However, he quickly expanded the scope of his view to include all aspects of human life (according to the church's definition). In one of the first speeches given on the topic at Fordham University, Bernardin said: "The spectrum of life cuts across the issues of genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modern warfare and the care of the terminally ill." Bernardin said that although each of the issues was distinct (euthanasia, for example, was not the same as abortion), nevertheless the issues were linked since the valuing and defending of (human) life (according to the Catholic definition) were, he believed, at the center of both issues. Cardinal Bernardin told an |
1466_16 | audience in Portland, Oregon: "When human life is considered 'cheap' or easily expendable in one area, eventually nothing is held as sacred and all lives are in jeopardy." |
1466_17 | Subsequent presidential elections |
1466_18 | Margaret Ross Sammons describes the 1984 presidential election as the "pinnacle of the abortion debate" but asserts that the issue of abortion continued to be prominent in subsequent presidential elections. For example, in 1996, Cardinals Bernard Law and James Hickey urged Catholics not to re-elect President Bill Clinton after he vetoed a law banning intact dilation and extraction. In 2000, Catholic leaders reacted negatively to speculation that Governor George W. Bush was considering the pro-choice Catholic governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, as a possible running mate. In 2004, a number of bishops publicly declared that they would deny communion to Senator John Kerry because of his willingness to support laws protecting abortion rights despite a personal opposition to abortion. Although Kerry continued to receive communion throughout the election campaign, Sammons asserts that Kerry's campaign was sufficiently damaged by the threat to withhold communion that it may have cost |
1466_19 | him the election. Sammons argues that President George W. Bush was able to win 53% of the Catholic vote because he appealed to "traditional" Catholics. |
1466_20 | Relationship with Protestant anti-abortion activists
Because the Catholic Church in the U.S. took the lead in opposing the spread and legalization of abortion and the Protestants were comparatively slow to mobilize, Protestants who were anti-abortion came to respect the national organizations that the Catholics had established to co-ordinate their efforts.
Pro-choice Catholic politicians |
1466_21 | Many controversies have arisen over the church's treatment of Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. There has been controversy in the United States over whether Catholic politicians who promote legalization of abortion should be denied communion, as demanded by some American pro-life Catholic organizations and a few bishops. Both in the United States and elsewhere, excommunication of such politicians has been envisaged but has not been applied. Some bishops have threatened to refuse communion to these politicians. In some cases, bishops have stated that the politicians should refrain from receiving communion; in others, the possibility of excommunication has been suggested. |
1466_22 | According to David Yamane, "the vast majority of bishops in the United States ... have remained silent on the issue." Those remaining silent include prominent conservatives such as Cardinals Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Edward Egan of New York. Cardinals William Keeler of Baltimore and Theodore McCarrick of Washington have declared that they would not withhold communion as a means of sanctioning pro-choice Catholic politicians. Yamane points out that the number of bishops who have made public pronouncements against pro-choice Catholic politicians amounts to less than 10% of the American Catholic hierarchy. Because only a small percentage of American bishops are in favor of withholding communion from politicians and the majority are opposed, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decided in 2004 that such matters should left to the discretion of each bishop on a case-by-case basis. |
1466_23 | Those bishops who support denying communion, including Raymond Leo Burke, base their position on Canon 915. Most American bishops do not support refusal of communion on these grounds. These statements of intent from church authorities have sometimes led American Catholic voters to vote for candidates who wish to ban abortion, rather than pro-choice candidates who support other Catholic Church positions, such as war, health care, immigration, or lowering the abortion rate.
Penalties of this kind from bishops have targeted Democrats, although a number of prominent Republican politicians are also pro-choice. |
1466_24 | In 1990, John Cardinal O'Connor of New York suggested that, by supporting abortion rights, Catholic politicians who were pro-choice risked excommunication. The response of Catholic pro-choice politicians to O'Connor's comment was generally defiant. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi asserted that, "There is no desire to fight with the cardinals or archbishops. But it has to be clear that we are elected officials and we uphold the law and we support public positions separate and apart from our Catholic faith." |
1466_25 | Politicians who have been targeted in such controversies include Lucy Killea, Mario Cuomo, John Kerry,Rudy Giuliani, and Joe Biden. Killea's case was the first recorded; Kerry's led to comparisons between his presidential campaign and that of John F. Kennedy in 1960. While Kennedy had to demonstrate his independence from the Roman Catholic Church due to public fear that a Catholic president would make decisions based on Vatican commands, it seemed that Kerry, in contrast, had to show obedience to Catholic authorities in order to win votes.
Threats to deny communion have been limited to the United States. Bishops there who support such a course of action cite canon 915 as justification. Suggested reasons for this uniqueness are a politicization of pastoral practice and abortion's constitutional status as a right.
Europe |
1466_26 | Abortion is legal in nearly every European country although there is a wide variation in the restrictions under which it is permitted. Restrictions on abortion are most stringent in countries that are more strongly observant of the Catholic faith.
In Europe, there have not been threats of denial of communion, although, as in the United States, there have been incidents of church authorities telling Catholic politicians not to take communion and of excommunication being suggested. Pope John Paul II is reported to have given communion to Italian abortion rights supporter Francesco Rutelli, on Jan. 6, 2001.
Austria |
1466_27 | In 1973, Franz Cardinal König wrote an open letter to Chancellor Bruno Kreisky opposing free-choice abortion and arguing that it was a "renunciation of society's responsibility to protect life, including unborn life." In 1975, the Catholic Church played a significant role in mobilizing support for a "people's initiative" sponsored by Aktion Leben, an Austrian pro-life organization. Ultimately, abortion on demand remained legal in Austria during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Poland |
1466_28 | After the fall of Communism, abortion debate erupted in Poland. Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches, and right-wing politicians pressured the government to ban abortion except in cases where abortion was the only way to save the life of the pregnant woman. Left-wing politicians and most liberals were opposed to this, and pressured the government to maintain the above-mentioned 1956 legislation. The abortion law in Poland today ("Law on family planning, protection of the human fetus and conditions for legal abortion") was enacted in January 1993 as a compromise between both camps. |
1466_29 | It is widely believed that the Catholic Church in Poland is the main obstacle to the liberalization of abortion laws and the reintroduction of sex education in Polish schools in accordance with European standards. However, research studies have shown that Polish Catholics have a wide range of views on sex and marriage. Many Poles, including devout Catholics, complain that the Catholic Church makes demands that very few Catholics want and are able to satisfy.
Belgium
Prior to 1990, Belgium remained one of the few countries where abortion was illegal. However, abortions were unofficially permitted (and even reimbursed out of 'sickness funds') as long as they were registered as "curettage". It was estimated that 20,000 abortions were performed each year (in comparison to 100,000 births). |
1466_30 | In early 1990, despite the opposition of the Christian parties, a coalition of the Socialist and Liberal parties passed a law to partially liberalize abortion law in Belgium. The Belgian bishops appealed to the population at large with a public statement that expounded their doctrinal and pastoral opposition to the law. They warned Belgian Catholics that anyone who co-operated "effectively and directly" in the procurement of abortions was "excluding themselves from the ecclesiastical community." Motivated by the strong stance of the Belgian bishops, King Baudoin notified the Prime Minister on March 30 that he could not sign the law without violating his conscience as a Catholic. Since the legislation would not have the force of law without the king's signature, his refusal to sign threatened to precipitate a constitutional crisis. However, the problem was resolved by an agreement between the king and Prime Minister Martens by which the Belgian government declared the king unable |
1466_31 | to govern, assumed his authority and enacted the law, after which Parliament then voted to reinstate the king on the next day. The Vatican described the king's action as a "noble and courageous choice" dictated by a "very strong moral conscience." Others have suggested that Baudoin's action was "little more than a gesture", since he was reinstated as king just 44 hours after he was removed from power. |
1466_32 | Asia
The Philippines
In the Philippines, abortion is illegal except where it is deemed necessary to save the life of the mother. Since the nation is predominantly Catholic, the Church is highly influential and its opposition is credited with frustrating efforts to liberalize the nation's highly restrictive abortion laws.
See also
Culture war
References
Politics
Abortion law
Abortion
Catholic theology and doctrine |
1467_0 | Archaeoacoustics is a sub-field of archaeology and acoustics which studies the relationship between people and sound throughout history. It is an interdisciplinary field with methodological contributions from acoustics, archaeology, and computer simulation, and is broadly related to topics within cultural anthropology such as experimental archaeology, ethnomusicology, and music archaeology. Since many cultures explored through archaeology were focused on the oral and therefore the aural, researchers believe that studying the sonic nature of archaeological sites and artifacts may reveal new information on the civilizations scrutinized.
Notable work
Disciplinary methodology
Damian Murphy of the University of York has studied measurement techniques in acoustic archaeology.
Ancient sites |
1467_1 | In 1999, Aaron Watson undertook work on the acoustics of numerous archaeological sites, including that of Stonehenge, investigated numerous chamber tombs and other stone circles. Rupert Till (Huddersfield) and Bruno Fazenda (Salford) also explored Stonehenge's acoustics. In the October 2011 edition of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Steven Waller argued that acoustics interference patterns were used to design the blue print of Stonehenge.
Miriam Kolar and colleagues (Stanford) studied various spatial and perceptual attributes of Chavín de Huantar. They identified within the site held the same resonance produced by pututu shells (also used as instruments in the Chavín culture). |
1467_2 | Scientific research led since 1998 suggests that the Kukulkan pyramid in Chichen Itza mimics the chirping sound of the quetzal bird when humans clap their hands around it. The researchers argue that this phenomenon is not accidental, that the builders of this pyramid felt divinely rewarded by the echoing effect of this structure. Technically, the clapping noise rings out and scatters against the temple's high and narrow limestone steps, producing a chirp-like tone that declines in frequency.
Lithophony
Archaeologist Paul Devereux's work (2001) has looked at ringing rocks, Avebury and various other subjects, that he details in his book Stone Age Soundtracks.
Ian Cross of University of Cambridge has explored lithoacoustics, the use of stones as musical instruments.
Archaeologist Cornelia Kleinitz has studied the sound of a rock gongs in Sudan with Rupert Till and Brenda Baker. |
1467_3 | Art and acoustics
Iegor Reznikoff and Michel Dauvois studied the prehistoric painted caves of France, and found links between the artworks' positioning and acoustic effects. An AHRC project headed by Rupert Till of Huddersfield University, Chris Scarre of Durham University and Bruno Fazenda of Salford University, studies similar relationships in the prehistoric painted caves in northern Spain.
Archaeologists Margarita Díaz-Andreu, Carlos García Benito and Tommaso Mattioli have undertaken work on rock art landscapes in Italy, France and Spain, paying particular attention to echolocation and augmented audibility of distant sounds that is experienced in some rock art sites.
Greek and Roman structures
Steven Waller has also studied the links between rock art and sound. Panagiotis Karampatzakis and Vasilios Zafranas investigated the Acoustic Properties of the Necromanteion of Acheron, Aristoxenus acoustic vases, and the evolution of acoustics in the ancient Greek and Roman odea. |
1467_4 | Study groups
The International Study Group on Music Archaeology (ISGMA), which includes archaeoacoustical work, is a pool of researchers devoted to the field of music archaeology. The study group is hosted at the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute Berlin (DAI, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung) and the Department for Ethnomusicology at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, SMB SPK, Abteilung Musikethnologie, Medien-Technik und Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv). The ISGMA comprises research methods of musicological and anthropological disciplines (archaeology, organology, acoustics, music iconology, philology, ethnohistory, and ethnomusicology). |
1467_5 | The Acoustics and Music of British Prehistory Research Network was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, led by Rupert Till and Chris Scarre, as well as Professor Jian Kang of Sheffield University's Department of Architecture. It has a list of researchers working in the field, and links to many other relevant sites. An e-mail list has been discussing the subject since 2002 and was set up as a result of the First Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics by Victor Reijs. |
1467_6 | Based in the US, the OTS Foundation has conducted several international conferences specifically on Archaeoacoustics, with a focus on the human experience of sound in ancient ritual and ceremonial spaces. The published papers represent a broader multidisciplinary study and include input from the realms of archaeology, architecture, acoustic engineering, rock art, and psycho-acoustics, as well as reports of field work from Gobekli Tepe and Southern Turkey, Malta, and elsewhere around the world.
The European Music Archeology Project is a multi-million euro project to recreate ancient instruments and their sounds, and also the environments in which they would have been played. |
1467_7 | Past interpretations controversy
An early interpretation of the idea of archaeoacoustics was that it explored acoustic phenomena encoded in ancient artifacts. For instance, the idea that a pot or vase could be "read" like a gramophone record or phonograph cylinder for messages from the past, sounds encoded into the turning clay as the pot was thrown. There is little evidence to support such ideas, and there are few publications claiming that this is the case. In comparison, the more contemporary approach to the field now has many publications and a growing significance. This earlier approach was first raised in the 6 February 1969 issue of New Scientist magazine, where it was discussed in David E. H. Jones's light-hearted "Daedalus" column. He wrote: |
1467_8 | Jones subsequently received a letter from one Richard G. Woodbridge III who claimed to have already been working on the idea and said that he had sent a paper on the subject to the journal Nature. The paper never appeared in Nature, but the August 1969 edition of the journal Proceedings of the IEEE printed a letter from Woodbridge entitled "Acoustic Recordings from Antiquity". In this communication, the author stated that he wished to call attention to the potential of what he called "Acoustic Archaeology" and to record some early experiments in the field. He then described his experiments with making clay pots and oil paintings from which sound could then be replayed, using a conventional record player cartridge connected directly to a set of headphones. He claimed to have extracted the hum of the potter's wheel from the grooves of a pot, and the word "blue" from an analysis of patch of blue color in a painting. |
1467_9 | In 1993, archeology professor Paul Åström and acoustics professor Mendel Kleiner performed similar experiments in Gothenburg, and reported that they could recover some sounds.
An episode of MythBusters explored the idea: Episode 62: Killer Cable Snaps, Pottery Record found that while some generic acoustic phenomena can be found on pottery, it is unlikely that any discernible sounds (like someone talking) could be recorded on the pots unless ancient people had the technical knowledge to deliberately put the sounds on the artifacts.
In 1902, Charles Sanders Peirce wrote: "Give science only a hundred more centuries of increase in geometrical progression, and she may be expected to find that the sound waves of Aristotle's voice have somehow recorded themselves." |
1467_10 | In popular culture
Nigel Kneale's 1972 BBC television play The Stone Tape helped to popularize the term 'stone tape theory'.
Arthur C. Clarke discussed the idea at a NASA conference on the future of technology in the early 1970s.
An episode of Mysteryquest on History called Stonehenge featured Rupert Till and Bruno Fazenda conducting acoustic tests at Stonehenge and at the Maryhill Monument, a full-sized replica of Stonehenge in the USA.
Gregory Benford's 1979 short story "Time Shards" concerns a researcher who recovers thousand-year-old sound from a piece of pottery thrown on a wheel and inscribed with a fine wire as it spun. The sound is then analyzed to reveal conversations between the potter and his assistant in Middle English.
Rudy Rucker's 1981 short story "Buzz" includes a small section of audio recovered from ancient Egyptian pottery. |
1467_11 | A 2000 episode of The X-Files, "Hollywood A.D.", features "The Lazarus Bowl", a mythical piece of pottery reputed to have recorded on it the words that Jesus Christ spoke when he raised Lazarus from the dead.
In the 1996 game Amber: Journeys Beyond, this phenomenon is referred to as 'stone tape theory' and a key part of the game's plot.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation used this in 2005 episode "Committed", where an inmate's conversation is partially recorded on a clay jar.
In the first-season episode of Fringe entitled "The Road Not Taken", an electron microscope is used to reproduce sounds captured on a partially melted window. |
1467_12 | See also
Music archaeology
Ancient music
Prehistoric music
Ernst Chladni
Phonautograph
Echolocation
References
Archaeological sub-disciplines |
1468_0 | This is a list of television programs formerly or currently broadcast by the Discovery Channel, in the United States.
Current programming
The following programs are currently airing on Discovery Channel: |
1468_1 | 100 Days Wild
Aaron Needs a Job
Alaska: The Last Frontier
Alaskan Bush People
All on the Line
American Chopper
Bad Chad Customs
BattleBots
Bering Sea Gold
Cal Fire
Cash Cab
Contact
Deadliest Catch
Deadliest Catch: Bloodline
Diesel Brothers
Dino Hunters
Dirty Jobs: Rowe'd Trip
Dirty Mudder Truckers
Driven
Dodgeball Thunderdome
Dual Survival
Expedition to the Edge
Expedition Unknown
Expedition X
Fast N' Loud
Finding Escobar's Millions
Frontier
Getaway Driver
Gold Rush
Gold Rush: White Water
Growing Belushi
Guardians of the Glades
Homestead Rescue
I Quit
The Impossible Row
Jeremy Wade's Dark Waters
Killing Fields
The Last Alaskans
Legends of the Wild
Lost Relics of the Knights Templar
Man vs. Bear
Masters of Arms
Masters of Disaster
Misfit Garage
Moonshiners
Moonshiners: Master Distiller
Mysteries of the Deep
MythBusters
Naked and Afraid
Naked and Afraid XL
Outback Lockdown
Raising Wild
Reclaimed
River of No Return
Rob Riggle: Global Investigator
Savage Builds
Serengeti
Sticker Shock |
1468_2 | Street Outlaws
Street Outlaws: Fastest in America
Street Outlaws: Memphis
Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings
Trading Spaces
Treasure Quest: Snake Island
Twin Turbos
Undercover Billionaire
Vegas Rat Rods
Vintage Tech Hunters
Wheeler Dealers
Why We Hate
You Have Been Warned |
1468_3 | Upcoming programming
Rocket Around the Xmas Tree (December 3, 2020)
Deep Planet (2020)
Galpin Auto Sports (working title) (2020)
Revenge of the Nerd (2020)
Hard To Kill (working title)
Mysterious Planet (working title)
Perfect Planet (working title)
Taken By The Tiger (working title)
Wildlife Warriors (working title)
Former programming |
1468_4 | 2057 (2007)
9/11 Firehouse (2013)
A Fishing Story with Ronnie Green (2017)
Adrenaline Rush Hour (2009)
After the Climb (2007)
Africa (2013)
Air Pressure (2015)
Aircrash Confidential (2011–12)
Airplane Repo (2010–15)
Airshow (2015)
Alaskan Steel Men (2013)
Alien Planet (2005 special)
American Casino (2004–05)
American Guns (2011–12)
American Hot Rod (2004–08)
American Loggers (2009–11)
American Made Inventors (2017)
American Muscle (2014)
American Tarzan (2016)
American Treasures (2011)
American Underworld (2011)
Amish Mafia (2012–15)
Animal Face-Off (2004)
Apocalipse Preppers (2013)
Arctic Rescue (2015)
Argo: Inside Story (2013)
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe (1994–95)
Assignment Discovery
Atlas (2006–08)
Atlas 4D (2010)
Auction Kings (2010–13)
Backyard Oil (2013)
Bad Universe
Barbarians – Secrets of the Dark Ages (2002)
The Battle for Rome (2006)
Battlefield Detectives (2003)
Beast Tracker
Beachbody
Before the Dinosaurs (2005)
Before We Ruled the Earth (2003) |
1468_5 | Bermuda Triangle Exposed
Beyond 2000
Beyond Tomorrow
Big! (2004)
The Big Brain Theory (2013)
Biker Build-Off (2002–07)
Billion Dollar Secret
Bizarre Dinosaurs
Blood and Oil (2013)
Blue Collar Bankers
The Blue Planet (2001)
Blueprint for Disaster (2004–08)
Bone Detectives (2007–08)
Brainiac
Breakout
Brew Masters (2010)
Building the Future
Building the Ultimate (2005)
Built for Champions
Bush Tucker Man (c. 1992)
Canada's Worst Driver (2005–18)
Canada's Worst Handyman (2006–11)
Carfellas
Chop Shop London
Choppers
The Colony (2009–2010)
Connect
Crash of the Century
Curiosity (2011–13)
Curious and Unusual Deaths
The Curse Of Tutankhamen (1999)
Daily Planet (1995–2018)
Dangerman (Geoff Mackley)
Darcy's Wild Life
Daring Capers (1999–2001)
Dark Fellowships: The Vril
Dead Men's Tales
Deadly Women
Dealers (2012)
Deception with Keith Barry
Decoding Disaster
Designer Guys
Destroyed in Seconds (2008–09)
The Detonators
The Devil's Ride
Diagnosis: Unknown
Dinosaur Planet (2003) |
1468_6 | Dinosaur Revolution (2011)
Dirty Jobs (2003–12)
Disaster Detective
Disaster Eyewitness (2011)
Discovery Atlas (2006–08)
Discover Magazine (1992–2000)
Discovery News
Discovery Profile
Discovery Sport
Discovery Sunday
Doctorology (2007)
Doing DaVinci (2009–10)
Doomsday 2012 (2008 special)
Doomsday Bunkers
Double Agents
Download: The True Story of the Internet (2008)
Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real
Dual Survival (2010–16)
Dude, You%27re Screwed (2013–14)
Daily Planet (TV series)
Easy Does It (1991–96)
Eco-Challenge (2001)
Eco-Tech (2003)
End Day
Endurance
Engineering Volcanoes
Equinox
Escape Stories (2001)
Everest: Beyond the Limit (2006–09)
Everything You Need To Know
Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science
Expedition Borneo
Explosions Gone Wrong
Extreme Engineering (2003–11)
Extreme Machines (1997)
Edge of Alaska (2014–17)
Extreme Peril
Extreme Smuggling (2013)
Extreme Survival
The FBI Files (1998–2006)
Fearless Planet (2007)
The Feuding Tombs of Christopher Columbus
Fields of Armor |
1468_7 | Fight or Die
Fight Quest (2007–08)
The Final 24
Fireballs from Space
Firehouse USA: Boston (2005)
Firepower
Flying Heavy Metal (2005)
Flying Wild Alaska (2011–12)
Forensic Detectives (1999–2001)
Frontiers of Construction
Frontiers of Flight
Frozen Planet
Full Force Nature
Full Metal Challenge
The Future Is Wild
Future Weapons (2006–08)
FutureCar
Game of Stones
Garage Takeover
Ghost Lab (2009–11)
Ghosthunters (1996–97)
Giant Squid: Caught On Camera
Globe Trekker
Going Tribal
Gold Star Racing
Great Bear Stakeout (special; premiered May 12, 2013)
The Great Biker Build Off
The Greatest Ever (2005)
Green Village
Guinea Pig
Gutbusters (2002 special)
Harley and the Davidsons (2016)
A Haunting (2005–07 on Discovery, 2011–present on Destination America)
The Haunting in Connecticut (2003 film)
Hazard Pay
Heirs to the Dare (2014)
Heroes (2006)
Hidden
Hijack El Al Flight 426
Hogs Gone Wild
The Holocaust: In Memory of Millions
Home Matters
Hooked on Fishing (1999–unknown) |
1468_8 | How Beer Saved the World (2011)
How Booze Built America (2012)
How Do They Do It?
How Does It Work?
How It's Made
How to Survive
How The Universe Works (2010)
How We Invented the World (miniseries; 2013)
Howe & Howe Tech (2010–11)
Huge Moves
Human Body: Pushing the Limits (2008)
I, VIDEOGAME
I Shouldn't Be Alive (2005–06)
I Was Bitten
Iditarod: Toughest Race on Earth (2008)
In the Wild with Harry Butler
Incredible India!
India with Sanjeev Bhaskar
Industrial Revelations (2002–04)
Inside Planet Earth
Instinto Asesino
Interior Motives
Into Alaska with Jeff Corwin
Into the Lion's Den
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking (2010)
Into the Unknown with Josh Bernstein (2008)
Invention
Is Born
Is It Possible? (2010)
It Takes a Thief (2005–07)
JFK: The End Of Camelot
Jungle Gold (2012–13)
Junkyard Wars (2001–03)
Justice Files
Klondike (2014)
The Know Zone (1995)
Korea: The Forgotten War
LA Ink (2007–11)
Last Day of the Dinosaurs (2010 special)
The Last Huntsmen (2013)
Last One Standing |
1468_9 | Legend Detectives (2005 miniseries)
Licence to Drill
Life (2010)
Lobster Wars (2007)
Lost Animals of the 20th Century
The Lost Ship of Venice (2006 special)
The Lost Tomb of Jesus (2007 special)
Lunar Jim (August 5, 2006 – June 25, 2011)
Lynette Jennings Design
Magic of Science
Mammals Vs. Dinosaurs
Man vs. Wild (2006–11)
Man, Woman, Wild (2010–12)
Manhunt: Unabomber (2017 miniseries)
Massive Engines
Massive Machines
Mayday
Mega Builders (2005–10)
Mega Engineering
Miami Ink
Mind, Body & Kick Ass Moves
Miracle Planet
Modern Gladiators
Moment of Impact
Mongrel Nation (2003)
Monkey Business
Monster Garage (2002–06)
Monster House (2003–06)
Monster: A Portrait Of Stalin In Blood
Monsters Inside Me
Monsters Resurrected (2009)
Most Evil (2006–08)
Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed
Mummy Detective with Bob Brier (2004 miniseries)
My Shocking Story
The Mysterious Death of Cleopatra (2006)
MythBusters (2003–16)
Naked Castaway (2013) |
1468_10 | Nasty by Nature'''Nature by DesignNature's DeadliestNature's Most Amazing EventsThe New Al-QaedaThe New Detectives: Case Studies in Forensic Science (1996–2005)The Next Step (1991–96)NextWorldNightmare Next DoorNormandy: The Great CrusadeNorth America (2013 miniseries)OdditiesOn the RunOne Car Too Far (2012)One Man Army (2011)One Step BeyondOne Way Out (2008–09)Out In The ColdOutlaw Empires (2012 miniseries)Overhaulin' (2004–09 on TLC, 2012–15 on Discovery)PagansPassport to SpacePatent Bending (2006)The Patiala Necklace (2004)People WatchPerfect Disaster (2006)Pitchmen (2009–11)Planes That Never FlewPlanet EarthPoint of No Return (2002)Pompeii – Killer In Our Midst (2005)Pompeii: The Last Day (2003)Pompeii of the East (2005 special)Pop NationPortraitsProfiles of NatureProperty Wars (2012–13)The Prosecutors: In Pursuit of JusticePrototype This! (2008–09)PrehistoricPrehistoric PlanetPrehistoric ParkPyramid Beyond Imagination (2002)Ragin' Cajuns (2012)Raging PlanetRally Round the |
1468_11 | HouseRaw NatureRay Mears' The Real Heroes of Telemark (2003 special)Ray Mears' World of Survival (1997–98)The Reagan LegacyThe Real American CowboyReally Big ThingsReporters At War (2003 miniseries)Rex Hunt's Fishing Adventure (1991–2004)RidesRise of the Video Game (2007)RivalsRoad Trip USARoboticaRocket ScienceRoyal Deaths & Diseases (2003–04)RTL AutowereldSacred Steel BikesSaint Hoods (2013)Salvage SquadSasquatch: Legend Meets ScienceSci-Fi Saved My LifeSci-TrekThe Science of Sex AppealThe Science of Star WarsScrapheap ChallengeSeven Wonders Of ...Sex Sense (miniseries)Shark Week (annual program)Siberian Cut (2014)Silver Rush (2013)The Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at SeaSkywire LiveSmash Lab (2007–08)Solving History with Olly Steeds (2010)Some Assembly Required (2007–08)Sons of GunsStealth Secrets (2005)Storm Chasers (2007–11)Storm WarningStory of IndiaStranded: With Cash Peters (Travel Channel)Strange Days at Blake Holsey High (2009)Street OutlawsStunt JunkiesThe SunSuper |
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