With the death of the prodigiously productive, rigorously intelligent and reportedly irascible Paul Kurtz in October at the age of 86, American secular humanism lost, as it were, one of its guiding spirits.

But the movement whose foundation Kurtz helped to buttress not only lives on but thrives in a national environment in which more and more Americans are choosing not to be part of religious institutions.

Nationally, locally and to some extent globally the outspoken skeptic, visionary and philosophy professor touched the lives of participants in a movement that continues to evolve and mature as it finds an established niche in the landscape of American spirituality.

"He was almost superhumanly productive throughout his whole life, (but) not without critics in the humanist movement," says Scott Rhoades, founder of the Lancaster Freethought Society, which describes itself as "promoting positive atheism and the separation of church and state (lancasterfreethought.org/co...).

Rhoades, whose journey toward atheism included time spent as a teenager in an evangelical church, attributes his own transformation to a love of science and his innate skepticism. "Science teaches us to look for evidence and to make up a hypothesis."

In his quest for what could be proven, it was only a matter of time, he says, before he turned the "spotlight" of the search for evidence on himself and his own beliefs.

"People like Paul Kurtz helped put a name" to his principles, Rhoades says. These include bettering humanity through science, "helping ourselves because no one will save us" and wanting to help his fellow human beings in the process.

"He said things in a way that (other) humanists were thinking," Rhoades says. "His thoughts ... resonated with a lot of people."

Not every professor who has these kinds of philosophical convictions wants to participate in discussion in the public arena, says Franklin & Marshall professor of religious studies Stephen Cooper, who describes Kurtz as a well-credentialed academic heavyweight.

Cooper, who heard Kurtz debate in his prime, says that while the outspoken writer wasn't necessarily the most nuanced speaker or responsive listener, he was a "flag-bearer" for the humanist cause and someone who brought a lot of intellectual firepower to the rumble between conservative Christianity and secularism.

Tracing the origins of skeptic back to the 16th-century move to purge religion of irrational ideas about deity, Cooper comments that Kurtz was "good at making the case for the sufficiency of reason for the good and moral life."

Noting Kurtz's talent for founding organization (not to mention leaving them when others made him mad), Herb Silverman, founder of the Secular Coalition for America, wrote recently in the Washington Post: "A true visionary, he gave meaning, substance and a philosophical grounding to the importance of advancing ideas of reason and science over religion."

Kurtz, who helped write the second iteration of the "Humanist Manifesto" in the 1970s (in 2003, the American Humanist Association came out with a third declaration), might have been the most public face of freethought in the last half of the 20th century, at least in academic and humanist circles. But his importance goes beyond the circles that he created, and those in which he moved -- the argument that a person can be good without religion is one that the religious and non-religious alike should take seriously.

Rhoades praises Kurtz for being able to look down the road beyond the debate between religious faith and atheism and ask: "what's next?"

As a freethought activist, Rhoades has worked to build a Lancaster community in which participants can both speak freely and enjoy each other's company over a pint and a spirited debate about philosophy and public works.

"Once you are done with the idea of God, where do you go from there?" Rhoades asks. In company with other dedicated secular humanists in America and around the globe, he is picking up Kurtz's mantle, a new generation constructing an answer to a very old question.