Just announcing two new essays I wrote for the Central Ohio Humanist have now been posted to my iHumanism website. They deal with the practical application of the Humanist philosophy in one’s every day life.
Practical Ideas About Humanism: First, the Basics — The first in a series about the practical application of Humanism. This essay sets some basic assumptions that will be the back bone of following essays.
Practical Ideas About Humanism: THINK! — The second in a series about the practical application of Humanism. This essay highlights Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit” for use by Freethinkers.
A friend of mine passed along the following note concerning the so-called National Day of Prayer. The info concerns a protest to held in Columbus on 5/4/2006. If you would like to participate feel free, if you want more info his contact info is at the end of the post.
On Thursday, May 4, 2006 – many Americans will be observing a National Day of Prayer. This is an annual event that is observed on the first Thursday of every May and has been endorsed by many goverenment officials from President Bush on down.
A National Day of Prayer rally is scheduled to be held (for the 16th year in a row) on the west (High St.) side of the Ohio Statehouse from 11:30am until 1pm.
I plan to be there with a sign and literature, protesting this terrible breach in the wall of separation between church and state.
I am doing this not as a member of any organization but as an American citizen who is fed up with the drift towards theocracy in this country.
I am also fed up with the way prayer, faith, and religion seem to be increasingly eclipsing reason and science.
If you share my concerns and would like to join me, please let me know. I plan on having some extra, professionally made signs available as well as flyers and hand-outs.
I’ve already cleared my plans with both Statehouse and Columbus officials and can share the rules and regulations that govern protests like this to anyone who might be interested.
My protest has to some extent been inspired by the National Day of Reason that the American Humanist Association and other groups have been promoting as an alternative to the National Day of Prayer. You can learn more about the thinking behind the Day of Reason by going here:
Couldn’t avoid the death watch the past few days. CNN had wall to wall coverage since Friday.
I just shook my head as millions of Catholics prayed for the Pope’s recovery then of course it was changed to praying for the Pope as he makes his way to Jesus.
John Paul II was an interesting person. Very active and he traveled a lot.
I didn’t and still don’t agree with his religion but respect him more than some of the political leaders during his 26 year reign.
Read some interesting comments about him. One was that he despised totalitarianism (having lived through the Nazi occupation of Poland and the Soviet domination) and he called it false religion yet he made his own decisions that are seen just as dictatorial. He wanted to improve the status of women but dictated that no women could be priests and came out against abortion for example.
Then there is the continued road blocks the Vatican has put up when trying to work on the issue of population control.
His Papacy set back US Catholicism 30 years and aligned it with the evangelical Christians.
Saw a quote in an AP article this evening that pretty much explains why someone like me could never be a member of any church:
“The church cannot be an association of freethinkers.”
It is the time of year when people shop till they drop or indulge until they pass out from all the food and drink. It is a time to hang out with the family even when they hate you on the other days of the year.
One of my favorite Christmas activities is watching the classic Christmas cartoon specials on TV. Most were produced in the mid to late 1960’s but even 40 years on they haven’t really become dated.
My favorite of the bunch is “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. From the lame tree Charlie buys, to the hip jazz music from Vince Guaraldi, I love the show.
There is a point near the end where a frustrated Charlie shouts about being told what the real meaning of Christmas is. He is mad at the crass commercialism of the holiday represented by Snoopy winning the decoration contest. Linus then recites the Christmas story from the Bible and peace is restored.
Actually Christmas has little to do with the birth in the manger 2000 years ago and never has. The holiday is a collection of religious and non-religious mid-winter celebrations.
You have your winter solstice – used to mark the deep of winter and hope for the coming spring which included putting evergreen trees inside your house. Then you have “Wassailing” – an early version of trick or treat, with drunken singers banging on doors, demanding food, drink, or money in exchange for going away. The part that included the birth of Jesus was added by the Romans to replace the pagan celebrations of the time.
The debauchery got so prevalent that when Puritan Oliver Cromwell became dictator of the UK, he outlawed Christmas. Puritans in Massachusetts banned Christmas observances in 1659.
It wasn’t until 1822 that the Christmas in the form that we know it was introduced. That form is Santa Claus and crass commercialism.
I wanted to take the opportunity today to dispel a couple of persistent myths that is passed around as truth. I use a service that looks for certain keywords on various Internet pages expressing viewpoints.
One of the keywords I use is “secular humanism”.
I found an article on a “conservative” website that expressed once again the myth that secular humanists control everything.
The other myth I want to lay to rest is that Christians are 1. a minority in the US and 2. Persecuted for their beliefs.
Secular Humanism controls everything?
Here is the text in question:
While our troops try to win a world war launched by Islam, America’s Christians and Jews at home confront another religious every bit as ambitious and aggressive as Islam–secular humanism. These are the folks who wish to silence the churches, erase the Ten Commandments from the template of civilization, sexualize children, and abolish the family. In return, they offer us a new god–man. More specifically, liberal, elite man in all his implacable glory.
It does us little good to defeat Islam if we can’t defeat the immoralists, too. The only difference is that this war will be fought with ballots, not bullets.
We have an enormous amount of cleaning up to do. The humanists control higher education and the public schools; the mainstream news media and the entertainment industry; the judiciary and the Democratic Party; the scientific establishment, and even the liberal church denominations. They’ve been making inroads since the early Nineteenth Century, mostly without opposition. The roots of this poisonous tree run very deep.
The article is simply wrong on many points – ok all of them – and it does nothing except stoke fear mongering.
First the author has no idea what secular humanism is. In articles like that the writer typically uses the term for the bogey man effect just like conservative writers during the cold war used communism. They rarely define secular humanism and when they do they simply get it wrong. They also attribute “secular” behavior – like protecting the freedom of religion – as secular humanism when they disagree with the action.
I should know what secular humanism is since I AM a secular humanist. The Council of Secular Humanism has the following brief definition about what secular humanism is:
Secular humanists do not rely upon gods or other supernatural forces to solve their problems or provide guidance for their conduct. They rely instead upon the application of reason, the lessons of history, and personal experience to form an ethical/moral foundation and to create meaning in life. Secular humanists look to the methodology of science as the most reliable source of information about what is factual or true about the universe we all share, acknowledging that new discoveries will always alter and expand our understanding of it and perhaps change our approach to ethical issues as well.
Simply put, religion and God is not relevant to our beliefs and philosophy of life. It is our world view and nothing more. For a person to be a secular humanist they must agree with the text noted above.
For an argument to prove that secular humanists control the schools, the media, the Democratic Party, etc… then one MUST offer evidence that a majority of people who work in those area are in fact subscribe to secular humanism as defined above.
While it is possible it is not a fact and is not true. Why? Because the number of people who are secular humanists is too small to account for all the areas it is said we control.
In a survey of religious identification conducted in 2001 showed only approximately. 100,000 people identified themselves as Humanist or as Secular with no label listed as secular humanist. That’s 100,000 out of 208,000,000 people over the age of 18. If I had answered the survey I would have picked Humanist and on the survey that was 49,000 people.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/aris_index.htm
When the legal system is used to disentangle government from religion, it does NOTHING to the believer and their beliefs. They can still pray, go to church, or follow the 10 Commandments. We just don’t want the government to be involved with religion and I am sure most Christians would agree.
Not all secular humanists are atheists nor are they all Democrats and if the writer would actually talk to secular humanists then he would know the truth.
Christians are persecuted?
Not in the United States.
The 1st Amendment prohibits that and when cases have come before the courts, religious rights are protected. For every case that removes the 10 Commandments from a court house there is a case that allows a religious group to meet in a school building as any other community group can.
Why do religious conservatives believe that they are a minority being persecuted?
In a study published in the US News and World Report had this as a possible explanation:
Evangelicals motivate each other by thinking of themselves, much as the first Christians did as an embattled minority, marginalized at best or persecuted at worst for their religious beliefs. While other Americans may not necessarily see them in this way, what is most important is that this is how evangelical Christians see themselves. And it is their shared profound dissatisfaction with aspects of the American mainstream that gives them cause to fight to be heard by the American mainstream.
While those issues I care about like gay rights, abortion, and separation of church and state doesn’t impose anything on a Christian, their actions in the opposite impose their beliefs on everyone. Who is really causing the ruin of America? It isn’t secular humanists, we are the persecuted minority.
