Another Outrageous solution to an Intractable Problem: The Wealth Gap Part 2 of 3 Problems

by Gary Berg-Cross
  

In an earlier post I proposed an outrageous solution to Climate Change. Make it a bet with $$ behind it to help the winning side.  We'll need trillions to clean up the mess if it is an accurate prediction of a similar amount to heal wealth that is taxed to solve a non-problem. Well the 1% creeping into the climate change issue and they are part of the destabilizing wealth gap issue.  It is worldwide, (see Thomas Piketty, professor at the Paris School of Economics) but just the trend in US is troubling with lots of downsides and destabilizing effects.  So they say.

“Since 1960, income inequality has jumped more in the U.S. than in any other major Western country, according to a November analysis from noted economics professors.” HufPo article

It’s “ Let them eat cake” and what follows are problems of neglect.  I’ve got mine and earned it (well I was born into a worthy family in a prosperous place).  But who wants the French Revolution on a global scale?

Now in finding a solution here we want to avoid class warfare. Well since one class has the weapons that wealth brings such as owning politicians and media that's not likely to work well.

To ease the problem we might dream of outlandish solutions like Scandinavia annexing the US or China buying up the Kochs, but that’s not likely.

So here’s another idea to find some transcendent force that can close the gap despite the 1% opposition.  

We can start a morality-based religion.

Something where solving the wealth gap is a moral good, espoused by Religion.  I've heard rumors that this idea is in some religions, but obviously the message isn't getting through.  It’s buried too deeply or covered up by other commandments and priorities or abstractions that are interpreted by special people who have a direct line to the supreme mover.

Indeed there is a prosperity gospel which pushes things in the other way towards the chosen 1%.

So maybe we have a good start from some earlier work in this area but we need to start over.  Earlier efforts has been captured by elites and we have wealth religions.

Let’s be a little scientific and systematic about this and get to useful ends like narrowing the wealth gap. 

Practically we need an inspired book to start.  Who can we get to Ghost write the book? Chis Hitchens’ ghost perhaps?  Wishful thinking. I tried that and got no response.

The founding fathers might be good, Jefferson and Madison could take a swing.  They might include Tom Paine.  That’s a better set of writers than most books of revelation can claim.  Unfortunately I got no response from them either.  Maybe I’m not a good conductor and need to fast in the desert a bit.

Perhaps a team of folks lead by a philosopher like A.C. Grayling might ghost the book.  His “The GoodBook" is certainly a good start with parables and quotable ideas that get at thinking, belief and lifestyle values.  Here is one example that gets at the asymmetry or wealth issue in a moral, reasoning way:

These reasonings are unconnected, though foolish people think them: 

’I am richer than you, therefore I am better’; ‘I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better’.

The true connection is this: ‘I am richer than you, therefore my property is greater than yours’; ‘I am more eloquent than you, therefore my style is better than yours’.

From “The Good Book”

And he reuses much wisdom to put wealth and foolishness in perspective:

"Prosperity reveals vice, adversity virtue;" and 
"They are strong who conquer others, they are mighty who conquer themselves."

We just have to treat the ideas a bit more reverently. Dress it up and get some persuasive spokesman out there.  Maybe Chris Hitchens will respond from beyond in time.  Here’s an idea we'll just make it up as if he has.

Ok, so we start with a revered book and disciple who preach the message.  I guess we’ll need some institution building.  How about Humanist Libraries and academies where people come to learn and hear the word?  Well we do have a start with AHA, CFI and others (like WASH), so I guess we just need to gear up with long range and short term or conversion approaches flowing out of them.

We probably need a better conversion mechanism to get this rolling. What facilitates conversions?  If it isn't the gradual process of being raised in the culture (a long-range approach), it’s all about sudden turning points and well crisis. So we need to be prepared as they come via the wealth gap as the 99% run out of cake. Let’s be ready for the next big finanhcial bubble bust. Sudden conversions will come as a result of overwhelming anxiety and guilt from personal errors.  Why didn’t I sell all my stock or protect my retirement of sell my house or not take on that college loan?  Guilt will becomes uncomfortable, making conversion a functional solution to ease these emotions.  What actions will ease this guilt? Let’s get into those Occupy Wall Street crowds and Walmart protests and get people committed to a moral, caring society.

So Psychological understanding helps. We can leverage for example Rambo, L. R. (1993). Understanding religious conversion. New Haven: CT: Yale University Press.

We need to structure the right type of encounters and interactions as people search for a solution to problems caused by some people having it all and not contributing to solutions.  Using our Gooder Book we can lead converts to a moral society recognition and a new identity. We’ll probably need some songs and ceremonies.  We can leverage the progressive community a bit here.

We can expect some pushback for sure.  After all this would be a pretty “light” religion.  I guess we should use Religion in quotes.  So "religion." 

One without the usual God, spiritual aspect.  So we may have to get the Templeton Foundation to fund us and help clear the way with things like their evolution of "religion" efforts.  It's might be a challenge, but, hey, let's keep the faith and try.

We should have a contest for the best name for the new religion.  Something catchy like secular humanism perhaps.  Let’s give it a try and cross our fingers (is that too superstitious?) for the best. I sure hope we don’t need martyrs to make this work. 

Hyperskepticism by Ben Radford

by Don Wharton
[I am the Organizer of a WASH chapter, DC Region Atheists.  As such I am the Organizer of a meetup with over 700 members, DC Atheists Meetup.  A prior version of this post was sent on October 31, 2013 to those in the meetup who receive emails from other members.  Mr. Radford responded after one of our members sent him a copy of the text included here.  My initial email is being posted on this forum so that anyone can view the details of our exchanges.  I have committed to making all of his responses and my replies to him visible to the wider public with additional posts.  We have a commitment to give Mr. Radford and his views the most fair public hearing.  Minor grammatical corrections are displayed in red to show changes from the original. Corrections in substance will have prior text included with a strikethrough.]

I consider myself to be a skeptic. I imagine that most of the people in our group would likewise consider themselves to be skeptical of claims where we have any reason to suspect they are not grounded in reality. However, we should differentially allocate our powers of skeptical inquiry to those issues where false claims will damage our interests or the interests of those that we care about.

 

Consider Eve Ensler. She wrote the famous play, The Vagina Monologues. She is an activist arguing for action to protect women from rape and abuse. She claimed that one billion women had been will be beaten or raped in their lifetime. In a blogpost earlier this year Ben Radford declared this claim to be misleading:

 

“I've read some of Eve Ensler's work, I've attended performances of her acclaimed play The Vagina Monologues, and I wrote about her in my 2003 book Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us; she came up in my research of activists who use misleading statistics to support their social agendas.”

 

He goes on to savage Ensler's claims both in terms of accuracy and effectiveness. It is quite perplexing that he would target someone concerned with rape and violence against women. With all of the evils in this world how would this person rise to the point of being the most deserving next target for Radford's critical analysis? This question is starkly relevant because the reality is far worse than Ensler's broad number. While spousal abuse has been on a significantly downward slope in recent decades, it remains the case that at least one in four will be a victim of physical violence in our country. In a widely cited study of college men 120 out of 1,882 men reported acts that would legally qualify as rape. Quoting from the study, “The repeat rapists averaged 5.8 rapes each. The 120 rapists were responsible for 1,225 separate acts of interpersonal violence, including rape, battery, and child physical and sexual abuse.”

The US is a modern society with a significantly improving criminal justice response to this area. The rates around the world are far worse. In recent research in the Asia Pacific region 11% of men admitted raping a woman who was not their partner. When the rape of the partner was included the proportion rose to 24%. I think that we can presume that rates in Africa and Latin America could easily be comparable. Extrapolating from other studies documenting that the majority of rapists will commit multiple rapes it might easily be the case that the total number of rapes world wide might be close to the number of men worldwide.

 

The rate of physical beatings unrelated to rape and the rate of rape is not additive. Many women have been the victim of both. The net of all women world-wide is almost certainly greater than 1/3. The direct reports of men in anonymous polls are unlikely to be inaccurate because men are bragging about being scum. The chances are that their reports are less than any actual rates of violence and rapes. Of course, our group has a good grasp of these statistics, however poorly they appear in the statistics of crimes reported or prosecuted. 

 

The question is, why would someone like Benford attack someone like Ensler under the presumption that they are “misleading”? It gives him the opportunity to say that he is superior to someone who is actually effective in combating sexism. It also gives him a chance to savage the feminists that are the special target of his disapproval. Consider this from his post:

 

“I am over the male bashing often inherent in feminist writings and slogans; "All men are rapists" is neither true nor fair nor helpful.

I am over the wanton slinging of labels like "misogynist" and "sexist" and "sister hater" and "gender traitor" and "rape apologist" to people who dare criticize feminists. Plenty of feminists disagree with each other.
I am over social activists, including those whose causes I support, who value emotion and anecdote over truth, facts, and critical thinking.”

 

Of course, he doesn't know any respected feminist leaders who will say that "All men are rapists." There aren't any. The only people who believe that all men are rapists are rapists themselves. They tell themselves that all men do it so that their own rapes are seen as normal behavior. Radford's emotion is obvious as is his misrepresentation of the statistics. He is right that plenty of feminists will disagree with each other. However, his use of hyper skepticism to criticize people such as Ensler means that he is part of the problem and not the solution. He wants to protect himself from the displeasure of those who understand that he has a visceral dislike for those such as Ensler who are concerned with the treatment of women. If he really cared about the accuracy of her claims he would have done some research about the reality behind those claims. Radford is employed by the Center for Inquiry Complex. CFI is that largest secular organization on this planet. Is this what we want supported to represent us?

 

PZ Myers documents many other cases to illustrate Radford's problems when it comes understanding and reasonably talking about women.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Thoughts on Improved Discussions: Is Atheism a Religion?

By Gary Berg-Cross

Over the summer I attended some meetups where the role of religion is society was discussed.  Occasionally the discussion drifted into a topic that people were hot about and one of these was the perennial question of “Is Atheism a Religion?”  It’s a topic which can be discussed from practical, personal and philosophical perspectives. You can start by focus on clarifying what is meant by Atheism and its practice. But you also need to delve into definitions of religion and how it is practiced, then do some analytic comparisons.

You can for example, just take the simple semantics of atheism as “no belief in a god.” Then if to be a religion there must be belief in a god (a debatable point), then a narrow view of atheism doesn’t qualify.  That would make for a short discussion, but there is more to say about what is involved in atheist organization or secular,/non-faith groups expressing social beliefs as well the definition of religion. After all, the practice of atheism beyond a philosophical position allies with secular beliefs and organizes to become effective in countering religious influence as well as expressing its own values.  Often these may be packaged in practices that seem religious.

To point to just one way that so called organized atheism/non-belief acts like a religion take the London-based” The Sunday Assembly a so called “Atheist Church  -a godless congregation that meets to hear great talks, sing songs and generally celebrate the wonder of life. They have regular services in London and have launched what they call a “global missionary tour.” Indeed an Assembly event is planned in DC on Wed, Nov. 6, 2012 Center for Inquiry-DC. So an organizational form of godlessness is on the march.  If this march includes bands and songs within some physical infrastructure analogous to a temple holding some ceremonial events and ministered to by a hierarchical “leader” with stories of scientific and philosophical heroes, well maybe it should qualify for tax-free benefits. That seems OK to many. Why should these human ways of expressing ourselves be shut off to us? Religions have grabbed and are occupying ground that might be part of our humanness.  Let's take it back, especially if it helps a secular story compete with the religious stories on more of an equal footing.  This trappings of the traditional religions behave is just part of a practical-tactical decision to operate effectively within a social system in order to change it for the better.

Another perspective is to just to focus on religion as something that has a set of committed beliefs.  So if atheists, free thinkers (or scientists) start expressing beliefs in things like evolution, well then it’s their religion. The counter, of course, is that religion is organized about superstitious not scientific beliefs.  The essential religious beliefs seems to be involve an unchangeable idea of a higher or supernatural power, which is often expressed as some type of god. Religion puts beliefs in a range of super-natural phenomena and powers that aren’t testable, but relies on faith. It is not regular & practical belief, but faith-based.  The power of prayer is one example. 

Religions also proposes quality concepts and judgments like 'good' or 'evil' that are measured and defined by non-human entities, but must be bought into.  Sorry these are nothing like my natural beliefs in gravity and a physical cosmos.  Sure, I commit to them in some practical way every day, but my understanding of gravity is open to allow a Higgs boson to enter that understanding and expand and refine it. But that understanding comes without the idea of something beyond the natural. As Robert G. Ingersoll said in What is Religion” (his last public speech delivered in Boston, Massachusetts the evening of June 2, 1899):

“Religion rests on the idea that Nature has a master and that this master will listen to prayer; that this master punishes and rewards; that he loves praise and flattery and hates the brave and the free.”

No such system of beliefs for free thinkers.  For us it is more like what Ingersoll expressed in what was labeled his "Creed" including - Justice is the only worship and Love is the only priest. If you accept my "praise" of justice as a form of religious worship, then OK I'm that kind of religious, but not the one that expects some hidden master's punishment if I stray.

But perhaps love of love and such should qualify as something larger that society recognizes as worth supporting in the way that it does traditional religion which gets beaucoup benefits as studies have shown -see the figure alongside for examples.

One source that I often consult on issues like “what is religion” where a deeper perspective is needed is Tom Flynn’s “The New Encyclopedia of UNBELIEF.”  (BTW Tom will be speaking at WASH's MDC chapter Dec. 14 in the Rockville library from 2-4).
 Opportunisitc conversations on such things can be better grounded by consulting its pages which are tripped up or hung up discussing colloquially ideas of “religious”.  We run into these things is the loose semantics of conversation, such as when we describe a friend that is “religiously adhering to a diet”. Sure it is a type of commitment, but not what gets fully to the ideas of religion which Tom's Encyclopedia explores more systematically. Perhaps I can put on my wish list an online version of this to be consulted at Meetups!  
Under the Religion entry, for example, the Encyclopedia, starts by quoting from the International Humanist and Ethical Union statement on the use of the term religion.  Here is what they said which clarifies the Humanist position quite a bit with 3 ideas that people may hold about religion and whether there is one definition we can agree on:

Being concerned about the confusion and contention sometimes caused by the words "religion" and "religious",

This board wishes to place on record the following points which can be agreed by all humanists:

1. Some humanists use the word "religion" as roughly equivalent to "life stance"; others take it to imply some theistic or non-naturalistic reality.
2. Those humanists who use the word "religious" to describe themselves or their organisations do not imply that their humanism accepts any theistic or non-naturalist realities.
3. In the sense of the word "religion" which implies "accepting a god", humanism is not a religion; in the sense of "religion" meaning "life stance", humanism is a religion.
4. There is disagreement among humanists about which is the "true" or "appropriate" meaning of the word "religion".

From the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU)  site and its 1989 resolution on Use of the word "religion"

Which brings me back to the occasional conversation on this question of Is X a religion (take your pick on X as atheism, Humanism, Secular Humanism etc.). If you want to use religion as a life style well then, yes, but you may not be talking tax benefits style religion recognized in legal codes.  Should we have to believe in some non-natural power to be considered a religion?  I may disagree, but society may draw some lines to advantage such beliefs. I think that a mistake, but it is something to be discussed more broadly than just at Meetups.  

I guess that one other thing one might inject into these conversations after the depth of Tom’s Encyclopedia is a little bit of modern, edgy humor that ignores some nuanced differences between belief and faith to make its point.  Bill Maher backhands the idea that atheism is a religion with stinging putdowns:

"Idiots must stop claiming that atheism is a religion…..religion is defined as the belief in a “superhuman controlling power” (god), and atheism is precisely not that. Indeed, atheism is simply the absence of belief in a god or gods. It is not a world view, a philosophy, or a religion. It is simply the absence of belief. To be without a belief in god, is to be an atheist….Treating atheism like a religion would be like saying “abstinence is a sex position.” After all, when was the last time a non-believer ever claimed to see the silhouette of Christopher Hitchens on the side of a tree?"

Nones and Spirituals: Update from a College Survey

by Gary Berg-Cross

Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture recently emailed an online survey to about 2,000 students at 38 colleges and universities across the country.This is the group that release the the September 2009 report called  American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population (based on the American Religious Identification Survey 2008).  

They have followed up this with a new survey analysis (drawn from the larger ongoing American Religious Identification Survey, the 2013 National College Student Survey but conducted in conjunction with the Center for Inquiry - Yea!), that had a pretty broad swath questions about  spiritual/non-spiritual, political and moral values. These ranged from belief in God and worship attendance, which was an obvious focus, to climate change and same-sex marriage. And as one might expect these allowed a search for some correlated  patterns between opinions.

The survey asked some simple what-kind-of-person-are-you-questions such as:

   “In general would you describe yourself more as a religious, spiritual or secular person?

Notice the inclusion between religious and secular of an in-between category of  "spiritual". These are not so much church-mosque or temple goers, and may not believe in a personal God, but in a "higher beyond-the-natural power." They might seek a spiritual experience but not in a temple. They are big on homeopathy, faith healing, numerology, astrology, amulets, etc. Only 1% or so of Mormons & Muslims fall into the spiritual group.

The gross result is that interviewees pretty evenly divided between the 3 categories:

About a third, (32%), relied as true religious believers. Another 32% or are spiritual but not religious. And 28% consider themselves secular.  Yes, it doesn't add up to 100% so there are as many "none of the above or others" as there are any of the main triad. 

This survey provides some update on the rise of what these authors had earlier popularized as the “nones,” or people when asked what religion they belonged to replied 'none'. This is generally expressed negatively as is a-theist so they are described as "unaffiliated" that is lacking in affiliation -alas how these things are framed.

 In this survey update more light is shed on the majority (2/3rd) of the nones who fall into the secular grouping (yep the other third say they are "spiritual"). As the authors report:

“This finding is a challenge to the notion that the Nones are just ‘religiously unaffiliated’ or religious searchers who have not yet found a religious home. This survey clearly revealed that today’s students with a Secular worldview, who are mainly Nones, are not traditional theists.”

And the Nones seem to  be the growing faction of students they have doubled in recent decades which is even more than self identified atheists.

It is interesting that the authors make much of the in-between category of spiritual. Spirituals are mid-way between Religious and Secular in believing in miracles or the afterlife. It's something like an 80 to 40 to 8% belief from Religious to Spiritual to Secular.  They have some leaning on the supernatural - 44% accept the existence of spiritual beings like angels. Outside of the religious category female students are more likely to be spiritual while male students are secular. Well it turns out that they are not a simple middle ground on all things and it gets interesting when we leave typical Christian belief and add ideas from other religions.  Take the idea of reincarnation.  The students who say they are religious don't much believe in it (9%), but Spirituals are twice as likely to believe in such things (21%). OK, I can imagine this mixed dating of male seculars with female spirituals.  It happened in my day too and the relation to political beliefs sounds familiar too:

"Some 44 percent of seculars dubbed themselves as liberal, 20 percent as progressive, and only four percent as conservative. Among spirituals, 11 percent identified as conservative, 17 percent as moderate, and 35 percent as liberal."

So again if a progressive, secular guy has to date outside his traid, a spiritual gal is a bit better fit with a spiritual gal. Overall, the Spirituals are closer to the Religious when it comes to the supernatural, but closer to the Seculars when it comes to some hot button social/political issues like abortion or assisted suicide. 

The authors draw out some composite pictures contrasting the points n the triad:

"Religious students go to church, are more likely to believe in creationism or intelligent design, and oppose assisted suicide, adoptions by same-sex couples and gun control. Secular students, of course,  do not believe in God, endorse evolution, accept assisted suicide as moral, say gay couples should be able to adopt and want more gun control.,,,

Spirituals are more than twice as likely as the Religious to see religion as a source of conflict, but considerably less so than the Seculars."

It's nice to get this updated view of where college students are and it will be very interesting to use these results as a base from which to judge movement over time. Perhaps the Spirituals will parallel growth in Europe where extra-spiritual beliefs provides an intermediate position from established religion and allows exploratrion of  incremental growth to progressive and secular humanism over time.

For more go to: http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2013/09/26/first-the-nones-now-the-spirituals/#sthash.kN1jYEDe.dpuf

A C Grayling Makes a Case for Humanism

by Gary Berg-Cross

 Philosopher extraordinaire A.C. Grayling, first Master of London’s New College of the Humanities, is on tour discussing ideas from his most recent book -The  God Argument; the Case Against Religion and For Humanism. He was recently in DC as part of a CFI event and Chris Mooney's Point of Inquiry conversation.

Grayling is very much the thoughtful man and this new book attempts a calm approach that “thoroughly and calmly to examine all the arguments offered in support of religious beliefs.” Although he borrows life examples from other New Atheists, Grayling is very much less combative in tone. But still confronting arguments (e.g.  ontological, cosmological-design arguments, Pascal's wager etc,) for the necessary existence of God and the value of religion as an institution.

 From these it is a short transition to the 2nd part of the book which is the argument for ethical Humanism as a way of living a good life given the belief that there are no supernatural beings. Without religious doctrine this ethics must therefore be drawn from human experience, a history of which he draws from classic Greco-Roman thinkers such as Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius.  These are well represented in his previous work The Good Book.

You can see a bit of Grayling's tone and generosity of spirit in a brief video introduction to this book at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYx_rayG4ec

 For a very good summary of Grayling lecturing at length on the book see:

http://bwog.com/2013/04/07/lecturehop-a-c-grayling/

Images

 

Grayling: http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/about-us/patrons.html

God Argument: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2013/03/reviewed-the-god-argument-by-a-c-grayling.html

Some Things a Humanist is Thankful For

 By Gary Berg-Cross

Once again it is time to turn the thanking function up high in the human brain. Religious groups have their top 10 lists. Faith. Usually makes that list of things to be thankful for:

Knowing that there is a higher power you can turn to when things become to difficult for you to deal with on your own is a blessing. We all have our doubts about this from time to time and most seem to return to the idea that something much more powerful than we are has had a hand in making this all happen. 

Sports fans, comics, foodies & regular folks have their lists too filled with family, friends, food, health and prosperity. In austere times many young people, such as new grads, would be in hot water without the family safety net. Not everyone can start a business borrowing their parent’s money. And tweeting makes for silly lists of things like Justin Bieber, tanning lotion and Funyuns.

But as I asked last year, why not a humanist/nonbeliever list for Thanksgiving? Here’s a small update.

Sure family will be on that list too. My older grandkids celebrated a pilgrammy activity time in run up to turkey day at school filled.  They feasted on seasonal wordfinding along with  harvest and preparation rituals including gathering firewood and folding bedsheets. For my son's new 6 month old I am extremely thankful. He brings everyone happiness.

 Here’s a start on a list of things I’d be happy to happen, that I’m thankful for happening or that people might say or think about on Thanksgiving.

  10. The end of a long political season and I'm still glad that I won’t be bombarded by silly gaffes of politicians on Thanksgiving day. Can we hope to move to effective policies and government? Wait are pols already visiting Iowa. I’d be thankful if we could rein that in a bit and give us a break.

9. More peace efforts and more effective ones…I’m thankful for the modest success we’ve had, but people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Israel  are only a short list of folks who, at times, can’t defend themselves from missiles of various kinds. I’m not thankful for the folly that let’s that mess continue.

8. More accurate historical skeptics to properly celebrate, educate and entertain our  dinner guests with some myth busting facts. That Pilgrims' festival?  The Pilgrims and the Indians did not, as the myth has it, sit down at tables, bless their food or pass the serving dishes. Did they really invite the natives or did the natives investigate what all the gun fire was about?. Finding a party they brought there own food and cooked accordingly.  

7. I celebrate Thanksgiving as a multicultural, humanist event rather than a religious one. Greg Epstein Humanist Chaplain @Harvard has a simple 3 item Outline for a Humanist Thanksgiving Dinner Discussion. Yes, food and thankfulness  it has  but it also has some guiding questions about community: For those who are part of a Humanist/secular group: how could our Humanist community be a better resource for ourselves and for others seeking community? How might we get more involved? Should we do dinners like this together more often? For those who aren’t part of a Humanist/secular group: what would you want your own connection to community to look like a year from now?

 6. And while we are on community, I celebrate some of the national humanist and secular organizations like CFI and AHA that move us towards a better society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. You can find secular grace statements on the AHA celebration site:

A Secular Grace:

For what we are about to receive
let us be truly thankful
…to those who planted the crops
…to those who cultivated the fields
…to those who gathered the harvest.

For what we are about to receive
let us be truly thankful
to those who prepared it and those who served it.

In this festivity let us remember too
those who have no festivity
those who cannot share this plenty
those whose lives are more affected than our own
by war, oppression and exploitation
those who are hungry, sick and cold

In sharing in this meal
let us be truly thankful
for the good things we have
for the warm hospitality 
and for this good company.

  5. Last year we  could celebrate the failure of the not-so-democratically-super, Super Committee. This year we can’t yet celebrate handing a fiscal bump in the road but I still look forward to solving our problems, rationally. Let’s celebrate rationality and balance. Let’s celebrate that type of productive thinking employed across the wider scope of society.  

4. Managing and pulling off a great Thanksgiving feast requires quality planning and critical thinking. We can celebrate people who exemplify this with an affirming balance and a concern humanity and civil society. We lost a leading practitioner this year in Paul Kurtz, but we can still celebrate his life and remember.  

3. Despite our best selfish and self-centered efforts damaging it we still have to be thankful for Nature, its system resilience and mystery. One is reminded of the Albert Einstein  quote in this regard, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”  I’m not thankful about the former part, but contemplating the latter can sure be oceanically wonderful.

2. I’m still glad that America is an exceptional nation and not yet an oligarchy. True, our stats aren’t what they once were and there is a growing wealth gap that suggests the exceptionalism isn’t trickling down, if that’s where it comes from. I’m glad that Elizabeth Warren is a senator along with people like Bernie Sanders and Angus King.  They are more in the mold of public servants that our founders might celebrate.

1. Not sure what is the # one thing to be glad of? One thought is that it’s only a month or so  till Tom Flynn (he of "The Trouble with Christmas") goes to work on Dec. 25^th. That’s a Tuesday so he isn’t off the hook like last year. 
So we have to decide whose turn is it to give him a call while he's in the office?

Celebrate and make your own rituals, even if they are modest and human sized. “When some as small as speaking a simple truth for human values becomes ritual, it finds  a place in the human heart. And as  Muriel Barbery, noted in her The Elegance of the Hedgehog our ability to see greatness in small things is deeply important:

 Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?”

  Happy Thanksgiving.

Mourning the loss of a great Humanist

by Gary Berg-Cross

As many will know Paul Kurtz, often called the father of modern secular humanism, died Saturday Oct. 20th . There have been many outpourings of grief and sympathy as well as a celebration of his life.  WASH MDC had a panel honoring his thought and contributions earlier in the year and there have been several write-ups on this Blog (e.g. Kurtz by Edd Doerr or one on his thoughts) about Paul’s thoughts.

On his death he Associated Press article lauded him as a secular humanist and religion skeptic :

“A prolific author and organizer, Kurtz also founded the not-for-profit Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Council for Secular Humanism, as well as the secular humanist magazine Free Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer magazine, which takes on such topics as alien sightings, paranormal claims and homeopathic remedies. Most recently, he formed the Institute for Science and Human Values (ISHV).”  

The New York Times called him a Humanist Publisher noting his founding of Prometheus Books noting that he taught philosophy at the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York, from 1965 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1991. They also noted:

In 1973, as editor of the magazine The Humanist, Professor Kurtz drafted what came to be known as Humanist Manifesto II, in which he updated a 1933 document by addressing issues that the earlier document, which was largely a critique of theism, had failed to touch on, among them nuclear arms, population control, racism and sexism.

John Shook provided a tribute to Paul on the CFI site, which included this:

Paul Kurtz’s philosophizing has never been just about negativity. If the limitations of faith can be charted, it is because the finest achievements of human reason have brought us farther and higher. Kurtz’s living naturalism is a philosophical achievement to stitch together a cohesive worldview from what all of the sciences are telling us, yielding an optimistic outlook for growing meaning and value, and a fulfilling ethical life for every person.

D.J. Grothe of the James Randi Educational Foundtion and a colleague wrote:

Paul Kurtz was not only my dear friend, but an inspiration. His humanity, his passion, his creativity and his organizational skills were the be

bedrock of a number of international organizations, and he worked tirelessly to grow the worldwide skeptics and humanist movements. In this respect, his impact remains unrivaled. His death is deeply felt and he will be sorely missed.”

Nathan Bupp, who was mentored by Paul and worked with him at ISHV, provided this snippet from Paul’s affirmative life that included great intellectual adventures at SUNY Buffalo:

"In 1987, Dr. (Paul) Kurtz was asked by the Chicago Tribune what he would do if he ever encountered God. 'I’d immediately pass out pamphlets, asking God to change the furniture in the universe and reorder it in a more just way,' he said, before adding: 'This is hypothetical, of course.'”

(from The Washington Post, 10/23/12)

Paul will be missed, but like many great people he has given us a legacy to work with if we have the wisdom to build on it.

Photo from NYT Obit article 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/nyregion/paul-kurtz-humanist-and-philosopher-dead-at-86.html?_r=1&

Considering Some of Paul Kurtz's Thoughts

by Gary Berg-Cross

Paul Kurtz has had a long and remarkable career as a public intellectual which includes major contributor to secular humanism but also to critical thinking, ethics, skepticism and American philosophy in general. From a perspective that started in the 50s by 1980 he could look at 30s years of struggle to advance the humanist community against the rising power of fundamentalism and still has perhaps good advice for our current struggle. There is some backlast, fundamentalist similarity

As James A. Haught noted in Fundamentalist Political Power in America

The historic U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 1962 and 1963 against government-led school prayer, plus the 1973 opinion legalizing a woman’s right to choose abortion, along with the easing of social stigmas against gays and the like, all convinced them that Satan was gaining control of America.

Evangelist Jerry Falwell coalesced this group by forming the Moral Majority.

What to do as fundamentalism tipped the ballot balance to conservative hero Ronald Reagan and the 80s and 90s saw growing politicio-religious influence of groups like the moral majority? It was the issue facing the humanists, secularists (and the country) at the turn of the century and we feel it surging again.

Writing in the 80s Paul Kurtz drew up analysis of the problems and added some reasonable strategic ideas. These have sometimes been simplified down to an accomodationist label and contrasted with the New Atheists’ strong anti-religious stances and statements. As one might expect from a strategic and philosophical thinker the Kurtz position is, I think, more complicated than can be covered by the passivism evoked by the accomodationist tag. Here is a very small bit of the advice he offered the Humanist Movement back in the 8Os:

“First it is vital that we offer strong negative criticism of false religions and ideologies. All the great religions have grown by attacking those about them. As secular humanists, we need to defend skepticism, nontheism, agnosticism, atheism, and we need to question false doctrines found in Judaism, Christianity,, Islam and Marxist ideology, as well as the newer cults of unreason. Moreover, we need to guard against the intrusion of religion into our secular institutions.

Second, we need to enunciate the positive thrust of humanism. That is why humanism is more than atheism, for humanism is committed to an alternative set of ethical values. We are not simply negative naysayers; we have a constructive, alternative perspective full of meaning and significance.

Third, we should not clothe our message solely in rational terms but must make it eloquent and dramatic, appealing to the whole person, including his emotions, and expressing both the tragic and numerous elements of the human condition. This means we are committed to the expansion of the creative dimensions of humanism.

From “The Future of the Humanist Movement”, Free Inquiry, Fall, 1983, reproduced In Defense of Secular Humanism. By Paul Kurtz(1983)

I take this argument to subsume some of the strategy of the New Atheists. Point one is supportive of that effort and Paul has said that New Atheists have had a positive impact. People are talking about the issues.. But point 2 adds an important aspect to a strategy. You need to be positive as well as negative and go farther into discussion of things like ethics and how we live. As Kurtz said in interview speaking of the New Atheist writings:

“But for the secular humanist, it is not so much the stridency of these books that is at issue, as it is what’s missing from these books. Are there any ethical values and principles that nonreligious individuals can live by?"

I would add that point 3 shows Kurtz’s a John Dewey-like psychological sophistication of human understanding of factors, as discussed in earlier blogs on associative thought, cognitive biases and the role of emotions in holding on to beliefs.

In my opinion Kurtz has lead a noble life. His many ideas  span a long period of time are deep and remain contemporary.  Many would profit from hearing considering them. 

To this end WASH’s MDC chapter has invited a panel of 4 people who know him well. The will be on hand Saturday, Sept 8^th, 2 -4 p.m. at the Wheaton Regional Public Library, 11701 Georgia Ave to discuss this and his effects to build a constructive secular alternative to religion.

The Panel: Edd Doerr, Stuart Jordan, Margeret Downey and Nathan Bupp

Please come and invite your friends. The meeting if free and open to the public.

Image credits:

Margaret Downey and Nathan Bupp: Provided by them

Edd Doerr: http://humanism.ws/featured/former-aha-head-embarrassed-by-negative-humanism/

Stuart Jordan: http://www.instituteforscienceandhumanvalues.net/appearances.htm
Wordle graphic at the top was created by Gary Berg-Cross from the Kurtz quote used above and is publically available online.