Talking Naturally ala Tom Flynn

by Gary Berg-Cross

The 50+ lucky people who attended Tom Flynn spirited, no animated talk at WASH recently got something extra and above his spirited, no energetic talk about ""A Radical View on Church and State." (That was about the possibility & value of a "naked public square."

We also got a nice cheat sheet handout on Tom Flynn's "95 Ways Not To Say Spirit."  It's about fictional concepts, in this case from the spirit way of thinking.

Tired of expressions like, "the flag stands for the spirit of the US"? Tom sure is and has provided some help. It's in the spirit ,well approach, of handling the emotional & biases language of spirited, well heated conversations. 

 One thinks of J. Bentham's most famous remark regarding fictions:"To language, then -to language alone- it is that fictitious entities owe their existence; their impossible, yet indispensable existence." 

A workable solution is to replace all fictions & value judgments in the conversation with neutral or grounded terms.
For example, if some claims that someone in a political debate is lying replace 'lies' with 'claims'.  It there is a claim that pols are robbing us, then replace 'rob' with 'tax'.

For those not attending you can see the basic idea of removing the S-word from the conversation in Tom's much earlier article in Free Inquiry.  This is from the  Summer of 2002 which divides the "spirit" idea into broad categories of meaning and then applies secular concepts to these.

So if you missed the talk and have lost track of your 2002 copies of Free Inquiry & want to start your new year filling in secular concept-words for the old ghostly spirit world inspired one, here is something you can use.

A start is the meaning of spirit as life as in:

‟Spirit” in the sense of LIFE has these synonyms: animation, consciousness, dash, energy, essence, feeling, spark, vitality, vivacity

Similar to the Life-Spirit idea is the use in the sense of NATURE: character, drift (as in; ‟You get my drift”), essence, gist, quintessence, substance

Spirit is used here and elsewhere a bit like the idea of a soul as if we can attribute human life to an inhabiting supernatural vapor-like soul..  For a critique of the soul idea see Julien Musolino's "The Soul Fallacy" book & also my blog on his Lecture

Spirit” in the sense of VIGOR, as in "I admired her spirit" has alternatives of: ardor, enthusiasm, gusto, liveliness, resolution, spunk, zeal

Obviously a word like "liveliness" is also somewhat in the Life sense too, but we get the idea.  I can go for this substitution with gusto.
‟Spirit” in the sense of COURAGE ("I like John Wayne's spirit."): audacity, dauntlessness, determination, firmness, fortitude, resolve, steadfastness, tenacity

Some folks that I know have a brave/courageous psyche and are lively too.  For the new year putting some of these together to describe a person seems like a good step to take.  Of course we may be talking about the nature of a person who is cowardly, anxious and fearful.  These seem to be more the spirit of some people now a days, but I digress unless we are talking about ‟Spirit” in the sense of MOOD as in, "Her spirits were low."

We can substitute for spirit the words attitude, disposition, feeling, frame of mind, humor, temper, tenor.

‟Spirit” in the sense of THE SUBLIME has the longest Tom-List which goes like this: 

admirable, affecting, amazing, astonishing, attractive, charming, dazzling, elegant, elevated, enticing, excellent, exciting, exquisite, grand, harmonious, imposing, impressive, inspiring, lofty, magnificent, majestic, marvelous, matchless, moving, noble, outstanding, overwhelming, peerless, piquant, poignant, provoking, radiant, resplendent, seductive, sensual, sparkling, splendid, stately, stimulating, stirring, stupefying, superb, thrilling, touching, unsurpassed, venerable, virtuous, wonderful, wondrous

All of the above may help get us a bit away from the supernatural slipping into conversations the way it had been ensconced in the Pledge. It is all part of a lazy language with old metaphors envisioning extra natural Life Forces or Spiritual Energy flowing through the body as a basis for the body's natural self-healing ability. As Tom says, its time to put such ideas on the shelf along with obsolete notions like the pervasive ether and phlogiston.

Endless Efforts to Undermine Public Education

Edd Doerr

Article XI, Section 10 of the Nevada constitution: “No public funds of any kind or character whatever, state, county, or municipal, shall be used for sectarian purposes.” 

But as noted in the article Nevada Taxpayers File Motion to Immediately Stop Implementation of SB 302 SB 302 proposes a voucher program that "

"uses public money for religious instruction and other religious functions and activities at religious schools, in violation of this strict constitutional prohibition. With over a century of Nevada precedent and Nevada Attorney General opinions, the motion makes clear that voucher program funds are public funds. Any pass-through bank account for funds that the state continues to own and control is a fiction that does not alter the public character of the funds."

“The Nevada taxpayers in Duncan are standing up and asking the Court to immediately block implementation of this unconstitutional program. SB 302 funds private religious indoctrination, and funds private religious schools which operate with discriminatory admissions policies, all at the expense of the existing system of public schools and public instruction. This directly contravenes the Nevada Constitution and more than 130 years of state-law precedent,” said Amy M. Rose, ACLU of Nevada legal director.

Let’s hope that the above mentioned ACLU lawsuit is successful and that the state courts are more attentive to the state constitution than the nose-thumbing Republicans who dominate the legislature, unlike the disgraceful Indiana supreme court.

These attacks on public education, church-state separation, and religious liberty have been led for decades by Republicans in state legislatures and Congress for decades. 

See Edd Doerr's column titled “Public Education under Siege” in the current issue of Free Inquiry. 

Also, Americans for Religious Liberty has been reporting and analyzing this issue for 34 years. See ARL’s web site – arlinc.org.

Republicans in their endless efforts to undermine public  education seem oblivious to the 50 years of state referenda and opinion polls showing that Americans oppose diverting public funds to sectarian and other private schools by 2 to 1.

Some Observation on Truth from Robert G. Ingersoll in time for the 2014 election

By Gary Berg-Cross

As you can probably tell, the flood of insincerity abroad in our politics. It’s a stunning mix of strange, false & brazenly cheesy with intrusive fear paralyzing ads to boot (note - Overall ad spending has broken $1 billion in federal elections and state governors’ races,according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP)). Of course there is plenty to fear with war, pestilence and poverty abroad in the land also along with "shady,deep-pocket dark money from the establishment that undermines what we call "Democracy." Indeed all these fears can get rolled into campaigns like Scott Brown who warns that ISIS might cross the border, and bring Ebola with them. All this conservative talk about things like "restoring the values of the Christian family" moves us away from reality.
 
Over 100 years ago Robert Ingersoll warned about message like this that use religious beliefs in hard times to impose faith-based values about morality and the like.  He recognized the methods of silencing people with alternate opinions and even denying the vote to those not favored by class or ethnicity.  His antidote, summarized in a booklet called “The Truth” (sometimes package with another pamphlet call Ghosts) was a dose of rationality and truth with ideas forged in the Enlightenment  after the “countless years” we had “groped and crawled and struggled and climbed and stumbled toward the light after being “hindered and delayed and deceived “  In Ingersoll’s time the foundation was given a boost by Darwin’s evidence-based theory of evolutions. So armed humanity seemed hungry for the facts and ready to accept Science as a benefactor.  Ingersoll’s apt observation was that:

 “Nothing is greater, nothing is of more importance, than to find amid the errors and darkness of this life, a shining truth. Truth is the intellectual wealth of the world. Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles, and purifies. The grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth.

Truth gives man the greatest power for good. Truth is sword and shield. It is the sacred light of the soul.

The man who finds a truth lights a torch.”

Like many Ingersoll would be disappointed to find so few of us with the right sword, shield or torch to spark our inner light of understanding and to speak honestly from deep conviction. Instead we are still under the say of politically correct belief buttressed by invisible ghosts of prejudiced conclusions that steals the truth from us like a mix of a tyrant and a beggar. There are just still too many factors, as Ingersoll observed, lingering from our primitive past  that hinder us from examining issues.

“Prejudice, egotism, hatred, contempt, disdain, are the enemies of truth and progress. .... all questions presented to his mind, without prejudice, -- unbiased by hatred or love -- by desire or fear.” 

Our political process and its allies tries to prevent open inquiry by “force or fear” which  is doing all it can to “degrade and enslave” us still.
In part we have not taken up with full enthusiasm the path to the truth - by investigation, experiment and reason.  We are still prey to a truth short-circuit of that self-controlled exploratory path. Open investigation of issues is still difficult and ill-supported with some topics too sensitive to discuss.  Instead we are swallowed by the dishonest propaganda of conventional and mainstream, politically correct thinking and truthiness. It comes mixed in with talking points and slogan that hide reality like a Wall Street insider.

A final thought is that those who can cut through the fog of politics to a better understanding have the obligation to reach out as Ingersoll did and communicate and to be a concerned citizen:

“If it be good for man to find the truth -- good for him to be intellectually honest and hospitable, then it is good for others to know the truths thus found.

Every man should have the courage to give his honest thought. This makes the finder and publisher of truth a public benefactor.

Those who prevent, or try to prevent, the expression of honest thought, are the foes of civilization -- the enemies of truth. Nothing can exceed the egotism and impudence of the man who claims the right to express his thought and denies the same right to others.

It will not do to say that certain ideas are sacred, and that man has not the right to investigate and test these ideas for himself."

”

And oh yes, vote your wisdom.

Paul Kurtz’s Integrated Vision in Quotes- Part 2

By Gary Berg-Cross

Sept 8^th from 2-4 WASH MDC hosts a panel on the life and work of philosopher Paul Kurtz.

Here are a few of the thoughts that make up part of his Integrated Philosophy and his life’s work at the same.

Scientific Naturalism (Paul follows his mentor Sidney Hook)

There is a second meaning of naturalism, which is as a generalized description of the universe. According to the naturalists, nature is best accounted for by reference to material principles, i.e., by mass and energy and physical-chemical properties as encountered in diverse contexts of inquiry. This is a non-reductive naturalism, for although nature is physical-chemical at root, we need to deal with natural processes on various levels of observation and complexity: electrons and molecules, cells and organisms, flowers and trees, psychological cognition and perception, social institutions, and culture.

Paul Kurtz, "Darwin Re-Crucified: Why Are So Many Afraid of Naturalism?" Free Inquiry (Spring 1998)

The Role of Intelligence

Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses. There is no substitute: neither faith nor passion suffices in itself. The controlled use of scientific methods, which have transformed the natural and social sciences since the Renaissance, must be extended further in the solution of human problems. But reason must be tempered by humility, since no group has a monopoly of wisdom or virtue. Nor is there any guarantee that all problems can be solved or all questions answered. Yet critical intelligence, infused by a sense of human caring, is the best method that humanity has for resolving problems.

]The Humanist Manifesto II, http://paulkurtz.net/Articles/the%20human%20manifesto%20II.htm

Pragmatic Naturalism

 "Science is not interpreted as an esoteric method of inquiry, but is continuous with standards of critical intelligence used in common, ordinary life." Kurtz, Paul, 1990, Philosophical Essays in Pragmatic Naturalism, Prometheus Books.

Free Inquiry

Free inquiry means that any effort to prevent the mind from exercising its right to pose questions is unwarranted. Skepticism is a vital principle of inquiry. This principle implies that the reliability of a hypothesis, theory, or belief is a function of the evidence, by which it is supported. If a claim is not justified by verification,
we ought to be cautious in holding fast to it. Paul Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Humanism

Eupraxsophy

There is no word in the English language that adequately conveys the meaning of secular humanism. Secular humanism is not a religion; it represents a philosophical, scientific, and ethical outlook. I have accordingly introduced a new term, eupraxsophy, in order to distinguish humanistic convictions and practices from religious systems of faith and belief. Affirming Life - Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 24, Number 6. Editorial

New, Positive, Rational Skepticism

New Skepticism encompasses inquiry rather than doubt. It is Positive and constructive. The transformation of negative critical analysis of claims to knowledge into a positive contribution. The key principle of skeptical inquiry is to seek, when feasible, adequate evidence and reasonable grounds for any claim to truth in any context (paraphrase)

Secular Humanism

The secular humanist paradigm has six main characteristics: (1) it is a method of inquiry, (2) it provides a naturalistic cosmic outlook, (3) it is nontheistic, (4) it is committed to human ethics, (5) it offers a perspective that is democratic, and (6) it is planetary in scope. I should point out that many allies within the freethought or rationalist movement may accept one or more of these characteristics without accepting them all. Some mistakenly consider secular humanism to be equivalent with atheism, others with methodological naturalism, and still others with humanistic ethics. Secular humanism, however, is broader than any of these views; for it provides an integrated scientific-philosophical synthesis that encompasses all of these and more. This is sometimes called "naturalistic humanism." Ultimately, secular humanism proposes nothing less than the complete implementation of the agenda of modernism. This agenda in fact has yet to be fully implemented; what is necessary for it to occur is a post-modernist New Enlightenment.
-- Paul Kurtz, What is Secular Humanism (2007) page 23

Planetary Vision of Humanism

The overriding need is "to develop a new Planetary Humanism" that will seek to preserve human rights and enhance human freedom and dignity and will emphasize our commitment "to humanity as a whole." The underlying ethical principle "is the need to respect the dignity and worth of all persons in the world community." Thinkers as diverse as Peter Singer and Hans Küng also emphasize the need for a new global ethic beyond nationalistic, racial, religious, and ethnic chauvinism.
-- Paul Kurtz, What is Secular Humanism (2007) page 53, quoting from the Humanist Manifesto 2000

Joyful Exuberance

Humanists find exuberance to be intrinsically worthwhile for its own sake. This is usually identified with happiness. The Greeks called it eudaimonia, or well-being; this meant the actualization of a person’s nature, with pleasure as a by-product, not for the solitary moment, but in a complete life. This entails some moderation of a person’s desires. But I add that, in joyful exuberance, there is high excitement, the intensity of living, throbbing with passion, engaging in daring activities of enterprise and adventure.

Joyful exuberance is enhanced when we not only fulfill our needs and wants, but creatively express our goals and aspirations. It denotes some degree of excellence, nobility, even perfectibility, of a person’s talents and achievements. It comes to fruition for those who find life intensely worth living and at times exhilarating. Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 24, Number 6.s

Affirmative Stance

I believe that a person should take an affirmative outlook. There are always problems in life, old and new, uncertainties, and unexpected contingencies. The optimal way to deal with this is not to give up in despair, but to move ahead using the best intelligence and resources that we have to overcome adversity.
-- Paul Kurtz, from snowy Buffalo, NT, "New Year's Message from Paul Kurtz" (December 31, 2001) from http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/quote-k2.htm

Image Credit

Top Graphic – created by Gary Berg-Cross

Forbidden Fruit: http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/paul-kurtz/forbidden-fruit/_/R-400000000000000301151

Affirmations: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/295112.Affirmations