Remembering Freethinkers and Secular Humanist Lives

by Gary Berg-Cross
One of the 5 founders of WASH died in August, 2015. It got me thinking about how to celebrate a freethinker’s life and what we learn from the lives of people deep into the values of Secular Humanism and a reason-based life. So I looked up a few of the reflections people have made on a few of them and some their own thoughtful expressions

A starting point for me was a childhood influence, Bertrand Russell, describe in and OBIT as:

“Philosopher, mathematician, academic, and campaigner for intellectual, social and sexual freedom, and peace and disarmament, Russell was a prominent atheist. He wrote about his worldview in Why I am Not a Christian, and was a member of the British Humanist Association’s Standing Advisory Council, as well as President of Cardiff Humanists, until his death.”

When the NY Times wrote at length on his passing they included this:

Unlike some generative thinkers, Russell epitomized the philosopher as a public figure. He was the Voltaire of his time, but lacking in the Sage of Fernay's malice. From the beginning to the end of his active life, Russell engaged himself with faunlike zest in the great issues of the day-- pacifism, rights for women, civil liberty, trial marriage, new methods of education, Communism, the nuclear peril and war and peace-- for he was at bottom a moralist and a humanist. He set forth his views on moral and ethical matters in such limpidly written books as "Marriage and Morals," "Education and the Social Order" and "Human Society in Ethics and Politics."

Russell like others mentioned here helped build useful organizations and they often contributed in multiple areas as Renaissance people - philosophers, natural philosophers (scientists), intellectuals and writers.  They are thus remembered also in their own words on topics they held forth on important topics such as in  the quote from BR below:

A 2^nd such poymathic person, also from my childhood, was Isaac Asimov.

On his passing STEVE ALLEN wrote this still relevant observation noting the avoidance of his humanistic and atheistic stance in some OBITs. Mainstream culture often values things differently than the innovator does.

 A Tribute to Isaac Asimov

It is interesting that even so prominent a newspaper as the Los Angeles Times, in running a long and complimentary obituary story, one that started on the first page, referred to Isaac Asimov as a “science fiction virtuoso” and made no mention of his achievements as humanist thinker and writer.

I have the impression that the Times intended no slight whatsoever to the humanist movement in this matter but that its lack of reference to something so important to Asimov himself is an indicator of the general lack of attention paid to humanist philosophy by the American mainstream mindset. Indeed it has occurred to me that if it were not for daily attacks by right-wing fundamentalists, who are given to using the term secular humanist as they might use the phrase Satan or Communist, the non-theistic humanist movement would get almost no publicity at all

More friendly was this letter on his personality:

Isaac Asimov was not merely a great and prolific writer, but also a very funny and warm and friendly man ("Isaac Asimov, Science Fiction Virtuoso, Dies, April 7). He was always bubbling over with the most amazing wit and had more energy than any three normal men his age together. No matter how deeply involved he might be in some project or how pressed by some publishing deadline, he always enjoyed giving generously of his time and experience to help and encourage young writers of promise.

The media attention following his death was on his amazing output of publications and their influence. But for those of us who knew him, his written work is dwarfed by the challenge of his personality. Just to know him was to become a deeper and wiser person. BEN A. TUPPER Ramona

More recent is the memory of Carl Sagan. Joel Achenbach provided a tribute to him in THE SAGAN FILE which included this characterization of something familiar but something remarkably balanced by cosmological perspective. Freethinkers require many adjectives:

 He was your basic progressive liberal, a college professor, a peace advocate. But he saw our human obsessions as trivial in the grand scheme of things. The universe isn’t about us, he would say. He railed against human arrogance, against “our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe.”

And yet the voice in the file is that of a person who liked human beings, who rooted for them. Perhaps because Sagan had seen so many desert worlds out there in our solar system, so many cold, airless, sterile planets and moons, he appreciated the one place where we know life has proliferated, and where intelligence has somehow appeared.

   

   And much more recently, but just as complex we have the life and remembrance    of Christopher Hitchens.  The AHA remembrance started with:

Humanists and atheists are saddened by the death of the prolific writer and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens, who died Thursday, December 15 at the age of 62...

“Humanity has lost a powerful stalwart for atheism,”

We feel a deep lose when the person has made us think and feel deeply and made us proud to be of the human species.

 On Saturday November 21, 2015 from 10:45 AM to 12:45 PM at the Wheaton Public Library, 11701 Georgia Ave., Wheaton, MD WASH will  remember another Secular Humanist Life  -George Porter on of the five founders of WASH.

Speakers include:

Fred Edwords (former AHA Director & former national director of the United Coalition of Reason) will moderate and our speakers include:

Ron Lindsay (president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry)

Rob Boston (Director of Communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Editor of Church & State magazine)

Stuart Jordan (past WASH President, emeritus senior staff scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, past President of ISHV, served as Science Advisor to the Center for Inquiry Office of Public Policy.)

Ken Marsalek (WASH Cofounder, 6 years as early WASH president, coauthor of WASH bylaws, early WASH Board member)

Pete Lines WASH Cofounder, coauthor of WASH bylaws, early WASH Board member, secretary and treasurer) 

Bill Creasy (WASH Board member and Baltimore Chapter coordinator for 16 years, 6 years as WASH president, current WASH secretary)

Mike Reid Reid (WASH Board member for 10 years, editor of WASHline for 6 years, WASH president for 5 years.) 

Aaron Porter (son of George & Lois Porter, musician, and administrator for the Navy Band in Washington, DC)

There will be a small reception afterwards.

Please come and honor George Porter's  Secular Humanist Life as people who knew and loved him reflect on his life and contributions.

http://www.meetup.com/humanism-218/events/226418573/

Americans United Remains Committed To Protecting The Rights Of Non-Believers ( a response to Mathew Goldstein's Post)

By Rob Boston

I wish to respond to Mathew Goldstein’s recent criticisms of Americans United for Separation of Church and State on this blog.

I have worked at Americans United for 26 years. In that time, I have observed the organization work repeatedly to protect the rights of all Americans – religious and non-religious – to be free from government-sponsored theology. I resent my organization and the good people who work there being called "hypocrites." Such a characterization is not only untrue, it is offensive.

There are many non-believers among AU’s membership, and over the years we have, time and again, stood up for the civil rights and equality of humanists, atheists, agnostics and non-believers. Non-believers have been plaintiffs in just about all of our major cases, among them the challenge to “Ten Commandments” Judge Roy Moore in Alabama, the fight against “intelligent design” in Dover, Pa., and most, recently, our lawsuit against official prayers before municipal meetings in Greece, N.Y.

Americans United is a coalition. Some of our members are religious and some are not. All are dedicated to the principle that government must never impose religion onto the unwilling nor treat anyone as second-class citizen based on what they believe, or don’t believe, about god. We frequently work with religious and secular groups to achieve this goal.

Mr. Goldstein is disappointed in the way that AU dealt with a matter he brought to our attention. Rather than assume that Americans United had abandoned its commitment to protecting the rights of non-believers, perhaps he should have asked if the situation he raised was a strong church-state violation. As it turns out, it may not be.

According to his complaint, Mr. Goldstein is upset because he believes the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is sponsoring a Boy Scout troop. AU’s intake attorney did investigate the matter and was unable to find strong evidence that the department does in fact sponsor the troop. However, after Mr. Goldstein provided some additional information, the attorney referred the matter to AU’s full Legal Department for further review.

That process is ongoing. While things may not be proceeding at the pace Mr. Goldstein would like, it’s important to remember that Americans United receives complaints concerning church-state violations every day. We examine each one, and this can occasionally create a backlog. The file on this matter remains open.

I share the frustration many humanists feel over issues related to the Boy Scouts. Last year, the BSA changed its policies and now allows gay Scouts, but it hasn’t budged on atheists. The BSA’s policy of excluding non-believers is reprehensible, but it has proven a difficult issue to challenge in court. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is a private organization that may legally deny membership to gays and atheists.

After that ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue public schools and other units of government that sponsored Boy Scout troops. In 2005, the BSA recommended that government entities stop sponsoring Boy Scout troops. The BSA was worried that public schools and other arms of government might get sued. Many schools and government offices, worried about the time and expense of a lawsuit, did indeed end sponsorship of Boy Scout troops.

No court ordered them to do this. Thus, there is no case law explicitly stating that units of government may not sponsor BSA troops. From a legal perspective, this is a murky situation.

I am sorry Mr. Goldstein is disappointed, but I want to assure him and others that Americans United has not deviated from its willingness to assist freethinkers. In reality, we’re more than willing to help non-believers and do it all of the time.

For more information about Americans United and the work that we do, please visit www.au.org or email me directly at boston@au.org.

Myth Supplants Reality & Fantasy Displaces Common Sense

By Gary Berg-Cross

Allan Sloan wrote recently about the 5 Myths of the Great Financial Meltdown. His list covered:

1: The government should have done nothing

2: The government bailed out shareholders

3: The Volcker Rule will save us

4: Taxpayers are off the hook for future failures. And

5: It's the government's fault.

The details in the article are worth reading, but I was particularly struck a compelling framing line that I could identify with in his analysis:

I find myself getting increasingly angry and frustrated watching myth supplant reality about what happened, and seeing fantasy displace common sense when it comes to fixing the problems that got us in this mess .

Some manifestations are because of ideological and political stances. We see fantasy and unsound thinking in the climate change debate and warming as conspiracy of scientists, who are the most reality grounded of us. We will hear more myth, like “death panels” in likely discussion the Affordable Health Care act. As Chris Mooney notes it seems at times the political right lives in a different reality that pushed serious, critical thinking to the back of the bus. You can see this for yourself by going to the Main page of Conservapedia. When I was writing this blog the following were the very mythic, anti-freethinking news stories featured:

Liberals have destroyed the perceived value of a college degree with their worst college majors: "Undervalued and overpriced, the beleaguered bachelor's degree is losing its edge as the hallmark of an educated, readily employable American." [9]

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The myth of neutrality.[10] Which side are you on?

Remind Wikipedia that their neutral point of view policy (NPOV) is a farce and they might as well confess they are liberals! See: Bias in Wikipedia

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Pastor Carl Gallups declares his anti-atheism and anti-evolution book is doing well around the world.VIDEO

Is there more bad news on its way for global atheism and global evolutionism? You know where to go to find the latest news detailing the decline of atheism and evolutionism![11][12][13] It is such a glorious time to be a Christian creationist.[14][15]

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Also, food related stocks with large international footprints are largely doing well in the Great Recession.[18][19] No matter how incompetent Barack Obama and secular European leaders are, people still need to eat!

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Much to the dismay of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Obama and "The Lord of the Fries" (Barack Obama), there are fast food restaurants serving big sugary drinks whose stocks are doing well in the Great Recession.[20]

Obese atheists and obese evolutionists of the world, stop driving up the price of fast food stocks! Also, a leading creationist organization declares, "Blaming gluttony on evolution seems very self-serving."[21] You thought you could blame your obesity and gluttony on "evolution". Think again! Start hitting the gym for 60 minutes a day evolutionist slackers![22][23][24] And give your body one day of rest a week.[25][26]

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Want to read part of the Conservapedia entry on Climate Change? Here is a snippet:

Ideologues insist that the world's top scientists have reached a "consensus" that most of the warming which land-based weather stations have recorded in the last century is due to human activity. The basis for this claim is a set of reports published by the IPCC, an agency of the United Nations. The assumption is that the government-appointed representatives who run the IPCC would be completely objective and neutral, and would place finding and revealing the truth ahead of any nationalistic interests.

A lot of money is spent publicizing each side's position in the debate:

"Newsweek purports to take readers inside the world of “Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine” without mentioning that the global-warming alarmists are even better funded, in some cases with government support

Myths replacing reality is a perennial worrisome topic to Freethinkers and the above is a large dose. Some of the WASH speaker’s have addressed the myth-reality battle directly. Rob Boston’s Talk on “The Christian Nation Myth” covered many aspects of this arguing that we have to

strongly oppose the Christian establishment myth and its associated principles, which exclude many people who now it can claim, are not true Americans. We are still struggling with our pluralism and the claim that non-believers that don't have America’s best interest at heart.

Another historical myth family has bothered my is the oversimplified stories about Western and American Exceptionalism such as Niall Ferguson’s book Civilization: The West and the Rest or the Reagan-like belief that “God has granted America a special role in human history.”.

Such Myths are potent in part because they cobble together reassuring ideas that we want to believe in. We just need enough support to get above a very low threshold of our version of “proof” that serves a confirmatory bias.

WallBuilders is an organization, for example, that shows a healthy dose of confirmatory bias towards the proposition of:

"presenting America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built – a foundation which, in recent years, has been seriously attacked and undermined. In accord with what was so accurately stated by George Washington, we believe that "the propitious [favorable] smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation which disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained."

Myths persist in part because considering the alternative, skeptical view is threatening. Then again, critical thinking, as opposed to the intuitive, feel-good version is hard work. Real historic understanding takes time and energy for evidentiary analysis and most of us routinely rely on short cuts that seem like common sense but are often don’t stand up to rational analysis..

Rational analysis for the masses, alas, remains an unfulfilled Enlightenment goal..

More Discussion Topics following Rob Boston’s Talk

By Gary Berg-Cross

A previous post has summarized Rob’s main points and another one on the big discussion topics of united approaches during Q and A. With Edd Doerr as our March speaker talking about“ Humanist Priorities and Strategies in an Election Year” we are likely to have another good session including the several hot button issues this year such as school vouchers, attacks on public education, the “invasion of the soul snatchers”, abortion rights, the new HHS birth control regulations, and what Humanists can do about all that. I hope that readers of this blog will turn out for this and participate

Rob’s February talk was a good warm up for this and for those who didn’t hear the Q & A here is a quick listing of six other topics and questions discussed in February with some links for more information:

1. Originalism
2. The Rhode Island prayer banner case
3. George Washington’s letter to Touro Jews
4. 19^th century Blasphemy laws
5. United States military chaplaincy
6. Fights we might be able to win: Religion and Holding Public Office

• See also my blog on the problem of historical generalizations
  

1. Originalism the principle of interpretation that tries to discover the original meaning or original intent of the constitution was discussed. There is a kernel of truth to it but the constitution is neither rigid nor silly putty. It is more a set of general priniciples from which we progress. These general principles (perhaps derived from the experience o the tine) get expanded in the context of new times and in the face of experperience.

In a phrase used by Rob “Scalia is a phony” on orignialism (although his 1988 Taft Lecture, entitled Originalism: The Lesser Evil has been influential.

As Randy E. Barnett (Georgetown University Law Center) noted in his artiicle Scalia's Infidelity: A Critique of Faint-Hearted Originalism that Justice Scalia allows himself three ways to escape originalist results that he finds to be objectionable:

(1) when the text is insufficiently rule-like,

(2) when precedent has deviated from original meaning and

(3) (when the first two justifications are unavailing) just ignore Originalism

to avoid sufficiently objectionable results.


2. The Rhode Island prayer case where the public school district case committee voted not to appeal a federal court decision ordering the removal of a prayer banner displayed in Cranston High School West auditorium since 1963. It was a school tradition but then again slavery was a tradition.

The dispute began after student Ahlquist noticed the prayer banner displayed in the school auditorium at the end of her freshman year. Ahlquist, who has been an atheist since age 10, started a Facebook page to support removing the banner and argued for taking it down before the school committee, according to court filings.

3. George Washington’s letter to Jews of Touro synagogue (Newport, Rhode Island) on religious liberty and the expression:

To bigotry no sanction,to Persecution No Assistance”

4. Rob’s commentary on the Old Blasphemy laws that came back in the late 19^th century and involved free thinking societies.

The summer of 1886 was a bad time for Charles B. Reynolds. The iconoclastic religious skeptic (and former Methodist minister) took his free-thought message to Boonton, New Jersey. If Reynolds expected Bosntonians to abandon Christianity and embrace free thought, he must have been disappointed. Instead, an unruly mob pelted him with rotten eggs, tore down his podium, and tried to hurl him into a pond.

The following spring Reynolds appeared in Morristown, where he was jailed on charges of blasphemy based on his remarks in Boonton. Reynolds was found guilty by a local jury and fined $25, but he was defended ably by the spirited Robert Green Ingersoll who in his famous address to the jury in the New Jersey blasphemy trial of 1897, described the wretched nature of the concept of blasphemy as well as the unconstitutional nature of the New Jersey law under which his client was being prosecuted.

“Now, gentlemen, what is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in one country would be a religious exhortation in another. It is owing to where you are and who is in authority. And let me call your attention to the impudence and bigotry of the American Christians, We send missionaries to other countries. What for? To tell them that their religion is false, that their gods are myths and monsters, that their saviors and apostles were impostors, and that our religion is true. You send a man from Morristown -- a Presbyterian, over to Turkey. He goes there, and he tells the Mohammedans -- and he has it in a pamphlet and he distributes it -- that the Koran is a lie, that Mohammed was not a prophet of God, that the angel Gabriel is not so large that it is four hundred leagues between his eyes -- that it is all a mistake -- there never was an angel so large as that. Then what would the Turks do? Suppose the Turks had a law like this statute in New Jersey. They would put the Morristown missionary in jail, and he would send home word, and then what would the people of Morristown say? Honestly -- what do you think they would say? They would say, "Why, look at those poor, heathen wretches. We sent a man over there armed with the truth, and yet they were so blinded by their idolatrous religion, so steeped in superstition, that they actually put that man in prison." Gentlemen, does not that show the need of more missionaries? I would say, yes.

Now, let us turn the tables. A gentleman comes from Turkey to Morristown. He has got a pamphlet. He says, "The Koran is the inspired book, Mohammed is the real prophet, your Bible is false and your Savior simply a myth." Thereupon the Morristown people put him in jail. Then what would the Turks say? They would say, Morristown needs more missionaries," and I would agree with them.

In other words, what we want is intellectual hospitality. Let the world talk. And see how foolish this trial is. I have no doubt that the prosecuting attorney agrees with me today, that whether this law is good or bad, this trial should not have taken place. And let me tell you why. Here comes a man into your town and circulates a pamphlet. Now, if they had just kept still, very few would ever have heard of it. That would have been the end. The diameter of the echo would have been a few thousand feet. But in order to stop the discussion of that question, they indicted this man, and that question has been more discussed in this country since this indictment than all the discussions put together since New Jersey was first granted to Charles II.'s dearest brother James, the Duke of York. And what else? A trial here that is to be reported and published all over the United States, a trial that will give Mr. Reynolds a congregation of fifty millions of people. And yet this was done for the purpose of stopping a discussion of this subject. I want to show you that the thing is in itself almost idiotic -- that it defeats itself, and that you cannot crush out these things by force. Not only so, but Mr. Reynolds has the right to be defended, and his counsel has the right to give his opinions on this subject.”

….the late-nineteenth-century, post-Civil War period is probably the time the United States came the closest to being a "Christian nation," an ideal looked upon with great fondness by today's Religious Right. Indeed, if America ever was "Christian," the late nineteenth century--when courts boldly declared the country a "Christian nation" and the tenets of Protestantism received government favor--was the time.

5. The United States military chaplaincy traces its origins to the French and Indian War.

In a letter dated September 1756, Colonel George Washington noted that, "the want of a chaplain does, I humbly conceive, reflect dishonor upon the regiment."

But George Washington’s appointing of chaplains later in the revolution was a bit of reflection of his ideas about social utilitarianism. He wanted no looting after battles and thought chaplains useful in this way. This evolved a bit as there was more of a need for chaplains if soldiers were far from home.


6. Fights we might be able to win: Religion and Holding Public Office
In the early 1960s, the Governor of Maryland appointed Roy Torcaso to be a Notary Public. As reported Atheism.About.com:

"When the time came for him to actually assume his duties, he was denied his commission and had his appointment rescinded because he refused to declare his belief in God."

"Article 37 of Maryland's Declaration of Rights stated: '[N]o religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God'."

Torcaso filed suit in state court because he felt the test unfairly penalized him for his lack of belief in God. He argued that the religious test had violated his rights under U.S. Constitution.

He lost but e appealed to the State Court of Appeals where he lost again. Finally, he won before the U.S. Supreme Court… The question of whether the no religious test clause binds the states remains unresolved. Given the Court's First Amendment holding, that issue is largely academic….. But the MD law is still on the books and we might get it changed..Not too many ballots are needed to make amendments in MD.

Rob’s parting advice:

Some people believe that if you have no religion you have no morals. Just live your life to disprove that notion and show your humanistic values.