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.

Thanks Again Natural World (and friends)

by Gary Berg-Cross

Thanksgiving is here again which is another chance to reflection on the idea of giving thanks.   We do it far and wide as families, but in diverse ways. Some will do a very human thing of reflecting on the list of good things like health and the things that count. There's the sure understanding that a good life is more than material things for sure, but there's some type of gravy on it.  

Others may think of similar enjoyments and emollients from suffering, but will address it and the Thanksgiving celebration as a religious event.  They may bow heads while holding hands and talk about blessings granted by some ghostly, transcendent power. It’s all a matter of the locus of attribution.  I personally prefer a more naturalistic orientation.  Something like the post-mythic view  of an Robert Ingersoll than a religious Procrustean bed of “Thank you Lord for a good harvest.”. Ingersoll’s Thanksgivings grow out of a naturalistic understanding of our world and universe. As he said part of that thanks is the perpetual joy of free thought:

“The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the world–not even infinite space.

I was free–free to think, to express my thoughts–free to live my own ideal–free to live for myself and those I loved–free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination’s wings–free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope–free to judge and determine for myself–free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past–free from popes and priests, free from all the “called” and “set apart”–free from sanctified mistakes and “holy” lies–free from the winged monsters of the night–free from devils, ghosts and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought–no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings–no claims for my limbs–no lashes for my back–no fires for my flesh–no following another’s steps–no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers, who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain–for the freedom of labor and thought–to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains–to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs–to those by fire consumed–to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men . And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they have held, and hold it high, that light may conquer darkness still.”

                                A Thanksgiving Sermon by Robert Ingersoll

Ingersoll’s contemporary Mark Twain added a bit of his deconstructive humor to the American Thanksgiving story:

“Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for – annually, not oftener – if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments.” 
― Mark Twain

I’m planning on exposing my grandsons to that one as a knowledge inoculation.

If you want a more recent version here is a version I adapted from a John Stewart throw-away line.

Perhaps we should consider celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned Western Civ way. On a pretext you invited neighborhood natives to your house for a one day feast. Too bad it might be tainted with germs they are not immune from.  Each year in between you take more and more of their things and occupy their land.  When they protest you claim the right of self-defense, stand your ground with guns and sendin the cavalry for good measure.  Pretty soon the neighborhood is safe for trickle downers and it is only the good people you need to invite over. 

Through Orators Robert Green Ingersoll Speaks

By Gary Berg-Cross

Americans would be wiser and better informed if their reading and education included a good dose of the thoughts of 19^th century freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll. It's a point made before in my blog - Hearing the Voice of Freethinking Robert Ingersoll. As Susan Jacoby illustrates in her new book Robert Ingersoll: "The Great Agnostic and American Freethought" Ingersoll is one of the indispensable public figures.  He not only speaks bravely on the issues of the day, but helps protect the historical record and keeps a deeper, alternative version of history alive. In Ingersoll’s case that alternative history included Tom Paine’s forgotten secular history. In the case of issues from Ingersoll's time these included women's rights, immigration, humanistic literature and evolution.  It is worth noting that these retain their divisive potency in our times.  And it is wonderful to report that these and other topics were on display recently at the 3^rd Ingersoll Oratory Contest held in DC.

While rain forced a change of venue Sunday (to James Hoban's Restaurant ) we had a very nice event. Eleven contestants, traveling from as far as Florida, Indiana, and Delaware competed for 4 prizes.  Steve Lowe served nobly as Master of Ceremonies with assistance from Beth Kingsley, Brian Magee and Suzanne Perry. Links to photographs and videos will be posted on the Ingersoll Oratory Facebook site and now are available, but a random sample of quotes and images is below.

Carol Ardell kicked off the event by a reciting, from memory, Ingersoll’s Twentieth Anniversary Lotos Club Dinner speech(1890). It begins sagely:

YOU have talked so much of old age and gray hairs and thin locks, so much about the past, that I feel sad. Now, I want to destroy the impression that baldness is a sign of age. The very youngest people I ever saw were bald.

                                                    (These and other quotes from Secular Web)

It goes on:

I am perfectly satisfied that the highest possible philosophy is to enjoy today, not regretting yesterday, and not fearing tomorrow. So, let us suck this orange of life dry, so that when death does come, we can politely say to him, "You are welcome to the peelings. What little there was we have enjoyed."

Terrance Madden followed with a reading from “Thomas Paine (with his name left out the history of liberty cannot be written.)”

At the age of thirty-seven, Thomas Paine left England for

America, with the high hope of being instrumental in the

establishment of a free government. In his own country he could accomplish nothing. Those two vultures Church and State – were ready to tear in pieces and devour the heart of any one who might deny their divine right to enslave the world.

This was followed by Mike Schmidtmann who greeted fellow Humanists before reading “About the Bible” & “The Ten Commandments.” Donald Ardell also recited part of Ingersoll’s About the Holy Bible  which starts:

Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks  dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself."

Speaker selected topical talk including:

Jesse Christopherson, reciting “The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child”, 
"There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence."

Cody Smart heartfully recited, “What is Religion” -  Ingersoll's last public address,delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899.

"For many centuries and by many peoples it was believed that

this God demanded sacrifices; that he was pleased when parents 

shedthe blood of their babes. Afterward it was supposed that he was

satisfied with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves, and that in

exchange for or on  account of these sacrifices, this God gave rain,

sunshine and harvest. It was also believed that if the sacrifices

were not made, this God sent pestilence, famine, flood and

earthquake."

and Amelia Vogel read some of Ingersoll's beliefs from, “Suicide and Sanity.”

"man is under no obligation to the imaginary gods; that all his 

obligations and duties are to be discharged and done in this world; 

that right and wrong do not depend on the will of an infinite Being, but on the consequences of actions, and that these consequences 

necessarily flow from the nature of things. I believe that the universe 

is natural."

As to what the 3 judges decided:

1.  Sarah Henry took first place reading from "Improved Man"
2.   Terence Madden took second place reading from Ingersoll's talk about Thomas Paine.
3. 
       
4. Third place was won by Tya M. Pope who chose from two related speeches: "A Christmas Sermon" and What I Want for Christmas".

           4.    Jenniffer Masterson took forth place reading a selection from Ingersoll's "Suffrage Address".

 All agreed that the performances were excellent and left us a bit more thoughtful and perhaps wiser:

‘I believe that all actions that tend to the well-being

of sentient beings are virtuous and moral. I believe that real

religion consists in doing good. I do not believe in phantoms. I

believe in the uniformity of nature; that matter will forever

attract matter in proportion to mass and distance;’….

          Partial answer to QUESTION: What is your belief about virtue, morality            and religion? In Suicide N Sanity

Images

Taken by Gary Berg-Cross at the Event.

Brian - a helper.

Remembering Humanist Walt Whitman (& his friend Bob Ingersoll)

By Gary Berg-Cross

It is wonderful to celebrate May 31 as the birthday of poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892).  Like many other non-DC natives (Ingersoll for one & WW was very much a native New Yorker), he spent time here in later life.  No fluke that one of Bethesda's HSs is named after him.

Like Ingersoll there is even a DC tour of his life here (see map at end of article).
Whitman’s DC-time occurred during the Civil War and is notable for many reasons, including the fact that Lincoln served as a kindred spirit and Robert Ingersoll as a friend. To his friend, Horace Traubel, Whitman said of Ingersoll:

“I consider Bob one of the constellations of our time—our country—America—a bright, magnificent constellation.”

It's a bit like what Emerson had said earlier of Whitman. In turn, as one might expect Ingersoll, the orator, could entertain people on Whitman virtues and we have a record of some of this. In his testimonial of Whitman Ingersoll said of his first publication Leaves of Grass:



At this time a young man—he to whom this testimonial is given—he upon whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters—this man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, "Leaves of Grass." This book was, and is, the true transcript of a soul. The man is unmasked. No drapery of hypocrisy, no pretense, no fear. The book was as original in form as in thought. All customs were forgotten or disregarded, all rules broken—nothing mechanical—no imitation—spontaneous, running and winding like a river, multitudinous in its thoughts as the waves of the sea—nothing mathematical or measured. In everything a touch of chaos—lacking what is called form as clouds lack form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the glory of sunset. It was a marvelous collection and aggregation of fragments, hints, suggestions, memories, and prophecies, weeds and flowers, clouds and clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, waves, shadows and constellations.
 

Like Ben Franklin WW spent early years in the print business and publication, including one run by Edgar Allen Poe. (They met in the offices of the Broadway Journal at 304 Broadway Street, New York City, where Poe was editor in 1845.) The result was a liberal & lusty mind like Ben’s that was able to analyze early American life. Leaves of Grass is an American epic that celebrated the common man and captures some of it growing immigrant-worker experience in contemplative poems like "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry":

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever
so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a
crowd,
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the
bright flow, I was refresh'd,

Whitman was by all measures a freethinking Humanist – “There is no God more divine than yourself”. This is evidenced in his first, great work Leaves of Grass as well as his later advice dealing with problems like slavery and women's lack of freedom: “Resist much, obey little” and ““Be curious, not judgmental.” This free voice of the common man had  his classic Leaves poem banned in Boston, as they say, in the 1880.  It was deemed ‘obscene,’ ‘too sensual,’ and ‘shocking’ because of its frank portrayal of sexuality including women's sexuality.

All of this independent spirit is amplified in details in a famous passage copied below, which remains among the best of advice even unto our age:

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem

(Links to books by WW )

Images

WW as an old man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

Whitman Tour in DC: http://washingtonart.com/beltway/whitman2.html             

Ingersol on Whitman: http://www.robertgreeningersoll.org/?attachment_id=284

Hearing the Voice of Freethinking Robert Ingersoll

By Gary Berg-Cross

You may have heard that WASH is holding its annual banquet in Lynchburg, VA this year on May 25. All are welcome to come. You don't need to be a WASH member to attend. Details and registration are available at:
http://washbanquet2013.eventbrite.com/

It’s a chance to join other secularists in what many call the "belly" of the fundamentalist beast.  It’s an easy label since Lynchburg is the home of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell's evangelical Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church. WASH will be e serving an excellent buffet with a cash bar and food for thought.  Our speaker will be Dr. J. Anderson Thomson and the topic will be the cognitive science of religious belief.

I’m sure that Robert Ingersoll would attend if he were alive today, but I’m glad to see his ideas and life abroad in the land. Bill Moyers had a show on in March 2013 called Fighting Creeping Creationism. The 2^nd part of the show, which you can see via the link above, was a wide-ranging conversation with journalist and historian Susan Jacoby who expounded on the role secularism and intellectual curiosity have played throughout America’s history from its founders on.

This is a topic explored in her new book, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought. Jacoby is the perfect person to play the role of bringing Ingersoll,  “mover and shaker” of the early Republican Party, back into mainstream discussion.  Seven score years ago Ingersoll did the same secular resurrection for Tom Paine.

For most of us Ingersoll, like Paine is largely forgotten today although earlier he was listened to on topics of the separation of church and state, Darwin’s theory of evolution,  women's rights and much more.

His Centennial Oration gives one a feeling about the timely relevance of his thought:

THE Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives of a people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom....

Such things had occasionally been said by some political enthusiast in the olden time, but, for the first time in the history of the world, the representatives of a nation, the representatives of a real, living, breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are created equal. With one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that king-craft had raised between man and man. They struck down with one immortal blow that infamous spirit of caste that makes a God almost a beast, and a beast almost a god. With one word, with one blow, they wiped away and utterly destroyed, all that had been done by centuries of war — centuries of hypocrisy — centuries of injustice.

What more did they do? They then declared that each man has a right to live. And what does that mean? It means that he has the right to make his living. It means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath the shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor — the labor of his hand and of his brain.

What more? That every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in his own way. Grander words than. these have never been spoken by man.”

 

If you would like to hear more about Ingersoll’s “controversial” ideas come to the  Ingersoll Oratory contest in Dupont Circle starting at noon June 30^th, 2013. There’s a lot of great oratory to chose from, the great Ingersoll  delivered more than 1,200 speeches to packed houses across the country in the late 1800s. His arguments were usually succinct, thought provoking, insightful and still speaks to contemporary issues.
Fifteen speakers will select their favorite pieces to orate some of these ideas.  Susan Jacoby will be there as one of the judges making it a great event for secular DC.

Also of note, WASH board member Steven Lowe offers walking tours of Ingersoll’s life in DC. Upcoming are morning walks June 20th and 29th.

 

Sunday, June 23, 10 am: short version** - meet at SW corner 13th & E St. NW

Saturday, June 29, 9:30 am: long version* - meet at 450 F St. NW

*Long Version: a 1.5 mile walk lasting 2 hours, visiting 11 locations.

- Meet at 450 F Street NW.( the Building Museum/Judiciary Square METRO street level)

 

These take you through the oldest parts of Washington, D.C., to visit the sites where Ingersoll lived, worked, or spoke.

Images

Ingersoll quotes: https://www.facebook.com/ingersollorator?group_id=0

Quote on religious divisions: http://choiceindying.com/2013/02/02/robert-ingersoll-the-great-agnostic/ and http://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/happy-birthday-to-robert-green-ingersoll-the-great-agnostic/

 

For an Excerpt see: The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought

Snapshots from an Historical Perspective

By Gary Berg-Cross

One topic that heats up debate involves a family of concepts like “liberal” or moderate religious communities and what interactions non-theists might have with them. Are moderate religions as bad as fundamentalist varieties? It’s not exactly a new topic but perspectives may change with the times especially as they involve strategic and tactical action. I thought it interesting to provide some snapshots on circumstances that humanists have faced in the US over time. This is just a smattering, but part of the story.

Early fundamentalist American colonizers like the Puritans were neither liberal, not easy to converse with, or moderate. They were not admirers of intellectual enlightenment. John Cotton, wrote 1642:

"The more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee".

Over 50 years late the rigid, faith-guided atmosphere in Boston drove out a young, pragmatic and freethinking Ben Franklin to the more tolerant climes of more tolerant Quaker in PA (not that he was wholly enamored with them). There he developed a more humanist view of an ethical society and built institutions to support this vision. He founded the very secular Philadelphia library & in 1744 set up the very intellectual American Philosophical Society. Franklin finding few minds to stimulate his thought found a way to spark more reflective thinking in others. His letters show engagement with all sorts of believers, but in an enlightened way that suggests he had a Franklin Bible in mind that twined Jefferson's later version.

While intellectualism grew in the East with the help of a variety of Susan Jacoby's freethinkers. an anti-intellectual atmosphere was spreading on the early 19^th century frontier. Baynard R. Hall, wrote in 1843 about his Indiana neighbors:

"We always preferred an ignorant bad man to a talented one, and hence attempts were usually made to ruin the moral character of a smart candidate; since unhappily smartness and wickedness were supposed to be generally coupled, and incompetence and goodness."

The civil war and a reaction to the Gilded Age's plutocracy and poor social conditions came under harsh attack from what would later bloom as the Social Gospel movement. These preachers implicitly allied with reformers in the Progressive Era. Should we not give some respect to the Social Gospel movement? I like it better than the Gospel of Wealth....Mark Twain, for example, engaged  issues of Christianity and the Social Gospel,  as documented in Mark Twain and the Spiritual Crisis of His Age. 

While Twain's writing and large progressive movements changed things a bit around the turn of the century, Robert Ingersoll, a leading figure in the Free Thought movement writing in1896, could still say of the religious fundamentalism:

“I heard hundreds of these evangelical sermons—heard hundreds of the most fearful and vivid descriptions of the tortures inflicted in hell, of the horrible state of the lost. I supposed that what I heard was true and yet I did not believe it. I said: ‘It is,’ and then I thought: ‘It cannot be.’”.

I would add that Ingersoll's genius and the times of a Social Gospel allowed him to be one time the most popular speaker on the U.S. speaking circuit at that time. According to Rachel Ozanne in ‘Heretics’ or ‘Atheists’? A Response Ingersoll was:

“ well known for being a loving family man and an ethical leader in his community—as a public unbeliever. Though he criticized Christianity and religion in general, he did so from a place of sincere engagement with its ideas. And while he was a self-styled agnostic rather than an atheist, his positive leadership is something all of us doubters and unbelievers could aspire to.”

One point to be made here is that Ingersoll was able to be heard by many because his thoughts were valued by a wide group. Such a positive approach has been in the Humanist tradition and fits an enlightened approach that values tolerance, but of course this is all challenged in difficult times. The more recent perspective comes from the early days after WWII. There was a progressive spirit in the air riding on the recent experience of combating right-wing fanaticism. There was the often delayed hope of a more modern, progressive & democratic world - one that would be free, tolerant & open to inquiry. Secular leaders after World War II included the likes of Corliss Lamont and Paul Kurtz, with a broad vision of an enlightened society where people peacefully and cooperatively manage group differences. 

But this vision hardened to a defensive Cold War mentality. For the US the adversary was an expansive, atheist communism. Richard Hofstadter writing about Anti-Intellectualism in American Life could look back in 1963 on these roots finding fertile ground to grow in Joseph McCarthy's 1950s. To an intellectual like Hofstadter (who saw a The Paranoid Style in American Politics) post war intellectuals like Dean Acheson were disdain as academic "eggheads." As to learning from them ceremonial president of Columbia university Dwight Eisenhower (or his speech writer) spoke disdainfully of them 1954 - an intellectual is "a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows.” Not exactly an opening for deep conversations.

To a disappointing degree this cold war climate has continued. The rise of militant, fundamentalist efforts, such the Moral Majority, which was at the height of their power in the 80s and 90s, often embed themselves in a primitive nationalism. This mixture makes it hard to attack and encourages defensive posture by non-believers. Paul Kurtz writing back when new, modern American fundamentalism used it growing power to massively assaults humanism, noted that it was also an attack on the humanities and modernism itself:

“They are opposed to modern science and the scientific revolution of our day. They are opposed to modern literature — everyone from Shakespeare to writers as diverse as Kurt Vonnegut, D. H. Lawrence, and Vladimir Nabokov. ...The fundamentalists are attacking modern education, including science, literature, the arts and philosophy. We must grant that the curriculum of modern education expresses secular values. But that is the nature of the modern world; it is not secular humanism per se that is at the root of all evil, as fundamentalists define it.”

These are still modern things under attack and which we still might reach out to others including the Social Gospel style Christians that Michael Ruse was talking about in his July 27, 2012 article: Should Atheists Reach Out to Christians?  

The article was linked to in previous blogs on New Atheist but it is interesting to actually read what he said in that article.

“I live in a country – a country of which a couple of years ago Lizzie and I voluntarily and with joy became citizens – where at least half of the people are genuine, believing, practicing Christians – and with others sympathetic or as committed to other faiths like Judaism. My neighbors go to church on Sundays and believe that Jesus died for their salvation. So did the teachers of my kids and many of the folk that we interact with every day. Lizzie’s closest friend is the youth coordinator at First Presbyterian and I am co-teaching a course this fall with one of my good friends, an ordained Presbyterian minister.

I don’t believe what they believe and they know that and most of them respect it. Nevertheless we want to get along as neighbors and as parents and as teachers and as friends. I don’t want – they don’t want – differences to lead to hatred and suspicion and working against rather than with.

The great tragedy in America today is that we do have these uncompromising differences. Look at politics and at the damage that the Tea Party has done, not only to the country but to its own party. There is massive unemployment. Economists know full well what needs to be done. Remember the New Deal? But we are paralyzed because of the ideological rigidity of people in power.

A smart way of finding allies on some shared values that is perhaps not so different from what Kurtz was talking about earlier in defending humanism against its Fundamentalist critics, where he could find some agreement about the problems to be dealt with.  We need to find the signal of commonality that can stand out  from even the most extreme noise of radical positions. 

As Kurtz said earlier “we cannot simply reject the Moral Majority and say that nothing they claim is meaningful.” What they and their latest incarnations say speaks to problems that confront people. It is there approaches to problems and with the way they reason that we disagree with. It is important to take on these errors, but in ways that others besides us (freethinkers etc.) and them (fundamentalists) understand. 

Image Credits:

http://sharpiron.wordpress.com/page/26/