Channeling Robert Ingersoll for Thanksgiving

by Gary Berg-Cross

Another Thanksgiving week and millions of us will be surrounded by family and old times feeling as peruse the bounty of turkey, stuffing with gravy and cranberries to the limit. Sure there are things to be thankful for and among the nonreligious moments of thanks, aka  “secular grace” grows in popularity among , humanists, agnostics, freethinkers and that group now called “nones.”

In  1897 Robert Ingersoll, ak a  “the Great Agnostic,” gave what he callled  “Thanksgiving Sermon.” Turning from the divine he instead asked who should be thanked.  He found real groups of people - scientists, artists, statesmen, mothers, fathers, poets in contrast to religious organizations and their operatives.. He found plenty of things to be thankful for starting with the long rise from savagery to civilization. 

"Looking back over the long and devious roads that lie between the barbarism of the past and the civilization of to-day, thinking of the centuries that rolled like waves between these distant shores, we can form some idea of what our fathers suffered — of the mistakes they made — some idea of their ignorance, their stupidity — and some idea of their sense, their goodness, their heroism.





It is a long road from the savage to the scientist — from a den to a mansion — from leaves to clothes — from a flickering rush to the arc-light — from a hammer of stone to the modern mill — a long distance from the pipe of Pan to the violin — to the orchestra — from a floating log to the steamship — from a sickle to a reaper — from a flail to a threshing machine — from a crooked stick to a plow — from a spinning wheel to a spinning jenny — from a hand loom to a Jacquard — a Jacquard that weaves fair forms and wondrous flowers beyond Arachne’s utmost dream — from a few hieroglyphics on the skins of beasts — on bricks of clay — to a printing press, to a library — a long distance from the messenger, traveling on foot, to the electric spark — from knives and tools of stone to those of steel — a long distance from sand to telescopes — from echo to the phonograph, the phonograph that buries in indented lines and dots the sounds of living speech, and then gives back to life the very words and voices of the dead — a long way from the trumpet to the telephone, the telephone that transports speech as swift as thought and drops the words, perfect as minted coins, in listening ears — a long way from a fallen tree to the suspension bridge — from the dried sinews of beasts to the cables of steel — from the oar to the propeller — from the sling to the rifle — from the catapult to the cannon — a long distance from revenge to law — from the club to the Legislature — from slavery to freedom — from appearance to fact — from fear to reason."


Here are some more of the ideas from the sermon as well as other of Ingersoll's notable quotes that may satisfy the secular senses at this time of the year.

















I thank the honest men and women who have expressed their sincere thoughts, who have been true to themselves and have preserved the veracity of their souls.


I thank the thinkers of Greece and Rome, Zeno and Epicurus, Cicero and Lucretius. I thank Bruno, the bravest, and Spinoza, the subtlest of men.


I thank Voltaire, whose thought lighted a flame in the brain of man, unlocked the doors of superstition’s cells and gave liberty to many millions of his fellow-men. Voltaire — a name that sheds light. Voltaire — a star that superstition’s darkness cannot quench.





I thank the great poets — the dramatists. I thank Homer and Aeschylus, and I thank Shakespeare above them all. I thank Burns for the heart-throbs he changed into songs, for his lyrics of flame. I thank Shelley for his Skylark, Keats for his Grecian Urn and Byron for his Prisoner of Chillon. I thank the great novelists. I thank the great sculptors. I thank the unknown man who moulded and chiseled the Venus de Milo. I thank the great painters. I thank Rembrandt and Corot. I thank all who have adorned, enriched and ennobled life — all who have created the great, the noble, the heroic and artistic ideals.


I thank the statesmen who have preserved the rights of man. I thank Paine whose genius sowed the seeds of independence in the hearts of ’76. I thank Jefferson whose mighty words for liberty have made the circuit of the globe. I thank the founders, the defenders, the saviors of the Republic. I thank Ericsson, the greatest mechanic of his century, for the monitor. I thank Lincoln for the Proclamation. I thank Grant for his victories and the vast host that fought for the right, — for the freedom of man. I thank them all — the living and the dead.


I thank the great scientists — those who have reached the foundation, the bed-rock — who have built upon facts — the great scientists, in whose presence theologians look silly and feel malicious...."

See also " Top Ten List of Thanksgiving Day Thoughts for Humanists and Nonbelievers"

Let’s talk about Something Else: Teachable Moments and Unreachable Minds

By Gary Berg-Cross

In the abstract, casual moment it’s sometimes hard to get average folks to talk about topics like secular humanism, natural ethics and the like.  Sure these are important topics, but in the normal flow of things they can be a heavy lift and off putting.  But since it is important we should understand natural opportunities for such topics in the context of larger issues that ARE on the agenda to be discussed.

Following the Newtown shootings there has been justified focus on the topic of gun safety and why such things happen. There has been just a bit of discussion of non-religious views of the situation and the grief. It is what some call a “A teachable moment” – a term used widely in discussing learning and education, as a time when learning a particular topic, task or idea becomes possible or easiest for situational or developmental reasons. The concept is ancient with common sense predecessors like interest, motivation and ripeness. But it was popularized (and became perhaps too much of a buzz phrase) by Robert Havighurst in his 1952 book, Human Development and Education. The concept is also widely applied to therapy as an observation that some interventions are only successful when the “time is right” and the patient ready and open to consider something new. Religious messages often jump into these debates, witness the influence on healthcare discussions.

Of course there are other factors needed such as having the right teacher/therapist/parent/leader at a teachable moment.  A good teacher is someone not only able to communicate knowledge, but one who is a credible source also and one able to hold individual/group attention that goes along with learning.   So in the gun discussion good communicators identify where they are coming from, such as, “my perspective is as a gun owner.”  Of, course this is an easier category to understand than saying “my perspective is as a secular humanist,” so in a teachable moment we have to be ready with some back up, non-threatening explanation that includes the idea that I don’t have to be in the gun-owning tribe or with the religion belief crowd to have a say on a topic of interest like the ethics of guns. That’s probably even more difficult for people coming from the New Atheist tribe, but it is something we need to get accepted as part of the discussion of things.

As we enter a time when immigration, climate change, lowered defense spending and stimulating job growth will be big topics along with gun safety it seems appropriate to consider whether we have reachable minds.  Is the national thinking cap and cultural climate receptive and ready for freethinker’s perspectives? Can we help make it so?

A start is to work for acceptance of freethinkers as part of the conversation. Perhaps attention will be distracted and go elsewhere or sideways. We’ll see if people are interested, but it is likely to be a difficult task. In ‘Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam’ Nick Turse bemoans the fact that there was no public interest in Vietnam war crimes allegations. The public mind was largely closed and  unreachable. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre were aired, but stirred only a very brief public outrage before subsiding into indifference as talk moved on to more acceptable topics. The Winter Soldier hearings, which Vietnam veterans like now Senator Kerry participated in, were largely ignored and the testifiers treated with disgust. As John Tirman noted in a WAPO review of Turse’s book:

Turse has the journalist’s faith that exposure will result in justice, but in the case of war, there’s little evidence that the public wants to know more about atrocities, much less act upon them. British scholar Kendrick Oliver made this argument brilliantly in his book on My Lai, showing how reactions to revealed atrocities follow a pattern that ultimately leads to a rally-round-the-troops phenomenon. One could contend that war, by its very nature — and not just in Vietnam and Cambodia, but in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan — similarly leads to indifference to civilian suffering or even to blaming the victims.

This is the type of reaction freethinkers face all the time.  Revealing that one's thinking is flimsy and biased can lead to people digging in and rallying round their comfortable and unchallenged beliefs. It’s in part the problem of minds being closed by a drive towards loyalty, stability, respect for authority and group cohesiveness along with purity of thought.  Perhaps we’ve learned a bit of lesson, but still what is needed are teaching moments with the right voices ready to take up the issues.

 

Images

Chuck Hagel: http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/2012/12/18/chuck-hagel-as-a-teachable-moment/

Teachable Moment: http://findability.org/archives/000629.php

Good without God moment: http://generationatheist.blogspot.com/2011/08/teachable-moment-by-shannon-b.html

Book Festivals for Freethinkers

By Gary Berg-Cross

The Baltimore-DC area gets its share of book festivals. The 2 day 2012 National Book Festival on the mall is coming up in September followed by the Baltimore Festival. There is the Virginia Festival of the Book. The Bethesda Literary Festival of 2012 was just held in April and yesterday I attended a grand, free 1 day book festival in Gaithersburg modeled after the National Book Festival with writing workshops, exhibitors, book sales, book signings, children’s entertainment and activities, blue grass music food vendors, and a Coffee House featuring poetry readings and musical entertainment. And yes there were authors. Both national and local authors there to speak under tents to answer questions and sign books. These covered a wide range of topics with a generous number of children's books, memoirs, historical novels e.g. on (J Edgar Hoover), mysteries (Tom Alngleberger), politics & news, sports, comedy, fiction, and non-fiction. The non-fiction category included its share of Science talks. I heard and saw Marc Kaufman’s slide presentation on astrobiology (“First Contact”). He was just one of many fine speakers and I’m already looking forward to next year’s event. What I didn’t find at the Gaithersburg Book Festival were any authors of works on atheism, non-believers, skeptics or secular humanists. To be fair I didn’t find philosophers either, but why not some of our fine “local” non-belief authors like Sean Faircloth or Rob Boston? They are great speakers and have presented to WASH chapters recently. And of course there were authors at the Reason Rally. Perhaps all it would take is a bit of
organizational effort to see if they are interested and then put a word in the organizer’s ear. Anybody out there know Founder and Chair Jud Ashman or the new owners at Politics and Prose that was the official Bookseller?

It’s something to think about for next year. I’m sure that if one of the national figures, like Sam Harris, has a new book there will a chance for one of the big venues, but I sure would like to have a secular voice heard at the local festivals. I imagine that we have enough organizational presence to make this a reality in the DC Baltimore area.