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"

Arguing vs. Discussing - The Challenge of Talking to True Believers

By Gary Berg-Cross

Annual CPAC meetings generate quite a bit of talk around the Beltway where politics, policy and lobbying are popular sports. You or I may even be that eager person who often slides into these easy conversations. They may start out on sound grounds say gun safety policy or the boundaries of religion and politics and slide into surprisingly murky concepts.  One often finds emotions rising and sound reasoning banned from the area.

 

CPAC seems to have more of this than some other meetings and it does attract media attention.

Did an audience member at the Conservative Political Action Committee panel on Republican minority outreach really defend slavery as good for African-Americans?  Something like argument arose when Frederick Douglas was noted as forgiving his slave masters. Forgive them for what?

 

“Shelter, clothing, and food?”

Boy, is this an ahistorical summary of slavery, but perhaps civics classes aren't what they once were.  It was reported that several people in the audience cheered and applauded the comment. Well, what does one say to such seemingly affirmatory bias thinking that tramples on reasonable understanding?

There have any number of practical guides generated by people of experience to better handle these situations where entrenched interests, affiliations, identity, ego, debating habits and ideology all play a role. 

One I saw recently was called “How to Talk to A Conservative” by Courtney Horne.  Her topic was “drug testing welfare recipients” but the points are a bit more general than the examples used. To be sure there are entrenched interests like the lobbying of drug testing groups, but they have analogs elsewhere such as the NRA for gun safety discussions.

In either case grounding a discussion in facts rather than arguing abstract points may be useful. In Courtney’s case she went to the cost of the policy, evidence that it wasn’t effective and implications for the idea of “welfare” and what we know about the working poor. I’m not sure that any of this would actually have worked with the CPAC audience member who may have opinions set in cement. Asked by a women about his claimed Republican Party’s roots and his demographic claims, he is reported to have responded:

 “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.”

Arg!   Well what does one say besides some people are ready to argue, but not to discuss? At least exposing such things to the light provides some perspective of the challenges we face.

This is free opinions without what Paul Kurtz described as the new paradigm of free inquiry here beliefs are treated as hypotheses to test.

We are increasingly in a fact-free zones where any opinion is equal to any other opinion and facts and skeptical stances are given the day off along with critical thinking & reasoned argument.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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True Believer: http://powerpopoverdose.blogspot.com/2011/10/true-believers-true-believers-1986.html

 

CPAC from CPAC site

The Liberty Bell

I recently went to Philadelphia and had the opportunity to visit the Liberty Bell Center. This is a well designed center which tells a lot about the Liberty Bell, its history and its influence over the years. The famous imperative inscribed on it is, “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof (Leviticus 25:10). The name the “Liberty Bell” was given to the bell only in the 1830's by groups protesting slavery. Subsequently it was used as a symbol for the women's suffrage movement and the civil rights movement. It is likely that no artifact in history was more used as a symbol for liberty.

Just is front of the entrance to the Liberty Bell Center is the site of the President's House when the early United States Congress met in Philadelphia. That area was used for displays on the history of the house that includes documentation of the three slaves that George Washington had there. Perhaps liberty was proclaimed throughout the land. Our early countrymen actually fought to achieve liberty from arbitrary British rule. However, we as country did not actually deliver liberty to “all the inhabitants” of the land.

Was there enough evidence back in that time that slavery was irrational? There were plenty of people who had been slaves who were living outside of slavery. With the option to become educated and pursue more productive enterprises those people delivered substantially more productive effort to the whole of the American economy. My guess is that difference was sufficiently great as to be easily visible even with the substantially lower effort allocated to economic statistics at that time.

Should we always argue for or against ethical positions based on the a rational analysis of the consequences? After all, isn't the institution of slavery so disgusting that abolition of made sense even without any supporting evidence? The answer is no, because there were an equally large number of people who felt a similar sense of disgust with the notion of the abolition of slavery. They loved the “free” services and the quality of life that they derived from slavery. The irrational aspects of slavery are not visible until you have rational analysis of the system as a whole.

The rather profound statement on the Liberty Bell came from Leviticus. Could it be that this indicated that this chapter of the Bible had rational thinking that we could live by? Leviticus 25:3-4, “Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruits; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD; you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.” In addition you are not supposed to harvest anything that just happens to grow without any effort on the part of the farmers.

There is an obvious problem with this Biblical command, it does not give people anything to eat in the seventh year. Leviticus 25:20-21, “And if you say, 'What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop? I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that it will bring forth fruit for three years.” The Bible does not say what to do if God fails to deliver on this “blessing.”

In Israel there are farmers who in the seventh year put out tables on their farms and imported dirt on those tables to grow vegetable. Of course, they also have to hire foreign labor to do the work. Even with these extreme efforts to comply with Biblical commands, this is not good enough for the ultra Orthodox. The sale of vegetables from such farms is down substantially from the sixth year.

The famous quote inscribed on the Liberty Bell refers to what happens after seven of these seven year cycles on the fiftieth year, “And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you; in it you shall neither sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines.” So instead of any liberty to pursue a proper food supply these passages are mandating a two year sequence where farmers cannot get food from their land.

It is quite astonishing that we have a slogan on the Liberty Bell that has been a great inspiration to many and it comes from a preposterous set of Biblical commands that has enslaved people in ignorance and that ignorance continues into our modern times.