On Saturday, December 5, 2020, admirers gathered via the video chat service Zoom to celebrate the 88th birthday of Indian humanist, lawyer and social worker Dr. Krishnasamy Veeramani. (Veeramani was actually born on December 2, 1933.) Dr. Veeramani was a follower and admirer of the great Indian reformer and atheist Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, commonly known simply as Periyar. He started the Self-respect movement in India and is regarded as the Father of the Dravidian movement.
Fondly called as the Father of Secular Humanism, Paul Kurtz was an American Humanist, and a Global Humanist too. He was a keen advocate of scientific skepticism, also known as rational skepticism in the fields of philosophy & epistemology. Moving away from the dogmas of religion, applying critical thinking, and using scientific methods in our knowledge process, is the basis of scientific skepticism that Kurtz advocated.
In the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, only 60% of adults voted. Most voters appear to be perplexed as to why so many adults do not go to the polls. However, as young people used to say in the 1990s, “if you don’t know, you better ask somebody.” It really is that simple. Yet, for many voters, the question is rhetorical.
Perhaps the first lesson for young students being introduced to science should be that much of what they will learn will not necessarily be in accordance with their common sense. Most people with no experience in science observe the natural world and believe that everything they experience must have an easy, reasonable explanation. However, such is often not the case.
Humanists do not believe in sin. We acknowledge power relations and understand that many people will abuse their power for various reasons. We believe that human-centered action must be coupled with human-centered thought in confronting the problem. Rather than law and order, we are concerned with challenging the powers that be.
The so-called “Sermon on the Mount” is widely regarded as Christianity’s most important moral message. It is Jesus at his moral best. Even many atheists are highly impressed with the sermon, as well they should be.
However, there are still problems with it, and there is not a single word in it that even hints at omnibenevolence, moral perfection or divine wisdom. After all is said and done, it is, for the most part, a great message from a fallible human being.
Christians assert that the Bible is the Word of God. Yet many of them try their best to distance themselves from the First, or “Old’ Testament. They seem to believe that the Old Testament was overruled by the Second or “New” Testament, even though they still claim that Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament teachings. Blatant contradictions are not unusual for theists. However, this one is especially problematic and irrational.
COVID-19 and the fears it has generated have resulted in a tsunami of irrationality, ignorance, paranoia, conspiracy theories and danger. Perhaps the biggest danger is posed by religious fanatics who actually believe they can pray sickness away. They still do not have even a simple understanding of germ theory. They still believe in laying on of (washed or unwashed) hands and driving out evil spirits from the body.
Conservative Christians relentlessly brag about how much more they give to charity than other religious and secular groups. For purposes of this article, I am not primarily concerned with the findings that show that most of that charity does not find its way to the intended targets. Let’s say for the sake of argument that all of the money goes to the intended recipients.
Conservative Christians are especially generous around Thanksgiving and Christmas. No surprise there. What better way to call attention to your faith than to give money during two of the most popular holidays in the U.S.? Sadly, though, after the holidays are over, conservative Christian giving goes way down and the causes they support fall from the proverbial radar.
Charity is important and it makes the world a better place. I have given to charity throughout most of my life and will continue to do so. But like religious progressives, I understand that charity is simply not enough.
Christians are easily impressed by the supposed prophecies of the Bible. They maintain that what makes biblical prophecies unique is that none have failed, and those that have not been fulfilled yet, will be one day. For those reasons, we know that the Bible is inspired by an all-knowing God. However, many of these prophecies have failed. For example, in Isaiah 17:1, the prophet boldly claimed that the destruction of Syria’s capital, Damascus, would soon occur. However, to this day, Damascus still exists.
The Cyber Think Tank is a digest of quality articles, interviews, and other musings compiled by Paul Kurtz Institute Board Member Robert B. Tapp. This edition includes over 40 resources for your perusal.
Predicting the Future by Making It, by Michael Werner: “We can never surrender to the forces of chaos and despair because it violates everything we humanists care about on this one precious planet and the one life we have.”
The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
The aforementioned quotation is not necessarily true. On the contrary, when people blindly embrace their heroines and heroes, the good lives after them and the evil is interred with their bones.
Throughout history, religious people have literally demonized groups of people other than their own. I started thinking deeply about this topic after considering the (former?) views of the Nation of Islam (NOI.) The NOI was founded on July 4, 1930. At least until the 1970s, they had preached that White people belonged to, in the words of Malcolm X when he was still a major leader in the group, “a filthy race of devils.”
However, at least since the 1980s, the NOI has backed away from such talk, at least in public. Still, if pressed on the issue, they will say that considering White people’s uniquely bad treatment of non-White people, they have behaved like devils, and the description is accurate.
The ISHV Cyber Think Tank is a digest of articles, interviews, and other musings compiled by ISHV Board Member Robert B. Tapp.
Secular organizers started their own congregations. But to succeed, they need to do a better job of imitating religion.
The Internet Gives Doubters a Home. “Well, if in-person gatherings rarely work for skeptics, I think there’s a better “glue” to unite millions of freethinkers worldwide. It’s the colossal Internet, the enormous portal for all of humanity. … Further, there’s scientific evidence that the Internet actually creates atheism….There you have it: The Internet provides a worldwide haven for freethought – and it also creates more freethought. If in-person meetings can’t make a sanctuary for doubters, cyberland can.”
What secular humanism can do that atheism can’t: Here is a good survey of current US organizations and positions.
Just 12% of Brits are affiliated to Church of England, major survey reveals. . . .
It took centuries to fulfill James Madison’s unique vision of religious freedom. Donald Trump threatens to undo it. . . .
It’s difficult for sincere doubters to talk with sincere believers without causing bad feelings. . . .
“Epstein told Campolo about Varun Soni, the dean of religious life at U.S.C., and in 2014 Campolo began talking with Soni on the phone. After a few conversations, Campolo had been offered an office, an email account and a title: humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California. No salary, but it was a start.”
The ISHV Cyber Think Tank is a digest or articles, interviews, and other musings compiled by ISHV Board Member Robert B. Tapp.
Dialectics of Enlightenment. by Kwame Anthony Appiah. “In particular, what if the effort to shore up rationality invites its opposite? What if light is destined to generate shadows, Enlightenment a Counter-Enlightenment? That’s the thesis of Justin E.H. Smith’s new book, Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason. The difficulty posed by reason, he suggests, is. . . . Should we conclude that rational solutions—improved algorithms, better voting systems—are bound to worsen the underlying irrationality? Smith says that irrationality is “humanly ineradicable, and that efforts to eradicate it are themselves supremely irrational”; but the efforts he largely has in mind, it seems, are efforts to manage human irrationality, not to eradicate it, and such efforts can be given old-fashioned, rationalist names: good governance, prudent policy. . . . We can’t solve all human problems with reason alone; but we can’t solve any of them without it.”
