BS: American Secularist Tradition

Subject: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 09:25 AM

Apparently, I wrecked the Jimmy Carter editorial thread, which I initiated in hopes of sparking a discussion of the state of collapse of the US human rights agenda under the Bush administration. Bobert responded positively to the excerpts from the Washington Post editorial, and introduced Jimmy Carter's "Christianness" (for lack of a better word) into the conversation. I objected to the mention of Carter's religious standing as a former president, as I felt it took attention away from Carter's secular moral standing as a supporter and defender of a strong human rights agenda for the US.

Well, I now regret having done that to the thread, as it took away from the conversation about human rights. But I do consider the discussion about the attacks on the American secular tradition to be an important one. I don't know how many of you watch NOW with Bill Moyers, but last night he had the author of a very important new book, Susan Jacoby, on the program. The title of her book is "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism".

NOW's "America's Freethinking Tradition"

I first heard of the book when I read a review of it here:

"The attack on secularism" from the Boston Globe

The NOW website has provided a link to an interview with the author on beliefnet here:

"Freethought Revival"

My concern with Bobert's remark is this: I don't want my president to bring his religion to work. According to the US constitution, religion (or lack of it) is considered a private, personal matter not a political matter involved in the governance of the nation.

The separation of church and state is under attack by the Christian right, and the highest offices of our government now have leaders in them who are very vocal in their opposition to this fundamental, crucially important tenet of the US constitution: George W. Bush and Antonin Scalia.

The US constitution contains no reference to god, deity or divinity. The decision NOT to refer to divine sources in the constitution was debated by the Founding Fathers, and it was their intention that any reference to deity be expressly forbidden in it. For good reason.

I don't believe in countering arguments made by the Christian right, with invocations of the morality of the Christian left. The United States is the world's first secular state, and the secularity of the state is now under direct attack by the US Christian right. The way to counter and turn back that attack, IMO as a secularist, isn't to invoke left leaning Christian politicians or religious leaders, but to argue again and again and again, the case for secularism in American society, and to defend that most American of all traditions, the American secular tradition upon which the nation was founded.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 10:50 AM

Some famous freethinking (mostly) American secularists (besides the oft-cited Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and George Washington, and Robert Ingersoll):

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Margaret Sanger
Walt Whitman
Mark Twain
Abraham Lincoln
James Baldwin
W.E.B. DuBois
Clarence Darrow
Isaac Asimov
Carl Sagan
Stephen Gould
Barbara Ehrenreich
Mary Wollstonecraft
Albert Einstein
Ayn Rand
George Carlin
Frank Zappa
Helen Keller
James Madison
Kurt Vonnegut
Marilyn Manson
Walt Disney
Irving Berlin
Meridel LeSueur
Florence Nightingale
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Emma Goldman
Charles Schultz
Russell Baker
Woody Allen
Abut a bazillion sci fi authors
Noam Chomsky
John Sayles
Jodie Foster
Mira Sorvino
Janeane Garofalo
Linus Pauling
Tom Lehrer
Ursula LeGuin
Randy Newman
Arthur Miller
Billy Bragg
Dave Matthews
Ani di Franco
Dave Barry
Bill Gates

and of course, William Shatner.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 10:59 AM

In the case of Jimmy Carter, I don't think you can separate the work he does for human rights and his concept of himself as a Christian. I think those two things are probably inextricably linked in his way of understanding himself and his motivations.

I can say the same for myself. I'm not a Christian, but my understanding of my spirituality is a prime motivator for the way I live my life, and the things I feel strongly about and advocate for (or against).

This is not to diminish the contribution made by the freethinking secularists. Their motivators are no less valid than those of people who have spiritually based motivators.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:10 AM

Did you read any of the links I provided CarolC?

And could we keep the conversation about secularism, and not religion please? If people want to talk about religion, there is no shortage of threads on the subject.

I started this thread to engage in conversation about the erosion of American secular tradition in American public life. It would be good if, just once, the religionists could allow the secularists to have a conversation here without hijacking the thread.

Is that possible in Mudcat? I'm beginning to think not.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:16 AM

I just think you've made a tactical error in using Jimmy Carter as the starting point of your discussion. Noam Chomsky would have been a good choice though.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:24 AM

CarolC, I only mentioned the thread about Jimmy Carter, and wasn't using him as an example at all. Jimmy Carter is no secularist, nor is he by any stretch of the imagination, a freethinker.

I started the discussion with links to articles about American secularism at the NOW website, and to the author interviewed on NOW who just wrote a book about the history of American secularism. I stated quite clearly I was interested in discussing the erosion--nay, I should throw down the gauntlet here--the full bore assault on American secularism by the Republican right. That assault is often given ammunition by left leaning Democrat Christians, who only counter the Republican right with left leaning Christian responses, without defending secularism at all.

IMO, the Christian left is doing just as much to undermine secularism as is the Christian right, because of their failure to vigorously defend secularism as one of the main founding principles of the nation.

I provided the very diverse list above, to remind people just how many greatly admired people from all walks of life, embrace secularism and the essence of freethinking.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:35 AM

If I were to pick a few names off the list above who best represents my own beliefs as a freethinker, it would be Barbara Ehrenreich, Kurt Vonnegut, Ani di Franco, Dave Matthews, Meridel LeSueur, George Carlin, and John Sayles.

With a little Zappa and Ursula LeGuin thrown in for good measure.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:39 AM

It's a tricky one, isn't it? The article in your first link has a link to some informaion about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who is also in the list of your second post in this thread. But she wasn't really a secularist either. She even wrote her own bible: The Women's Bible.

And then there's the issue of Jewish nationalism. Is that a religion or a form of secular identity? And to whatever extent that becomes a part of our civic debate (for instance, with regard to the question of what role, if any, the US government should play in providing help to Israel so that it can maintain its Jewish national identity), it does make it difficult to define what we mean when we talk about secularism, politics, and public policy.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:49 AM

Secularism as I understand it doesn't exclude religion, it just doesn't accept it's authority. I have no trouble distinguishing between secular traditions and religious traditions, or political states which are secular (like France, Russian, China, and the US) and political states which are religious (like Iran, Israel, and Ireland).

I don't find it at all difficult to categorize Jewish nationalism as a religious identity imposed upon a political state. I think it is nearly identical to the Christian nationalism that has swept the US.

I am interested in disussing how the Christian fundamentalists, by throwing in their lot with right wing secular ideologists, seem to be taking over the US though.

Just as I am interested in talking about artists who are freethinkers and secularists, and how they influence popular perceptions of secularism.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:53 AM

Take out 'In God We Trust' off the coins

A good start perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:56 AM

Interesting clarification. I think it would also be interesting to see a list of right-wing secular ideologists.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 12:23 PM

I define (as did Susan Jacoby, last night's guest on NOW) secularism as being opposed to religious hierarchy, orthodoxy, and authority. Secularism includes the spiritual, although not the organized denominations that denounce secularism. Secularists aren't just atheists by a different name, in other words. Most Universalists would likely describe themselves as freethinking secularists, for instance.

There are millions of Americans who describe themselves in surveys on religion as non-religious. I describe myself as a nontheist, rather than an atheist or agnostic, for example.

Guest 15 May 04 - 11:53 AM links to a good website, the American Atheist website. I am all in favor of getting god off the state's symbols and out of the state's rhetoric (ie "under god" out of the pledge--but I'm opposed to the pledge of allegiance too).

As to right wing secularists--from the list above there is Ayn Rand and Walt Disney. The list of right wing avowed secularists/atheists isn't as long as the list of centrists and left leaning secularists and atheists on the political spectrum. But politics isn't necessarily at the center of all secularist people's lives.

Here is a link to a Working for Change article about the right wing conservative movement that talks about this in more detail.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 May 04 - 12:24 PM

I agree with Guest. In my lifetime, developing thinking patterns and social attitudes as I have over the years, I personally have never felt as marginalized as I am feeling in these strange times. I always felt seriously heard when invoking the separation of church and state as an argument to prove and/or stand up for an important serious point. And this separation IS important. It keeps overzealous of ALL faiths from imposing their "OCRACY" on everyone. As I see it, it is illegal in the USA to impose religious attitudes on the conducting of political business in order to change current social trends and agendas. It's that simple. Bush should not, legally, be able to do what he is doing. The American constitution forbids it. It ought to be possible grounds for impeachment, and the deviousness nature of it ought to be noted and negated by the Supreme Court.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 12:32 PM

I agree on the marginalization Art. I often get demonized for my beliefs, even working in public education, when I voice my beliefs in my workplace (a public high school), for instance. The whole debacle over the pledge of allegiance is a prime example of this.

I believe Antonin Scalia's remarks in the past year and half or so, about religion being the foundation of our nation, and all nations, are definitely grounds for his impeachment.

BTW, Susan Jacoby more or less described Republican conservative Barry Goldwater as a bit of a flaming secularist in his day--he was a very strong proponent of the secular state while a US senator.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 May 04 - 12:43 PM

I met Meridel LeSueur once on the Mississippi River when I was singing on the steamboats. She was old and frail and in a wheel chair which means she was confined to the lower deck. Her personal presence was amazingly magnetic though. After my set of songs, she asked her companion to go get me. Sadly, I didn't know her background. Still, it came through that this was someone whose thoughts I ought to know about. A search engine provided me with all I now know about Maridel Le
sueur---and more. This was in the late 1980s. Like Joseph Cambpbell who I had dinner with at George and Gerry Armstrong's house, I didn't have the background in their work to talk intelligently to them. Today I would be able to converse.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 01:22 PM

Chistians have their cherished myths and fables. Wiccans have theirs Fortunately, in America, we are still free to cultivate the myth of our choice and to look with critical disdain upon the fables of others.

But for how long? The Neocon/Religious Right movement is succeeding at using the US government to sustain Christianity's fables and myths to suppress the other religious mythologies (like the Muslim mythology) and others they don't like.

That is why it is so important for us to argue against the Christian strangulation of the American state as secularists who stand apart from the domineering Christian mainstream in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 May 04 - 01:27 PM

I always watch NOW with Bill Moyers. It's one of the few sources in the media of stories that an informed electorate needs to know if they are actually going to be informed. In fact, I videotape the programs, because this is the easiest way I know of to "take notes." Last night's show was excellent, and I'm glad someone started a thread on it because much of it is worthy of serious discussion. Unfortunately, I have a busy weekend ahead, so I won't be able to jump in with both feet until Monday.

In the meantime, I took particular note of Susan Jacoby's comment that in America, religion has always been safe from the government, but now especially, the government is not safe from religion.

I just put a hold on Freethinkers at my local library (I'm 20 of 20, so it may be a bit).

I'll be back Monday.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: pdq
Date: 15 May 04 - 01:28 PM

A shining example of American Secularism is Madeline Murray O'Hare...makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over, don't it?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 01:28 PM

I knew Meridel, but I knew her daughter Rachel much better. But I live in Minnesota, homeland to freethinkers like Meridel and Debs and those really radical freethinkers from North Dakota!

So Art, how would you describe Joseph Campbell's beliefs? I was inspired by Campbell, and Marija Gimbutas. You were very lucky to meet him--that is so cool.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:03 PM

pdq, I take it you are opposed to the movement she was part of that resulted in the Supreme Court decision to stop Bible reading and recitation of prayers in public schools?

Truthorfiction.com has some information on some of the urban legends about her.

She was a founder of the American Atheists organization. O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray and the granddaughter she had adopted, Robin Murray O'Hair, were killed, dismembered and dumped on a private, 5-000 acre Texas ranch in 1995. The bones indicated three sets of human remains, and all had their legs cut off. The remains and the ground around the bones were charred, indicating a fire at the scene.

At the time, investigators also expected to find partial remains of Danny Fry, who was a suspect in the family's disappearance. His body was found in the Dallas area, but the head and hands had been severed.

David Roland Waters (who worked at the organization as "office manager") and an accomplice named Gary Karr were found guilty of their kidnapping and murders. In 1995, Waters pled guilty to stealing $54,000 from the Murray O'Hairs. He was put on probation and ordered to pay restitution. He had previous convictions on murder, battery, and forgery. He (Waters) even appeared on the television show America's Most Wanted, during which he denied knowing anything about the whereabouts of the atheists.

All the intrigue was apparently about the most valuable asset of the American Atheist organization, their library valued at between $1-$3 million, and the atheist publication "The Truth Seeker". Murray O'Hair apparently intended to disappear with the library assets, to avoid paying out a settlement for a lawsuit brought against the organization by the estate of the publish of "The Truth Seeker".

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: pdq
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:25 PM

Thanks, GUEST, I do find Madeline Murray O'Hair (sp?) very interesting. I saw an interview of her many years ago where she said that ' anyone who beleives in God is insane". Yes, she considered all religions to be expressions of mental illness.

People like that do not help. Secularists attacking religious people are no different than religious people attacking the non-religious. Not much different than Muslims saying that all Christians and Jews are infidels...

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,Guest #2
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:48 PM

I'll pray for you buddy.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:53 PM

Muslims don't believe that Christians and Jews are infidels. They call Christians and Jews "People of the Book" and consider them to be their spiritual brethren. There are a lot of ugly myths being promoted by people with destructive agendas about what Islam is all about. There are extremist Muslims who may believe such things, but there are extremist Christians and extremist Jews (and extremist Secularists) who also believe some pretty hateful and distructive things about those who don't believe as they do. Extremist Muslims are no more representitive of their religions (or philosophies) overall than are extremist Christians, Jews, and Secularists.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: pdq
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:55 PM

Thank you, GUEST #2, but please re-read my post. I believe you take it as opposite of what I meant.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Midchuck
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:56 PM

People like that do not help. Secularists attacking religious people are no different than religious people attacking the non-religious. Not much different than Muslims saying that all Christians and Jews are infidels..

Yes, but....Muslims u>do say that all Christians and Jews are infidels, and Christians u>do say that all Muslims and Jews are infidels, and Jews u>do say that all Christians and Muslims are infidels....in each case, some do, anyway.

Let's face it. If there were a hundred or so devout, born-again Christians in the country, and everyone else was atheist or agnostic, those hundred would all be shut up in laughing academys. They get taken seriously because there are so many of them.

I agree with The Mysterious Stranger's basic point (or the Mysterious Strangers' - we have no way of knowing if all the "guests" on this thread are the same person). But I don't know what we can do about it except hope that the fanatical Christians, fanatical Muslims, and fanatical Jews will concentrate on killing each other and leave the rest of us alone. Not likely.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Megan L
Date: 15 May 04 - 03:01 PM

America America America America America, gosh it just goes to show how mistaken I was when I thought there were some other countires in the world. ah well we live and learn

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: CarolC
Date: 15 May 04 - 03:04 PM

Megan L, would you like to start a thread on the secularist tradition in your own country? Nobody's stopping you.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 03:12 PM

Well, in addition to being an atheist, she was also a communist who had two children out of wedlock with two different fathers. Imagine the hate directed at her, standing on the steps of the Supreme Court with her children in tow in that era? She was known as "the most hated woman in America". She was provocative and iconoclastic, to say the least, but I don't think that was a bad thing in her day. Someone really needed to blow out the windows to bring in the winds of change, and she was, almost singlehandedly, the human being who did that for the nation, and I believe, the entire planet.

She seemed utterly incomprehensible to conventional, mainstream people. But I've actually known a lot of radical leftist women like her in my day. I would have been proud to be able to say I knew her, I think.

The prejudice against atheists, and her in particular, was so bad that the Austin Texas police department wouldn't even investigate their disappearances, despite the IRS, FBI, and a number of journalists piecing together the crimes.

Waters and Karr, with the assistance of Danny Fry, had kidnapped the O'Hairs and held them for nearly a month in a motel in San Antonio, while forcing them to cash out as much of their assets as Waters had been able to find out about while working for (and embezzling) the American Atheists, before killing them.

Waters, Karr and Fry then took their bodies to a rented storage locker, dismembered them, put their body parts in barrels and took them to this remote part of a huge ranch outside San Antonio, and burned the remains. To keep the other American Atheist board members wondering and off guard, the O'Hairs were forced to communicate with the board members up until the time of their murder. The American Atheist board members were anxious to keep the whole thing quiet, because they didn't want to draw suspicion to themselves. I guess one or two of them had moved into the O'Hair's home after their disappearance.   The O'Hair's had meticulously not paid taxes to the IRS as a form of political protest, and eventually the IRS seized the family property and the offices.

A couple days after the O'Hairs were murdered, Waters and Karr killed and dismembered the third accomplice, Fry (who remained unidentified in a pauper's grave for several years until a journalist received an anonymous tip about his disappearance), and dumped his body sans hands and head, in Dallas.

Karr and Waters partied it up with their girlfriends and quickly blew through about $80,000 of the $500,000 in gold coins they'd gotten out of the O'Hairs, but within a few weeks? of the murders, the gold coins, which they had stashed in one of their girlfriend's storage lockers, was stolen when another couple thieves hit the jackpot when they broke into the storage locker and found the money.

There was so much negativity surrounding the disappeared family, and accusations that they had embezzled the American Atheist funds, that they had surreptiously left the country with the assets, etc. that no one really seemed to give a rip about a murder investigation, except O'Hair's estranged son, who had years before become an evangelical convert and been disowned by his mother.

But despite his own religious beliefs, he did the right thing, and at least stood up for his family's right to see justice served, and he didn't allow anyone to pray over their bodies, just as they had wished. So apparently, she raised at least one pretty decent kid.

The whole sad, sordid story is something of a morality tale I think, as it does show just how reviled atheists are in our society, and how little protection of their civil and human rights the Austin PD powers whose responsibility it was to investigate all this, felt compelled to provide for a reviled atheist family.

I think history will treat her much better than her contemporaries did.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: dianavan
Date: 15 May 04 - 03:20 PM

People are 'free' to believe whatever they want to believe until their beliefs begin to infringe on the freedom and beliefs of others. That is why it is important to keep government and church separate. Other wise there will be no justice and the world will constantly be at war.

There are moderates in Islam, Israel and America. We are the majority! We will never be able to solve religious differences by war. It is most important that the religious differences be put aside so that rational thinking may prevail.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 04:03 PM

Here is a blurb from Christopher Hitchens' review of the Susan Jacoby book in the Washington Post:

"In lucid and witty prose, Jacoby has uncovered the hidden history of secular America, and awarded it a large share of credit in every movement for social and political reform. It's nice to read again of the friendship between Walt Whitman and Robert Ingersoll, the greatest anti-religious lecturer of his day. It's sobering to be reminded of how many states practiced overt sectarian discrimination, against Jews, Catholics and Quakers, even after the Founding Fathers had made plain their abhorrence of all such practices. And, of course, it is salutary to be reminded of how much plain villainy and stupidity has been promulgated from the platforms of the godly, many of whom would still like to retard the elementary teaching of science.

If the book has a fault, it is the near-axiomatic identification of the secular cause with the liberal one. Susan Jacoby has what might be called ACLU politics. To read her, you would not know that two of the most prominent intellectual gurus of American conservatism -- Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss -- were both determined nonbelievers. H.L. Mencken, who if not exactly a conservative was certainly not a liberal, had vast contempt for religion but is cited only briefly here for his role in the Scopes trial in Tennessee. Still, when Billy Graham can be asked to give the address at a service for the victims of Sept. 11, and can use the occasion to say that all the dead are now in heaven and would not rejoin us even if they could, it is essential to be reminded of our rationalist tradition -- and also of the fact that our current deadliest foe is conspicuously "faith-based."

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 04:13 PM

And I also found a very interesting critical review of the book online by Michael Kazin (a prof a Georgetown) at the extropy-chat mailing list site. Here are a few choice excerpts:

"Ms. Jacoby is no polemicist. She appreciates the pull of
religion - as community and creed - while criticizing her
own side for taking refuge in rational disdain. Beliefs,
she knows, cannot promote themselves: "Values are handed
down more easily and thoroughly by permanent institutions
than by marginalized radicals," she writes. To change
minds, "secular humanists must reclaim passion and emotion
from the religiously correct."

But as that last phrase suggests, Ms. Jacoby's book is
often more persuasive as a manifesto than as history. Not
surprisingly, she echoes some of the rickety prejudices of
her secular heroes and heroines. She tends to regard the
devout as thoroughly conservative in their politics and
views the Bible Belt as a benighted region needing external
deliverance.

American believers have never formed a reactionary bloc.
Both John Brown and the Christian socialist Edward Bellamy
- author of the best-selling utopian novel, "Looking
Backward" - yoked the language of the prophets to radical
causes. The Populists, who formed the largest third party
in United States history, were led by pious egalitarians
like Ignatius Donnelly, who preached that "Jesus was only
possible in a barefoot world, and he was crucified by the
few who wore shoes."

Ms. Jacoby plays down the spiritual motivations of civil
rights activists in the 1960's, pointing out that atheists
and Unitarians also marched and died for the cause. But for
most black Southerners, their freedom movement was a great
revival, as David Chappell explains in his compelling new
book, "A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of
Jim Crow." "Don't talk to me about atheism," Fannie Lou
Hamer, field-hand-turned-activist told Northern students in
1964. "If God wants to start a movement, then hurray for
God."

It is also disappointing that Ms. Jacoby defends a popular
and controversial 1948 book, "American Freedom and Catholic
Power," by Paul Blanshard, a former Protestant minister,
which portrayed the the Roman Catholic Church as an enemy
of American freedom because it opposed birth control and
demanded that parochial schools receive a share of public
funds.

Blanshard, she claims, was blaming just the institution,
not the laity. But parochial schools were originally
established to provide an alternative to public ones where
students routinely learned only the virtues of the
Reformation and recited from the King James Version of the
Bible, commissioned by a Protestant monarch. And Ms. Jacoby
neglects the anger that Blanshard provoked with his
description of nuns as relics of "an age when women
allegedly enjoyed subjection and reveled in
self-abasement." Freethinkers can be intolerant, too.

One lesson that secularists might draw from Ms. Jacoby's
challenging book is to pick battles they can win. The task
of walling off state from church, synagogue or mosque has
always been distinct from and far less marginal than the
attempt to persuade Americans that religion is just a stew
of unprovable myths. Michael Newdow wins praise for arguing
that the Supreme Court should delete "under God" from the
Pledge of Allegiance. But his atheism appeals to a far
smaller audience.

On the other hand, freethinkers in the United States are
unlikely to talk many people into abandoning their belief
in an afterlife and their reverence for Scripture. In 1892
Ingersoll gave a lovely eulogy for his friend Walt Whitman,
whom, he said, "accepted and absorbed all theories, all
creeds, all religions, and believed in none." But this is a
difficult stance to take, and few Americans have ever taken
it."

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 04:19 PM

There is another book some here might be interested in: "Women Without Superstition: "No Gods - No Masters," The Collected Writings of Women Freethinkers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries" by Annie Laurie Gaylor.

Some excerpts of the book review of it from The Progressive:

"This anthology of fifty-one feminists, from Mary Wollstonecraft to Katha Pollitt and Barbara Ehrenreich, shows how the leaders of the women's-liberation movement have long understood the crucial importance of breaking with the Bible. The phrase "No Gods--No Masters" comes from Margaret Sanger, the birth-control crusader. And Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, "I consider the Bible the most degrading book that has ever been written about women." She noted that "it was hurled at us on every side."

Gaylor's selections of original writings are well chosen, and her introduction is convincingly argued. I found her brief biographical sketches fascinating, especially the ones about feminist freethinkers I hadn't heard of. Like Ernestine L. Rose, "America's most outspoken atheist" of the nineteenth century. Born in a Jewish ghetto in Poland (her father was an orthodox rabbi), she rejected religion at age fourteen and came to the United States in 1836 when she was in her twenties. Within a year, she challenged a preacher to a public debate. The audience responded with shouts of "Drag her out!"

"Ernestine became America's first women's-rights activist after drawing up a petition in support of a Married Woman's Property Act," Gaylor writes. "It became a suffrage legend that Ernestine garnered only five signatures in five months." Twelve years later, the Act was law in New York."

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 May 04 - 05:48 PM

Very interesting---all of this.

It makes me feel like I did when I was talking to Joseph Campbell--who I have almost always seen as an advocate of inclusiveness. In his delvings into just about every religion on this planet, he showed very often just how one religion might've/must've sprung from others. The lineage was obvious to him---and it was also a result of our mutual humanity and psyches being so similar. He illustrated that by showing how our myths were so alike even when we had no observable contact with the other group.

That said, he was sometimes accused of being antisemitic. Later in his life he owned up to this sad part of his being. Like Mel Gibson, he had got from his upbringing -- and his parents. This has always tempered my appreciation of Joseph Campbell.

When we had dinner with him at the Armstrong's place in Wilmette, Illinois, as I've said, I knew little about him. George and Gerry, two of my favorite people ever, just wanted us to meet. My wife is a Jehovah's Witness, something she became long after we married---mostly, I think, to answer unanswerable questions. Some people seem to need certainty--a set of unbreakable rules. (We agree to disagree.) But to the Witnesses, mythology and, as you said, other religions, are just wrong. I figured there would be some conflict there---sooo, what did old Art do? (Interesting you should ask ;-)

Since I wasn't terribly interested in things mythological either back then, I steered the conversation to the fact that Joe Campbell had been a big part of the John Steinbeck, Ed(Doc in Canery Row)Ricketts, Toby Street crowd in Monterey, California. I was really taken with Ed Ricketts and his/Doc's marine biology lab, the mystique of Steinbeck (whose works I love), the hobos who really were Mack and the boys on the real street that was Cannery Row. Campbell seemed put off and short by my questions. He didn't want to talk about that good era of his past at all. Then, somehow, it was necessary to talk about religion because that was what the conversation had come around to. I told Joe Campbell that I was a secular Jew because my mother had been a Jew. Since Hitler would've burnt me to a crisp because of my mom being Jewish, well, I guessed I will always be that---even though I am an atheist.

After that, Joseph Campbell got quieter and conversation went to folk music. After all, I was a folksinger and so were George and Gerry. After dinner, Joe remembered he had another person to meet somewhere. He arose, got his coat, we all shook hands, and he left.
No bad feelings. Just a little strange. It was a very nice dinner although I can't recall a single thing we ate that night.

After Bill Moyers programs with Joseph Campbell I learned to truly appreciate his work. It seemed much more inclusive than not. It was more of a live-and-let-live (agree to disagree) analytical discipline. Joe Campbell became a part of my own philosophical point of view. I never have thought of it as a religious way of seeing things. It was pretty scientific.

Another point:

Years later, I was reading a biogrphy of John Steinbeck and I found out that Joe Campbell had had an affair with Carol Steinbeck, and that dalliance had possibly led to the breakup of the Steinbeck's marriage !! Could be that was why Joe didn't want to talk about that era and those people. Who knows? But I did succeed, that night, in keeping my quite emotionally fragile spouse from having to put up with stuff that would challenge her needed dogmatic ways of seeing this world.

If you've ever wondered how James Carville and Mary Matlin can love each other in spite of their differences, take heart from our example. I offer it as a blueprint for Muslims, Jews, Christians, Blacks, Whites, Native-Americans, oriental folks---everybody.

And this is why the song I've recorded twice, "Master Of The Sheepfold", i so importan to me. For me, it is NOT about a story in the Bible--even though it actually might be about that. For me, it is about making room for all. INCLUSIVENESS !

Oh, the master guards the sheepfold bin,
And he wants to know is my sheep brung in,
And he's calling, calling, calling softly, softly calling,
For them all to come gatherin' in.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 06:15 PM

Wow Art, thanks for that story. I am familiar with the reports of Campbell's anti-Semitism, but have no idea whether he was or not, having examined none of the relevant evidence, or even the accusing articles. In his writings, he's as opposed to Christianity as to Judaism, and for about the same reasons, so "anti-semitic" hardly seems like an appropriate adjective to me. "Anti-monotheist" might do better. His personal politics were however definitely right-wing.

I still admired the body of his work though, for the same reason I admire Gimbutas for her body of work cataloguing all that prehistoric art. It was the sheer volume of what they were able to pull together in a lifetime--the myths by Campbell, and the prehistoric art by Gimbutas, moved us all light years ahead, regardless of what their political views are.

Odd isn't it, how people who are so different from us, can draw us in with their body of work (or true love)? I was first drawn to folklore reading Zora Neale Hurston, who wasn't exactly a left leaning radical, shall we say?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: paddymac
Date: 15 May 04 - 06:22 PM

Fascinating thoughts abound in this thread. I must admit, though, that I never thought of Ireland as a religious state. The Catholic church has plainly held overmuch influence there, and exercised it through DeValera and others of a similar pattern, but that seems very much on the wane at this point in Irish history. It was a problem of some standing, as "No Priests in Politics" is a political slogan of some 200 years standing among Irish freedom lovers. Catholic philosphy and mores are very much a part of Irish culture, but palpably fading. The religious fanaticism that drives many folks in Northern Ireland is a similar problem, in the academic sense, in that it appears on the surface to thoroughly permeate state institutions, as the PSNI/RUC, while the seems to be a strong ethos of professionalism in many, perhaps most, other state organs. One of Joseph Campbell's tenents is that mythologies must evolve to fulfill their function of helping people adapt/adjust to their environment. That process is very much hindered by fanaticism of any religious stripe.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 07:11 PM

The Irish constitution includes a Preamble that is explicitly Roman Catholic in tone and content, referring to 'Divine Lord, Jesus Christ' but more controversially, speaking 'In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity':

"In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire, Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial, Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation, And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations, Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution."

The link between Catholicism and the Irish state has ensured that the Catholic Church has a central role in the Irish State, despite the 1972 repeal of Article 44, section 2, of the 1937 Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hEireann, in which "The State recognizes the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of its citizens."

That pretty much made Ireland a Catholic state according to any definitions I've ever read. There has been some waffling about it, saying it wasn't enshrined as an official state religion in the constitution. But damn close enough, eh? The damning effects of Catholic repression were felt all over the country from the end of the famine onwards. The constitution merely enshrined the church's position, even after Article 44 was repealed, and the country has just barely begun to recover from it.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 09:57 PM

.... You're talking about religion again.....

Shame on you, GUEST

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 10:33 PM

Guest are you the Guest that said this was not a thread about religion or another Guest that does not agree with the Guest that was the Guest other than Guest #2? Are you one Guest or are those excellent posts of many Guests posting anoyomously as Guest? You lessen your excellent arguments and posts by not posting with a name. This Guest, which isn't the Guest that Guested this thread, will agree to stop this Guest anonymousness if Guest will.

Guest that is all...

Guest

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:14 PM

To answer your first question, Guest, you could call me 'Guest who says "You're talking about religion again", or just plain old 'Guest of the 38th post'. But my guest posts are rarely excellent guest posts, even if I say so myself. In that respect I could quite legitimately call myself 'Guest whose guest posts are rarely excellent', but this might confuse other guests.... and non-guests alike, because guests who guest more often than other guests, and who post guest posts more often than other guests, guest post, have a greater chance of posting more excellent guest posts than guests who guest post on a less regular guest postery basis.
But in the matter of guestishness in general, I would sugguest that the guest who started this thread, should herefrom moniker itself: 'Guest who starts all the threads with long posts, and reasoned arguments'. Guest#2, I believe is on to something, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Guesticulating frantically

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: dianavan
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:21 PM

Although Guest posts are sometimes interesting, it always deginerates into this kind of confusion. Please, please, please post with a name. Otherwise, you are doing more harm than good.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,whose posts are rarely excellent
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:22 PM

Ok.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:39 PM

Guest, take pride of your position by posting with a name or those of us that agree with you will think you won't standup for your point of view when challenged. As you stated in the Jimmy Carter thread you could laugh at yourself, but you don't have enough confidence to stand your ground except anonymously.

This should be an example of how a Guest can hijack a good thread when the main author is not willing to identify with a common name.

I am trying to point out how anonymity can ruin one's position.

Anonymously and my last try to show you the errors of a Guest post,

Guest

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST, whose posts are rarely excellent
Date: 15 May 04 - 11:51 PM

I feel a weight has been lifted off my shoulders already

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: LadyJean
Date: 16 May 04 - 12:00 AM

REading this, I find myself thinking of two courageous men, one in my father's family, one in my mother's, who believed that God hated slavery, and put their carreers, and possibly their lives on the line for their beliefs.
Religion, like science, or law can be a force for good or evil, depending on the person.
Jimmy Carter is a decent man. Whether his faith makes him a decent man, or not is a question open to discussion.
My belief that God does not want me to put sugar in Mr Brush's gas tank is keeping Mr. Brush's car going. Faith as a positive force.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 May 04 - 11:33 AM

Guest, (whoever),

Bascom Lamar Lusford was a great old time banjo picker and singer of the old-time songs. I loved his work. But he was a bigot and I'm glad I never had to put up with him personally. (He introduced Guy Carawan, Jack Elliott and Frank Hamilton to the crowd at his folk festival by saying, "Here's three Jew-boys from New York." ---- Sometimes it's difficult to see both sides---especially when certain attitudes push your buttons and you/me/everyone needs to respond---possibly with some graphic language along with our position points.

Every coin has two sides.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Backstage Manager(inactive)
Date: 16 May 04 - 12:00 PM

Art or Frank Hamilton (if you read this),

I'd be very interested in knowing how Guy, Jack and Frank responded or reacted to being introduced as "Jew-boys from New York." As an aside, so far as I know, Jack is the only one of the three who's Jewish.

Once in the 1970s, in the performers' section of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, I overheard a bluegrass musician describe Dave Van Ronk to one of his bandmates as "a New York Jew who sings coon songs."

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 16 May 04 - 01:20 PM

Blair intended to end a UK broadcast, just before going to war with Iraq, by saying "God bless you all." He was talked out of it by advisers. Britain's (unwritten) constitution, more so even than Ireland's, acknowledges one "established" church. Yet using that phrase would have provoked a storm of hostile reaction. In the US, which professes to be secular, such facile sentiments are almost obligatory.

Just to pick up on Paddymac's post, the sections of Ireland's 1937 constitution dealing with spirituality were drafted by Archbishop McQuaid of Dublin, at the invitation of Eamonn de Valera.

My recollection is that divorce and the sale of contraceptives remained illegal in Ireland for some years after the repeal of article 44, but my memory may be faulty on that. Mcquaid once took it upon himself to demand (and get) the dismissal of a public librarian on the basis that her being a protestant put her in a position to influence others. Likewise a cabinet minister (Dr Noel Browne) was sacked in the early 1950s for advocating welfare support for disadvantaged mothers and children - this being a blatent usurpation of the church's responsibility to support families.

I have little truck with loyalist obduracy in the north, but those protestant leaders who wanted to whip up the fear of "rule from Rome" were given endless scope, thanks to the republic kow-towing to the Chair of St Peter in a degree not seen elsewhere since medieval times.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Cruiser
Date: 16 May 04 - 02:27 PM

Mr. Bush parrots the obligatory complimentary close of "May God Continue to Bless America" on the campaign stump, after almost every speech, or when he stood on the ruins of the Twin Towers. Mr. Kerry also frequently says "May God Bless You". Can a religious person please try to explain what those phrases mean? Does a human need to ask the superhuman "God" for blessing or can the blessing come freely flowing without asking the "blessing" permission from "God". Why are some bad people "blessed" and not killed even though they are side by side in a catastrophe with those good people that die? Please, no nonsense about that being "Gods" Plan.

All candidates will use those obligatory complimentary religious closings (and in Bush's case, often as salutations) because unfortunately about 80 percent of the voters consider themselves religious.

"God Help Us!" (That is an atheist's play on words similar to me exclaiming Hallelujah! if Bush loses the coming election).

Cruiser (One of the 13% of the atheists in the USA)

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Cruiser
Date: 17 May 04 - 11:28 AM

Guest, that started this thread:

Thanks for the links and the good discussion. I saw the NOW program and would have missed it without your post.

You should continue the discussions on this topic and preferably with a Membership name (not Guest) attached to your posts. That helps one follow the continuity of your logic. A membership name also insures another Guest does not post as you, thereby introducing potential inconsistencies or misstatements attributed erroneously to you.

I agree with most of what you posted.

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Once Famous
Date: 17 May 04 - 10:01 PM

All you Guests suck the big heaping helpings of kiwi feces and I lost track of who is who.

You are just nameless nothings that I cannot connect your ideas with anything or anyone substantial. So why even bother?

God bless America.
Or don't if you are a secularist. I don't givbe a shit.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 18 May 04 - 04:07 PM

Hi Backstage Manager.

Thanks for asking.

Surprise! My maternal family relatives are all Jewish. Mostly from Austro-Hungarian Jewish stock.

How did I react? I laughed. I thought it was ignorant. Jack laughed too for the same reason.

Dick Greenhaus can tell you about his experience with Bascom and the Asheville Folk Festival if he wants to.

Mudcatters,
I believe in the American Secularist Tradition and I don't think it's confined to any philosophical or religious conviction. It's Separation of Church and State....Congress shall make no laws respecting religion and Jefferson's letter to the Baptists makes it clear. John Adams also made it clear. Tom Paine and Ben Franklyn would be horrified at a Ralph Reed.


This is not a Christian nation or any other kind of Theocracy.

Long live the truly American Separation of Church and State.

May all religions and persuasions prosper therein.

BTW IMHO any religion that is not humanistic or humanitarian is not worth a prayer.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 18 May 04 - 08:20 PM

Glad this interesting thread came back. I'd meant to say I thought Midchuck nade a really telling observation in very few words:

If there were a hundred or so devout, born-again Christians in the country, and everyone else was atheist or agnostic, those hundred would all be shut up in laughing academys. They get taken seriously because there are so many of them.

I'll be sure to slip it into my own conversations from time to time, as though I thought it up for myself.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: John P
Date: 19 May 04 - 09:15 AM

Hmmm, a thread about secularism, started by someone who insists that religion not be mentioned. Can we talk about day without mentioning night?

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 02:19 PM

The US Supreme Court decided today in "Elk Grove v. Newdow."

By a decision of eight justices (Scalia recused himself), it was decided that Michael Newdow did not have the legal standing to bring suit on behalf of his daughter. His ex-wife had been granted full legal responsibility" and hence Newdow's suit was void.

This is the "Pledge of Allegiance" case, if you'll remember.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 02:21 PM

Boy, what a dodge!! :>) If he'd been on better terms with his wife, history would have been changed!

A

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:26 PM

PeterK(Fionn),

Sad, but you are probably right. If the atheists outnumbered the christians we'd possibly see a bloodbath in the name of atheism. Actually, we already have seen that. Joe Stalin. He sure did look a bunch like Saddam, didn't he? ------ What this comes down to is unions. When you get enough on your side, it's possible to fight back and get revenge for past wrongs by joining together in solidarity. Woody Guthrie told the story of the 2 rabbits surrounded by a huge pack of dogs. One of the rabbits was panicing. The other rabbit said not to worry. "Let's just stay here 'til we outnumber 'em." ----- In some ways, that's what the 1960s were about----the largest generation in the history of the USA flexing it's adolescent muscles and saying, "Hell no, we won't go!" ----------------- (THREAD CREEP--Strange, too, that the first war protester to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate is also one who went to fight and then became what the right wing calls "wishy-washy"---he had the strength to change his mind.----That's something I really admire Kerry for.----- But this whole diatribe of mine is tangential thread creep.)

I do believe this: If 100 million people did a stupid and a wrong thing and two people were on the other side,   all those millions would still be WRONG.---- It's not Democracy or democratic--but it's correct I think.

Art Thieme (...and Bush was never elected president!)

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 07:05 PM

Art, I assume you're referring to the point I was actually quoting from Midchuck?

The following lines might strike a chord, which I saw in a holocaust museum, credited to a Pastor Niemuller. Maybe they're well known - they should be - but they were new to me:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for me
and there was no-one left
to speak for me.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 04:22 PM

I guess I'm surprised to see that this thread was refreshed to discuss the Supreme Court decision. I opened the thread because I initiated it, and was curious to see who had refreshed it, and what they were talking about.

Wouldn't it be better to just start an appropriately titled thread to discuss it instead? I mean, if you want someone to know what you are actually discussing? Anyway...

IMO, it would be nice if the Supreme Court eventually makes a final decision on inclusion of the wording "under God" in the pledge one day (and I believe they will), it just isn't a burning issue to me as a secularist. I don't believe in pledges or oaths of any sort, and so I don't put any stock in them. They are old fashioned anachronisms in my view. The Supreme Court has already decided no one, including school children, can be forced to say the pledge, and that is good enough for me.

Prior to 9/11, the pledge issue had pretty much disappeared. The right wing nuts, who love to waste our taxpayer time and money on such culture war issues, had sunk out of sight. Since 9/11, the pledge is now recited once a week in our high school, and there is rarely more than one or two students who stand and recite the pledge.

Ignore the pledge, and eventually it will go away.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 13 May 07 - 11:16 PM

Well, finally---HERE'S THE THREAD with FRANK HAMILTON talking about Lunsford's bigotry in introducing them at his festival as "three Jewboys from New York"!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 May 07 - 12:44 AM

As one of the introductees on that occasion, I can only say that either my memory of Frank's is a little off--it was, after all, over a half-century ago. I recall "three Jewish boys from New York." And while I was (and still am) a bit dense , I was no more offended than I had been a few days earlier when someone, admiringly, said "You can pick that banjo like a nigger."
    Attitudes about race, religion and ethnicity were largely institutional, not personal (I know, that really doesn't excuse them, but If you want to attack someone, attack the culture, not the man.) Jews were a mysterious novelty to many folks in North Carolina back then. I recall another member of my little group bristling when some folks in the next campsite asked if we were Jews--and then subsiding when we learned that they wished to offer us some home-canned vegetables, and were worried that we'd be upset by the fact that they were cooked with ham.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Trevor Thomas
Date: 14 May 07 - 07:42 AM

Billy Bragg? A freethinker he may be, but American he is not.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 May 07 - 01:08 PM

I just finished reading Freethinkers. It's work, be warned.

When I was growing up in a moslem/catholic country, those of us who weren't moslem were, absolutely, considered infidels by the moslems.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: PoppaGator
Date: 14 May 07 - 02:47 PM

I consider myself a throughly secular humanist who has always had faith in some form of spiritual dimenstion, with different religious ideas at different times of my life but unwavering allegiance to secular human and moral values that are available to everyone regardless of specific religious beliefs, if any. The fact that various groups of believers may claim justice, brotherly love, etc., etc., as being specifically "Christian" (or belonging to any other group) does not make such values anyone's exclusive property.

I don't think "secular" means "atheist" or even "agnostic." To me, the word implies a recognition that we all have beliefs that cannot be proved and therefore cannot be shared and that we cannot and should not try to impose upon one another, but that we still have plenty of common ground that allows us to share ethical and moral viewpoints.

Secularism recognizes the separation of chruch and state, it does not mandate the opposition of one to the other.

The drivel about the US being "founded as a Christian nation" is, of course, unadulterated horseshit. Almost to a man, the Founding Fathers were "Deists," meaning that they were agnostics at best in regard to belief in a Supreme Being. As men of the 18th century Enlightenment, they definitely had spiritual beliefs; they probably had a stronger belief in the perfectibility of human nature than their freethinking counterparts of our era. But they lived in a different age, when religion was much more prevalent and unconsciously-accepted in the daily lives of the population as a whole, and it would never have occurred to them to express their ideas in specifically "Godless" terms. They didn't explicitly deny the existence of God, but they defined the term "God" for themselves in much more impersonal and much less magical terms than did the common man.

Back then, common usage of the language mandated much freer and more common use of the word "God" in public discourse than today, and the word was generally understood not only as a name for the Supreme Being, but also concurrently as shorthand for concepts like "nature," "history," "justice," and even "common sense." The Founding Fathers ~ most of them, anyway ~ had abandoned personal belief in many aspects of the God of the average churchgoer, but easily retained the word in their vocabularies to convey all the meanings in which they were still able to believe, virtues and values we would today describe as "secular." Not a whole lot different from the way contemporary adults invoke the name of Santa Claus.

Does their sense of intellectual superiority to the less-educated masses mean that all these non-churchgoing patriots (Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Payne, etc. etc.) were in any way undemocratic? I think not. In today's world, there would indeed be a measure of intellectual dishonesty if a non-believing secularist were to invoke the name of God in a similar manner, but back in those days, our great Deist leaders were simply using our shared language to voice their stirring declarations. They had reason to feel that the world was moving to a more highly-evolved notion of the meaning of "God," and that they were simply ahead of the curve. To some extent, they were absolutely right ~ even among the most devout believers, with the exception of some extremely fundamentalist groups, modern-day religion recognizes scientific and historical facts that were considered anethema a couple of centuries ago.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 07 - 03:01 PM

Poppagator has the rights of it. Furthermore, when John Adams signed the treaty of Tripoli following the campaigns against the Barbary pirates, it explicitly stated that the United States was in no wise a Christian nation. This does not bear on the convictions of individuals within the nation but its official standing as defined by law.

A

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 May 07 - 03:12 PM

Well said, PoppaGator!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 14 May 07 - 03:27 PM

Amen, PoppaGator ;-)

But then I think the religious Right has demonstrated again and again that its ideas about American history, religion, and the founding fathers are flawed. Although, personally, I don't see how it matters even if the Right were correct; I don't imagine that Jefferson, et. al., had any idea just how diverse the U.S. would be 250 years later. That view could go either way, as an argument for or against their intentions in separating church and state, but I hope that they would have seen fit to expand their ideas about diversity as far as is needed in the modern world.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 07 - 07:30 PM

"The fact that various groups of believers may claim justice, brotherly love, etc., etc., as being specifically "Christian" (or belonging to any other group) does not make such values anyone's exclusive property." Poppagator

My very devout fundamentalist sister said that in Canada her neighbor let her "...come to her house to use her clothes iron and ironing board" and "she wasn't even a Christian" (said in a tone of awe.)

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 07 - 08:01 PM

Just shows ta go ya how confuzzled it gets, huh?


A

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 14 May 07 - 10:37 PM

I believe I was wrong, Dick, when I said that this thread is where F.Hamilton talked of Lunsford's bigotry in his intro.

All Frank said here is that "they thought it was funny" when it happened. The value judgment was made by ME when I named it "bigotry." Hearing the story told so very many damn times over the last 50 years, the tale has seemingly picked up a ton and a half of richeous baggage over that time. And all that repeating of the story makes for distortions that allow for more additions to the ethical judgements than pork barrel additions to a U.S. Senate bill.

It does seem that truth sometimes gets sacrificed in the name of perpetrating our personal and group prejudices.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,The First
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 11:19 PM

Sorry, thought I had successfully posted when I hadn't.

Anyway, anyone here yet read Charles Taylor's book "A Secular Age"?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674026764

Seems to be getting reviewed well.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 07:56 AM

Then there's this from Wikkipedia:

   "Zoroastrianism is currently the fastest growing religion in the world."


                      So maybe secularism has new threats from other places.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 11:26 PM

Much of what Poppagator says has validity, but I suspect that most of the "Founding Fathers" would demur at the parallel of "God" for them being like "Santa Claus" for current society. That's a little too facile.

And I do not claim to be in the least religious.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 11:54 PM

Of course, the founding fathers lived before Darwin published.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:35 PM

Art, your meeting with remarkable men was engrossing. I guess you accidentally cut too close to the bone r.
I would however not call Stalin's regieme a bloodbath for athiests.
IT was a bloodbath for the paranoid delusions of meglomania, which unfortunately is not uncommon.

While the evangelicals around here use language like "throwing a cup of gods wrath and rightiousness in the face of infidels" and "tolerence is the greatest evil of all", I suppose we secularists have sayings that are equally repugnant to them. But for the life of me I can't think what they are.

It goes to show that any belief begets myopic self examination.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 12:30 AM

Well, it's fascinating how a group of secularists know that when people in the 18th century mentioned God, they didn't really mean God, but rather Santa Claus.

You might want to consider that 18th century thinkers were perfectly capable of citing Providence, Nature, etc.---tec.cpblerfgnkgsryinin fact when 18th ceb

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 12:34 AM

And they were also capable of inserting a feeble stab at fake Welsh or Bulgarian-sounding gibberish into a post on Mudcat--or maybe that was me.

" ..Providence, Nature, etc---and God when they meant God."

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 07:50 AM

I don't imagine that Jefferson, et. al., had any idea just how diverse the U.S. would be 250 years later

I think he knew how diverse it was at the time. The separation of church and state was absolutely necessary for the cohesion of the new USA. New England was historically Puritan, Pennsylvania Quaker, Maryland Catholic, Virginia Episcopal; all of these (Quakers excepted) had a fairly recent history of mutual persecution. Without tolerance enshrined in the Constitution, they would certainly have hanged separately.

As for Nature, Providence etc. being a circumlocution for God, it was in fact a standard Deist way of expressing the idea in a non- prejudicial way. Even if the existence of an Ultimate Cause was accepted, the detailed theology derived from that was by no means obviously automatic. The Deist formulation allowed for diversity of detailed belief without disharmony.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 08:10 AM

"Well, it's fascinating how a group of secularists know that when people in the 18th century mentioned God, they didn't really mean God, but rather Santa Claus."


                  Of course goD didn't exist and they knew it. There are still people around who believe in Santa Claus, however.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 02:59 PM

I'm sorry if I added to any confusion by bring the name of Santa Claus into this debate a while ago. I would try to rephrase and clarify what I meant to say, but to do so would only further muddy the rhetorical waters.

Tow posts above this one (or maybe three or even four, if anyone is cross-posting as I type), GUEST,PMP had it about right in describing the Deist concept of God/Nature/Providence.

I've learned recently that the Episcopal Church, USA, lays claim to George Washington as a member, along with other unspecified "Founding Fathers" for whom the freethinking secularist tradition also has legitimate claims. I'm sure that a person can be a churchgoing Anglican (especially an occasionally churchgoing one) while retaining a degree of skepticism, even agnosticism.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 10:51 PM

Whatever you say, Rig. I'm sure we can be sure of sober objectivity on this topic from somebody who has advocated that religion be "stamped out".




And, speaking to the posters who perhaps are not quite in Rig's category on this topic:

By the way, it's not even clear that Jefferson, one of the patron saints of secularism in the US, rejected the idea of God.

His writings are like the Bible in that you can find justification for any number of positions.

For instance:

"Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone."

NB: not "Nature" and myself or "Providence" and myself--words which also crop up elsewhere.

And again:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"--which seems rather clearly to accept the idea of God and intellectual vigor at the same time.

Anybody who assumes that "God" in the writings of Jefferson and other "Founding Fathers" is just shorthand for other phenomena has a lot of proving to do.

The ability of 21st century secularists to read the minds of 18th century writers mentioning God is really quite remarkable.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 12:46 AM

I hadn't opened this thread just seeing a lot of unnamed guests posting at first. Now I am glad I did. What PoppaGator and Art Thieme wrote are well worth, as well as some of the others.

My belief that God does not want me to put sugar in Mr Brush's gas tank is keeping Mr. Brush's car going.

THAT made me laugh out loud! Love it!

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:30 AM

"His (Jefferson's) writings are like the Bible in that you can find justification for any number of positions."


               Yes! Everything he said would have made a lot more sense if only religion had been stamped out before he got to it.
               There is a lot of work yet to be done.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:41 AM

As I've said earlier, Rig, your attitude on this would fit right into the Inquisition. Truly a wonderful model for secularist tolerance. I'm sure you'll find many recruits for your brand of secularism.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 05:05 PM

I have elsewhere mentioned this story, that while on a working field trip where I and my co-workers were grouped in mancamps I shared a two bedroom unit with an electrician named Hamann. I'd been brought up celebrating Purim every year where the story of good king Ahasueras replacing his disobediant wife Vashti with the comely Esther who with the aide of her brother Mordecai foiled the evil counselor Haman who was planning to destory all the Jews of Persia. I was wondering if I was going to write home how I was sleeping every night within six feet of Hamann.

At one of our breaks someone asked him about his name. He looked up from his sandwich and said:

"He was a German king who hated the Jews."

I broke in: "He was a Persian king"

Hamann replied: "Well I don't know about that. I always heard it was German." Other than the name, he was a good man, a good worker, and my reflections on the occurrence of a name left me bemused.

After the four week trip I flew back to Anchorage and saw that my next door neighbor, a seamstress, was doing some knitting on her porch. I walked over there and she asked me how was my trip.

Without giving a thought to what I was about to say I uttered:
"I've learned to stop blaming Christians for all my problems."

Without looking up from her stitches my neighbor Christine said: "That's very nice, Robo, they're still going to blame you!.

Over the years in work or social venues, I've heard many seemingly insensitive comments on religion or race which I hesitated to challenge. Looking back I've regretted my silence on only a couple of occasions. For the most part it was folks trying to be their version of open minded, humorous, or acknowledging. The average fundamentalist Christian I know, and I know a lot of 'em, is more open minded than the description suggests. There's too much sectarianism around for anyone to fell they're in a monolithic state of ownership. And the American experience is full of that cross linked effect where seemngly unlike people joined efforts and created something new that captured the imagination.

Meanwhile, the history of the United States is drenched in religion, but a very interesting approach toward religion that must not be ignored, that of the questioner. People in the United States have been long concerned with morality, the Bible, the keeping of the faith, and the changes about to come. I recall visiting the Saugus iron works, one of the first if not the first North American foundry, and the cheap labor they imported from England to run it in the 17th century were Scots prisoners of the Puritans. It was a major issue in the area whether it was proper or not to have so many unchurched men in the area.

I think that the idea of secularism needs to made distinct as to why the 'freedom from religion' is not a religion in itself. My father was not obviously devout, but he made sure that his children had a religious education, rather than grow up, for want of a better word, preyed upon by a phenomenon of belief we did not understand. One of his favorite stories was to repeat what a supposedly atheist colleague had told him: "I don't believe in God, I don't go to church, and all my children are healthy, knock on wood.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 08:25 PM

"...Rig, your attitude on this would fit right into the Inquisition. Truly a wonderful model for secularist tolerance."


               Ron - When you see hordes of people all over the world, hopelessly addicted to one ancient superstition or another, are happily engaged in the destruction of the planet and humanity along with it, asking a rational thinking being to "be tolerant" is like asking a man who just stepped of a cliff to slow down.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Stringsinger
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 05:08 PM

Susan Jacoby's book as reviewed by Micheal Kazin completely side-steps the idea that FreeThought is fundamentally (without being fundamentalist) a liberal or progressive motivator. As for fighting battles, as Mr. Kazin is wont to do, I think that it's not an important thing to defeat someone verbally. You've got Mencken and Rand and a few others but by-in-large those of the FreeThought community are for the most part liberal or progressive in their outlook. Debs, Ingersoll, Stanton, Clemens and others certainly attest to this.

Please don't forget one of my very favorite songwriters, E.Y.(Yip) Harburg, a true Freethinker. Ira Gershwin also penned "It Ain't Necessarilly So" and Yip's song, "Ain't It The Truth" are paens to Freethought.

Also, Steve Allen, the great intellectual comedian and jazz pianist.

Art, first of all, (as they say in Sci-fi movies) "you are not alone". I'm with you, man.
And I know plenty others who are with us too. We don't need to feel marginalized in spite of Mitt's (shit) who should be ashamed of himself for trashing independent thought.

As to the story behind Bascom, it was that he referred to Jack, Guy and I as "comminists".

Regarding Dick's recollection of how he and his wife at the time Kiki were received as the "Jews from New York", it was common acceptance of the intolerance of the time that made that introduction possible. I don't think that we can excuse old Bascom and I know from personal first-hand experience with him that he was a bigot. He also loved American folk music and did a tremendous service to the country with the wonderful Asheville Folk Festival. The vitality of that event can be heard on early Library of Congress recordings by the Lomaxes. So we are all frail humans in some way.

Damn, it really bothers me to think that some of the traditional folk singers in the mountains would have no compunction about cross-burning on lawns. Hobart Smith was a segregationist too but Lomax's account of him says that he could play with African-American musicians and enjoy it which is a testament to the power of folk music.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 08:27 AM

If you go back far enough, I suspect there would be all kinds of minstrels with radical political leanings.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 09:14 AM

Rig--

There are enough people--in every religion--who are more than willing to coexist with those of other beliefs--or atheists. It would be appreciated if atheists would also be willing to coexist with religion. And I am not in the least religious.

Your call to "stamping out" religion does nothing but strengthen radicals of every sect.

Who knows, perhaps that's your goal.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 11:11 AM

Ron - I see it as a destructive force, like a wildfire. So my options are these: 1. Run from it, 2. Stand back and watch it burn, or 3. Try to put out the fire.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Amos
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 12:53 PM

Fire is a destructive force, when let out of its proper channels.

One does not combat that by eliminating all fire.

Wiser to strengthen the channels and educate the users to the dangers of irresponsible use.


A

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 01:05 PM

I back Amos on this one. I don't think it's possible to stamp out any ideas. They tend to outlive the idealist. For example, in an attempt to stamp out Nazism, it didn't work because there are active Nazis in the world today.

I am not equating Nazism with some religious people however. Far from it.
I see folks who are doing constructive work and are good people who happen to be religious. They should not be discounted but respected as people and for the good works they do.

The only solution to a rational viewpoint is through tolerance and education, not stamping out anything. This is why I think that a sensible dialogue on this issue is a solution.

Convincing viewpoints are never fostered by stamping out anything.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 02:02 PM

"Convincing viewpoints are never fostered by stamping out anything."

                   Maybe "stamping out" is a bad choice of terms, "educating away from" might be better.

                      But I would say Nazi-ism and religion are one in the same beliving in something for which there is absolutely no evidence and probably doesn't exist.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,12/9/07
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 09:44 PM

"probably doesn't exist."

So you have some doubt there after all.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 10:00 PM

About religion or Nazi-ism?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 07:27 AM

So, Rig, you're advocating re-education camps? Been tried--in Vietnam after the US left in 1975 for instance. May not be the best approach.

In Germany after WW II, the population had seen where Nazism led, so were only too willing to try something else. 1945 was called das Jahre Null (Year Zero)--therefore to be considered the beginning of history.

Parallel with religion does not hold--except in your mind.

Sure is a shame you're still unwilling to consider the obvious solution---coexistence.

Yet again--why do I think we've been over this ground before?-- the abuse of religion by some does not negate its value--any more than it negates the value of patriotism, socialism--(see Chavez), etc.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 11:59 AM

The enemy of thought control is Freedom of Thought.

That does not mean freedom of thought is safe and secure.

One is always free to vote for slavery, and it's pretty certain that slavery will be marketed as: FREEDOM, or SECURITY, or GODLINESS.

This doesn't mean that freedom, security, or godliness are to be abandoned. It means we need to be able to foster thought and communication, and hopefully together amass the minimum amount of brainpower to safeguard a free future for the next generation.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 01:02 PM

"Yet again--why do I think we've been over this ground before?--"

                        Ron - It's not "deja vu". It's because you continually insist on going over it.
                        Open your eyes to the destruction caused by religion, and you're well on your way to recovery.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 09:06 PM

Rig--

Exactly why is tolerance a bad word in your book?

Would you mind telling us how your attitude that either religion should be stamped out or religious people should be re-educated to give it up is any less bigoted than that of the Falwells, Robertsons, etc. you rail against on the other side?

Could it be that you are on the side of the angels?

Why does this sound familiar?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 11:39 PM

Ron - Tolerance is not a bad word, and I realize that to legislate for a correction for the addiction to religion is no more realistic than the attempt to legislate for a correction to the addiction to alcohol proved to be. Still, I think it's productive to hope.
                   The concept of a bunch of people wallowing around on their knees and mumbling to themselves every time something bad happens, by way of finding a means of solving the problem does not seem productive to me, however.
                   I guess at the end of the day, when you are constantly confronted with buffoons who offer to pray for you every time you disagree with them, you begin to view them as purveyors of mental cruelty.
                   Over the course of enough time, though, they'll probably engage in so much extended warfare, for whatever lunacy they profess to believe in, that the rest of mankind will finally be rid of them.

                   I suppose you'd call that Darwinism,

          Amen

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Leadfingers
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 08:28 AM

100

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 09:32 PM

100 lead fingers?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 11:31 PM

Well Rig, you think they're misguided buffoons and they think you're the spawn of Satan--or perhaps somebody who's in desperate need of being "saved".

Sounds like you're about even.

So why don't you just agree to disagree? If anybody tries to "save" you on Mudcat, you have a legitimate gripe. Til then, how about live and let live? And no more advocating of "'stamping out" or "re-educating" on either side.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,dick greenhaus
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 11:52 PM

Ron-
Re-educating--or just plain educating--is a pretty good way to change things that you don't like. Just don't make it implemented by force.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 10:19 AM

Ron - Probably the best news that's come along in a while was on the net a day or so back, and made the case that mankind is evolving faster than at any time in his history.

               What that means, of course, is the troglodytes will continue to kill themselves off through wars and the use of car bombs, while the sane branch of the species will continue to grow and prosper. Once the violence is over, religion will be looked back upon as the quaint, superstitious belief system we've come to know it to be.

             All we can do is hope that the religious don't destroy the planet before they become extinct.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Stringsinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 01:53 PM

I like the term Freethinker. It suggests an open mind to the extent of understanding another's point of view without necessarilly agreeing with it.

The danger is overgeneralization. What motivates one person doesn't always apply to another.

Wars are created when the dialogue and understanding break down. It's not religion, per se, that does this. It's the attitude toward and often because of it that is the problem.

There are no two religionists or atheists who are alike. Each arrive at their conclusions through their personal life experiences. The religion of Jefferson is different than the religion of Adams. I argue that Stalin was a religionist of sorts, though he professed to be an atheist. In this I agree with George Orwell, "totalitarianism is a form of theocracy".
However, I don't see every religionist as a theocrat.

A Secular viewpoint based on Freethought is not a product of narrow-minded thinking or labels. It has in its meaning a large component of social-consciousness and humanitarianism. It can't exist in an atmosphere of partisan bickering or hostility.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 02:40 PM

"The concept of a bunch of people wallowing around on their knees and mumbling to themselves every time something bad happens, by way of finding a means of solving the problem does not seem productive to me, however."

I know a fair number of religious people, and none of them are like that. They tend to roll up their sleeves and get to work on the problem.

You seem to be building a straw man and then attacking that. No, I'm not trying to save your soul. I'm not in that bag. But I think that if you are so adamantly against something, you really ought to try to transcend your mistaken assumptions and learn something about it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 04:14 PM

"A Secular viewpoint based on Freethought is not a product of narrow-minded thinking or labels."

            Frank - You would think this to be the reality, but religious people seem to want to label themselves.

            Somebody attending a Baptist Church, for instance, will proudly stand up and announce himself to be a Baptist.

            But when you call one of them a dirty rotten Baptist, they seem to get all jacked out of shape.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Wesley S
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 04:32 PM

"But when you call one of them a dirty rotten Baptist, they seem to get all jacked out of shape."

Maybe - just maybe - it was the "dirty rotten" part they didn't like. I'm just guessing.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Stringsinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 04:42 PM

I think that a lot of various people have a tendency to want to label themselves and others too much.

Instead of inculcating productive ideas and modeling by example, it's a convenient dodge
to beat the chest and proclaim how important they are.

Secularism requires cutting through the BS and labels and understanding that (cliche time)
we are all part of the human family. It is not required that we embrace labels or attempt to overdefine ourselves. Another cliche, actions speak louder than words.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 04:53 PM

"...people wallowing around on their knees and mumbling to themselves..."
    "I know a fair number of religious people, and none of them are like that."


            All you have to do is turn on your television set on Sunday morning and you will see them by the tens-of-thousands. Usually there's a preacher up on the stage blubbering about something he just read in the Bible. Like he had no idea it was there. goD must have guided his hand when he flipped the page and there it was--something profound that made him blubber.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Wesley S
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 04:56 PM

Yup - The folks you see on TV define all people of faith. Just like the Kingston Trio. I saw them on TV so that means all folk singers are just like them.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 05:33 PM

The key here is "trio;" that means three people.

       The mega-churches house tens of thousands of people, and their broadcasts reach thousands more.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 05:39 PM

I'm talking about religious people I know, not the ones you see attending the mega-churches headed by electronic preachers who buy lots of television time. It may look like there are a lot of them, but in proportion to the number of religious folks in this country, they're far from being in the majority.

A lot of the world's evils can be laid at the door of organized religious institutions who have or seek secular power. But there are churches in my neighborhood where those who attend them are working quitely to feed the hungry and provide housing for the homeless, and who work diligently in various peace groups (some sponsoring such peace groups) and do such things as conduct Alternatives to Violence workshops both in prisons and in the community. They provide meeting facilities for organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous and shelter and assistence for battered women. This and more.

When I hear someone say "religion is evil" and condemn all religion out of hand, implying that the world would be better off without them and they should be abolished, I sometimes wonder what would become of these programs were it not for the churches--usually the smaller neighborhood churches that are not very wealthy--that provide them through contributions by members of their congregations, not just in money, but in actually getting involved themselves.

Some because that's what their religion tells them they should do, and others because working through such an institution multiplies the effect of their own humanitarian efforts.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 05:57 PM

Separation of church and state—as prescribed in the First Amendment.

Not only is it intended to protect the government from the influence of religion, it is there to protect religion from the influence of government—and other religions.

Many of the early settlers came to the New World to escape religious persecution in the countries they came from and be able to freely practice their religion—or none at all, if they so chose.

Declaring a State Religion is a violation of the First Amendment. Abolishing religion would also be a violation of the First Amendment.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 07:37 PM

Yes, I agree. This isn't an activity the state should be involved in, in any way.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:16 PM

Oh, are we starting one?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:23 PM

A religion or an abolition?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:51 PM

There are a number of "electric preachers" and large portions of the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference and other fundamentalist groups—the ones who keep insisting that "American is a Christian country"—who want to scrap the First Amendment and make their particular brand of "Christianity" the State Religion, and who campaign and vote accordingly. Republican candidates within recent decades have been courting these groups, and they're still doing it.

But there are many liberal Christians, such as Rev. Jim Wallis, editor of "Sojourners Magazine" and author of God's Politics : Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop and author of Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism and several other books, and many others who are working hard to counteract efforts of the radical fundies to run the First Amendment through the shredder.

The problem is that they don't get the kind of media coverage that the radical fundies get. "Outrageous" always makes for juicier news.

And in the meantime, too many people who don't take the time to find out what's really going on just thoughtlessly lump them together with the radical fundies as "all those Christians."

Big difference BIG difference!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 11:33 PM

Rig, Dick--

Education, fine. Re-education, not so fine. And re-education is what we are talking about here. We're talking about people who are already religious--they're the ones you are speculating about changing. Good luck.

It's also striking how you want them to change their beliefs, just as missionaries have always wanted to do.

Rig--

Yet, for some reason you don't take kindly to it when a televangelist tells you you should change. Funny thing you have a problem keeping your TV off those channels--I seem to have no problem just keeping it off entirely. Perhaps you'd like to get your off-button fixed.

As far as re-education--remember the old joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb.

And, as I've pointed out, re-education camps have had, shall we say, a certain odor. Are you sure you want to advocate them?

I also note that you have not found time to answer my point that abuse of religion does not negate the worth of religion, any more than abuse of patriotism, socialism (see Chavez), etc. negates their worth.

Telling other people how they should think is always a great way to improve society. I'm sure you'll have all the success you deserve.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 07:18 AM

"I also note that you have not found time to answer my point that abuse of religion does not negate the worth of religion,..."

                   Ron - Like the man said - "Religion is the opiate of the masses." It has no worth other than providing a means of a small group of elites to control the actions and behaviors of other people who they feel to be beneath them.

                   That only leaves us with the term you refer to as the "abuse of religion." Religion is abuse. That's all it is. Sending children to Sunday school is child abuse, and asking a poor man to tithe a portion of his income to support the institution that enslaves him is the ultimate abuse.

                   You continue to refer to Chavez. All he has really done to date is to take resources that his country owns and use them to help the people in his own country. The fact that he's done this at the expense of American oil companies doesn't bother me.
                     If he abides by the results of the last election and steps down from power at the appointed time, I don't see why even you would have a problem with him. If he follows in the footsteps of Castro, then I would have to agree he is not a good person--but we don't know that yet.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Wesley S
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:40 AM

What a bunch of whiners. If you were complaining about some faith based group trampling your rights I'd be right there with you on the front lines trying to stop them. But that's not what I'm hearing. I'm hearing "Whaaah – I don't like what they think. And I don't approve of the manner that they used to come up with their beliefs. Make them stop – somebody make them stop"

Re-education? Listen to yourselves – you're one stop away from becoming The Thought Police. Religions of some sort or another started not long after humanoids started gathering into groups. And religion is not going anywhere soon. At least not in the next thousand years or more. So put on your big girl panties and deal with it. Tolerant coexistence is a lot easier than re-education don't you think?

No one should interfere with the way you want to live your life. When that happens – stand up and be counted. But if y'all don't like my beliefs – or how I came to that belief system – don't evpect me to get my panties in a wad over it. In other words – grow up.

By the way – I have no interest in converting you. I won't be praying for you. But I do have a suggestion. Organize. Last night on the news they had a story about the Baptist Mens group that is headed to Oklahoma to help with the crippling ice storm up there. The atheist mens group was nowhere to be seen. I think y'all are just jealous. Faith based groups are all about organization. That's one of the things they thrive on. Atheists should do the same. Once the evening news starts having stories about The North Texas Atheists Relief Group going somewhere do something – anything to help with flood damage or tornado victims – then you'll be getting somewhere. Until then turn down the volume – you're getting rather tedious.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:34 PM

"...Faith based groups are all about organization."

                And that, of course, is the problem. They're all about herd mentality, so we have to see our tax money going to support "faith based initiatives" that are used to pervert growing young minds, which otherwise might mature into thinking individuals, become incapable of any kind of creative thought processes. And we have to put up with voucher programs, designed to prevent young people from becoming caring adults with real vision.

                Free thinkers wouldn't resent the non-thinking so much, if they didn't have to pay for thier tax exempt subsidies, fight to keep their superstitions out of the public schools, and watch them mumble and grovel every time Congress goes into session.

                It's time for the deadbeat religions community to wake up and realize what they've become.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:43 AM

Right, Rig--"caring adults" who somehow don't have time for the kind of good works the Baptists just mentioned are engaged in. And if you don't think that organization helps in delivery of services, you're more deluded than I thought.

I'd also like to see the North Texas Atheist or perhaps Atheist-Anarchist Relief Group helping out flood or tornado victims. When they do, your broad-brush attack on religion may start making some sense.

So it would be appreciated if you would wipe the foam from around your mouth and start dealing with reality, even facts which don't fit into your predetermined decision--(do you really mean to imitate our dear Chickenhawk-in Chief?--refusal to consider anything contrary to his predetermined decisions is his MO, as you may be aware.)

In fact, it was notable in the Katrina situation, for instance, that church groups were much faster and more effective than traditional relief groups like the Red Cross.

Or are you totally against all organizations also, in addition to being against religion, immigrants, and basically anyone who dares to disagree with anything you might be in favor of?

Again I ask--why is tolerance a bad word in your vocabulary?

Live and let live seems to work pretty well for most rational people. Why is it anathema to you?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:50 AM

Some relief groups can be hamstrung by their own regulations--as the Red Cross appears to have been in the Katrina aftermath. The church groups were much more nimble--and many were already there. It would be foolish to shut them out just because of some irrational person's fear and hate of religion.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 09:53 AM

"...Faith based groups are all about organization."
And that, of course, is the problem"

It's no problem at all. They are organized and ready to take action when they feel action is needed. If you don't like what they are up to organize to counter their actions. Whining on a folk music website isn't going to solve anything. Except give you a little bit of smug satisfaction. In the meantime the Baptist Mens Relief Group is STILL in Oklahoma helping people out a jam. And you're doing squat to make this world a better place.

"It's time for the deadbeat religions community to wake up and realize what they've become."

What? Sure - They've become organized, powerful and effective even if you don't like the actions they are taking. So they are supposed to change because YOU don't like what they think and do? Dream on. Bring on the Thought Police. That will be effective won't it?

And we're still waiting on the International Athiests Relief Organization to spring into action......

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:35 AM

"Dream on. Bring on the Thought Police. That will be effective won't it?"


                   Ron and Wesley - What you have seemed to fail to grasp is, the people running religious organizations are the thought police. The teach people not to think; that's what they're there for.

                   Many Athiest scientist developed the products and procedures that are used everyday in helping people. Both of you seem to value collective action over individual action.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:38 AM

I value both types of action. What do YOU do personally to make this world a better place? Other than whine about how others think?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 11:03 AM

Wesley - You can go to my web-site:
www.riginslinger.com to see what I do. Other than that, I always go the extra mile to try to get others to open their minds, to take in the introduction of new an inovative ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 11:26 AM

I've been to your website. So your answer is "squat".

Tonight I'll be raising funds for one of the ministers at our church. He's also a lawyer {and a former marine}. With his legal talents the church has set him up with a "Justice Ministry". In the past year and a half he has represented literally hundreds of poor people. Mostly battered women who need restraining orders against their violent partners. Or helping to make sure they don't get evicted from their homes because their husbands have run off with the money.

Next week I'll be serving chili lunches to the homeless. There's more but you get the idea. You however - according to your own words "I always go the extra mile to try to get others to open their minds, to take in the introduction of new an inovative ideas."

WOW. I'm impressed.Keep fighting the good fight.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:08 PM

'I've been to your website. So your answer is "squat".'


                   Wesley - I continue to try to eductate the unthinking, but you keep serving chili; I'll move on to other candidates.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:35 PM

>>By the way – I have no interest in converting you. I won't be praying for you. But I do have a suggestion. Organize. Last night on the news they had a story about the Baptist Mens group that is headed to Oklahoma to help with the crippling ice storm up there. The atheist mens group was nowhere to be seen. I think y'all are just jealous. Faith based groups are all about organization. That's one of the things they thrive on. Atheists should do the same. Once the evening news starts having stories about The North Texas Atheists Relief Group going somewhere do something – anything to help with flood damage or tornado victims – then you'll be getting somewhere. Until then turn down the volume – you're getting rather tedious.<<

On the "There are no gods" thread I told Christian activists what they could do if they really wanted to publicly protest something. For my troubles, Don Firth, Little Hawk and I think you as well pretty much called me a self-righteous prick. It was more or less a kind of "Who do you think you are?" thing. Now here you are doing exactly the same thing and Firth and LH are nowhere to be seen. Funny how that works.

But I NEVER made any claims that atheists do good things for people and Christians don't. Yet here you are saying atheists are nowhere to be seen when people need help. How the hell would you know?

You are fast going in my book from one of the better posters here to one of the worst. You need an attitude adjustment or perhaps you've always needed one and I've just not noticed. And don't tell me that you could say the same to me. Remember, I'm an atheist--I don't have it in me to change positively.

Now, excuse me, a bunch of people need help so I'm going to go home and watch TV.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:36 PM

Sorry that was my post above.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 12:52 PM

". . . nowhere to be seen?"

282RA, try scrolling up a few posts. And, no, I didn't call you a self-righteous prick. But I'm beginning to revise my opinion.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:12 PM

And as far as the "There aren't any gods" thread, the argument was going around in predictable circles, and when it had circumnavigated the same stuff for the eleventy-fourteenth time, I got a bit bored.

But just because I haven't posted doesn't mean I'm not checking in from time to time.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 01:44 PM

282RA - I can't imagine what I said that would have made you think that I was calling you a self-righteous prick. I do remember asking you why you would celibrate Christmas. Because if I've read your posts correctly you consider yourself an athiest. So why would an athiest celibrate Christmas? I think that's a logical question and I'd still like to hear your answer. I also remember asking you about your desire to see Christian groups start an anti-smoking campain. I'm all for that too. But the groups you are talking about { whom I do NOT belong to } already have an agenda. Why should they delute their message? And is tobacco an issue you feel strongly enough about to take any action on yourself?

What I've been objecting to lately is the trend here by a few people to lump all people of faith together. They refuse to see any good in any organization of faith. They see no difference between Jim Jones and Martin Luther King. People are people. Judge them by their actions or - in a certain posters case - lack of action. Don't judge all groups of faith as bad if you're sitting on your ass at home doing nothing. In the same regard I have no ill will toward anyone who decides that there is no higher power or supreme being. And I'll be the first person to defend your right to think whatever you want to think. If you lose your job because of your beliefs I'll be the first person to send you 100.00 for your legal defense fund. I'll write letters and send e-mails if you like. All I ask is that I be able to come here to the Mudcat and find a little bit of tolerance. I'd rather not see my beliefs trashed and thought of as evil.

I'd like to think that's what I've offered eveyone else here. If you can find a case where I haven't done that please let me know and I'll apologize if needed. R-E-S-P-E-C-T sock it to me sock it to me. It's not too much to ask.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:58 PM

Rig--

You continue to "educate the unthinking". Gee, that's an essential task. Too bad you misspelled it. Actually what you do is "alienate the rest of the world".

Pardon me for suggesting that serving chili to the homeless might be more useful than dispensing towering arrogance on behalf of "secularism", combined with perfect ignorance of anything else. Which unfortunately is all you have proven. Sorry about this--when we had our immigration debate you seemed like somebody interested in making sense. That's gone now.

You're not helping your cause.

You may possibly call me arrogant--why do I think this is likely?--but

1) I know something about the beliefs of people who don't agree with me, and I quote from their own words.   You only know how to draw an obviously false caricature of all those who disagree about the worth of religion. Some fundamentalists may fit your caricature--but you ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of believers--in any religion--don't.

2) I advocate tolerance--live and let live. What you advocate is the opposite--do we need citations from your collected works?


By the way, you're also wrong about Chavez. Or do you think all the students who protest his moves are funded by the CIA? Do you subscribe to that caricature also?   Was his recent idea to change the political rules so he could run for office forever just fine with you? How about the other idea that he could personally name governors of the various states?   Are you aware that he did not want to concede defeat on the referendum but his top generals told him they would not put down any revolt stemming from his overturning the results?

Or does it just boil down for you to: the end justifies the means?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 12:02 AM

"'Pardon me for suggesting that serving chili to the homeless might be more useful than dispensing towering arrogance on behalf of "secularism",'

               Ron - In all reality, serving chili to the homeless probably produces a great deal of methane gas that contributes to the problem of global warming.

               You can say I'm wrong about Chavez, and I might be. All I'm saying is, the jury is still out.

               I will confess that these people puzzle me. They seem to have the best of intentions starting out, but get caught up in some distorted concept of their own importance.

               I suspect you would agree that a few more George Washingtons throughout history would have been productive.

               I really don't have a cause, as you suggest, and I'm not looking for converts. I simply see religion as destructive.

               Maybe if I explained it this way: You have this guy who is continually dropping an anvil on your big toe. He does it over and over again, and then one day he stops for a moment and asks you to be more tolerant.

               It's hard.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 02:38 PM

"I simply see religion as destructive."

Once again, the pigeon-hole labeled "Religion"—with all sorts of diverse bodies of belief crammed into the same space. The only religions that have any power to be destructive are those who usurp or assume secular power, the largest of which are certain groups of Christians, and certain groups of Muslims. But these certain groups do not represent all Christians or all Muslims. There are many religions that, specified in their core beliefs, are devoted to rather nondestructive activities such as meditation and contemplation—and service (including, I might point out, a number of groups of Christians, e.g., Benedictines).

I have already mentioned the Christian churches in my neighborhood that are doing all kinds of work in the local community relating to feeding programs and low-cost housing for the poor and homeless, and facilitating peace and non-violence programs, and, in general, doing things that need to be done that no one else seems to want to do. There is also a mosque some miles north of where I live, and a more peaceable bunch of people you will never meet. And they despair of others who claim to speak in their name, the same as liberal Christians do.

Whether you agree with the beliefs of either, or regard them with contempt, they both do a great deal of good in their communities, as prescribed by their beliefs and in their scriptures.

I may not share all their beliefs, but I certainly respect what they do, even to the point of participated some myself.

In fact, a lot of the good they do wouldn't get done if they weren't doing it, because nobody else seems sufficiently motivated to get up off their butts and exert a little energy in behalf of someone or something beyond their own narrow interests.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 04:28 PM

"I may not share all their beliefs, but I certainly respect what they do,..."


                     The only question remaining to ask is, why do they do it?

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 06:00 PM

". . . why do they do it?"

There are—believe it or not!!—some people in this world who, when they see a need, are motivated to do something about it simply because it is there.

The liberal Christians of my acquaintance tend to be this way. Whether their urge to help springs up spontaneously or whether it comes from early religious training and belief makes little difference in the end. One can argue until Tuesday breakfast about whether they are good people because they are religious or religious because they are good people, but in the end, the job gets done.

Rig, I gather that this sort of thing is not your favorite reading material, so I suggest that you have the antacid ready, and it might be a good idea to have an airsick bag handy just in case. Then, when thus prepared, try reading the following passage. This is what most liberal Christians tend to regard as the core of how Christians should act toward their fellow humans:

Matthew 25:34-40
"You are blessed by my Father. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."

Then the righteous asked him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'

And He answered them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

This contrasts with the beliefs of many of the fundamentalist sects that tend to read the Old Testament rather than the Gospels (where one finds the teachings of Jesus), then center their attention on rules ("Thou shalt not. . . .)", especially when it comes to the behavior of other people, and personal salvation (going to Heaven rather that to Hell). As a liberal Christian friend of mine once said about a fundie acquaintance, "He's concentrating so hard on going to Heaven that he is of earthly use whatever!"

It's the "Old Testament Christians" who are the ones who accost you on the street with "Have you been saved!??", who try to get their skewed moral ideas enacted into laws, who want to turn this country into a "Christian country" despite the First Amendment, and who go around dropping anvils on your foot. Liberal Christians aren't into that kind of thing, and even if you think their basic beliefs are completely ring-a-ding, it's still not really fair to lump them together with those who want to cram their beliefs down everyone else's throats.

Here's something to consider:    The real first line of defense against the "Christian Nationalists" are the liberal Christians, especially people like Rev. Jim Wallis and Bishop John Shelby Spong, whom I mention above (12 Dec 07 - 09:51 p.m.), and Rev. Barbara Rossing, who wrote The Rapture Exposed. They are motivated largely by their objections to the phony theology being peddled as the be-all and end-all of Christian belief, but mostly because of the fact that if the Christian Nationalists get their way and the United States does become a "Christian" nation, the Christian Nationalists will then be in a position to force their ideas of morality and religious practice on the whole counrty, including liberal Christians. Then, we're right back where we started from four centuries ago, when people fled to the New World because of religious persecution in Europe.

So, like it or not, if you don't want religious folks telling you what to believe and how to behave, liberal Christians are your strongest allies. Since all Christians are not the same, it's kinda counterproductive, not to mention more that just a bit (dare I use the word?) bigoted, to keep lumping them all together and then trashing them all.

By doing so, instead of getting an anvil dropped on your foot, you'll be shooting a hole in it yourself!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 06:11 PM

I guess I'm more used to the Salvation Army types, who will happily give you a meal if you listen to their spiel.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 06:54 PM

Yeah, I know some do that, but at most of the churches in my area, you don't have to listen to a sermon if you want to chow down. It's not a sales gimmick. No strings attached. Jesus said, "Feed the hungry." He didn't say, "and while you're feeding them, make them listen to a sales pitch."

So relax, and bon appetit.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 07:09 PM

Here's a thought.

When faced with a moral or ethical question, the good Christian can ask, "What would Jesus do?"

The non-religious can ask, "How would this look on YouTube!???"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 08:37 PM

Good point, Don.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 11:29 AM

Rig--


"I just see religion as destructive". By ignoring all the good religion does. And conveniently confusing abuse of religion--which nobody defends--with religion itself.


As well as devising dehumanizing stereotypes for your opponents -- "wallowing around on their knees and mumbling to themselves". Where have we seen this sort of approach before? Try the 3rd Reich.

You "eductate" (sic) the unthinking". So exactly what is the difference between your good work of weaning people off religion, which seems to be how you see your role, and religious missionaries? How exactly do you lead people away from religion? Is it the wonderful wisdom dispensed on your website? Or perhaps the sterling example you set in your life?

And I'm still waiting for your answer on Chavez. You are wrong, again, in your non-answer that "'the jury is still out" on him. We are not discussing whether his heart is in the right place .The specific question is: In the recent referendum, Chavez sought to change the Venezuelan political system so that he could run for the presidency forever. Is this fine with you? Yes or no. No agonizing attempt to dodge the question is necessary.

Or don't you believe this was in the referendum?

In addition to the abuse of religion perhaps another example of abuse of a good principle would be yourself. Somebody who has advocated "stamping out" religion and "re-educating" religious people away from religion, yet calls himself a secularist is pretty clearly abusing a good principle--secularism.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 11:42 AM

Ron - I can't recall having declared myself a secularist, but if that's what you want to call me, it's fine with me.

                  RE: Chavez: Yes, I'm aware that the referendum was designed to keep him in power indefinately. The people voted not to do this. The ball's in his court.

                  We have multiple examples of people trying to stay in power in the US forever. They can't do that with the presidency because we were lucky to have Washington as the first one.

                  Getting back to religion, I can see that educating people away from it is a huge undertaking and might prove to be impossible. Therefore, I suspect we will just have to let evolution run its course. Hopefully mankind will outgrow his dependancy on religion before he destroys the planet.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 04:42 PM

Rig--


You seem to see religion as a serious obstacle to preserving the planet. Wrong again.

Many religions, Christianity and Judaism definitely included, have as a precept that man is to be a steward of God's creation, the earth and all its creatures.

From this perspective, it's obvious that contrary to your belief, religion is at least partly a countervailing force to heedless exploitation of the earth.

If your target is overpopulation, you should realize that there are many other factors than "be fruitful and multiply" that play a role here, including the macho culture which refuses birth control, and the millennia-long feeling in farm communities all over the world that a big family is necessary to work the farm.

You seem to specialize in simplistic verdicts which support your anti-religion stance, not bothering to see if there are facts on the other side.   Much like our current so-called leader, in his approach to making policy.

t really would be a good idea for you to actually do some research on religion, if that's to be a main focus of your postings. It might save you from more rather foolish assertions.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 05:37 PM

Ron - Let's just say your experiences have been different than mine.

                     You're right when you make the observation that I see religion as a serious obstacle for perserving the planet, and as much as I hate to see it, the concept of a family farm in America is virtually a thing of the past. I suspect the rest of the world is destined to shortly follow. Still, I think the modern menace of runaway population growth is pretty much a product of ignorance.

                     I've suggested solutions, but it's hard to get people to listen. There might be other solutions, but nobody seems much interested in those either.

                     I think we'll just have to wait and see how things work out.

Subject: RE: BS: American Secularist Tradition
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 06:00 PM

Regarding Chavez I think it has to be said that he is trying to preserve autonomy in a country that has been targeted by the CIA and Pat Robertson as well as those in the State Department and unsrupulous, unregulated corporations with their economic hit men who wish to see him deposed. He wants a socialist country and I think that might work for Venezuela who has a history of illicit involvement by reactionary forces from the US in an attempt to subvert the election process there. This is reminiscent of what the GOP did in Florida to destroy the vote count through which Gore won the presidency.

As to non-believers being non-actors in social affairs, this is a myth perpetrated by many religious people who believe that their motivation comes from their belief system. There are many active non-believers who take part in helping disaster victims, righting the social wrongs of society, helping the poor etc. To paint them with a brush as being oblivious to social concerns is equally wrong. Many ethical and socially active people that I know are non-believers. The religious don't have a corner on that market.

Frank Hamilton