opinion

The Greatest Good

As Humanists, we are often quick to point out the need for humanitarian aid.  We should be just as quick to be knowledgeable about the efforts of humanitarian aid.  The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals are a set of goals set by the UN in the year 2000 and set to expire next year, in 2015.  The progress towards these goals has been phenomenal.  Few people realize that extreme poverty was cut in half by the year 2010 – 5 years ahead of schedule.  Few people are aware of the other goals which have already been reached.  And few people are aware of the Read more about Humanism and Humanitarian Aid via MDGs »

Government and Religion doesn't work:

In Iraq

Nor in the United States

Nor anywhere

Why haven't I seen the various Secular organizations pounce on Iraq as an example of how religion and government doesn't work?  Iraq is a perfect, irrefutable example of why it is so necessary to keep religion out of our government here in the US.   Read more about Humanist for Secular Government »

The following blurb was in today's Writer's Almanac (from Garrison Keillor) on the anniversary of the great Huxley-Wilburforce debate on evolution, Read more about Huxley-Wilburforce Debate on Evolution »

I am extremely disappointed in today's Supreme Court decision (Greece v. Galloway) affirming that sectarian prayers at city council meetings do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  The 5-4 decision severely diminishes the non-establishment principle and effectively endorses majoritarian displays of public piety. Read more about The Business of Government -- Prayer and Pledge Go Hand-in-Hand »

Last night at the Discussion Group Meeting of the Concord Area Humanists, the subject of justice came up and it was apparent that most people in this group were not aware of an alternative justice system called Restorative Justice.  So I thought I would present a very basic tutorial. Read more about Humanism and Restorative Justice »

As Humanists, it should go without saying that we should be concerned about Human Rights.  The first thing necessary about “being concerned” is objective viewpoints.  The media often presents us viewpoints about Human Rights in Russia, or Cuba, or China.  And while many of these Human Rights articles give us viewpoints, often they are not objective but are subjective.  But seldom does the media give us viewpoints on Human Rights regarding the United States.  (I want to say “never”, but I never say “never”.)  Read more about Humanism and Human Rights and the US »

Humanities

As some of you may know, I define Humanism as encompassing “all that it means to be human”.  This, of course, includes science, but it also includes the non-rational mind of the creative, the social, the psychological, and all of those subjects that the universities include in their “Humanities” subjects like art, literature, history, etc.  (Humanism is soooo much more than pro-science and anti-religion.)  And it also includes all of the efforts included in the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).  As such, I subs Read more about Humanities and Humanism »

A few nights ago, those of us at Concord Area Humanists had a speaker, Tom Clark, discuss free will and determinism (among other topics of Naturalism).  I’m not going to say that I followed everything he said, but I wanted to present my theoretical model that I have created which allows me to accept both free will and determinism without any distortions to my worldview.  Read more about Free Will and Determinism »

Remember, “If you ask the wrong questions, you never have to worry about the answers.”  This is one of those unanswerable questions because there are so many definitions of “worship” that there is no definition for “worship”.  The Old Testament Jews had many prophets (Major and Minor Prophets) but they didn’t “worship” any of them.  The New Testament tells of John the Baptist as a prophet, but he was not worshipped.  Jesus was worshipped as being both a man and a god even though he never wrote anything.  However the Muslims treat Jesus as a prophet and not to be wor Read more about Do We Humanists “Worship” Darwin? »