Humanism

I received this post from the UU-UNO (United Nations Organization) which is affiliated with the UUA.  It brings out an important aspect in that often we have large prejudices with the whole concept of religion.  Often generalizations are made that do not include progressive religions nor even mainstream religions.  This also emphasizes my former blog that Secularism is NOT anti-religion.  Secularism is to rid governments of being influenced by religions.  But it is not designed to remove religion from various cultures.  For instance, the Indians in Mexico have Read more about Global Interfaith and the United Nations »

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 »

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? »

This week, there was a debate of Biblical proportions.  Actually the debate wasn't as grandiose as the controversy surrounding the question, “Should Bill Nye participate in a debate with Ken Ham?”  (Also known as the “Ham on Nye” debate.)  Since the debate has already happened, that question is moot.  Read more about A Humanist’s View of the Debate of Ham on Nye »

Many of us have an image of shamans as people, usually in a pre-literate society, who would have an apparent resource pool of knowledge and/or wisdom to be shared with the rest of the immediate tribe, culture, or society.  These might be the Native American medicine men, or the shamans of Northern Europe before the periods of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.  They might be called on to know the use of certain medicinal herbs and vegetation, or they might be considered the bridge between the regular society and the supernatural world that was not known to the ordinary members Read more about Modern Day Shamans »

In my last post on Non-Arrogant Humanism, I referred to a statement Roy Speckhardt made to the effect that we can disagree with theists and still be respectful, but we cannot ridicule them and still be respectful.  It was also brought out that in many areas we want to work with groups – even though they are theists. Read more about Secularism is NOT Anti-Religious »