Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/11/15

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Are there any civilizations or periods in which humanist beliefs were simply not present in any way?

Dr. Herb Silverman: I think Humanist beliefs and values have always been present in every society, long before Humanism was defined. Many people have been and are humanists who hadn’t heard of Humanism. I used to be one of those people, as I suspect most Humanists were. Unfortunately, Humanism has not and does not dominate most cultures (think Nazi Germany, and authoritarian regimes today). 

Jacobsen: It claims Humanism as a culmination of these traditions of meaning, ethics, and reason. What does Humanism shed from other less effective traditions in the light of this culmination mentioned?
​
Silverman: Humanism sheds religious beliefs based on so-called “holy” books written thousands of years ago. Many well-meaning religious people pick and choose from their preferred ancient book and ignore embarrassing parts. They haven’t taken one addition step of rejecting their holy book and treating it as any other book where we keep the good parts and reject the bad parts. A friend who supports gay marriage pointed out that that the Bible has countless passages about social justice and only five that condemn homosexuality. He didn’t have a good answer when I asked how many condemnations of homosexuality it would take to reverse his position. Humanists don’t have rules etched in stone. We have principles and values written on paper, and some of our ideas might change through a continuing process of observation, learning, and rethinking. Reason usually hasn’t been present in religious traditions, and our ethics sometimes change as we learn more about how better to interact with and treat others. 

Jacobsen: As science is an epistemology and technology is ethically neutral, but comes out of discoveries from science, they followed in the footsteps of the other declarations about never using science and technology “callously or destructively”. How important is this note for human wellbeing and the species’ survival?

Silverman: Science and technology can be used wisely by Humanists, while considering human values. I first thought about this as a child when I read about Frankenstein (an example of science and technology gone haywire). We need to use science and technology to enhance human well-being, not simply because we have the technical know-how. Though we have lethal weapons, we should try to avoid using them. We should promote peace and peaceful negotiations whenever we can. I consider myself a pacifist, except for World War II.

Jacobsen: They emphasize something dear to me: The pursuit of a creative life. To me, this is core. I value the pursuit of creative and enjoyable pursuits of open discovery more than most things. For a life of fulfillment, have you found any limits in humanists known to you? 

Silverman: I think some Humanists can be too woke for me. Some insist that everybody proclaim which pronoun they identify with, and they criticize those who say “Black” instead of African-Americans. Those who try to restrict people from using language that others might find offensive should know that the antidote to offensive speech is your free speech right to rebut. I think Humanists acting too woke can be counterproductive when we try to bring others into the Humanist camp. I’m also concerned when Humanists publicly criticize other Humanists unfairly. One recent example is when the American Humanist Society took back the 1996 award to Richard Dawkins as Humanist of the Year, mostly because they disliked some of his tweets that they felt demeaned some marginalized groups. I think Dawkins has done more to bring atheism and humanism to countless Americans than any other individual. If the AHA stopped respecting Dawkins, they could just not give him any more awards. Such public rebuke, in my mind, was unconscionable. 

Jacobsen: The declaration ends on a fourth point. This is a shortlist, but comprehensive: ethics, rationality, fulfillment, and alternative meaning (signification) and purpose. They mention Humanism as an antidote to “dogmatic religion, authoritarian nationalism, tribal sectarianism, and selfish nihilism.” This is a full list. The demands on oneself are high with Humanism, but humane. That’s what I gather from this. The building of the better world is a recognition of both human refinement by oneself and others, and human fallibility to make mistakes and then to work to be better the next time around. How do you view this fourth point, especially in relation to the other points about ethics, rationality, and fulfillment? 
​
Silverman: I especially agree with the point that all humans, including Humanists, are fallible. That is why we try to learn from our mistakes, exchange ideas with other Humanists and people who are not (yet) Humanists. We can learn from others and sometimes change our own ideas. I like when this happens to me. By sharing our values with others, I think we can help build a better world.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/01/20

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “Would You Be My Neighbour?” is named in honour of an advocate of kindness, fairness, and compassion in the United States: Fred Rogers. I posed this as a collaborative series while kept with core conversations between you and me. In short, we have discussions, invite guests, and publish the results. The ‘blue collar’ is ignored for the ‘white collar’ academicism of secular humanist thought; the human rights activism can triumph in attention due to its grand intents over daily acts of magnanimity. What is the hope or expectation in this collaborative endeavour for the ongoing work together in this series for you?

Dr. Herb Silverman: I guess I’m considered a “white collar” rather than a “blue collar” person because I am an academician who enjoys philosophical discussions about secular humanism. In truth, I’m a “no collar” person, since I mostly wear T-shirts that I got from running in races, or T-shirts that I wear to promote secular humanism. I agree with you that we need to expand our base and find ways to reach the “common man” and “common woman,” many of whom are humanists who have never heard about humanism. A limited way I engage with such people is through common interests in other areas, including concerns about the environment, civil rights, education, health, and charity work. I often try to bring humanism into the conversation, showing why it is consistent with the issues they care about. My expectation in this collaborative effort is to hear how others are reaching out to potential humanists and then try to follow their lead.

Jacobsen: If we take the perspective of future directions, we can explore some of the more high-falutin’ material within secular humanist philosophy, while grounding this in the item of most import to me: The banalizing of it, making it everyday, humdrum, ordinary, normative. What are some topics of interest to you? Those with which every secular humanist must become acquainted to protect the way of life, the lifestance.
​ 
Silverman: What every secular humanist needs to know is that our U.S. Constitution grants us freedom of religion, which must include freedom from religion. When religion is discussed in public, it’s okay to say we have no god beliefs. We should not belittle the religious beliefs of others. That is not the way to make friends and influence people. Better to be a role model based on what we do, rather than what we say.

Jacobsen: Who is dead, but would have made a great guest? Why them?

Silverman: Christopher Hitchens, whom I had the pleasure of knowing, would have made a great guest. He was a member of the Advisory Board of the Secular Coalition for America. He  could discuss and give good arguments on just about any subject. His book, god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, deservedly became a best seller. A lesser known but terrific book of his is The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Hitchens was a true contrarian, with a sharp wit, who could easily get to the heart of the matter. One of his best known quotes, referred to as “Hitchens’s razor” is, “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” I hope Hitchens wasn’t thinking of my autobiography, published in 2007, when he said in 1997: “Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” In 1992, long before Donald Trump decided to run for president, Hitchens commented about Trump, “Nobody is more covetous and greedy than those who have far too much.” Richard Dawkins said of Hitchens, “He was a polymath, a wit, immensely knowledgeable, and a valiant fighter against all tyrants, including imaginary supernatural ones.” 

Thomas Paine, from a much earlier era, would have been a very good guest. Paine has a claim to the title “The Father of the American Revolution,” due to his inspiring pamphlets, especially Common Sense. In 1776 it was the all-time best-selling American title and aroused the demand for American independence from Great Britain. Many phrase in Common Sense became part of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. In The Age of Reason and other writings, Paine argued against institutionalized religions in general and the Christian doctrine in particular. He thought that Deism should replace all revelation-based religion. At the time, as well as now, such words were rather unpopular among Christians and politicians. I visited the Tom Paine Printing Press in England, and purchased a framed quote of his that now hangs on my condo wall: “My country is the world. My religion is to do good.” If I could talk to Paine today, I would ask if he would have switched from Deism to atheism in light of what we now know about evolution and the Big Bang, showing that no creator was necessary. 

Jacobsen: Who might embody the ordinariness of a secular humanist philosophy to you?

Silverman: The many “nones,” people who are religiously unaffiliated. They are the fastest growing “religious” demographic in the U.S. They are not all secular humanists, but a significant percentage are and many others are secular humanists without knowing it. A lot of “nones” have examined the available evidence and stopped believing in any gods.

Jacobsen: For those who might be interested in this new educational collaborative discussion series, what would be your statement or enticement for them to join us?

Silverman: I think it is a good idea for us to collaborate and pick up new ideas and ways of explaining things about secular humanism. It is always beneficial to communicate with other secular humanists. We inspire one another in our work to improve society.
​
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman. 

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/01/05

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With the large number of manifestos, one of the larger documents is A Secular Humanist Declaration (1980). What was Kurtz’s intention behind such a comprehensive statement of Secular Humanism? 

Dr. Herb Silverman:  Paul Kurtz’s Secular Humanist Declaration (1980) described why democratic secular humanism has been a powerful force in world culture, and what we can do to fight anti-secularist trends posed by religion. Kurtz explained why the separation of religion and government is essential and why we needed to oppose the shackling of any type of free thought. He supported trust in human reason and compassion, rather than in divine guidance or untested superstitious beliefs. Kurtz promoted following the best science available. Paul Kurtz’s greatest strengths were his abilities to found and grow organizations, including the current Center for Inquiry (formerly named the Council for Secular Humanism).  He will be remembered as perhaps the most significant force in the second half of the 20th century supporting secular humanism and the ability to live a good life without religion. 

Jacobsen: Also, as a short aside, what was Kurtz like as a person – behind the curtain so to speak?
​
Silverman: I first met Paul in the early 1990s at a meeting of the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH), and I became a regional director of CSH. It was the only nontheistic organization I had known about, and its fine magazine Free Inquirywas the only publication I knew that supported living a good and reasoned life without religion. Prometheus Books, another creation of Paul Kurtz, was the only publisher I knew that was devoted to books about Freethought. I think Paul’s greatest weakness was his less than enthusiastic willingness to play well with others he saw as competitors. Kurtz became upset with me when I joined the board of the American Humanist Association (AHA). Both CSH and AHA seemed to be fine organizations worthy of my support, but I soon learned about their divisive history. Kurtz had been on the board of AHA and was the editor of The Humanist magazine, published by AHA. After Kurtz and the AHA parted ways in 1978, on less than friendly terms, Kurtz founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry. When I helped found the Secular Coalition for America in 2002, Kurtz wanted no part of it. He tended to view with suspicion any organization he didn’t lead or create. Shortly after Kurtz left CSH, they joined the Secular Coalition for America. I was pleased when, in 2007, the AHA, at its annual conference, presented Kurtz with its Humanist Lifetime Achievement Award, which I think he richly deserved.

Jacobsen: One of the main emphases of American Secular Humanism has been freedom of speech. In other countries and at the United Nations, this gets labelled as freedom of expression in legal documents and human rights stipulations. The fundamental idea here seems as if the free inquiry, which is the first idea presented in A Secular Humanist Declaration – a document founded well before I was born. Why is free inquiry the first point made in such a document by a pillar of the intellectual history of Secular Humanism?

Silverman: First, Free Inquiry was the magazine that Paul Kurtz started, so you would expect his document to emphasize free inquiry. Commitment to free inquiry means we tolerate diversity of opinion and respect the right of individuals to express unpopular beliefs. Of course, all views should be open to critical scrutiny. The premise is that free inquiry is more likely to lead to truths with a free exchange of ideas. This applies to science, as well as to politics, economics, morality, and religion. Free inquiry also necessitates recognition of civil liberties, which include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of and from religion. Neither states nor religions may impose a religious doctrine on people.

Jacobsen: With the Trump Administration over, another poignant point made by Kurtz was the separation of religion and state, what have been some more aggressive moves in various states in the United States of concern and hammering home the points made by Kurtz once more?

Silverman: Currently, one of the most aggressive moves against separation of religion and government is in the state of Texas, which wants to allow a woman who has an abortion or someone who performs an abortion to be charged with assault or homicide, a crime punishable by death in the state of Texas. Other states have passed bills that greatly restrict a woman’s right to an abortion. The Supreme Court is also imposing a set of religious views on the rest of the country, like insisting a fetus is a person from conception. Our courts and our democracy face a crisis of credibility. 

The good news is that many Americans are abandoning organized religious institutions. The “nones,” people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular,” has risen to 29 percent in America. The Make America Great Again crowd appeals to the nostalgia of a 1950s-era White Christian America. Before he ran for president, Donald Trump favored abortion rights. He changed to get the support of White Evangelical Christians, who rely on the politics of grievance and resentment. Rather than trying to expand its base, the Republican Party is passing restrictive voting and voter suppression laws in different states, and looking for ways to allow Republican-controlled state legislatures to throw out the results of fair elections. This attempt to turn the United States into a Christian authoritarian regime is a grave threat to the secular democracy that Kurtz wrote about.

Other similar concerns include adoption and foster care service where taxpayer funding is going to some faith-based institutions that discriminate against same-sex couples. School voucher programs are funneling taxpayer money to private religious schools that can be exempt from civil rights laws protecting minority faiths, atheists, and LGBTQ students. Tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, including churches, are not allowed to endorse candidates. With Donald Trump’s “blessing,” during his administration many churches endorsed candidates with no negative consequences to the churches. Using public funds to support religiously based discrimination violates the Establishment clause of the US Constitution and the civil rights of those who are denied access to government services. To promote separation of religion and government, we need to ensure that government money is made available only to programs and institutions that provide religiously neutral services without discrimination.

Jacobsen: What is critical intelligence? How is this an important part of living an ethically good life via Secular Humanism?
Silverman: Secular humanists are much more than just atheists, those without a belief in any gods. A secular humanist generally has a positive outlook on life, the view that we can do good and make a difference in our one and only life. Secular humanists recognize that ethics was developed as a branch of human knowledge long before religionists created moral systems based on divine authority. Some early developers of ethics include Socrates, Democritus, Epicurus, Erasmus, Hume, Voltaire, and Kant. They felt that ethical judgments are independent of revealed religion, and that we can apply our intelligence, reason, and wisdom to achieve the good life. For secular humanists, ethical conduct should be judged by critical reason, and the goal is to develop autonomous and responsible individuals capable of making their own choices in life based on an understanding of human behavior.

As Bertrand Russell said, “A good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” I’ll close with two quotes from Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic: “The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray.” And, “Reason, observation and experience, the Holy Trinity of science, have taught us that happiness is the only good, the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so.”

Jacobsen: What should be the contents of a moral education without supernaturalism?

Silverman: The real question is: What should be the contents of a moral education with supernaturalism? I see no realistic answer. We live in a natural, not a supernatural, world. We can make up the supernatural, and somehow bring morality into it. But that is just a fantasy, and people have a wide variety of supernatural beliefs.

Moral development should be promoted in children and young adults by public schools dealing with these values independent of religion. Children should learn about the history of religious moral practices, but they should not be indoctrinated in a faith before they are mature enough to evaluate the merits for themselves. A moral education makes use of the scientific method, which is the most reliable way of understanding the world. Science and technology have improved the human condition. They have had a positive effect on reducing poverty, suffering, and disease in various parts of the world, in extending longevity, and in making the good life possible for more and more people. And while technology can be good, we should not accept what we see on the Internet without evaluating it critically. 

In comparing religious and secular morality, we should ask whether it is right to stone homosexuals and disobedient children to death or whether it’s okay to beat people you own as property. If you don’t think it’s moral to do these things, then your moral principles do not come from holy books.

Jacobsen: Kurtz synonymizes religion and supernaturalism in the point about religious skepticism. How are they the same? Are they different? If so, how so? 

Silverman: Religion and supernaturalism have much in common. Most religious people believe in a supernatural deity. However, not all religions believe in the supernatural. I belong to three different religions: American Ethical Union, with Ethical Culture Societies; Society for Humanistic Judaism, with atheist rabbis; and the UU Humanists. All three religions are nontheistic and active participants in the Secular Coalition for America. I’ve also met people who claim not to be religious, but believe in supernatural things like astrology, psychics, and crystals.

Jacobsen: What is reason, properly defined, in a secular humanist philosophy?

Silverman: Reason, for secular humanists, is the use of the rational methods of inquiry, logic, and evidence to develop knowledge and test truth claims. Since humans are prone to err, future corrections sometime need to be made. There are no dogmas in secular humanism. Though our reasoning isn’t infallible, we think reason and science make major contributions to human knowledge and intelligence. Reason has led to the emancipation of hundreds of millions of people from a blind faith in religion and has contributed to their education and the enrichment of their lives.

Jacobsen: How does evolutionary theory present a robust support for a secular humanist philosophy and ethic compared to religious ethics based on interpretations of holy scriptures or holy books?

Silverman: The theory of evolution is under attack by religious fundamentalists, who would like to see creationism taught in schools. A scientific theory like evolution or gravity is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through observation and experimentation. From Darwin on, countless peer-reviewed scientific papers have supported evolution. We wouldn’t have expected scientifically ignorant writers of so-called holy books who lived thousands of years ago to have described the theory of evolution, DNA, or any discovery of modern science, and they didn’t. Evolution is controversial, but the controversy is religious and political, not scientific. Some religions feel threatened by evolution because it contradicts the creation story in Genesis. Even though there is a Flat Earth Society, we don’t teach the flat/round controversary in science class. Creationism should no more be taught as an alternative to the theory of natural selection than “stork theory” should be taught as an alternative to sexual reproduction. Creationism is an alternative to Zeus or Krishna, not Darwin. 

As secular humanists, we recognize that we are a highly so
cial and cooperative species. We have evolved to have an innate sense of empathy as a survival mechanism, coupled with thousands of years of experience creating and maintaining complex societies. We have learned what behaviors are best at keeping our species functioning smoothly.

Jacobsen: What might an education broader than simply critical intelligence, moral education, and defining what is and what is not Secular Humanism, to encapsulate Kurtz’s ideas of a “melioristic” form of educational mindset?

Silverman: Meliorism is the belief that the human condition can be improved through concerted effort, and that we have an inherent tendency toward progress. This fits in well with Kurtz’s view on democratic secular humanism, where we look forward with hope rather than backward with despair. We are committed to extending the ideals of reason, freedom, individual and collective opportunity, and democracy throughout the world. The problems we will face in the future, as in the past, will be complex and difficult. Secular humanism places trust in human intelligence rather than in divine guidance. Secular humanists approach the human situation in realistic terms, holding human beings responsible for their own destinies. We believe it is possible to bring about a more humane world based on reason, tolerance, compromise, and negotiations of difference.

Jacobsen: What does this 1980 document seem to get right and appear to miss?

Silverman: I agree with just about everything in the document, possibly with one minor exception: “This declaration defends only that form of secular humanism which is explicitly committed to democracy.” While I certainly favor democracy, I can picture a country with a benevolent dictator who is a secular humanist and supports human rights. Since secular humanism continues to evolve with new information and evidence, an update to the 1980 document should probably address climate change, racism, sexism, and LGBTQ rights. I would also add suggestions on how secular humanists can improve the quality of their personal life, which includes physical activity, a good diet (perhaps vegetarian), getting enough sleep, reducing stress, and having a sense of humor with lots of laughter. 
​
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman. 

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/12/12

Scott Jacobson: I am reminded of Isaac Asimov, “I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism. Thus, you don’t have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.” It is about a scholasticism in the sense of coming to a rational comprehension of human irrationality, as found in the religions old and new. Are there any other positive outcomes in the study of the world religions, especially in the most sympathetic and objective light? 

Dr. Herb Silverman: As much as I respect Asimov, I disagree somewhat with his saying that objects of faith play no part in rationalism. It depends on what you mean by “rationalism.” To me, it’s about using facts and coming up with a reasonable conclusion based on those facts. For instance, a person could say the following. Fact: My goal in life to be happy. Fact: I can only be happy believing that I will have an eternity of bliss when I die, and therefore, it only makes sense for me to believe I will have an eternity of bliss. This person makes a logical and rational argument to maintain his belief. He will not suffer negative consequences in this life, nor will we be able to convince him that his afterlife belief is wrong. When Asimov says he prefers rationalism to atheism, I would say atheism for me was a natural outcome of rationalism. I don’t think it is a waste of time to defend atheism when so many people attack it. I like to give thoughtful arguments defending my beliefs or lack thereof, and discuss with theists their beliefs and how they came to them. In terms of positive outcomes in studying world religions, I think it’s important to learn what other people think, and why. Theists who study world religions might begin to question why  their religion is correct (usually the religion in which they were raised) and all the others are wrong. As well, while studying world religions, we might also see a lot of positives in them (like various versions of the Golden Rule), and a reason why we should treat all humans with respect, even if we think some of their beliefs are nonsense. 
​
Jacobsen: How can empathy and reciprocity be improved in social relations at the individual level?
Silverman: It helps if we try to look at any situation from the other person’s point of view. As members of a highly social and cooperative species, we can recognize that our innate sense of empathy evolved as a survival mechanism. That, along with thousands of years of experience creating and maintaining complex societies, enables us to know what sort of behaviors best keep societies functioning smoothly. I must acknowledge that “tit for tat” is one of the most effective means for survival—treating others the way they treat you. This often encourages others to be as nice to you as they want you to be nice to them. 

Jacobsen: To a scrolling creationist making criticisms of reciprocity in human life, as if against principles of selection in nature, so attempting to use straw men of evolutionary thinking to country evolutionary arguments empathy and reciprocity, any response? As I am sure, you must have come across these phenomena before. 
Silverman: Many creationists are not interested in what you think because they claim to be so sure that they are right. They only wish to impart their “knowledge” to you. Some of them do not want to wear masks or get vaccines because they believe their god will save them from disease, despite so much contrary evidence. If we can find common ground with creationists on some issues, we might be able to encourage them to hear our point of view.

Jacobsen: What do you consider the most valuable contribution to the secular humanist community in your life?
Silverman: In my life, it was finding out that secular humanists exist and are now out of the closet. I had been a secular humanist most of my life without having heard of the term until people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson criticized it. So, I knew it must be a good thing. When I ran for governor of South Carolina in 1990 to challenge the provision in the SC Constitution that prohibits atheists from becoming governor, I heard from a number of atheist and secular humanist groups about all the worthwhile things they were doing. I proudly became part of that movement of people who are good without any gods.

Jacobsen: Will the gap ever completely close for God of the gaps arguments to stop?
Silverman: I doubt it. There will always be a “god of the gaps” argument because there will always be gaps in human knowledge. When science solves a problem, new questions often arise from that problem. Darwin’s Origin of Speciesanswered many god of the gaps questions. When gaps are filled, the remaining gaps for God keep getting smaller. We now know that lightning is an electrical buildup and discharge in the atmosphere, and that earthquakes are shifts in the plates of the Earth’s crust. An interesting modern example of complete ignorance came from Bill O’Reilly on Fox News when he said that tidal movement was an unexplained phenomenon, implying that God willed the oceans to move. We have known for centuries that tides are caused by the gravitational interaction between the Earth and its moon, and we can say in advance when it will occur. One of my favorite quotes, long before the phrase “god of the gaps” was used, comes from the physician Hippocrates: “People think that epilepsy is divine simply because they don’t have any idea what causes it. But I believe that someday we will understand what causes epilepsy, and at that moment, we will cease to believe that it’s divine. And so it is with everything in the universe.”

Jacobsen: How are private post-secondary evangelical Christian universities contributing to this culture of Trumpism or a post-Trump administration, and the sense of besiegement against white Christians in America? A personal and collective sense, amongst themselves, of losing the country. When, as a Canadian looking onwards, America is meant, or should be seen as, for every citizen of the nation, so when one group sees themselves as losing, then everyone loses, because of seeing themselves as a group apart from the whole and deindividuating into a mass, and in resentment and hostility, which seems nationally self-destructive in the long-term (if kept up).

Silverman: When Donald Trump used the phrase MAGA (Make America Great Again), he was probably hearkening back to growing up in the 1950s when Blacks “knew their place” and white Christianity was privileged and viewed by many as America’s religion. Even though our godless U.S. Constitution prohibits favoring one religion over another or religion over non-religion, it was true that the majority of citizens at that time were white Christians. Times have changed, and Christian nationalists are upset by changes that have happened to the country.

We know that many religious universities do not teach subjects like evolution, which conflicts with their religious agenda. Even worse, some religious universities have political agendas, including the well-known Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Its former president, Jerry Falwell Jr., considered it immoral for evangelicals in 2020 not to support President Trump, adding that Trump could do nothing to lose his support. Falwell was later forced to resign the presidency because of a sex scandal. He hadn’t objected previously to Trump’s sex scandals.

Today, minorities are demanding and receiving some of the equal rights they deserve. We certainly are not yet where we should be, but I think we are moving in the right direction despite Trump and his followers. In the 1950s, in my home state of South Carolina, there were separate water fountains for white and black people. And black people were expected to step into the street to let a white person pass on the sidewalk. 
​
Jacobsen: What specific programs and benefits can help poor schools attain greater equity with the rest of the nation, e.g., decent nutritional programs for kids to have energy and to be able to develop strong minds and to have clarity of mental life, etc.? I ask this as a practical example of secular humanist ethics for those who may benefit the most from it. 
Silverman: No school needs to be deficient in any way—enough examples of successful schools exist throughout the country. Students and teachers need adequate resources. When state and local governments make having good schools a specific, primary goal, they allocate adequate tax funds, hire enough competent teachers for smaller-size classes, and have needed counselors. Residents of state and local communities choose what kind of schools they will have, by electing candidates who will or won’t support excellent education for all students, regardless of race or economic level. Education is the tide that lifts all boats and addresses most societal problems. 

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/04/23

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I want to take an interlude session into unifying evolutionary ethical frameworks as exemplified in part, in Humanism. Some religions ignore the parts of brutality, cruelty, bigotry, and supernatural superstition, only focusing on the Golden Rule. Some turn into postmodernist philosophers, they ramble off into incoherency and don’t make any sense, while puffed up and self-proud as a cock (rooster) on a dunghill. What are some of the paths Humanism could evolve into the future?

Dr. Herb Silverman: It may be true that just about all religions have some version of the Golden Rule about treating others as you would want to be treated. And a version of this can also be found in almost every ethical tradition, with no gods necessary. In my Jewish tradition, the first century BCE Rabbi Hillel was allegedly asked by a prospective Jewish convert to teach him the entire Torah (Hebrew Bible) while standing on one leg. Hillel replied, “That which is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. The rest is commentary.” 

Some equate the Golden Rule with the rule about loving your neighbor as yourself. The problem arises with who we consider our neighbor. In the Hebrew Bible, neighbors were the “chosen” people, other Israelis. Jews were supposed to kill outsiders on their way to the Promised Land. Today in America, many White Christian Nationalists view only their fellow Christians as neighbors and so justify discriminating against non-white immigrants. 
​
Another problem with the Golden Rule is that some people may not want to be treated as we want to be treated. Our values may be so different that the Golden Rule makes no sense. For instance, some fanatics have no aversion to death, so the Golden Rule might inspire them to kill others in suicide missions. For humanists to live by the Golden Rule, we mustempathize with other people, including those who may be very different from us and might want to be treated differently.

When you mentioned “dunghill,” I thought of Thomas Jefferson, who in many ways (but not all ways) was a humanist. As he correctly pointed out, there are some words of wisdom in the Bible, but I agree with Jefferson when he referred to them as “diamonds in a dunghill.” 

When you ask for paths where Humanism could evolve in the future, I think Humanism is a philosophy that is continually evolving. That’s why we have had three Humanist Manifestos, and will undoubtedly have additional “manifestos” as we learn more about how better to live ethical lives, along with new scientific discoveries.

Jacobsen: Continuing from the previous question, there are areas in which Humanism is a laundry list of principles rather than a unified ethical framework. Such a framework in which it can continually, dynamically evolve while maintaining its former evidentiary coherence, in fact, many of the declarations are such listings. Do you think that there are ways Humanism can be more compact, more unified, showing how its principles interact with one another to create a whole other than a simple titular stamp: “Humanism”?

Silverman: A compact way to talk about Humanism is to describe, without a laundry list, its basic principles, which serve as guidelines for how we should live. Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that also aspire to the greater good of humanity. We are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change, and ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience, along with a greater knowledge of the world. Humanists are guided by reason and inspired by compassion. 

Jacobsen: Are there any parts of Humanism that you think should just go, not be there? I believe you had some qualms in earlier variations of declaration with the inclusion of supernatural versus atheist or non-theist as an appeasement to some who couldn’t quite stomach a complete rejection of the impossibility of the gods. 

Silverman: I know some good people who can’t stomach a complete rejection of the existence of gods. They may act in a lot of ways like humanists, leading ethical lives and aspiring to the greater good of humanity. I just don’t like the god baggage that might go along with it. I can’t prove there are no gods. An atheist is simply someone without a belief in any gods, and I think we should not claim to be guided by imaginary beings. That’s why my brand of Humanism is atheistic. I can’t prevent the Pope from calling himself a humanist because he supports immigration, opposes wars, and accepts that humans are partially responsible for climate change.

Jacobsen: Human rights and democratic ideals feature prominently in the humanist lifestance. Are there any particular weaknesses in the claims of human rights, as said in the formal documents of human rights, or in the principle of majority rule (adult age majoritarian voting rule)?
Silverman: The notion of human rights is a modern concept from the 18th century Enlightenment, not from ancient times when the Golden Rule was first quoted. Thomas Jefferson incorporated such “inalienable rights” into the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was a milestone for its universalist language, which recognizes that all humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights regardless of nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, color, or religion. 

I do have some problems with majority rule, especially if we have an uneducated populace, and leaders (dictators) decide who constitutes voters. After all, Adolf Hitler came to power in a democracy in 1933. Not that it is any way comparable, but democracy may not be working so well in the U.S. now, with many Republicans trying to make it difficult for some African Americans to vote. So, I must agree with Winston Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

Jacobsen: In the moral philosophy of Humanism, as in some things can never be known, others partially known now, while others known with a reliably high degree of accuracy. Sometimes, there’s tons of information; other times, there’s little; still others, we have, basically, none, and may never have any data to inform the ethic, which would make ethical decisions solely grounded in the lattermost equivalent to a base-level faith-based moral decision-making frame of reference (that which we try to avoid at all costs). 
​
Silverman: When it comes to what we know and don’t know with a reliable level of accuracy, I usually look to science. I recently read a wonderful new book by Jeff Hawkins called, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence. It compares our old reptilian brain to our new mammalian brain (the neocortex), with implications for moral behavior. 
​
I’ve been in debates with Christians who insist that objective morality must come from God. My contention is that we don’t know if there is such a thing as objective morality but, if so, we are coming closer to it by learning more about human nature and what works best for individuals. We often learn this through science or experience, not through ancient “holy” books. We need to be careful when we talk about what we know, and, even more important, about what we don’t know. To quote Mark Twain: “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman. 

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/03/03

Scott Jacobson: Fundamentally, what is the difference in a philosophical stance representing evolutionary changes even to ethical founding documents compared to others declaring foundational texts as complete and comprehensive for all time with nothing ever capable of edit, as in Quranic theological orientations – can’t edit it – akin to the necessity of acceptance of the resurrection of Christ in Christianity? In short, what makes foundational evolution of an empirically informed ethic better than an unchanging asserted morality in centuries-old texts?

Dr. Herb Silverman: Evolution made it possible for us to become Homo sapiens (humans), though my DNA shows that I am 3% Neanderthal. Charles Darwin felt that a difference between Homo sapiens and other animals is our moral sense. He said that our enhanced ability to cooperate may be the most significant distinction between us and our closest evolutionary relatives. Such cooperation, along with concern for others and a sense of fairness, may be the basis of morality in humans. Since evolution works so slowly, I don’t think we can relate evolution to how moral behavior differs in humans today, often based more on philosophical or theological differences. 

You ask why our empirically informed ethic today is better than an unchanging, asserted morality in centuries-old texts. Science is empirical and thrives on disagreement and on a willingness to question assumptions critically, while we search for evidence until a consensus is reached. Centuries-old texts, often called “holy” books, were written by scientifically ignorant men. Their ideas of ethics included discriminating against gays, not allowing women to have responsible positions, punishing blasphemers and heretics, and advocating for holy wars. Tying our principles to unchanging, dogmatic religious text makes no sense. Morality, to us, involves using available evidence to help decide what actions might be for the greater good of humanity. We base our ethics on what we learn from human experience, which includes the efforts of thoughtful people throughout history who have worked toward achieving their ideals. We also know that some of our values might change as our knowledge and understanding advances. 

Jacobsen: For those points brought forward, “sport or physical activity, non-human intelligence, the environment, and non-Western sources within the humanist tradition,” what seems like the relevance of each to the potential next edition of the declaration?

Silverman: I’ll address your question of “sport or physical activity” here. The other parts (non-human intelligence, the environment, non-Western sources) are asked about in your other questions, so I will answer those later. 
​
Regarding sport or physical activity, I think we should encourage people to remain active for as long as they can. Playing sports, preferably non-contact, can be fun and help us keep a sound mind and body. At 78, I no longer play sports, but I exercise a lot. I walk a few miles every day with my wife, Sharon. We also lift weights or swim several times a week. What I don’t like to see are so many people who only watch others play sports. When a professional player on their favorite team hits a home run or scores a goal, they congratulate each other, as if they themselves deserve credit for it. Being active in sports (and in life) is beneficial; being passive is not. 

Jacobsen: Would you add anything else for consideration to such a new Amsterdam declaration?

Silverman: I would add more suggestions on how humanists and others can improve their quality of life. In addition to physical activity, we could mention the importance of having a good diet (perhaps vegetarian), getting enough sleep, reducing stress (perhaps through yoga, meditation, or other relaxation techniques), and having a sense of humor with lots of laughter.

Jacobsen: What is the core of human intelligence? What seem like the prospects for non-human intelligence and the possibility for rights (and responsibilities) applied to non-human operators? Prominent humanists, e.g., Isaac Asimov, posited science fiction ideas of positronic brains, and the like, exploring ideas like these well before the current crop of humanists.[4] These likely have been stewing since that time, potentially even more so in the Computer Age. 

Silverman: Human intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Intelligence has evolved in animals, perhaps many times. We must not forget that non-human animals can also be intelligent. Thinking about other intelligent animals causes some humans emotional distress because they may eat these animals or use them for neurobiology research.

When it comes to robots, perhaps one day they may be designed to have consciousness, and we will deal then with those implications. Isaac Asimov wrote science fiction stories about robots with a positron brain that functions as a central processing unit and, in some unspecified way, provides these robots with a form of consciousness recognizable to humans. I loved Asimov, who was president of the American Humanist Association from 1985 until his death in 1992. But keep in mind that his wonderful scientific fiction robot stories were still fiction. I hope one day we will have conscious robots, but I don’t expect to see that come to pass in my lifetime.

Jacobsen: What makes the environment a core necessity as this time, especially with the ongoing climate crisis temporarily overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic?

Silverman: I think even now that the ongoing climate crisis should not be overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic will pass, but the climate crisis might never pass, only get worse. The scientific consensus at the moment seems to be that we need scientific breakthroughs and global cooperation to avoid a catastrophic rise in temperatures and climate disaster.

Jacobsen: Something which I consider important is the inclusion of non-Western, even Indigenous, proposals into the humanist canon formally. How can proposals provide neither a negative view on Western-based Humanism nor a rejection of the current mostly Western-based Humanism, but an expansive global Humanism inclusive of the tastes, sights, sounds, flavours, and unique manifestations of Humanism seen around the world? 

Silverman: We tend to focus on Western culture and assume that other cultures should behave more like us. Perhaps sometimes they should, and sometimes they shouldn’t. We need to learn more about these cultures and watch how they interact with others, including with us. 

One of my most memorable experiences was being a Visiting Mathematics Professor for a semester in 1987 at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby. My colleagues there treated me very well. Over eight hundred languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea, reflecting the isolation of its many tribes. Not only were most students at UPNG the first in their families to go to college, they were the first to leave their village tribes. Part of our mission was to persuade students not to continue their ongoing tribal disputes at the university, avoiding the “payback” system in PNG. A tribal member at the university explained to me how the payback system worked. If a member from Tribe A killed a member from Tribe B, a designated member from Tribe B could legally kill any member from Tribe A. If he killed more than one member, “payback” would again kick in. Fortunately, the university was a payback-free zone. 

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Australian explorers discovered the highlands of PNG, home to roughly one million people who had never before encountered Europeans. In a video I saw of this “first contact,” one PNG woman said they thought white people were gods, but changed their minds after having sex with them. Women in PNG were treated unbelievably poorly. Village men typically resided in a house, while women and pigs (yes, pigs!) lived together in a shack behind the house. Both women and pigs were sold or used for barter, the woman/pig ratio depending on the quality of both the women and the pigs. (This, of course, does not apply to men and women at the university.)

The country was teeming with missionaries of all kinds. Most tried to improve the lives of the inhabitants, usually accompanied by attempts at religious conversion. I hope missionaries now have become more humanistic than when I was there. At the time, I asked one priest why he deplored the practice of bare-breasted women, but said nothing about wife beating, which was legal there. He told me they couldn’t change everything that was wrong in the country, and bare breasts were a good place to start. Shortly thereafter, the university held a beauty pageant with five participants, four of whom were bare breasted. When I saw that the primary judge was this same missionary, I confidently predicted the winner to my colleagues. After the breast-covered woman won, my colleagues showed an undeserved respect for my powers of judging beauty.

Jacobsen: The second Amsterdam declaration (2002) or the Amsterdam Declaration 2002 posited a number of core values.[7] Its foci are ethics, rationality, ethical, “democracy and human rights,” “that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility,” a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion,” “values artistic creativity and imagination and recognises the transforming power of art,” and “a lifestance aiming at the maximum possible fulfilment.”[8] Non-dogmatic principles for being in the world. These are so in line with cosmopolitan global values and positive scientific uses more than almost any other philosophical system known to me. As our ethics advance more and more, how do the more faith-based ethics appear in comparison year-by-year? 

Silverman: Assuming faith-based ethics is not an oxymoron, I think more and more people are adopting our improving humanist ethics. This is especially true of younger people, most of whom no longer believe that homosexuality is a sin, willingly accept transgender people, think men and women should be treated equally, and agree that no law should prohibit abortion under all circumstances. 

Jacobsen: What is the ultimate fate of religious ethics?

Silverman: Probably there will always be people who follow what they consider to be religious ethics. I hope most of those people will have a religion that allows them the flexibility to follow their own conscience, without being restricted to following everything in a book that was written thousands of years before. I have no problem with nontheistic religions, all of which seem to be humanistic.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman. 

Silverman: Thank you.
​
References
American Humanist Association. (2021). Definition of Humanism. Retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/
Grudin, R. (2020, October 22). Humanism. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanism
Humanist Canada. (2021). What is Humanism?. Retrieved from https://www.humanistcanada.ca/about/humanism/
Humanists International. (1952). Amsterdam Declaration 1952. Retrieved from https://humanists.international/policy/amsterdam-declaration-1952/
Humanists International. (2002). Amsterdam Declaration 2002. Retrieved from https://humanists.international/policy/amsterdam-declaration-2002/
Humanists International. (2021). What is humanism?. Retrieved from https://humanists.international/what-is-humanism/
Humanists UK. (2021). Humanism. Retrieved from https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/
Memory Alpha. (2021). Positronic Brain. Retrieved from https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Positronic_brain
United Nations. (n.d.). Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/about-us.html
Footnotes
[1] Grudin (2020), Humanist Canada (2021), Humanists UK (2021), American Humanist Association (2021), and Humanists International (2021). 
[2] Humanists International (2002) and Humanists International (1952). 
[3] Humanists International (2002).
[4] Memory Alpha (2021). 
[5] United Nations (n.d.). 
[6] The letter in full as follows:
I send as an independent proposal and through filtration of the Aboriginal Committee of Humanist Canada. In other words, I send this based on prior correspondence alongside feedback caveats from the Aboriginal Committee of Humanist Canada, of which I am a part, in addition to personal justifications and qualifications before too. This amounts to the formalized presentation, numerically ordered (not by importance), of the caveats from Humanist Canada’s Aboriginal Committee and myself. The document below entitled “Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Formal Recognition in the Global Humanist Movement” implies global democratic Humanism before comprehensive consultation with the international Humanist indigenous and tribal peoples diaspora should:
1.       not speak for indigenous or tribal peoples in general;
2.       not speak for indigenous or tribal peoples who are humanist;
3.       not take this draft statement as a declaration, resolution, or policy;
4.       take this as a statement of reflection and consideration for the global democratic body of Humanism to seriously consider endorsing established international documents like the UNDRIP; and
5.       further serious reflection on the inclusion and furtherance of consultation and dialogue with humanist groups around the world in bringing in feedback from and having consultation with the humanist indigenous and tribal people diaspora in the “over 70 countries” and beyond?
I drafted the below alone – taking full responsibility for negative and positive implications of its presentation to Humanists International – with feedback (with minor alterations) from the Aboriginal Committee of Humanist Canada:
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Formal Recognition in the Global Humanist Movement
Indigenous and tribal peoples continue to muster and garner deserved recognition in international institutional and rights documents, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) from September of 2007 and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention) from 1989, and, by the nature of Humanism, deserve formal recognition in the global democratic Humanist movement too.
Global democratic Humanism marches forward in its greater moves towards a true representation of the vibrant fabric of the human species with more nations, peoples, and flavours of Humanist communities accepted into the international community in a formal manner in spite of the short period ebbs and flows of theocracy and secularity, authoritarianism and democracy, xenophobia and inclusivity, superstition and science, and, indeed, supernaturalism and naturalism. An oft-neglected sector of the international community comes from minorities within minorities. One such sector of the global humanist movement emerges in the context of indigenous and tribal peoples throughout the world. More than 370 million indigenous and tribal people exist in over 70 countries in the world based on estimations of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Those indigenous and tribal peoples recognized in international rights documents including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2007, and the ILO Convention 169 (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989). Together considered the highest standards and singularly comprehensive international instruments available to the indigenous and tribal peoples throughout the world in the defence of their most basic human rights, in particular, with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the oldest and most general. When Humanism enters into the practical applications of daily living and ordinary recognition in a global democratic movement and capacity, Humanists International performs a fundamental role in this regard, especially as its evolution incorporates previously unheard voices and unseen faces. For the full flourishing of the global Humanist movement, indigenous and tribal peoples throughout the world who adhere to the principles of Humanism deserve recognition and support at the international level. This instantiates the first formal effort as such, in the tradition of global democratic Humanism.
We recognise: 
· the Preamble stipulations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) on “the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women,” “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations,” and with special emphasis on Article 1 stating “all human beings are born free and equal,” Article 2 stating “everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms… without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status… [or] on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs,” Article 7, Article 15, Article 18, Article 20, Article 22, and Article 28;
·  the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 or Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (1989) subjective and objective criteria for the inclusion as indigenous peoples or tribal peoples within an international context in Article 1, and with special emphasis on Article 2, Article 3, Article 5(a) and 5(b), Article 6(1)(a), Article 7(1), Article 27(1) and 27(2), Article 28, Article 29, Article 31, Article 34, Article 35, and Article 36;
·  the Amsterdam Declaration (2002) affirms the “worth, dignity and autonomy of the individual,” “human rights can be applied to many human relationships and are not restricted to methods of government,” “Humanism is undogmatic, imposing no creed upon its adherents,” and “Humanism is a lifestance aiming at the maximum possible fulfilment… [and] can be a way of life for everyone everywhere.” 
·  the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) in full.
We support:
·  the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948);
·  the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 or Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (1989);
·  the Amsterdam Declaration (2002); and
·  the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).  
Suggested academic reference
‘Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Formal Recognition in the Global Humanist Movement’, Humanists International, General Assembly, Miami, United States, 2020
The Reconciliation with indigenous peoples (2000-11) for Australia represented a generic and national, not international, statement.
[7] “Amsterdam Declaration 2002” states:

• Humanism is ethical. It affirms the worth, dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others. Humanists have a duty of care to all of humanity including future generations. Humanists believe that morality is an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others, needing no external sanction.
• Humanism is rational. It seeks to use science creatively, not destructively. Humanists believe that the solutions to the world’s problems lie in human thought and action rather than divine intervention. Humanism advocates the application of the methods of science and free inquiry to the problems of human welfare. But Humanists also believe that the application of science and technology must be tempered by human values. Science gives us the means but human values must propose the ends.
• Humanism supports democracy and human rights. Humanism aims at the fullest possible development of every human being. It holds that democracy and human development are matters of right. The principles of democracy and human rights can be applied to many human relationships and are not restricted to methods of government.
• Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world. Humanism is undogmatic, imposing no creed upon its adherents. It is thus committed to education free from indoctrination.
• Humanism is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion. The world’s major religions claim to be based on revelations fixed for all time, and many seek to impose their world-views on all of humanity. Humanism recognises that reliable knowledge of the world and ourselves arises through a continuing process. of observation, evaluation and revision.
• Humanism values artistic creativity and imagination and recognises the transforming power of art. Humanism affirms the importance of literature, music, and the visual and performing arts for personal development and fulfilment.
• Humanism is a lifestance aiming at the maximum possible fulfilment through the cultivation of ethical and creative living and offers an ethical and rational means of addressing the challenges of our times. Humanism can be a way of life for everyone everywhere.

Humanists International (2002). 
[8] Ibid.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/02/09

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The Amsterdam Declaration (1952) was another huge stepping stone in the development of Humanism within the earlier discourse of modern secular freethought. Before asking those main questions, I had a side question important to this educational series, actually two. You seem like a great person to ask these questions because of the longevity of leadership in the movement and the efforts at collaboration and unification of efforts through the Secular Coalition for America. First, how much does the development of empirical philosophies create a basis for modern formulations of Humanism, instead of a straightforward focus on eudaimonia, the humanities, moral education, and the like? I understand Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK and the President of Humanists International, has spoken on the spotted nature of Humanism in the historical record akin to the manner in which Professor Noam Chomsky speaks of Anarchism as a philosophical trend in the history of human thought and action. As in, no one owns them, as they, Humanism or Anarchism, amount to facets of human nature (to one degree or another) and, therefore, express themselves without regard to the culture or the geography, merely transforming superficially while manifesting the same fundaments. 

Dr. Herb Silverman:  As I understand the question, you are asking if I more favor empiricism or eudaimonia when it comes to Humanism. To answer, I’ll first define the terms as I understand them. 

Empiricism is a theory that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. Empiricism is a fundamental part of the scientific method, which requires that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting on intuition or revelation. 

Eudaimonia describes virtuous activity in accordance with reason, which gives us happiness and pleasure. To illustrate, if you’re a doctor, you should excel at healing people; if you’re a philosopher, you should excel at gaining knowledge and wisdom. Of course, each person plays many roles in life, and by excelling in all of them one achieves eudaimonia.

As to whether I favor empiricism or eudaimonia, I can say confidently—that depends. If I want to look at scientific questions, empiricism is the way to go. But I don’t think everything should be viewed through a scientific lens. Aesthetics, without science, makes sense to me. Different people can find different pleasures using only reason. For instance, not everyone might think like I do that my wife, Sharon, is the most wonderful person in the world. 

Of course there are times that empiricism and eudaimonia work in combination. To illustrate, empiricism is used to help find a vaccine for Covid-19. Then an individual can make a rational choice to take the vaccine to safeguard his or her health, and this expresses eudaimonia.

Jacobsen: Second, I have worked to bring together some of the voices in Canadian Humanism in one voice with some group discussions, so to speak, e.g., “Humanism in Canada: Personal, Professional, and Institutional Histories (Part One)”[1]. The series incorporated the leadership voices of most of the secular organizations in Canada, i.e., at the time: Cameron Dunkin as the Acting CEO of Dying With Dignity Canada, Dr. Gus Lyn-Piluso as the President of Center for Inquiry-Canada, Doug Thomas as the President of Secular Connexion Séculière, Greg Oliver as the President of Canadian Secular Alliance, Michel Virard as the President of Association humaniste du Québec, Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson as the Vice-President of Humanist Canada, and Seanna Watson as the Vice-President of Center for Inquiry-Canada. As far as I am informed on the issue, that’s a first. I have been interviewing a large contingent of the ex-Muslim community within Canadian society. In the midst of them, in March of 2019, something occurred to me. So, I decided to write down the idea succinctly for an article for News Intervention. I made a proposal in “An Immodest Proposal: International Coalition of Ex-Muslims (ICEM)”[2]. I was informed by a British colleague the International Coalition of Ex-Muslims[3] was formed in early 2020, about a year after the proposal. It’s hard to track the history of these things because it can be a bubbling in communities of the same ideas and then the formulation of them into a convergent creation of an organization. Also, a single proposal can be the source of the formation of these things.  Nonetheless, they’re there, present, and active. Why was the Secular Coalition for America a necessity to bring together a larger contingent of secular voices?

Silverman: Scott, I’m so pleased that you are working to bring the voices in Canadian Humanism together. However, I doubt that you can get them to speak with just one voice, except on selected topics. Humanists speak with many voices and have a lot of opinions on countless topics. That’s one way humanists are different from some religious cults. 

I do think most humanists would agree that humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment for the greater good of humanity. Humanism also promotes democracy, civil liberties, human freedoms, separation of religion and government, and elimination of discrimination based on race, religion, sex, age, or national origin. Humanists respect the scientific method and recognize that we are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change, and that ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.                                    
You asked about the importance of bringing a large contingent of voices together within the Secular Coalition for America. In 2002, I helped form the Secular Coalition for America, whose mission is to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheistic viewpoints, and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government. 

Our 19 national member organizations cover the full spectrum of freethought. Members don’t argue about labels. People in the Coalition call themselves atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, whatever. They cooperate on the 95% they have in common, rather than bicker about the 5% that might set them apart. Interestingly, four of the member organizations are classified as religious (nontheistic). They are American Ethical Union (with Ethical Culture Societies), Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations, Society for Humanistic Judaism (with atheist rabbis), and UU (Unitarian Universalists) Humanists.
​
All the Secular Coalition member organizations have strict limits on political lobbying, so the Secular Coalition incorporated as a political advocacy group to allow unlimited lobbying on behalf of freethought Americans. The Secular Coalition also collaborates with organizations that are neither theistic nor nontheistic, like the American Civil Liberties Union, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. It cooperates on some issues with theistic organizations, like the Interfaith Alliance, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Catholics for Choice. Working with diverse groups provides the additional benefit of gaining more visibility and respect for our unique perspective. Improving the public perception of freethinkers is as important to many of us as pursuing a particular political agenda. 

Jacobsen: To the first Amsterdam Declaration (1952)[4], it opens starkly on “an alternative to the religions which claim to be based on revelation on the one hand, and totalitarian systems on the other.” What made these post-WWII ideological reflections important on secular fundamentalism in totalitarianism and in religious revelatory fundamentalism? Something of a third alternative to the loggerheads of the aforementioned. 

Silverman: We have to remember that this 1952 document was written during the Cold War, and represents an alternative to both religions based on revelation and totalitarian regimes like the atheistic Soviet Union. Not that there is anything wrong with atheism, but it should not be government-sponsored or imposed. The document promotes ethics and the right of the individual to the greatest possible freedom of development compatible with the rights of others. Such a third way opposes religious indoctrination and totalitarian regimes. It advocates the creative use of science with humanistic principles. 

Jacobsen: The framers of the Amsterdam Declaration (1952) did not view Humanism as a sect, but as an eventuation of long traditions of thinkers leading to the scientific revolutions of the time. They continued, “Ethical humanism unites all those who cannot any longer believe the various creeds and are willing to base their conviction on respect for man as a spiritual and moral being.”[5] How does this point connect to the previous response about science, in a 20th century understanding and development, relate to this mid-20th century stipulation?

Silverman: I think we all agree that science should play an important role in the life of an ethical humanist. Sometimes, though, there is a question about where ethics come into science. One example is the use of nuclear power, which generates about a fifth of our nation’s energy supply. Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse gas emission and produces far less waste than conventional energy. On the other hand, nuclear fuel and waste are highly radioactive, which can pose many threats to public health and the environment. I favor the use of nuclear power, though I know many humanists who don’t. I don’t think scientific research should be restricted, even though certain findings might eventually cause harm. It is up to those in the field to discuss and help us decide how we can use science for good, which is not always easy. 

Also, I don’t like some of the terminology used in 1952, for example, respect for “man,” rather than for “people.” And there is confusion when we call ourselves “spiritual.” I understand that some humanists define the word “spiritual” in ways that make them comfortable, but I leave that word to religious people believing in “spirits” who inhabit an unseen spiritual world. 
​
Jacobsen: The five principles mentioned democracy, creative uses of science and not destructive uses of science, Humanism as ethics, personal liberty above tied to social responsibility, and cultivating ethical and creative living.[6] These seem, at a minimum, in part or on the whole, 68 years ahead of their time and more needed than ever. Now, we may have mentioned this before with the statements on Ethical Humanism as a faith, etc. The ways in which this was removed in later formulations of the various declarations of humanists with the most recent moving as far as a rejection of supernatural. In fact, I would extend the previous opinion. These are still far ahead of their time in the reach and 
implications. The ideals of the Rennaissance permitted to a small coterie of individuals could become something to relish for a not-insignificant minority of people. So, more to the point, if you reflect on these five principles, what are some cases in the end of the Trump-Pence Administration and the transition into the Biden-Harris Administration showing the greater necessity of humanist values, simply as formulated in 1952?

Silverman: I agree with eliminating the word “faith” from the definition of ethical humanism. I must confess, though, that I once had a bumper sticker that said, “I have faith in reason.” There is no question that the Biden-Harris Administration is a giant leap forward in support of these humanist values. Democracy took a hit under President Trump when he failed to concede after he lost a fair election, and encouraged his supporters to riot. Trump also supported some undemocratic and authoritarian regimes, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea. Trump’s actions have emboldened other countries, including Myanmar, China, Rwanda, Iran, and Turkey to violently silence campaigns, causing global democracy to backslide. 

President Biden, in his short time in office, has reversed many of Trump’s executive orders, which includes recommitting to the US Paris Climate Accord, rejoining the World Health Organization, and promoting racial equality in health care and other areas. Biden also signed orders to halt construction of Trump’s US-Mexico border wall, reverse Trump’s environmental deregulation, affirm the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival Program (DACA) that protects from deportation people brought illegally to the US as children, and create a task force to reunite migrant families separated at the border. Biden reversed Trump’s 2017 travel ban that targeted primarily Muslim countries. Biden repealed a ban on transgender people serving openly in the military and he expanded protection of LGBTQ people around the world by revamping the offices at the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which supports LGBTQ rights. He also re-established the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and directed agencies to make decisions on the best available scientific evidence. 

These actions of the Biden-Harris administration are consistent with the 1952 principles of ethical humanism. Though President Biden is a religious Catholic, he tries to separate religion from government. I hope he includes secular voices when he does interfaith outreach. Biden’s Catholicism seems to be grounded in social justice, rather than exclusively in church doctrine, which is why he has been criticized by conservative Catholics for some of his positions, like a woman’s right to choose. 

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman, we will cover the 2002 version of the Amsterdam Declaration in the next session.

Silverman: Thank you 

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/12/09

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Humanist Manifesto III (2003) provided a succinct manifestation of modern Humanism. In turn, this both represents a more well-understood philosophical stance and a more concise statement as to the core of the concept “Humanism.” In this interview, I want to cover some of the modern conceptualizations of modern Humanism, as an evolution from 1933 to 2003. What was the inspiration for this updated document?
Dr. Herb Silverman: The updated third document was expected, as was the updated second document, without knowing in advance what dates they would come. The first Manifesto was written in 1933, the second in 1973, and the third in 2003. Similarly, the founders who wrote the US Constitution understood that their document was not perfect and allowed for future amendments. As we learn more about the world and best practices for humans, we update manifestos. After all, these manifestos are written on paper by humans, not written on stone tablets by an alleged deity. There undoubtedly will be a fourth manifesto, but I can’t say when.

Jacobsen: What does “without supernaturalism” mean in the context of a “progressive philosophy of life”?
Silverman: “Without supernaturalism” means no belief in any gods. It also includes no belief in reincarnation or magic crystals, not fearing black cats crossing your path or dread of Friday the 13th or the number 666. A rabbit’s foot or knocking on wood does not bring good luck. In other words, no superstitious beliefs of any kind. So we need a philosophy of life without superstition. One can have such a philosophy without being a progressive, but the humanist philosophy incorporates progressivism. It is based on the idea of progress, incorporating advances in science and technology, and advocating for social reforms and social organizations, all vital to improve the human condition.

Jacobsen: How does negating consideration of the supernatural change thinking about “our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity”?
Silverman: Most people want to lead ethical lives, but folks disagree about how best to do it. Some rely on so-called “holy” books written during the Bronze Age by scientifically ignorant men. Their ideas of ethics might include discriminating against gays, beating disobedient children, not allowing women to have responsible positions, punishing blasphemers and heretics, and advocating for holy wars to capture land promised by “God.” Being free of the supernatural, we can use available evidence to help decide what actions might be for the greater good of humanity.
​
Jacobsen: Why are the core principles of Humanism reason, compassion, and experience? Why is non-dogmatism, as in “values and ideals… subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance,” a key distinction from most religious stances?
Silverman: As with most people, humanists appreciate the ability to reason. Part of what we want to do with our reason is learn how to help make the world a better place. This entails empathizing with others and showing compassion toward those less fortunate than ourselves. We learn from our mistakes and, hopefully, improve on how best to act. When tied to a never changing, dogmatic, religious book, principles become more difficult to change or improve. 

Jacobsen: It stipulates “consensus of what we do believe” as part of the orientation of the document. How does this universality differ from the other ethics devoted to the transcendent? How does this universality still permit individual deviance of expression?
Silverman: Humanists are not all required to believe the same thing, which explains individual deviance of expression. However, there does seems to be a consensus about certain things that most humanists agree on. They include these beliefs: Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis; humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change; ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience; working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. 
​
“Transcendent” usually refers to religion, where a transcendent god has powers independent of the material universe and outside of nature. Some people feel they have experienced transcendence by overcoming the limitations of physical existence through things like prayer, meditation, psychedelics, and paranormal visions. Such transcendent experiences, which can’t be measured, do bring some comfort to many people. 

Jacobsen: Why is science “the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies”? What is a “critical intelligence” in this sense? How does freedom of thought work better, or more freely rather, in this humanistic framework?
Silverman: Science is empirical, meaning based on observations of nature, and it is potentially falsifiable by new observations of nature. In other words, new evidence can lead us to revise scientific theories. We know how to distinguish good scientific ideas from bad ones. Science relies on experimentation, testing, and skepticism. It thrives on disagreement and on a willingness to question assumptions critically, while we search for evidence until a consensus is reached. That’s why scientific truths are the same in Pakistan, the United States, Israel, or India, though their citizens may have very different religious beliefs. And scientists will change their views when the evidence warrants. To me, critical intelligence means we should carefully and critically examine our reasoning and our conclusions to eliminate errors. We should be free to pose any questions, regardless of how counter they are to what others might think, and then try to provide answers based on evidence.

Jacobsen: Why do humanists posit “nature as self-existing” rather than existing contingent on some transcendent object or metaphysical being?
Silverman: There is absolutely no evidence for a transcendent object or metaphysical being, and we have a pretty good understanding of nature through Darwin’s theory of evolution. We know how nature can exist without the need of a transcendent object or metaphysical being.
​
Jacobsen: How does limiting human ethics to human experience help simplify and clarify a humane ethic in Humanism? Why are “peace, justice, and opportunity for all,” more attainable by this methodology, of ethics, than their transcendentalist counterparts? Does this include an opportunity for all to speak their mind or write down their thoughts?
Silverman: Basing human ethics on what we know from experience, rather than on what we don’t know, certainly makes more sense. Applying certain transcendent or religious precepts to everyone is too limiting, since we have no objective way to test if we have the one “true” religion. We learn through human experience and the efforts of thoughtful people throughout history how to work toward the ideals we hope to achieve. We also know that some of our values might change as our knowledge and understandings advance. 

Jacobsen: Ultimately, why does this mean our life is “ours and ours alone,” our mind’s ability for freethought of thought?
Silverman: No one else, certainly no transcendent being, is responsible for our life. We must take personal responsibility for how we live, not give credit to an imagined deity for our good fortune or blame satanic forces when we behave poorly. We are free to think about whatever comes into our mind, but we are not necessarily free to act out all our thoughts. We can choose our actions as long as they don’t infringe on the freedoms of others. As the saying goes, your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/09/16

Scott Jacobson: Over the course of a Jewish life, of a secular humanist life in particular, how has the individualized Humanism changed for you?
​
Dr. Herb Silverman:  I grew up in an Orthodox community and had an Orthodox Bar Mitzvah in 1955 when I was 13. My family mainly instilled in me that I shouldn’t trust goyim (gentiles) because of what they did to us in the Holocaust, and that I should marry a nice Jewish girl. (My wife, Sharon Fratepietro, is not Jewish.) In Hebrew school, my rabbi refused to answer my question, “Who created God?” He told me the question was inappropriate, but I assumed he just had no answer. One of my best teachers in Hebrew school asked, “Why does the Torah (Hebrew Bible) say ‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob,’ instead of the more concise ‘God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’?” His explanation was that each had a different god, and we must search for and find our own god. I took his statement seriously and my search, beginning at age 12, led me to a god who did not exist. I decided to follow all the things in the Torah that made sense to me, like performing mitzvahs (good deeds), but I stopped doing things like fasting on Yom Kippur, the day that God allegedly determines who shall live and who shall die in the coming year. Perhaps that is when I became a humanist without having even heard the term.
      As an adult, I first learned about Humanism from the American Humanist Association, and later became a board member of that organization. I still considered myself a Jew because there is no requirement for a Jew to believe in God. I eventually found a proper home for myself in Judaism when I learned about and joined the Society for Humanistic Judaism (https://shj.org), with its atheist rabbis. SHJ is a member organization of the Secular Coalition for America and has an active social justice program known as Jews for a Secular Democracy.

Jacobsen: Do you agree with Kurtz and Wilson in the opening, as an aside?

Silverman: I mostly agree with them that Humanist Manifesto I was too optimistic about what the state of the world would be like after 1933, and that we need a more realistic vision. One sentence I was uncomfortable with was “Faith, commensurate with advancing knowledge, is also necessary.” I prefer to leave the word “faith” to theists. The authors correctly add that traditional theism, especially faith in a prayer-hearing God, makes no sense. It was wise of them to say, “New statements should be developed to supersede this,” one of which is known as Humanist Manifesto III. We should note that these manifestos are written on paper by humans, not written on stone tablets by an alleged deity, and no humanist is obliged to follow all of their assertions. 

Jacobsen: How are the varieties of referenced humanisms connected via the idea of freedom of expression?

Silverman: I think all these referenced humanisms include freedom of expression, whether stated explicitly or implicitly. The humanists I know all think everybody has the right to express ideas and opinions freely, though we should try to avoid making false or misleading statements.  Some people consider themselves theistic humanists, and might wish to silence those in their flock who have problems believing in the type of god they espouse. My idea of humanism precludes supernaturalism.

Jacobsen: What is this “moral devotion and creative imagination” inherent in the idea of freedom of expression as played out in the lives of freer human beings?

Silverman: I think we have a moral obligation to speak out against injustices, and it helps to imagine what kinds of injustices are suffered by people who are viewed as different from us in artificial ways.  Unfortunately, some people use their imagination to develop “fake news” and consider this to be an appropriate form of freedom of expression. The moral problem with such freedom of expression is that fake news can unfairly hurt innocent people. One example is known as “Pizzagate.” This was a baseless rumor circulated in 2016 that Hillary Clinton and other Democrats were heading up a child sex-trafficking ring out of a specific Washington pizzeria. Based on such rumors and hate speech, a gunman with an assault rifle opened fire at the pizzeria, hoping to save the alleged abused children. 

Jacobsen: How are freedom of speech and freedom of the press connected in a humanistic framework? How are they being attacked in the United States today?
​
Silverman: Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Humanists support this right to speak out verbally, in writing, and by action. Some Americans want to take away the right to burn the American flag, which thankfully the US Supreme Court ruled was constitutionally protected speech. There are also attempts to censor works of art that touch on sensitive issues like religion or sexuality.I think it is fine for people to attack verbally or in writing what someone else says. The problem occurs when someone thinks he has the right to use intimidation, threats, or violence. The way to attack bad speech is with good speech. I still believe the saying I learned as a child. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” 

Jacobsen: How is opposition to governmental policies being prevented in America today?
​
Silverman: Opposition to government policies is not being prevented. Many individuals and media have spoken against President Trump’s policies (or lack thereof) on the pandemic, healthcare, climate change, international alliances, and countless social justice issues. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the Republican-controlled US Senate gives Trump whatever he wants. So, opposition to government policies can best be achieved by Americans voting in the upcoming election.

Jacobsen: Regarding “freedom of association, and artistic, scientific, and cultural freedom,” what brings these together in one bundle so as to unite them under a banner of common expansion of freedom for more humanistic societies?

Silverman: Humanistic societies recognize that humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment for the greater good of humanity. Humanism promotes democracy, civil liberties, human freedoms, separation of religion and government, and elimination of discrimination based on race, religion, sex, age, or national origin. Humanists respect the scientific method and recognize that we are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change, and that ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
Silverman: You’re most welcome.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/09/02

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The fundamental tenets proposed in the outdated and historical document Humanist Manifesto I does not speak to freedom of speech, free speech, free expression, or freedom of expression. It focuses on Humanism as a religious philosophy. First question, why was freedom of expression[3] in general not emphasized at the time?

Dr. Herb Silverman: To me, freedom of expression must include freedom of speech, as well as freedom of the press and the right to peaceably assemble. So my answer to this question will include my answer to your second question about freedom of speech.

Perhaps freedom of expression was assumed because it is included in the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.  Humanist ManifestoI (1933) is so-called because it was the first attempt to describe a formal humanist philosophy without any gods. The framers knew there would be additional manifestos as we increased our knowledge and cultural attitudes changed. The document spoke of social justice and scientific optimism. It referred to “socialized and cooperative economic order” and “equitable distribution of the means of life.” Though it wasn’t explicit, it seemed to favor socialism. There was no mention of racism, sexism, minority rights, or environmentalism. 
Humanist Manifesto II (1973) promotes democracy, civil liberties, human freedoms, separation of church and state, and elimination of discrimination based on race, religion, sex, age, or national origin. It also refers to ecological damage and overpopulation.

I was on the American Humanist Association Board in 2003 when we approved Humanist Manifesto III. We defined Humanism as a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity. (I hoped to get “atheism” into the definition, but had to be satisfied by “without supernaturalism.”) This document also says that humanists are guided by reason and inspired by compassion. It adds that humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change and that ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.

Jacobsen: Second question, why was freedom of speech[4], in particular, excluded, too?

Silverman: See answer above
.
Jacobsen: What did this document provide for the foundations of modern Humanism through its “religious humanism”?

Silverman: “Religious Humanism” was an integral part of Humanist ManifestoI. The phrase is still used today by some freethinkers, though it is not without controversy. Ethical Culture societies as well as many Unitarian Universalist congregations describe themselves as religious humanists. There seems to be no difference in worldviews between secular humanists and religious humanists. Secular humanists see their worldview as a philosophy, while religious humanists see it as a religion.                                   

But that depends on your definition of religion. Secular humanists think of religion as theistic. Religious humanists say that religion is that which serves the personal and social needs of a group of people sharing the same philosophical worldview. They say religious humanism offers a basis for moral values, an inspiring set of ideals, methods for dealing with life’s harsher realities, a rationale for living life joyously, and an overall sense of purpose.

When I first became a board member of the American Humanist Association, I discovered it called itself religious, for tax advantages, I argued for abandoning its religious designation, and it eventually did. One of its affiliates to which I belong, Humanist Society, is religious, because that helps its members in some states be allowed to perform weddings. I am a humanist celebrant who, in South Carolina, has performed several weddings, none of which were religious.

Jacobsen: What parts have the humanist movements kept as consistent parts over time because of the value of the principles?

Silverman: The movements have always had an evolutionary, atheistic worldview, though often with different terminology. What I said about Humanist Manifesto III in answer 1 above is a summary of what I think has always been the essence of humanism. We defined Humanism as a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

Jacobsen: Do freedom of speech or freedom of expression seem like fundamentally humanist values?
​
Silverman: They are fundamental humanist values, as well as fundamental values in any democratic society.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/26

The international community goes much farther than the US in the permission for the widest possible definition of freedom in the transmission of communication with the “Freedom of Expression” as opposed to the “Freedom of Speech” enshrined at a national level for America. Why are these international rights and laws important for the protection of individual Americans who may, for example, take a knee in protest of brutality against black Americans in front of the Vice President of the United States?

I think you are asking, in part, about the distinction between freedom of expression and freedom of speech. In the broad sense, I view “expression” as a form of “speech,” non-verbal communication. Taking a knee during the playing of the National Anthem is a non-verbal form of protest. Though it may be offensive to many, I support such a perfectly legitimate expression of dissent. I also support the free-speech rights of those whose actions appall me. Many did not want to allow the Ku Klux Klan to march in my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, some years ago. I felt the Klan does a thousand bad things, and I didn’t want to deny them the right to do the one good thing they do—exercise their free-speech right to march. I also disagreed with a local school board that prevented a student from wearing a Confederate flag shirt to school. 

The question of free speech often arises in the context of how offensive you are permitted to be, and the extent to which you may be harming others. I support the right of the American Nazi Party to march, even though it might lead to violence. For the same reason, I supported civil rights marchers in the South, which did lead to violence. 

However, I am not a free speech absolutist. I agree with the old cliché that you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. I don’t support the right of anyone to purposely incite violence. Anti-abortion activists should not be allowed to publish addresses of doctors who perform abortions, with pictures of targets on their heads.

I don’t think any specific words should be censored. I was appalled when several schools banned the great American novel Huckleberry Finn because one of Mark Twain’s characters was “Nigger” Jim. Of course, the novel was anti-slavery. In one important scene, Huckleberry Finn helps free Nigger Jim from slavery, and says, “All right then, I’ll go to hell,” referring to the belief he was taught about the biblical correctness of owning slaves.

Interestingly, it’s considered OK for African Americans to use the word “nigger” when talking to other African Americans, but it is not considered OK for whites to use the N word. Similarly, it’s acceptable for Jews like me to tell anti-Semitic jokes to fellow Jews, but it is considered wrong for Gentiles to do so. Here is one of my favorite anti-Semitic jokes.

Two Jews see a sign in front of a church that says “$100 to convert.” One of the Jews asks,“Why not? It’s an easy way to make a quick buck,” and enters the church. The other Jew waits outside to see what happens. After forty-five minutes the first Jew comes out and the second Jew asks, “Well, did you get the $100?” The first responds, “Is that all you Jews ever think about, money?”

How can Americans when “ranting and raving” about freedom of speech keep in mind the right of other Member States [Define in footnote] to protest state violence against them by the United States without violent interference in this right to communication?
​
Ranting and raving is protected speech in the United States, including ranting and raving against official U.S. policies. I’ve been known to rant and rave during protests about entering wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and other countries. Many supporters of Donald Trump rant and rave about a so-called “deep state” in America, and something Trump calls “Obamagate,” about which he fails to define or provide evidence. As we can see, ranters and ravers are often misguided and wrong—depending on your point of view.

I also support non-violent civil disobedience (breaking the law) as long as participants are willing to take the consequences of their lawbreaking while trying to change bad laws.

How should the United States engage with other countries? I would like human rights to be a core value, which unfortunately it is not under the present administration. We ignore human rights violations when dealing with so-called friends in countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and North Korea, blatant abusers of human rights. We should look for ways to encourage countries we deal with to protect its citizens and treat them fairly. Through the Internet or by other means, we should try to give people in some countries valuable information about basic human rights they deserve. We should also work with our allies on issues like climate change and other science-based information to help make the world a better place.

What do most Americans forget about this First Amendment regarding rights for speech? What do they always remember, and also forget, about the right to the establishment of religion and the separation of church and state?

What many Americans forget about free speech in the First Amendment is that it is there to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech does not need protection. 

As far as freedom of religion, many people don’t understand that you can’t have freedom of religion without also having freedom from religion. You are not free if you are forced to choose a deity to worship. Some people don’t understand that we have a secular Constitution with no mention of any gods. Its first three words are “We the People,” not “Thou the Deity.” Many Christian conservatives incorrectly claim that the United States was formed as a Christion nation. They also say that our country now discriminates against Christians, and favors Muslims and atheists. Losing some of the Christian privilege they once had does not constitute discrimination against Christians. Citizens must be treated the same, regardless of their religious beliefs or disbeliefs.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/04/23

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Herb, how is freethought represented in the secular communities now?
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Dr. Herb Silverman: Freethought is represented in different ways in different freethought communities. When I first became engaged with freethought communities, I learned about several national atheist and humanist organizations. I joined them all because each was involved in issues I supported. But each group was doing its own thing and ignoring like-minded organizations, while competing for funds from what they viewed as a fixed pie of donors. I knew we needed to grow the pie to benefit all these organizations and the freethought movement as a whole. They were spending too much time arguing about labels (atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker, etc.) and too little time showing our strength in numbers and cooperating on issues that affect all freethinkers. Here’s an interesting distinction between Christians and freethinkers: Christians have the same unifying word but fight over theology; freethinkers have the same unifying theology, but fight over words. At least our wars are only verbal. So in 2002, I helped form the Secular Coalition for America, whose mission is to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheistic viewpoints, and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government. Our 19 national member organizations cover the full spectrum of freethought. 

Here’s what the Secular Coalition members don’t do: They don’t argue about labels. People in the Coalition call themselves atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, whatever. Here’s what they do: They cooperate on the 95% they have in common, rather than bicker about the 5% that might set them apart. All the organizations are good without any gods, though some emphasize “good” and some “without gods.” 

Interestingly, four of the member organizations are classified as religious (nontheistic). They are American Ethical Union (with Ethical Culture Societies), Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations, Society for Humanistic Judaism (with atheist rabbis), and UU (Unitarian Universalist) Humanists.

All the Secular Coalition member organizations have strict limits on political lobbying, so they incorporated as a political advocacy group to allow unlimited lobbying on behalf of freethought Americans, finally giving freethinkers a voice in our nation’s capital. But even as the Secular Coalition fights against religious privileging on the federal level, some of the most egregious violations occur at state levels (I know. I live in South Carolina). The Secular Coalition is hoping someday to have volunteer coordinators in all 50 states, working with local groups to make sure elected officials throughout the country hear our voices. 

The Secular Coalition also collaborates with organizations that are neither theistic nor nontheistic, like the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. It cooperates on some issues with theistic organizations, like the Interfaith Alliance, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Catholics for Choice. Working with diverse groups provides the additional benefit of gaining more visibility and respect for our unique perspective. Improving the public perception of freethinkers is as important to many of us as pursuing a particular political agenda.

Jacobsen: How can we bring about change based on the knowledge about the rise and fall of freethought into a new era of it, a renewed era in which we remain in a crisis requiring precisely its arsenal?
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Silverman: We can explain to some people why being a freethinker makes the most sense to us, and perhaps convince them to follow our lead. If they are interested, we can provide them with helpful freethought literature. We already know that the “nones” are the fastest growing demographic, many of whom are freethinkers without knowing what the word means. 

Whether people become freethinkers or not, what the world needs today (especially during the pandemic) is more respect for scientific viewpoints and rational thinking, and less respect for the irrational thinking found in ancient “holy” books. We can tell religious people that we may not share their beliefs, but that we hope they are willing to incorporate scientific findings into their lives and listen to reasonable explanations about the world around them. Unlike the minority of religious fundamentalists, most religious people are willing to act this way. We can point out to theists how our behavior is similar to theirs in many ways, and how their everyday actions have nothing to do with god beliefs. Whether we try to be good with or without a god has little to do with behavior. 

To those who might try to convince you to choose a belief in God, we can explain that belief in God is not a matter of choice. I can pretend to believe, but I can’t choose to believe something for which I find not a scintilla of evidence. We can ask them if they can choose to not believe in God (it would be nice if the answer is “yes”).

To help bring about change, we need to keep governments secular. This is something all freethinkers want, and we need to convince some theists why moving closer to a theocracy (even their theocracy) is bad for everybody. I’ve heard some politicians in both parties say, “We have freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion.” What can that possibly mean? That we are allowed to worship the god of our choice, but we can’t choose to be good without any gods? Politicians might think they are being tolerant when they express support for all faiths. Instead, we expect to hear them publicly express support for all faiths and none, to promote freedom of conscience for all people. Freethinkers are not asking for special rights, but we do insist on equal rights.

Our Constitution demands that government must not favor one religion over another or religion over non-religion. Religious liberty must include the right of taxpayers to choose whether to support religion and which religion to support. Forcing taxpayers to privilege and subsidize religions they don’t believe in is akin to forcing them to put money in the collection plates of churches, synagogues, or mosques.

We need to encourage more freethinkers to run for public office. I’m pleased that we now have a national Congressional Freethought Caucus to promote policy based on reason, science, and moral values. The Caucus formed in 2018 with 4 members and now has 13, with more to come. See https://secular.org/governmental-affairs/congressional-freethought-caucus/

I hope to see an America where the influence of conservative religion is mainly limited to within the walls of churches, not the halls of Congress.

Jacobsen: What do you think sparked the original formal movement of freethought?

Silverman: The term “freethinker” came into use in the 17th century. It referred to people who inquired into the basis of traditional religious beliefs, and freethinker was most closely linked to secularism, atheism, agnosticism, anti-clericalism, and religious critique. It promoted the free exercise of reason in matters of religious belief, unrestrained by deference to authority.
I like to promote British mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford from the 19thcentury, who, in his essay The Ethics of Belief said, “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” The essay became a rallying cry for freethinkers, and has been described as a point when freethinkers grabbed the moral high ground. Clifford organized freethought gatherings and was the driving force behind the Congress of Liberal Thinkers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/04/02

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Legacies don’t come from one person, usually. They come from a collective mass of unknowns and the forgotten, where one person or representation gets the collective credit.But the vast majority of our benefit comes from the dead even before them. I can understand the ancestor worship, the praying for the dead, and the making divine of ordinary human beings who persisted and had some talents. I can see this as a source of reverence. Those we never knew gave us a bit of a better shot, bit by bit, then died. What do you owe to freethought pioneers?
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Dr. Herb Silverman: Isaac Newton in 1675 said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton produced a mathematical understanding of motion, making the workings of the cosmos intelligible without any reference to supernatural belief. Yet he misguidedly said, “This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” Religious or not, scientists like Newton and Galileo contributed an enormous amount to the freethought movement before the Enlightenment. As Galileo learned, scientists often diverge from scripture at their peril. Scientific contributions have spread disbelief throughout the world because scientific arguments are settled through experimentation and evidence, not through authority or unproved claims of miracles found in so-called holy books. Scientists may not directly attack religious creeds, but they have undermined religious foundations. Nobody anymore believes that the earth is the center of the universe or that a deity made stars as an afterthought after creating the sun and the moon. 

I’ll even give a freethought shout-out to the anonymous biblical writer of Ecclesiastes who said that we all die, humans and animals alike, and that is it. From dust we came, and to dust we shall return. Pete Seeger included words from Ecclesiastes in his song, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

Another shout-out goes to Socrates, who posed the Euthyphro Dilemma in 399 BCE, “Is something good because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is good?” This question still puzzles many theists today. Socrates was sentenced to death and forced to drink poison hemlock for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and for not believing in the gods of the state. Socrates’s willingness to stand up against religious tradition turned him into an early freethought martyr.

Hypatia became a freethought martyr in the fifth century, one of the first women to study and teach mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy. Hypatia said, “All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final,” and “To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing.” A mob of Christian zealots in Alexandria, Egypt dragged Hypatia into a church where they stripped her and beat her to death. They then tore her body apart and burned it. There wasn’t much religious tolerance shown to Hypatia.

Moving to more modern times, who can omit Charles Darwin as a freethought pioneer? When he began his scientific research, he was a church member. Shortly before he died, Darwin acknowledged having become an atheist. He was not inclined to engage in controversy. He wrote down what he had learned, and left it to others to accept or reject. Darwin’s theory of Evolution was shown by others that it was not “just” a theory, but an established fact, which led thinking people to understand that the whole biblical story of creation is a myth. 

Robert Ingersoll was a great orator who advocated for freethought and humanism. He was active in politics and served as Illinois Attorney General in 1867. Illinois Republicans tried to persuade him to become a candidate for governor on the condition that he conceal his agnosticism during the campaign. Ingersoll refused, saying he would not let anyone limit his freedom of speech. He was also considered a radical for supporting woman’s suffrage.

Freethinker Thomas Paine is my favorite American founder. In his pamphlet, Common Sense, Paine provided convincing moral and political arguments for independence from Great Britain. Nonetheless, Paine hasn’t received the credit he deserves, primarily because of his irreverent book The Age of Reason. In it he says, “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church.” And furthermore, “Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.” Many contemporary politicians sympathized with the views of Paine, but didn’t openly support him for fear of the Religious Right of their day. 

Finally, I’ll bring in a pioneer freethinker who was alive in my lifetime–Bertrand Russell. When I was 16, I found at my local library his book, Why I am Not a Christian, the first book I ever saw about being an atheist. Russell transformed the lives of many in my generation. It was gratifying to see articulate arguments that confirmed and gave voice to our doubts about the existence of any deities. I think Bertrand Russell also influenced me to become a mathematician.

Jacobsen: What newer generations owe to more recent freethought pioneers?

Silverman: There are lots of recent freethought role models, many with outstanding books. They include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Susan Jacoby, Annie Laurie Gaynor, Dan Barker, Steven Pinker, Rebecca Goldstein, Rob Boston, Andrew Seidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Greta Christina, A. C. Grayling, Wendy Kaminer, Greg Epstein, Salman Rushdie, Julia Sweeney, George Carlin, Bill Maher, and many more. And I’m sure that you, the reader, can come up with additional freethought pioneers. There was a time when it wasn’t safe or comfortable to reveal that you are a freethinker. Our pioneers have made it easier to do so today.

Jacobsen: Is this effort at immortalization in memories of the living all that important at the end of the day? Or is simply doing good and maintaining what good has been built more important at the end of the day?
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Silverman: It’s worth knowing about freethought pioneers, who can serve as role models, but I don’t think it is necessary to immortalize them. After all, they are not immortal. We should learn from them and try to make their good works remain influential in our lives. 

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/30

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In life, our wills, characters, and true stances will be tested. This seems like an inevitability. I’ve had several myself. Many cost me, dearly. Some, I’m still paying the costs in different ways. Nonetheless, I don’t regret them, taking the stands. I doubt I ever will. You need to take a stand. It may cost you. No one does anything alone, though. However, you can make a change and an influence as an example for others. So, instead of avoidance of the issue, we best deal with them headfirst. What are the meanings of trials and tests in life, in hindsight?

Dr. Herb Silverman: Regarding trials and tests in life, here’s a paragraph from the preface of my book, Candidate Without A Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt: “When I was a graduate student in the 1960s, I occasionally took breaks from mathematics to write what I thought were clever stories. Then my roommate showed me a quote from Henry David Thoreau, ‘How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.’ So, prodded by Thoreau, I stopped my creative writing and focused on completing my PhD in mathematics. Now more than forty years later, I’ve written about a few of the times I stood up to live, about the times I couldn’t or wouldn’t, and about the times I stood up and should have remained seated.” Life consists of trials and tests, and we need to learn from them. Before committing to an action, we should think about whether it will make a difference and to whom. For most of my life, I was a mathematics professor. I think I made a positive difference with some students, and though my research was respectable, it was not significant enough to make much difference to the mathematical community, nor did it have an impact on people outside the world of mathematics.

Circumstances of my adult life in the Bible Belt turned me from apathetic atheist (as most atheists are) to passionate atheist. It became my “calling,” because I saw how I might make a significant difference in our culture. I became an accidental atheist activist when I discovered in 1990 that our South Carolina state constitution prohibited atheists from holding public office, and I challenged that provision by running for governor as “the candidate without a prayer.” In 1997 I won a unanimous decision in the South Carolina Supreme Court, striking down the unconstitutional provision and giving atheists the right to hold public office in South Carolina.

This victory gave me a reputation as an atheist activist and I worked to increase the visibility and respectability of atheist viewpoints and to separate religion from government. I’m more interested in “converting” people from apathy to activism than from theism to atheism. I never regretted taking such unpopular stands in a state with so many religious people. As a tenured math professor, my job was secure. I also made many new friends, and I enjoy controversy if it comes from adopting positions on causes that I think are important.

I don’t think that gaining respectability for atheists is the world’s most important issue. It’s not even the most noteworthy civil rights struggle. If I had a magic wand, and believed in its efficacy, probably I’d first wave it to end world hunger. But there’s not much I can do about that, so my activity on this doesn’t go much beyond working on small community projects and contributing to worthwhile organizations.

Jacobsen: What were examples from life for you?

Silverman: I became chair of the College of Charleston Faculty Research Committee in 1978. After spending many hours deciding how best to award funds set aside for summer research grants, I received a call from the president of the college. He told me he was cutting our research budget in half and wanted me not to tell grant applicants. As chair of the committee, I felt it my duty to be honest with the applicants and faculty, and I explained to them why some deserving recipients would not be receiving grants. 

The faculty appreciated what I said, but President Stern definitely did not. I didn’t have to wait long to find out the extent of his displeasure. When a committee recommended me for the Distinguished Research Award, President Stern reluctantly presented me with the award at the spring graduation ceremony, along with the $500 that went with it (meaningful in 1978, when my annual salary was under $20,000).

As it turned out, I was fortunate that the amount in 1978 was only $500, instead of the $1,000 it became a couple of years later. President Stern also cut my recommended salary raise that year by $500 because of my research award, something he had never done with past recipients. My $500 research award was a one-time occurrence, but I lost that additional $500 per year for the next 30 years, along with percentage raises based on it. So, my award cost me over $25,000.

Was it worth taking such a stand? My conscience says, absolutely! Fortunately for me, President Stern retired the year before I came up for tenure, which I received through the new president.

Another example of my activism at the College of Charleston, a public institution, occurred at its Counseling Center, where one counselor’s “specialty” was Christian counseling. When a non-Christian student informed me that the counselor advised the student to overcome his difficulties by giving his life to Jesus, I spoke to the counselor. She did not deny the accusation. In fact, she named two students and asked if it was one of them who lodged the complaint. It wasn’t! Her response was so inappropriate at so many levels that I went directly to her boss and told him about our exchange. The counselor was quietly let go and the Counseling Center never again hired someone with that specialty.

Jacobsen: If a youth ‘fails’ a test, inasmuch as one can fail at trials and tribulations of life testing endurance, what should be the main points of reflection for them?
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Silverman: I would say that failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success. We can expect many failures along the path to finally succeeding. When attempting something new, don’t be afraid of appearing to be different from others if you think you are doing the right thing. If unable to accomplish a task, instead of saying “I can’t do it,” think about adding “yet.” And slow progress is better than no progress. Finally, remember the words of American president Theodore Roosevelt, “Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”  

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/26

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We talked some sessions ago about the death of Paul Krassner. A cultural elephant in the countercultural room, or, more properly, the plural alternative cultures room. Friends come from many different areas. What makes a friendship?
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Dr. Herb Silverman: There are all kinds of friends. I recently met someone I had never seen before, and she informed me that she was a friend of mine—a Facebook friend. When I first got on Facebook I agreed to be friends with anyone who requested it, and now I think I have too many such “friends.” I’m also friends with some charities I support, as in “Friends of the Library.” I am not a Quaker (the Society of Friends), though among religions I think it is one of the best because of its emphasis on peace, social justice, and finding the light within. Surprisingly, there is also a group called Nontheistic Quakers (nontheistic Friends). A more traditional notion of friends would be people not related to you whom you know well, and whose company you enjoy. This might include professional colleagues, fellow supporters in a cause, or someone you are intimate with. Friends are the family you choose. No matter how down you are, good friends should be able to make you laugh. I think the best kind of friend is someone you love and who loves you, someone you respect and who respects you, someone you trust and who trusts you, someone with whom you can be honest and who is honest with you, and someone you are loyal to and who is loyal to you. (We are fortunate in life if we have two such friends.) My wife, Sharon, is my best friend.

Jacobsen: What makes a friendship last?

Silverman: A friendship lasts as long as you continue to enjoy one another’s company. You should be able to be yourself, give support when needed, empathize, express your feelings, forgive, and make mistakes without fear of judgment. 
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Sometimes friends drift apart (becoming former friends) because their interests change. Last year I attended my 55thhigh school reunion. Some of my former friends might become friends again if we stayed in touch, but our lives and interests have moved on, so there are no such plans. On the other hand, I continue to communicate with a former colleague who left the College of Charleston 40 years ago and moved to another state. We remain good friends with many similar interests and activities, and go out of our way occasionally to get together. To make a friendship endure often requires hard work. If you value the friendship, you should learn about your friend’s new interests and see if you can turn them into interests of yours as well. It likely will include the friend’s spouse and children. 

Jacobsen: Why are long-term friends important to maintain for emotional health and a sense of connection with other human beings, and to think about others besides oneself, i.e., to have social responsibility and consideration?

Silverman: Life is a continuous journey. It helps to have long-term friends who know a lot about your past, so you don’t have to explain it to them. As we age, family responsibilities and occupational pressures lessen, and so friendships become more important. Friendship in adulthood provides companionship and affection, as well as emotional support, and contributes positively to mental well-being and improved physical health.
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Among the elderly, friendships are especially important. Should close relatives die, friends can provide links to the larger community, mitigate depression and loneliness, and compensate for potential losses in social support previously given by family members. Older people also feel more useful when they can do something for the community. Research has shown that older adults report the highest level of happiness and general well-being when they have close ties to friends. This satisfaction is associated with an increased ability to accomplish activities of daily living. 

The number of friends in old age usually declines, often because of their death. I’ve gotten used to checking the daily obituary section in my local paper. Sometimes I learn that friends younger than I am (77) have died. This makes me more appreciative of my friends who remain. 

Friends are important at any age, but especially for the elderly who might not be able to get out as often. Interaction with friends provides a continued social life. So, if you are young, think about staying in touch with elderly people you know. They will appreciate your attention more than you might have realized.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/23

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Conservatives take the family as the fundamental unit of societies, the building block. It becomes a divine mandate in many theologies and religious social commentaries. The United Nations is fundamentally allied with this vision in its foundational and associated documents with the description of the family as the fundamental group unit in the society. An almost unacknowledged unifying vision between a nationalist and a globalist vision view of the world. So, why is family fundamental? They both seem right from different view of the world.
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Dr. Herb Silverman: A family is usually viewed as people connected by blood, adoption, or marriage. The question then becomes how we should treat family members. Surprisingly, I like what Jesus said about blood relatives, though with some objections and a different perspective. This is from Mark 3:32-35: A crowd was sitting around Jesus and said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and my mother.” Of course, I disagree with defining family in terms of faith. On the other hand, there is something to be said about counting friends we choose after we are born as more important than people we are related to through no personal decisions. I would say that family is fundamental if we include those we are close to, whether or not we are related to them. 

Nevertheless, even if we are not close to blood relatives, I think we owe them respect and help when they are in need. I have no siblings and wasn’t particularly close to my parents, but I know they made many sacrifices for me and I appreciate that they tried to raise me as best they could. I also tried to make things comfortable for them when they became too old and sick to care for themselves.

Jesus challenges our notions of family loyalty when he says, according to Luke 14:26, “Whoever does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Perhaps this is why when Jesus’ family heard what he was doing, they said, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21). In John 7:5, we learn that even Jesus’ brothers didn’t believe him.
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Christians continually bemoan the breakdown of “family values” in our culture. Do they only count as family members those who worship Jesus the same way that they do?

I don’t think Christians can take much solace in the Hebrew Bible, where many men had more than one wife. In fact, according to 1 Kings 11:3, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Perhaps Solomon’s brain was not his most noteworthy organ.

When it comes to nationalist and globalist views of family, I include extended families, who go beyond the nuclear family of father, mother, and their children. It can include aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, all living in the same household. In a lot of cultures, the extended family is the basic family unit.  

Many families move in with one another for financial and emotional support, especially when children are involved. Demographic and cultural shifts, such as the increasing number of immigrants and the rising average age of young-adult marriages, along with difficulties in finding jobs paying a living wage, have also created a need for extended families. Approximately 49 million Americans live in homes containing three or more generations. 

Jacobsen: Most people want a family. Most will create. What are some good principles for getting from point A to point Z?

Silverman: You can create family by first establishing close and fulfilling relationships. Sometimes these relationships are formed when you get involved with activities you enjoy. This is a good way to meet people with whom you have things in common. When it comes to coupling (as in dating), it’s important to make sure the other half of your couple is a friend (and contraceptives have been considered). You should be honest, not just about your feelings for the person, but also about your perceived weaknesses and fears. 

When the relationship grows closer, you might consider living together. By now you should have discussed boundaries, what you feel is permitted and what is not. Is it an exclusive sexual relationship? If it appears that this loving relationship might become permanent, you may want to consider marriage. But first discuss what you both want out of marriage. Financial arrangements? Kids? If so, how many and how should they be raised? Such plans might change, but it’s still a good idea to discuss such things in advance. 

Though couples usually marry with the best of intentions, about half of marriages end in divorce. I recommend couples-counseling before considering divorce, especially if kids are involved. I definitely don’t recommend following Mark 10:9, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” This means, according to the Catholic Church, that a woman should stay in her marriage even if her husband abuses her. There is a Catholic out, known as annulment, in which the Church can declare that the marriage was never really valid. It can be expensive to get such an annulment. 

My wife is an adulterer in the eyes of the Catholic Church. She is married to a second man (me), even though she received a civil divorce from the first many years ago. The Catholic Church does not recognize or permit a second marriage like hers when the first took place in a Catholic Church. I enthusiastically endorse my wife’s two divorces: one legally from her first husband, and one metaphorically from the Catholic Church.

Jacobsen: How do you keep a family life, or simply a family without children, fresh, vibrant, and stimulating rather than dull, a deteriorator, and stultifying?

Silverman: You sometimes hear that in a marriage, two become one. I disagree. I think it’s important for two to remain two. While each has his or her interests, it’s good for couples to also have lots in common, things that they enjoy doing together. Often one of the partners develops an interest that the other partner has. It’s also nice to share new adventures.

If you don’t get along with a family member, perhaps a relative, that’s fine as long as you don’t  resent it and hold a grudge. Such feelings not only make the relationship worse, but they can also hurt your body and your mind.  
​
To keep a marriage from stultifying, it helps to have a sense of humor. Most mornings my wife says to me, “It’s so nice to wake up next to you.” She laughs when I respond, “I’m sorry I can’t experience that pleasure.” Despite the cliché, I don’t know what it means to be “beside myself.”a

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/19

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Virtue seems mostly like a habit. Then we call long trends in behaviour in someone a character trait. It seems like this to me. So, virtue starts with the habituation of ethical conduct. There are consequences to a certain behaviour. Good results become consequentially good, tautologically. Bad results become consequentially bad, but come from antecedent behaviour, inescapably. The possible good and bad have a range of known and unknown consequences. So, I am noting some virtue ethics and consequentialism mixed together here, where limits get placed on personal responsibility based on cognitive-predictive limits.  What virtues should be encouraged/vices should be discouraged every day?
​
Dr. Herb Silverman: Let’s first describe what we mean by “virtue.” To me, virtue is behavior that shows high moral standards, which means good behavior. Humans have evolved to be social animals with patterns of behavior to live harmoniously and productively together. Without cooperative behavior, humans would not have survived. Ideas of right and wrong that we call morality arise from human nature. We all have the ability to think in moral terms, except perhaps for psychopaths. Of course, being moral or good means different thing to different folks. Some religious people would say that to act morally is to act in obedience to God’s commandments. Many Christians view virtue as having faith, hope, and charity, described in 1 Corinthians 13:13. Islamic virtue requires submission to Allah. Muhammad said, “Virtue is good manner, and sin is that which creates doubt.” As a secular humanist, I certainly don’t tie any virtues to god beliefs. I think that ethical values are derived from human needs and interests, tested and refined by experience. Morality should be based on how our actions affect others. Our deeds are more important than our creeds, and dogmas should never override compassion for others. 

So how do we make moral decisions? One criterion is to look at what works well and has withstood the test of time. Just about all religions and philosophies have grounded morality in some version of the Golden Rule. But that’s a guideline open to interpretation, not an absolute. Even if we believe in absolutes, we’re forced to make human judgments on how to interpret them. For instance, we agree that murder is wrong. But what do we do about euthanasia, suicide, abortion, war, capital punishment, stem-cell research?  Different religions, and even people within the same religion, often disagree. 

So how do we decide? In tough decisions, I believe we should be guided by the consequences of our actions to individuals, our families, our community, and our world. Morality may arise from human nature, but it is shaped by our experiences and culture. Morality helps humans construct a livable society with human rights for all. It requires flexibility because the circumstances under which we live continue to change and we discover what works better. 

I would say virtue includes searching for truth and obtaining knowledge through rational thought. Belief should be proportional to the evidence. As William Clifford, a nineteenth century mathematician and philosopher said, “It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

Morality should also include creating happiness and fulfillment. As Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic, said, “Reason, Observation and Experience, the Holy Trinity of Science, have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so.” And Bertrand Russell said, “A good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”  

Jacobsen: Why is youth important for the inculcation of virtue? 

Silverman: To quote Aristotle, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” The Jesuits have slightly modified Aristotle’s statement, “Give us a child till he’s seven and we’ll have him for life.” Unfortunately, this is often true. Fortunately, many people (myself included) cast away their childhood (and childish) religious beliefs. Nevertheless, people are influenced a lot by their upbringing, so it’s important to instill, teach, and inspire virtue in youth.

Jacobsen: Is it just easier to get virtue inculcated earlier than not? Or is it never too late?  
​
Silverman: Virtue and vice are not an either/or for humans. Throughout our lives, we sometimes act with virtue and sometimes we fall short. We should always learn from our mistakes and observations, and try to improve. For instance, in these uncertain times of the coronavirus pandemic, we all need to step up to the challenge. Are we thinking only about our own families, or are we also concerned about others? Some people look for ways to profit in the crisis. Others are stocking up on enough toilet paper and other household goods to last until Christmas. The virtuous thing for us to do, at any age, is to reach out to others and see how we can help them.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/16

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Of all possible mathematical knowledge, what do we really know? You were a distinguished professor in the past. We have written a text on this. 
​
Herb Silverman: Here is what we know about mathematics. Mathematicians start with axioms (assumptions) and see what conclusion may logically be deduced (proved) from these axioms. The nineteenth century mathematician Leopold Kronecker once said, “God created the integers, all else is the work of man.” I interpret this statement to be more about the axiomatic approach than about theology. Mathematicians often begin with axioms that seem “self-evident,” because they are more likely to lead to real-world truths, including scientific discoveries and accurate predictions of physical phenomena. But if at least one axiom is false, then the conclusion may not be scientifically applicable. Unlike with applied mathematicians, theoretical mathematicians are not so concerned with whether their axioms are true. Axioms in some branches are contradictory to axioms in others. In non-Euclidean geometry, we replace Euclid’s parallel axiom with a different axiom. The axioms in Euclidean geometry have led to discoveries on planet Earth; results from the axioms in non-Euclidean geometry were applied many years later by Einstein for his general theory of relativity, when he showed we live in a non-Euclidean four-dimensional universe, consisting of three-dimensional space and one-dimensional time. 

There is a lot we don’t know, and never will know. Just about any problem solved in mathematics seems to raise additional questions that we would like to solve. So I expect there are infinitely many questions that we would like answers to, which won’t be found in a finite amount of time. There might even be infinitely many possible theories, not all of which humans can ponder. With or without machines, even now the majority of scientific discoveries are barely comprehensible (or incomprehensible) to most human beings. 

Speaking of infinity, which is a theoretical construct created by humans, the number “infinity” does not exist in reality (as a real number). My math students sometimes falsely treated infinity as a real number, and such misuse often got them into trouble. 

The concept of infinity is useful to help solve many math problems involving limits in calculus. For instance, we know there are infinitely many positive integers because the integer n+1 is larger than n for any integer n. What happens to the sequence {1/n}, n = 1, 2, 3, …? The sequence gets arbitrarily close to 0, and we say that the limit of the sequence is 0. 

Here’s a limit example for an infinite series: 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + … = 1.

Also, we can’t draw a “perfect” circle, we can just imagine one. Imagine a polygon with an ever-increasing number of equal sides. As the number of sides approaches infinity, the polygon will become a circle as the limit of an infinite number of infinitesimally small sides. No matter how accurate a computer’s rendering of a circle might be, it will only be an imperfect approximation.

Mathematics has played a major role in bringing about innovations. Many mathematical theories and models of real-world problems have helped scientists and engineers grapple with seemingly impossible tasks. The eighteenth century mathematician Gauss said, “Mathematics is the queen of sciences.” He said this because mathematics is essential in the study of all scientific fields. Galileo referred to mathematics as the language in which the natural physical world is written. When scientific statements are translated into mathematical statements, including about the structure of the universe, we apply mathematics to solve scientific problems. 

Jacobsen: How much do we not know? Even with this, what can we say for certain about particular categories of things, as simply falsehoods?

Silverman: We often get into trouble when we apply mathematical concepts to God. Most religious people believe in an infinite God with infinite power who has lived for an infinite time. Just as finite humans created infinity, so finite humans created God and gave him infinite attributes. God had to be presumed infinite, because a finite god would be limited. However, we can show mathematically that there can’t be a largest infinity. The German mathematician Georg Cantor showed that every subset of an infinite set has a higher cardinality (more elements). In other words, there are infinitely many infinities. So, any infinite god could theoretically be replaced by a more powerful infinite god. 

Infinity, like gods, is not sensible (known through the senses). Just as infinity does not exist in reality, it does help solve some math problems. Lots of humans believe in a (nonexistent) god who helps them solve human problems. 

Mathematicians, unlike most theologians, recognize that their axioms are just made up. So, a perfectly valid and logical proof may have nothing to do with reality if the axioms are not true. Most ancient religions are also loosely based on axioms. Their most common axiom is “God exists,” which is not as self-evident as it appeared to be in a pre-scientific world. A “God axiom” might give comfort to some, but it lacks predictive value. 

Besides their practical uses, numbers have cultural significance throughout the world. For example, in Western society, the number 13 is regarded as unlucky. Some people also believe in numerology, which attributes a divine or mystical significance to numbers. One such example, espoused by many Christian fundamentalists, is fear of the number 666, which they refer to as the Mark of the Beast. Numerology is also associated with the paranormal and astrology. Of course, numerology is a pseudoscience, a superstition that uses numbers to give their subject a veneer of scientific authority.

Jacobsen: Where does this bring humility into the equation?

Silverman: Kurt Gödel, a mathematician/logician, made a rather disturbing groundbreaking discovery in mathematics. Gödel showed that with just about any set of axioms there must be at least one true but unproveable statement. In other words, not all true statements in mathematics have formal proofs. Furthermore, we have no way of knowing in advance whether a statement is really hard to prove (or disprove), or whether it is impossible. For instance, mathematician Andrew Wiles proved Fermat’s Last Theorem 358 years after Fermat proposed it in 1637. The proof was difficult but provable. We don’t know if questions about the beginning of our universe and multiverses are really hard to answer completely or are logically unanswerable. Or maybe the human mind is not bright enough to figure it out.
​
Gödel’s incompleteness theorem suggests to many that a Theory of Everything (an all-encompassing, coherent, theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe) is unattainable. In fact, Gödel’s theorem seems to imply that theoretical mathematics is inexhaustible. No matter how many problems we solve, there will always be other problems that can’t be solved within the existing rules.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/12

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’ve talked about rationality and such. You’ve commented on personal experience with love, and more. Love is a non-rational part of life, but love happens, nonetheless. A profound, significant, and, sometimes, incomprehensible and inexplicable component of human life. What do you make of making room, in life, for the non-rational? As Chris Hedges clarifies, he does not mean the irrational, but the non-rational forces of life.
Herb Silverman: For most of my professional life as a mathematician I made good use of the irrational. I speak, of course, about irrational numbers (not expressible as the quotient of two integers) like the square root of 2 and pi. Irrational numbers were discovered in Greece in the 5th century BCE, and challenged the Greek belief in a rational universe controlled by mathematical harmonies. Such numbers seemed to these Greeks so illogical and unreasonable that they called them irrational. So, sometimes things may seem irrational because we don’t understand them. Outside the world of mathematics, the main difference between rational thinking and non-rational or irrational thinking is that rational thinking is based on logic and reason, while non-rational and irrational thinking are usually based on neither. In rational decision making, choices are made through reason and facts.

The way I distinguish between non-rational and irrational thinking is that non-rational thinking relies more on intuitive judgments, and can sometimes be thought to make common sense, while irrational thinking goes counter to logic, and relies more on emotions without considering the consequences of decisions. In rational thinking we use our brain, and in irrational thinking we listen to our heart or gut. I prefer to think with my brain, not my gut. 

That doesn’t necessarily mean that irrational thinking is always wrong. People have won lotteries by choosing numbers based on a dream, or a birthday. A person who thinks rationally tries to use all the information available to make an informed decision, putting aside emotions. But often there are unknown factors or features that the rational person didn’t account for.

It can be argued that humans did not evolve to become rational creatures. We make good use of the non-rational, like love, beauty, art, poetry, music, and grief. I can give good reasons for why I love my wife, though I can’t show that these reasons are rational. As far as we know, these non-rational decisions have nothing to do with science, and are not empirically measurable. However, it’s possible that brain research might someday show there is no such thing as free will, and that I didn’t really choose to marry Sharon.

Jacobsen: Are there any borderline issues between the non-rational and the irrational?
​
Silverman: When it comes to religion, atheists usually object to irrational beliefs, not necessarily to non-rational beliefs. But how do we decide which is which? 

For instance, there is no empirical evidence for the existence or nonexistence of God, so can we say that that both beliefs are non-rational (as opposed to irrational)? People will answer differently, which shows that non-rational and irrational are not well-defined terms. Depending on the definition of “God,” I might be willing to call the belief non-rational (for instance, a creator of the universe who set natural laws in motion, and then retired, died, or moved on to bigger or better things). I don’t believe this, but I’m willing to consider such a deistic belief non-rational. The same with people who define God as love, or who take statements in so-called holy books metaphorically. On the other hand, I would call irrational any belief in the literal God of the Bible or the Quran, because we can find so much scientific evidence that falsifies claims in these “holy” books. (Young earth creationists would criticize me for having “faith” in science.) 

I also consider all claims to miracles, including resurrections, as irrational beliefs, though I can’t disprove them. Then again, I also can’t disprove the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster, though everyone would consider such a belief irrational.

Is it fair to call irrational what Christians, Muslims, and UFO abductees believe, because such beliefs are devoid of the kind of evidence we would expect to find for those beliefs? I would say yes, but the majority of the world would disagree with me.

Jacobsen: What can we do to ensure others, who did not have the sanction of the general public, have the same rights and privileges afforded to love and join with whomever they see fit for their lives, especially as societies become freer, opener, and more prosperous?

Silverman: I hope that societies continue to become freer and more open. There was a time in my country and elsewhere when I might not have been allowed to marry because I insisted on a non-religious (humanist) ceremony. Unfortunately, even today, such a marrige is not permissible in some countries. There was also a time that it would have been illegal for Sharon and me to live in sin. I’m pleased to see in my lifetime that gays and lesbians are finally allowed to marry in many countries, and that homosexuality is rarely against the law, except in Muslim countries. 

Such restrictions have usually been religion-based. The less religious societies become, the more freedom, privileges, and prosperity individuals will have.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/03

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The term soul seems ill-defined. Its original term, psyche, appears more precise. The complete makeup of a human being. Let’s talk about the naturalistic soul, the psyche, what do we know and not know at present if you had recent conversations with or readings by relevant experts in a variety of relevant fields? If not, I’ll take personal opinions too.
 
Dr. Herb Silverman: I’m uncomfortable using the word “soul” for the same reason I’m uncomfortable praising the Confederate flag. That flag to me is a symbol of white supremacy and slavery. But to many of my fellow South Carolinians the Confederate flag represents heritage, not hate. I think it represents both heritage and hate. And some heritage is hateful or worse, including what the Confederate flag and swastika represent to most of the world. I usually hear the word “soul” when people distinguish between our material mortal body and what they call our immaterial immortal soul. Some who fear death and want to escape its inevitability invent things like a heaven and a soul. These humans try to distinguish themselves from other animals and living things, saying that we are the only ones with souls. There are some real uses of the word “soul” that I like, including soul music, which arose from the black experience in America. I don’t like soul food like chitterlings and ham hocks. Soul food is a genre created by southern black Americans, and I know many people find it tasty. Soul (nephesh) was originally a Hebrew concept and a synonym for a living breathing creature. In this case, when the creature stops breathing, the soul is dead. In the Hebrew Bible, a person does not have a soul, but is a soul. This concept is closer to a naturalistic soul, or psyche. I prefer to use the word “mind” instead of soul or psyche, but I am comfortable with the word psyche. Our minds try to make sense of the natural world in which we live. There is no purpose in nature, but our minds come up with purposes in our own lives. Science has shown that all life is interconnected by small particles and phenomena playing off one another in subtle ways. I think natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of our natural universe, and our continuously changing universe is a product of these laws. To quote Carl Sagan, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.”

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02/26

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: My friend and colleague, Paul Krassner, died last year. He published The Realist with luminaries including George Carlin and Lenny Bruce published in it. In honour of his life and work, I will comment on Bruce and then Krassner for individuals who may not know them, as I believe in the renewal of their core legacies for the current crop of the young: Getting caught in what should be, as Lenny Bruce articulated, is a terrible, terrible lie given to the people long ago, there only is what is, and the rest is a fantasy. This seems true to me. How can the false selves and idealized selves of youth lead a young person astray, by their own inability or outright dismissal to take heed of the real and act on it? 

Dr. Herb Silverman: I have fond memories of Lenny Bruce, whom I worked with on February 11, 1961, at Town Hall in Philadelphia. I never actually met Lenny, but I sold soft drinks before his performance and during intermissions. I made about six dollars that night, and Lenny made considerably more. I started my selling career in 1958, when I was 16, and continued until I graduated from Temple University in 1963. I mostly worked my way through college by selling refreshments at sporting events, and occasionally at Town Hall. Other performers I “worked” with at Town Hall include Pete Seeger, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul & Mary. Lenny Bruce’s performance was special for me. I didn’t even know who he was at the time, but I was pleasantly shocked to hear an adult, let alone a performer, use the word “fuck.” Youth today certainly aren’t surprised to hear the F-word in ordinary conversation, but the 1950s and early 1960s were a different world. Lenny Bruce’s battles against censorship, including jail time, are now mostly won, but he was a pioneer whom I am proud to have “worked” with.

In his performance, Lenny said, “There are no dirty words, only dirty minds.” He also criticized religion, the first time I heard such criticism from a performer. He said, “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

As you indicate, Lenny Bruce said this about lying, “ Let me tell you the truth: The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago.” Along those same lines, Lenny also said, “If you believe there is a God, a God that made your body, and yet you think that you can do anything with that body that’s dirty, then the fault lies with the manufacturer.”

In particular, young people can be led astray by believing lies they are told about God and religion. (Here I use the word “lie” loosely, meaning “untruth,” because people might not actually be lying if they accept as true their fantasies about God.) Of course, there are many ways to be led astray by lies, not just through religion. It’s important to be skeptical of claims, and you should look for evidence to back up those claims. This is especially true of claims made by politicians. It’s essential to learn how to think critically, which should be taught in school starting with kindergarten.

Jacobsen: When I asked Krassner in an interview with him, “What advice do you have for youth?” He replied, “Try not to take yourself as seriously as your causes.” I still miss him. When a young person isn’t tuned into themselves, able to feel, able to label the feelings, able to assert themselves and deal with the real world in a proactive, friendly, and realistic fashion, they’re significantly handicapping their fulfillment in life and trajectory. The getting to where they want to go and the feeling of how they want to feel getting missed. When connected with oneself, you can connect to others fully and authentically – organically. Why is non-seriousness about oneself and seriousness about one’s causes important as a life principle?

Silverman: Scott, you are very fortunate to have been a friend and colleague of Paul Krassner. I never met Krassner, but I have admired him since I was a child and read his pieces in Mad magazine. In Mad, and later in TheRealist, I learned to appreciate political (and religious) satire. 

When Paul Krassner advised youth, “Try not to take yourself as seriously as your causes,” I think he was speaking not just about youth, but about everybody—including himself. Krassner coined the term “Yippies,” a politically-active countercultural youth group of hippies. It was an offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements in the late 1960s. The Yippies were known for street theater and politically-themed pranks, and had been called “Groucho Marxists.” 

After Larry Flint announced in 1978 that he was resigning as publisher of Hustler, the porn magazine, because he had become a born-again Christian, Flint said that Paul Krassner should replace him. Krassner told People Magazine, “I know it’s bizarre, but if God told him to hire me, I ain’t going to argue about it, even if I’m a born-again agnostic.” Krassner became publisher of Hustler for six months, until Larry Flint came back to his senses as an atheist.

I think Paul Krassner summed up his philosophy nicely when he said, “We know we are all sentenced to death. People cannot become prisoners of guilts and fears. They should cling to each moment and take what enjoyment they can.” For Krassner, joy was not merely hedonistic pleasures, but remaining active in causes dear to him while keeping a sense of humor. 

Jacobsen: What advice do you have for youth? 

Silverman: It is difficult to come up with advice that doesn’t incorporate the advice above from Lenny Bruce and Paul Krassner. But one way the three of us are different is that I don’t do drugs as they did, though I certainly favor legalizing marijuana and other drugs. Using drugs may be imprudent, but it makes no sense to arrest people for being imprudent, incarcerating them, and then giving us taxpayers the bill to keep them locked up. Unfortunately, Lenny Bruce died from a morphine overdose. One thing that Lenny, Paul, and I do have in common is that we are all Jews who don’t believe in any gods. Perhaps that ties in with the importance of having a sense of humor. 

So, my advice for youth is to keep a sense of humor while remaining active in causes you care about. Unless you can have fun when working on a cause, you may quickly tire of it. Yes, you need to work hard. But you need to find ways to enjoy your work, and your life. 


Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/02/20

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Nature appears to have a minimum effort to come to certain paths for life. A lot of compromises come with this. Illness, ‘early’ death, malformations, natural abortions by the female body, cognitive ticks, physical and mental limitations, etc., that’s evolution’s compromise with the world. Coming to terms with the world, the real and natural world, will happen sooner or later, on the promenade of life, people have to step out and dance, eventually. What else is life for, exactly, but to dance – so to speak? Do you see the coming to terms with the world and make compromises with one’s surrounding important for living a fulfilling life? 

Dr. Herb Silverman: You certainly express well why it makes no sense to believe in an all- powerful, omnibenevolent god who created a world with the kind of malformations you describe. We are the products of evolution. We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels. Apes often had to kill to survive, and human apes have done a lot of killing and committed many atrocities. Yet the issue for me is not how low humans have sunk, but how high humans have risen. Steven Pinker provides evidence for our rise in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Lately we have seen advances in human rights, in part because many people have rejected or re-interpreted some features of biblically-based morality.

Life itself is a once-in-eternity chance to experience the universe like no other living creature can. We accept that animals do not think they have a reason to exist and yet, just because we have a more advanced brain, we seek purposes or reasons to exist. We are the fortunate result of billions of years of evolution that happened to form what we call life. 

But I wouldn’t refer to “evolution’s compromise with the world.” Despite the limitations that are placed on us by evolution (we can’t fly or live forever), we can, as you say, “step out and dance.” So, better to enjoy life no matter what, because it can always get worse. Each of us will dance differently as we strive to lead fulfilling lives. I think compromises with our surroundings consist of what we can do to improve our environment. At our particular moment, we need to find ways to stop or reverse the damage from climate change if we care about what will happen to future generations long after we are dead. It is said that we should think globally and act locally. At the moment, thinking globally about the environment overwhelms me, so I concentrate on acting locally.



J

Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, nature seems like a plural process. Everything going on at once. Same with our lives, hence the random events running around the house and then pooping on our carpets. Some stains never leave, entirely. How can you take on the blips in life in stride rather than saying, “I tried”?

Silverman:  You mention random events, but we are here right now by some stroke of evolutionary luck. We’ve evolved to be able to think critically and dismiss Bronze Age ideas from tribesmen who attributed floods, eclipses, and plagues to punishments from a magical higher power. Rather than focusing on the “poop” in our lives, we should focus on what we’ve accomplished so far, and come up with a plan for what we can accomplish in the future. We all need to be lifelong learners.

I saw a disheartening statistic that 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after they graduate. That reminded me of a clever sign in front of a local library in my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina: “Dinosaurs didn’t read books, and now they are extinct.” If you finish your formal education without understanding your deepest strengths and interests, you have some work to do. Become the author of your life before you go extinct. 
​
Jacobsen: In the midst of life, we can see most of us as good enough. We get along with one another and in our daily lives. Others come as dynamic dynamos, truly incredible souls. The rest – the big mass – of us as rather ordinary, stingy and crummy offshoots. The dynamos get, generally speaking, the best of what life offers due to fortune of Mother Nature’s blessings and the rewards of culture in response to the demands of said talents and special abilities. Even though, the rest of us are the good enough, the trend line of evolution. How can we get the most out of the little we’re given? Even if the time is a brief flicker, we get a life. For those dealing much with the end of life, the good stuff of life seems to come up more, ironically.

Silverman: The conditions into which people are born are due to simple dumb luck. I’m fortunate to have started life without any “blueprint errors,” so I wasn’t encumbered with any special physical or mental limitations. I know that life can be terrible for lots of people with major disabilities. Some families learn how to deal with it well, and others not so well. Attitude is almost everything along with good medical help, and a strong support system is often essential. Though I didn’t have a “silver spoon” growing up, I had a comfortable upbringing. I was also privileged to have been born in a country where I can live safely and comfortably, unlike many people in other countries who risk their lives to escape because of extreme poverty or grave danger to their lives. 

In my retirement years, I’m beginning to reflect on how unnatural an act retirement is. It doesn’t exist anywhere else in nature. Have you ever heard of a retired coyote or a retired lion? A hundred years ago, humans didn’t even have a concept of retirement. Some of us are fortunate enough to be able to enjoy retirement, while continuing to try to make a positive difference in our community and on the causes we care deeply about.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.

Silverman: Thank you for the opportunity to spout off.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/09

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Herb, you made American history for the secular communities. This remains the fact of the matter. In the secular world, you exist as an icon and, in fact, a beloved one, as a mild-mannered liberal Jewish Yankee mathematician atheist who found his way, ironically, into the world of politics of Republican owned South Carolina. What is the feeling in the latter half of life in reflection of these facts, these achievements? When did American secularism start? What founding philosophy set this forth? Before America existed as a bounded geography, what Native American traditions seem to reflect secular idealsThank you so much for your kind words. I don’t think of myself as an icon, just someone who stumbled into an unusual situation. When I learned in 1990 that our South Carolina Constitution prohibited atheists from holding public office, I spoke to a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union to see how this unconstitutional provision could be changed. He told me that an atheist would need to mount a legal challenge by running for governor, and he said that the very best candidate would be me. There was no competition, so after giving it some thought, I agreed to be the Candidate Without a Prayer. Finally, in 1997 the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled unanimously in my favor, nullifying the anti-atheist clause in the South Carolina Constitution. All the credit for my Supreme Court victory belongs to my lawyers. I was just having fun giving talks and writing about my experiences. I also learned about and became engaged with the secular movement, leading me to help organize what became the Secular Coalition for America.

​I’m optimistic about the future. The secular movement is growing, both formally through secular organizations and informally through “nones.” The “nones,” those who don’t subscribe to any faith, are the fastest growing “religion” in the United States, especially among young people. Some of the “nones” got fed up with their conservative religion that was anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s rights, and anti-science, with little emphasis on loving their neighbor. Pedophilia has also discouraged people from maintaining their church affiliation. On the other hand, religious fundamentalists continue to flourish during this period of increasing secularization. Influence of religion at the highest levels of government under Donald Trump has never been stronger. It is up to secularists working with all who favor separation of religion and government to counter the influence of religion in government. Religious fundamentalists often claim that America is a Christian nation. It is, in the same way that America is predominantly a white nation. The majority of Americans are both white and Christian. However, we are not now, nor have we ever officially been, a white nation or a Christian nation. Those who believe America was once a Christian nation may be hearkening back to the first Europeans who settled here, before America became a nation. Those Pilgrims and Puritans were religious dissenters from Europe who sought freedom of worship in America for their own religion, but most definitely not for other religions. They had no use for religious liberty. Most of the early colonies made blasphemy a crime, an offense that could be punishable by death. Those colonies were mostly theocracies, where people who believed in the “wrong” religion were excluded from government participation and persecuted. For example, the Puritans, who established Massachusetts Bay colony in 1630, required all Massachusetts citizens to pay a tax to the Puritan Church. This church-state union led to the Salem witch trials of 1692, based on the biblical mandate: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” In the American Revolution that started in 1776, political leaders began to construct a new federal government. The soon-to-be United States of America not only declared independence from England, but also declared something even more radical—that “Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Americans rejectedkings crowned by bishops, who had been supposedly vested with a God-given authority to rule through “divine right.” The framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted no part of the religious intolerance and bloodshed they saw in Europe. They wisely established the first government in history to separate religion and government. James Madison, affectionately known as the Father of our Constitution, said, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the endless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.” Our founders understood the devastating nature of holy wars. They wisely established a secular nation whose authority rests with “We the People” (the first three words of the U.S. Constitution) and not with “Thou the Deity.” Our founders were products of the Enlightenment. We can consider many of them freethinkers who felt that humans should not be governed by faith in the supernatural, but on reason and evidence from the natural world. Some were deists, believing in Nature’s God who set the laws of nature in motion and then retired as deity emeritus. Before Darwin and what we know of modern science, I, too, might have been a deist at that time. The founders wrote the Constitution as a secular document, not because they were hostile to Christianity or religion but because they did not want the new federal government to have authority over religion or to meddle in it. Government must not favor one religion over another, or religion over non-religion. That’s why there are only two references to religion in the Constitution, and both are exclusionary. One is Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” The other is in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This guarantees American citizens freedom of conscience, the right to practice any religion or no religion. No one’s religious liberty should feel threatened when the wall of separation between government and religion is kept strong and high. There is only one “religious liberty” Americans lack: The freedom to enlist the government to force others to acknowledge or support specific religious ideas. Unlike what many religious fundamentalists think, government neutrality is not government hostility toward religion. Our secular laws are based on the human principle of “justice for all,” and our civil government enforces those laws through a secular criminal justice system.  Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in literature, might have foreseen what could happen if the religious right were to triumph in America. In 1939, he made this chilling statement after spending six months observing Hitler’s rise in Germany: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag carrying a cross.”  Beginning with Christopher Columbus, many Native Americans (then called savages) were enslaved and forced to convert to Christianity. They lost their land and were later forcibly put onto reservations, leaving the rich land they had lived on to Christian settlers ready to work for God and Country. The majority of Native American tribes, many of whom were agricultural, hadno concept of dominion over the land. Most Native American religions did not distinguish between the spiritual world and the natural world. Few Native American religions were considered absolutely unchangeable. Traditions varied from group to group, making their spirituality much less rigid than Christianity. What I like about Native American religions is that they don’t try to convert anyone. They accept that people have the religious freedom to believe and practice whatever they want. That’s also true of some religions today, but the most troublesome religious denominations are those that feel they deserve special rights and that they are obligated by God to convince everyone else of their one and only “truth.”

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/15

If you reflect on the Silverman v. Campbell of 1996/1997 through the South Carolina Supreme Court case, and other notable and similar cases – especially those that lost, what is the silver lining in this and other cases? Other positives around even some of the negative issues that may emerge from this, e.g., the reinvigoration of religious fundamentalists to push harder than before.

Winning is good, but sometimes losing is better—especially when a loss leads to much bigger wins. I’ll illustrate with a personal example. In 1989, a colleague at the College of Charleston pointed out that our South Carolina Constitution prohibited atheists from becoming governor. While I’m no constitutional scholar, I knew this violated Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits religious tests as qualification for any public office. I went to the American Civil Liberties Union office to ask an attorney there how this obviously unconstitutional provision could be removed. The lawyer said, “The best way is for an open atheist to become a candidate.” He added, smiling, “In fact, the very best candidate would be you—in a 1990 race for governor of South Carolina.” After giving this surprising suggestion much thought, I agreed to run as the candidate without a prayer. I assumed, in my political naïveté, that the state attorney general would then simply consent to bring South Carolina into compliance with federal law, and that would end the matter. My lawyer knew better. When a reporter asked South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell what he thought of my candidacy and constitutional challenge, Campbell said, “The South Carolina Constitution is fine just as it is because this country was founded on Godly principles.”

My day in court came about a month before the gubernatorial election. Presiding judge David Norton had recently been appointed to the U.S. District Court on recommendation by U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, a famously conservative senator. My attorney argued against the state’s three lawyers and was not optimistic of victory, even though privately the state’s lawyers acknowledged we were legally correct. It was discouraging to hear that the law isn’t always the primary criterion in deciding cases. A few days before the election, Judge Norton dismissed my case on the grounds that it was not ripe, meaning he would only rule on its merits if I won the election. To the surprise of no one, I lost. 

But I’m an optimistic kind of guy, and I always look for positives in a situation. The best for me personally was that I met Sharon Fratepietro when I spoke at the Unitarian Church during my campaign. She volunteered to help, became my one and only groupie, and we’ve been together ever since.

I then learned in 1991 that South Carolina’s Constitution prohibited atheists from serving in any public office, and notary public would be the easiest one to challenge. The U.S. Supreme Court in Torcaso v. Watkins had struck down an identical provision in the Maryland state Constitution in 1961. If South Carolina were to grant me a notary public license, it would be an admission by the state that religious tests could no longer be a qualification for public office. 

My attorney expected this notary campaign to be successful and shorter than my gubernatorial campaign. Shorter, it was not! Governor Campbell rejected my notary application. When we asked why, he said it would be too burdensome to explain all notary public rejections. But in 1994 we learned that there had been 33,471 notary public applications approved in that time period, and that mine was the only one rejected. As far as I know, I’m the only one in the history of South Carolina to be rejected as a notary public. I then won my case in several lower courts, but the state kept filing appeals.

My lawyer took an 86-page deposition from Governor Campbell in 1995. Among Campbell’s many convoluted responses, here is what he said about why it might be permissible to deny office based on religious beliefs: “Would it be right to have somebody running for public office that was avowed to overthrow and destroy the United States of America, and they didn’t believe in a supreme being but they believed in a foreign government, and they call that a religion?”

Finally, in 1997 the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled unanimously in my favor, nullifying the anti-atheist clause in the state Constitution. 

Although the Religious Right was ultimately unsuccessful, my case indicated the influence they can exert over politicians. None of the political leaders in South Carolina, and certainly not the lawyers advising them, believed they could prevail legally if I continued to pursue my case. Yet those same politicians demonstrated they would prefer to waste time and taxpayer money (close to $100,000 on court fees) on a lost cause rather than risk the wrath and lose the votes of a well-organized Religious Right. 

Mine was a case where the law was unambiguously on our side. Atheists and humanists are somewhat divided on how much effort to put into legal challenges for which there may not be legal precedent, and which could create bad law. Such challenges might also stereotype us as unpatriotic Americans who are trying to destroy all forms of religious expression. Examples include removing “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, changing the “In God We Trust” motto, and removing government erections of exclusively Christian monuments on public property. For the record, win or lose, I usually support such challenges. 
​
I think we need to make our voice heard and to educate the public. Most don’t know that “under God” was only added to the Pledge during the shameful McCarthy era, turning a secular, inclusive pledge into a divisive, religious one. Or that the de facto motto established by our founders had been E Pluribus Unum, which is Latin for “out of many, one.” Again, this was changed during the McCarthy era, a substitution that excludes an increasing number of Americans who trust and believe in no gods. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on February 27in a case brought by the American Humanist Association onthe constitutionality of a 40-foot-tall Christian cross towering over an intersection in Bladensburg, Maryland.

There are some well-meaning Christian in the United States who think we are all Christian, or at least that we are all religious. We must do a better job in educating our populace about the importance of separation of religion and government (with lawsuits as a last, but sometimes necessary, resort). We need to proudly promote our founding as a secular country that does not favor one religion over another, or religion over nonreligion, and that the “nones,” those with no religious affiliation, are the country’s fastest growing demographic.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/03/01

Activism, by its nature – real active involvement in community civic and political life, requires sacrifices. How should secular activists gauge their ability to participate in the variety of activist efforts available to them, not only in terms of opportunity costs between different activist efforts but also the costs to aspects of their lives and liabilities to personal safety?

Perhaps the most important and effective thing for secular activists to do is to come out of the closet. Attitudes toward gays changed rapidly when people learned that their friends, neighbors, and even family members were gay. Attitudes about atheists are slowly changing as atheists are slowly coming out, especially among millennials. 

You’ve probably heard there has never been an atheist president, but the truth is that there has never been an open atheist president. I expect there have been several closeted atheist presidents. Barney Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress, only acknowledged that he was an atheist after he retired from Congress. I also doubt that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is the only Jewish socialist in the country who believes in God. A recent Harris survey showed that 52% of Jews (myself included) do not believe in God. https://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/jewsdontbelieve/
​
The bad news about coming out of the closet is that you might lose some friends, though I would question what kind of friendship it is if you can’t be honest about who you are. Of course, caution may well be necessary when dealing with religious family members or employers. The good news is that you will gain friends. I’ve heard from people who guardedly mentioned their secularism to friends and coworkers and were pleasantly surprised by a “Me, too” response. Better to be comfortable in your own skin than to hide who you are in order to please those you might not respect. 

I think it’s counterproductive to come out as arrogant atheists. We should not gratuitously bash religion or become atheist evangelists, promoting atheism to those who have shown no interest in discussing religion. We can answer questions about our naturalistic worldview without trying to convince others to adopt it. If questioners are open-minded enough to consider our views thoughtfully, some may convince themselves that atheism makes sense, as many of us did. 

We mostly want our worldview to be respected in a culture where many distrust us because we don’t believe in a judging God who will reward or punish us in an afterlife. When I hear such concerns, I ask how their behavior would change if they stopped believing in God. If it wouldn’t, then it doesn’t make sense for them to think we are less moral. If behavior would change because of God belief, what kind of morality is that? I like to emphasize behavior over belief, that we are good for goodness’ sake. Religious or not, silent evangelism might be the most effective approach for all of us. People are likely to respect our worldview more for what we do, than for what we preach.

Here are some things to do in our community, while respectfully (as appropriate) describing our worldview. Write letters to the editor, especially countering those that promote ridiculous or unfair religious ideas.Write letters tomembers of Congress and local politicians, even visiting them in their offices. Support candidates (including financially) who share your values. Those who want to commit more of their time and energy could consider running for public office. There are important offices that might not be too competitive—perhaps local school board positions in some communities.

Atheists need to reach out to and work with progressive religionists who support separation of religion and government, and who judge people more on their deeds than on their creeds. That includes organizations like The Interfaith Alliance, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Catholics for Free Choice, and other allies in liberal churches.When we meet people face to face, we are more likely to become friends and break stereotypes. Working with diverse groups provides an additional benefit of gaining more visibility and respect for our perspective. Improving the public perception of secular Americans may be as important to some of us as pursuing a particular political agenda.

My bottom line advice for atheists is to do what you enjoy doing, according to your comfort level. I understand why many atheists, especially in the Bible Belt, are quiet about their religious views so they won’t appear impolite or offend others. However, being polite by avoiding conflicts has never been a guiding light for me.

I think a top priority for most of us should be to fight (nonviolently) against those who try to force their religious beliefs on people who don’t share such beliefs. Especially politicians. Government must not favor one religion over another or religion over non-religion. Religious liberty must include the right for taxpayers to choose whether to support religion and which to support. Forcing taxpayers to privilege and subsidize religions they don’t believe in is akin to forcing them to put money in the collection plates of churches, synagogues, or mosques. 

Some secular activists may be disappointed because they haven’t seen change fast enough. But we are evolutionists, not creationists. Evolution takes a long time. Whenever you feel discouraged by slow progress, keep this in mind: If we do nothing, nothing will change. You don’t have to do it all, but I hope you will all do something. I hope we will one day see an America that respects secular viewpoints and an America where the influence of conservative religion is mainly limited to within the walls of churches, not the halls of Congress.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/22

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are the pragmatics or the first practical considerations of secular activism?

Herb Silverman: What to do, when to do it, and how to frame it? Those are the questions. Since open secularists are still a minority, we must pick and choose our battles. We do not ask for special rights, as many religions do. But we deserve and should demand equal rights in a country with a secular (and godless) Constitution, which does not favor one religion over another or religion over non-religion. We can focus on win-win situations, where we either gain equality or get sympathy for being discriminated against.

As a personal example, the Charleston City Council in South Carolina started its meetings with an invocation, usually a Christian one. Our local Secular Humanist group persuaded one council member to offer more diversity, and he invited me to give an invocation. But as the mayor introduced me, half the council members walked out because they knew I was an atheist. They didn’t return until it was time for the Pledge of Allegiance, and they turned toward me as they bellowed the words “under God.” Those who heard my invocation, including the mayor, thought it was fine.
​
I didn’t expect such defiance, but it was an opportunity for the “Law of Unintended Consequences.” A reporter from our local newspaper wrote about the incident, along with comments from those who walked out. One councilman quoted Psalm 14: “The fool says in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt, their deeds are vile, there is not one who does good.” He then told me that the walkout was not personal. In other words, his religious beliefs compelled him to demonize an entire class of people he was elected to represent. Frankly, I would rather it had been personal. Another councilman said, “He can worship a chicken if he wants to, but I’m not going to be around when he does it.” I responded, “Perhaps the councilman doesn’t realize that many of us who stand politely for religious invocations believe that praying to a god makes no more sense than praying to a chicken.” (At least you can see a chicken.)

Several days later, six favorable letters appeared in the paper criticizing the improper behavior of council members. I can’t tell you how unusual and satisfying it is for Christians in South Carolina to side with atheists against other Christians. Movements are most successful when they appeal to folks outside the group.

It helps to establish a relationship with a religion reporter, who often looks for different kinds of stories. For example, a reporter once asked if atheists in our local group celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday when Americans thank God for their blessings. Here is the answer from one of our secularists that appeared in the paper: “We gather with friends and family, just like most Americans, and know whom to thank for our Thanksgiving meal. We thank the farmers who cared for the plants and the migrant workers who harvested them. We thank the workers at the processing plant and the truck drivers who brought the food to the grocery store. And finally, we thank our friends for helping prepare the meal and for being present to share in the festivities.”
The newspaper got some angry letters about our members not thanking God, but several secular humanists heard about us for the first time and joined our group. That became a pattern. Whenever we received media attention, we’d hear from people who disliked us and also from people who wanted to join us. It was easily worth the trade-off. Almost all publicity is good.

One of the difficulties in getting independent-minded secularists to cooperate revolves around labels. An atheist is simply someone without a belief in any gods, while a secular humanist focuses on being good without gods. These are two sides of the same coin. Many secularists are uncomfortable with the word “atheist” because it describes what we don’t believe, rather than what we do believe. After all, we don’t go around calling ourselves A-Easter Bunnyists or A-Tooth Fairyists. “Atheist” gets more media attention and “humanist” gets more respect from the general public. Other labels include freethinker, skeptic, agnostic, ignostic, rationalist, naturalist, materialist, apatheist, and more. If you don’t know what each word means, don’t worry. Even those who identify with such labels often disagree on their meanings. Parsing words might be a characteristic of folks engaged in the secular movement.

Certainly word choices can be important, but our special designations are sometimes nothing more than a matter of taste or comfort level rather than deep theological or philosophical differences. We are more effective when we let each person use the word with which they are most comfortable, rather than try to “convert” secularists to their favorite word.

Here’s an interesting distinction between Christians and secularists: Christians have the same unifying word, but fight over theology; secularists have the same unifying theology, but fight over words. At least our wars are only verbal.
​
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Herb.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): HerbSilverman.Com

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/15

Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America. Here we talk about his life, work, and views. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was early life like for you, e.g., geography, culture, language, religion or lack thereof, education, and family structure and dynamics?

Herb Silverman: I was born in Philadelphia, where I lived for 21 years until I ran away from home to graduate school. My family consisted largely of Orthodox Jews, though my parents were more cultural Jews motivated by anti-Antisemitism. Having had relatives who died in the Holocaust, they did not trust any Goyim (Gentiles), and had as little contact with them as possible. We lived in a Jewish neighborhood and after public school I would go to an Orthodox Hebrew school. My mother was an authoritarian, who made all the family decisions. My father worked in a warehouse his entire life, packing Hershey bars that were shipped to underground subway stands. In another era, my mother would have had a job (other than cleaning house and “taking care” of me), which would have made both of us happier. 

Jacobsen: What levels of formal education have been part of life for you? How have you informally self-educated?

Silverman: My formal education consisted of a Bachelor’s degree from Temple University in 1963 and a Masters (1965) and Ph.D. (1968) in mathematics from Syracuse University. My informal education consisted of learning to think for myself and figuring out when to go along with conventional wisdom and when to step to the beat of a different drummer.  

Jacobsen: You have a number of illustrious merits to the personal record. One is the founding of the Secular Coalition for America. Another is the founding of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry. A third is the founding of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. This leads to some obvious questions. Why found each one of them?

Silverman: Regarding the formation of the Secular Coalition for America, I learned in the 1990s about national organizations that identified as atheists, agnostics, humanists, secular humanists, freethinkers, secularists, and more. They all promoted causes I supported, like church-state separation and increasing respect for nontheists. However, each organization was doing its own thing without recognizing or cooperating with worthwhile efforts of like-minded groups.  I thought this was a shortcoming that needed to be addressed if we were to make a difference in our culture. So, I contacted all the organizations I could, and some agreed to meet at the Godless Americans March in Washington in 2002, where we decided to form a new coalition.  

Regarding the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry in Charleston, South Carolina, whenever I received media attention I would get calls from people thanking me and saying they thought they were the only atheist in South Carolina. I took their names and we formed the SHL in 1994.  

Regarding the Atheist/Humanist Alliance, a student came to my office in 1998 and asked about starting a student group at the College of Charleston similar to the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry. I was thrilled and agreed to be its faculty advisor. Despite an attempt by a few Christian students in the Student Council to oppose giving official club status to the group, we prevailed. 

Jacobsen: How have these initiatives, founded by you, grown over time?

Silverman: The Secular Coalition for America started with 4 organizations and no budget, and we have grown to 20 national organizations with a dedicated board and staff.  We were the first organization to lobby Congress, in Washington DC, for the rights of nontheists. Initially, I hoped just to have our organizations cooperate on the 95% we had in common instead of arguing about the 5% that set us apart, like which label to use. 
We succeeded far beyond my expectations, since we’ve become a respected and productive lobbying organization in our nation’s capital.

The Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry has grown from a few people who met informally into a vibrant organization that meets regularly for lectures, book discussions, social and charitable events.

When the Atheist/Humanist Alliance first met, several students talked about friends or roommates who shunned them because of their nonbelief. These atheist students came to meetings because they needed a supportive community. Gradually attitudes at the College of Charleston have changed and now students worry far less about becoming unpopular because of openly being atheists. I’ve even heard students say they joined the club because atheist students are pretty cool. They are, but they were also cool in 1998. I’m encouraged by the younger generation’s wider acceptance of diversity. 

Jacobsen: As a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the College of Charleston, how has acquired knowledge, developed skills, and recognized and nurtured talent in mathematics provided a foundation for secular humanist philosophy? In that, I assume this produced a way of thinking apart from revelation, magical thinking, and assertions of a there-before or a here-after.

Silverman: My secular humanist philosophy started long before I became a math professor. As a teenager, I decided to take from my Orthodox Jewish background only what made sense. The good works (secular humanism) remained, but not the irrelevant rituals and beliefs. Pretty soon, I realized that the God I once accepted made no sense. 
When I read Bertrand Russell’s Why I am Not a Christian, I realized that there were others who thought like me. In fact, Russell might have inspired me to become a mathematician. 
Jacobsen: Why did you run for Governor of South Carolina in 1990? What was the outcome? What are the lessons for others to learn from this experience?

Silverman: I had been a quiet atheist until a colleague at the College of Charleston pointed out that our South Carolina Constitution prohibits atheists from becoming governor. I knew the US Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office. So, I went to the American Civil Liberties Union, and its lawyer told me that an atheist would need to mount a legal challenge by running for governor. He said that the very best candidate would be me. I looked around, and didn’t see any competition. After giving it some thought, I agreed to be the ‘Candidate Without a Prayer.’ To the surprise of no one, I lost the gubernatorial election. But after an eight-year legal battle, I won a unanimous decision in the South Carolina Supreme Court, nullifying the anti-atheist clause in our state constitution.  One lesson is that any individual can make a difference by going outside his or her comfort zone, especially when you have right on your side. 

You also get to meet many interesting people. The best for me personally is that I met Sharon Fratepietro, who volunteered for my campaign, became my campaign manager, and my one and only groupie. We have been happily together for 29 years, and she doesn’t mind being married to someone who never became governor. 

Jacobsen: As an author in the secular humanist tradition, what is important, now, in the continual growth of secular humanist literature?If you were a young person reading this, what authors or books would you recommend for them on secular humanism? If you were an advanced graduate student, what would you recommend for them, in terms of reading in the same genre?

Silverman: For young people I would recommend The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins, and for even younger people I would also recommend Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide for Young Skeptics by Dan Barker. I wouldn’t distinguish books for advanced graduate students from books for all adults. We have a disproportionate number of people in our movement with advanced academic degrees, and I hope we can significantly broaden our base. A small subset of books I recommend are A Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, god is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby, and the History of God by Karen Armstrong. And to be unabashedly self-promoting, I also recommend my two books Candidate Without a Prayer and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land.

Jacobsen: In an examination of the current fiascos of the Trump Administration, what do you see as the more important areas of work for the activists of secularism and humanism?

Silverman: Well, first the good news. Donald Trump has unintentionally become perhaps the best fundraiser for atheist and humanist organizations. Many apatheists now realize the need to get involved politically and to promote our point of view instead of being demonized by the fake news coming from Trump. Just as evangelicals have recently apologized for their support of slavery and segregation, I predict that one day evangelicals will apologize for their support of the “Christian” Donald Trump.  In the meantime, join and support organizations that promote our issues and are fighting to keep our secular democracy from turning into a theocracy. 

Jacobsen: How can people become involved through the donation of time, the addition of membership, links to professional and personal networks, giving monetarily, exposure in interviews or writing articles, and so on?

Silverman: Start locally, and then think about becoming active nationally. Join a group if one is near you or perhaps start a local group. Check the Internet for national organizations that support forming local groups. Do what feels right for you and what makes you feel good. It could be coming out of the closet as an atheist or humanist, writing letters to the editor, enlighten people who assume we are all Christians living in a Christian country. Also, consider running for public office (not necessarily for governor). For all the faults of the Christian Coalition, they had a good strategy of taking over local offices and school boards. We even chose the name Secular Coalition in opposition to the Christian Coalition. If you can, donate to organizations you admire. There is an expression “Give until it hurts,” which is better modified to “Give until it feels good.”  This usually means giving to organizations that do good and where you know your money will make a difference. That’s why I feel good about my largest donation going to the Secular Coalition for America. 

Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts based on the conversation today?

Silverman: I’m cautiously optimistic about the future because the largest growing demographic are the “nones,” those who don’t identify with any religion. They are disproportionately large among young people. My goal as an old fart (76) is to help pave the way for younger people to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheists in our culture. To those who are less optimistic that their actions will make a difference, remember that if you do nothing, then nothing will change. Find something to do, and do it!

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time.

Silverman: And thank you for the opportunity to spout off. 

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