Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/21
“Western University has released a draft freedom of expression policy, in advance of the province’s Jan 1. deadline for all publicly funded universities and colleges to implement and comply with such a policy.
If schools don’t comply with a minimum free speech requirement, they risk losing their funding. Individually, students who violate free speech policy will be subject to campus discipline measures.
So far, Western’s own draft policy is more or less a summary of the school’s existing policies that touch on free speech, according to Michael Milde, chair of the provost’s ad hoc committee on freedom of expression.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/draft-free-speech-policy-released-western-university-1.4865049.
“It’s been an eventful week for what we used to call truth. The Saudi government has finally admitted that Jamal Khashoggi has been killed, although its account of how this happened is as implausible as the various denials it supplants. That we rely on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the world’s most enthusiastic jailer of journalists, to help establish the facts is one of the ironies of a post-truth world.
Talk about the demise of truth is always liable to sound histrionic and naive. After all, we have long been told that the prince must be “a great feigner and dissembler” (this is Machiavelli, not the House of Saud), and “realists” ever since have stressed the usefulness of illusions and the necessity of lies. Indeed, recent research by Ezra Zuckerman Sivan indicates that a large constituency of voters expect their political heroes to lie on their behalf.
Politics, for the hard nosed, is about power and it may be unrealistic to think that it can be made subordinate to other ends, such as truth. It is also easy to ignore how the pursuit of truth can breed a fundamentalism of its own, a point made by Edmund Burke during the French Revolution. The “philosophical fanatics” of France, he maintained, prioritised abstract truths about justice over civility and mutual convenience, with disastrous consequences for everyone.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/21/orwell-free-speech-important-not-enough.
“A note from Karen Attiah, Washington Post Global Opinions editor:
I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.
I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.””
“YANGON — Freedom of expression under the National League for Democracy-led government is worsening despite initial hopes of improvement, youth activist group Athan said Thursday, in a mid-term report that documents a litany of charges filed in the past two-and-a-half years under laws that violate freedom of speech.
Initial signs when the government took office in April 2016 were promising, the report says: students who were arrested and prosecuted the previous year for marching from Mandalay to Yangon in protest against the National Education Law were freed and pardons were granted to imprisoned activists, workers and farmers.
But euphoria surrounding the amnesty soon dwindled and the government and parliament began to “intentionally and recklessly” restrict freedom of expression using an array of oppressive laws, according to Athan. Some of these laws date from the colonial era but a majority have been enacted or used for the first time to restrict freedom of expression only in recent years.”
“Mai Khoi, a dissident musician dubbed Vietnam’s Lady Gaga, has appealed to Facebook’s directors to safeguard freedom of expression as the government looks to bolster its control of the web.
With 53 million users, Facebook is extremely popular in Vietnam — where the internet has become a battleground for activists like Khoi.
A controversial cybersecurity bill, due to come into effect in January, will require internet companies to remove “toxic” content and hand over user data if asked by the communist government to do so.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/21
“The federal government’s sweeping environmental legislation, which is now before the Senate, has the potential to undermine the hard-won gains of Indigenous people in the natural-resource economy. But C-69 is being rushed through by a government that does not seem to understand its obligations to consult comprehensively with Indigenous peoples.
As we have seen repeatedly in recent years, the government of Canada appears to consult primarily with people and organizations that share its views on environment issues. It pays much less attention to other Indigenous groups, equally concerned about environmental sustainability, who seek a more balanced approach to resource development.
Since his government was elected in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly spoken about his personal commitment to a new relationship with Indigenous people in Canada. In action, however, he has clearly privileged those Indigenous peoples, our friends and relatives, whose perspective aligns with the more radical environmental movement.”
“A few weeks ago, Romeo Saganash, the NDP member of Parliament for Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou dropped an f-bomb in the House of Commons. He was clearly frustrated with the Liberals’ determination to proceed with the Trans Mountain pipeline despite First Nations opposition.
“Why doesn’t the prime minister just say the truth and tell Indigenous peoples that he doesn’t give a f**k about their rights?” he asked the stunned members of the House of Commons.
Of course, he was called out by the Speaker and told to apologize, which he did in French. Saganash is trilingual and fluent in Cree, English and French. The prime minister wasn’t in the house at the time, but you can be sure he heard all about it.”
Source: https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/columnists/cuthand-changes-are-afoot-among-first-nations.
“Prisoners who are of both Black and Indigenous background report that they face discrimination in jail based on their mixed heritage.
There have recently been a number of stories about white people falsely claiming Indigenous ancestry. Jorge Barrera’s investigation for APTN established that author Joseph Boyden has no traceable Indigenous ancestors. Elizabeth Warren’s claims of being Cherokee have been comprehensively refuted by Kim Tallbear. Darryl Leroux’s research has uncovered “race shifting” among white groups in Quebec and Nova Scotia who originally had ties to white supremacist groups and now identify as Metis.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/21
“Vice President Mike Pence has always encouraged his three children to make his Christian faith their own. But in order to do that, at least one of his daughters had teetered on the brink of atheism.
Pence’s 25-year-old daughter, Charlotte, released her new book, Where You Go: Life Lessons From My Father, on Tuesday. While the book focuses on the advice and words of wisdom that her father has offered her and her siblings throughout their upbringing, it also touches on the personal struggles of faith that the middle child faced as she spent a year studying abroad in England at the age of 21.
It is no secret that Pence and his wife, Karen, are devout evangelical Christians who are living out their faith in the public limelight that comes with the title of “Second Family” of the United States.”
“Perhaps the best way to characterize Camille Beredjick is atheism with a smile.
A writer, blogger, and nonprofit digital media strategist, she has been writing about LGBTQ issues for Hemant Mehta’s website Friendly Atheist for years. Recently, she has written a self-published book, “Queer Disbelief: Why LGBTQ Equality Is an Atheist Issue,” available on Amazon.
In the book Beredjick acknowledges the unprecedented progress LGBTQ people have made in the past decade, but recognizes they have a ways to go before achieving true equality, especially politically. Not surprisingly, she attributes the main roadblock as being conservative religious interests. She believes atheists could help LGBTQ people in their fight for equal rights. Beredjick, who identifies as a lesbian, was interviewed by the Bay Area Reporter via email.”
Source: https://www.ebar.com/news/books//266896.
“In Russia, there is a religious revival happening. Orthodox Christianity is thriving after enduring a 70-year period of atheistic Soviet rule. In 1991, just after the collapse of the USSR, about two-thirds of Russians claimed no religious affiliation. Today, 71 percent of Russians identify as Orthodox. One can now see priests giving sermons on television, encounter religious processions in St. Petersburg, and watch citizens lining up for holy water in Moscow. Even Moscow’s Darwin museum features a Christmas tree during the holidays. President Vladimir Putin has encouraged this revival and he has also benefited from it, both at home and abroad. Last year, he explained that Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war was designed to protect Christians from the Islamic State. Not only has the Orthodox Church supported this “holy war” but so have some American evangelicals, who are likewise concerned about Christians in the Middle East and praise Putin’s socially conservative policies.”
Source: https://religionandpolitics.org/2018/10/16/russias-journey-from-orthodoxy-to-atheism-and-back-again/.
“Mary Midgley, who has died aged 99, was a moral philosopher who made enormous contributions to human thinking on questions such as the self, our animal heritage and our place in the universe. Although not a believer in any god, she was a staunch advocate of religion, frequently finding herself pitched against scientific orthodoxy and defending the right of individuals to maintain religious and scientific ideas in parallel.
She saw her role as a philosopher as being able to unite and reconcile extremes of thinking, to bring shades of grey to a domain of polarised black-and-white ideas. “Moral philosophers are back in the world, which is certainly the right place for them”, she writes in the conclusion of her 1999 book, Wisdom, Information and Wonder.
Midgley was born Mary Scrutton in London a year after the First World War, the daughter of Lesley and Tom Scrutton, a curate who later became chaplain of King’s College, Cambridge. Her interest in philosophy first developed at Downe House School, Berkshire. She recalls in her biography: “I had decided to read classics rather than English — which was the first choice that occurred to me — because my English teacher, bless her, pointed out that English literature is something that you read in any case, so it is better to study something that you otherwise wouldn’t.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/18
Tara Abhasakun is a colleague. We have written together before. I reached out because of the good journalism by her. I wanted to get some expert opinion on women’s rights, journalism, and so on. I proposed a series. She accepted. Abahasakun studied history at The College of Wooster. Much of her coursework was in Middle East history.
After graduating Tara started blogging about the rights of women, LGBT, and minorities in MENA. She is currently a freelance writer. She is of Thai, Iranian, and European descent. She has lived in Bangkok and San Francisco. Here we talk about women’s rights in the US, pornography, and feminist religion.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are the main attacks on women’s rights in the United States?
Tara Abhasakun: I think the most timely issue is the Kavanaugh confirmation. Kavanaugh was confirmed without a full FBI investigation into his possible sexual assaults of three women. On top of that, as we all know, he was nominated by a president who claimed to have grabbed women “by the pussy” so there’s that too. I don’t even know what else to say about either of these things, because they are both so utterly ridiculous, yet they’re apparently both possible, and real.
Jacobsen: The socio-political Left, in general, view pornography with mixed emotional and intellectual evaluations. One branch sees this as legitimate paid work and, in some way, a means for economic independence of some women. Another view argues these are abuses of and exploitation of women. Still, others argue pornography is a branch of sexual liberation, and so on.
People have admired female forms for millennia. They have abused and degraded women for the same time. Also, these have been a basis of economics and trade, even with women as chattel or property to be bought and sold — including for sexual slavery.
Pornography reflects these histories and human propensities as if a prism for renewed reflection of ethics. What seems like the best position to take on pornography in the modern period?
Abhasakun: Firstly, let me acknowledge that there may be many women who truly enjoy working in the porn industry. I think the issue, however, is what “consent” truly means. When there is money involved, and someone knows that they will be paid to perform certain sexual acts, it means that they may feel pressured to perform those sexual acts in order to maintain their livelihood. Is that really consent?
One could argue that this same logic could be applied to any job, and that we all have to have a job, however, I believe that sex is different because sex is something that we usually acknowledge must be wholeheartedly consented to, unlike a desk job in which many people think “I don’t really want to go to work today, but I have to.” In ordinary sexual situations in which no money is involved, we acknowledge that people must give full, enthusiastic consent to sex, and not feel pressured into it. I have a hard time believing that everyone who works in the porn industry is always giving their full, enthusiastic consent, when there is money being dangled in front of them.
I have begun to hear more about feminist porn, and porn being done in more ethical ways. I have not done much research on this, and therefore don’t want to give a definitive answer on what I believe the right answer is. This notion of “feminist porn” however, I want to believe that it’s possible. As of right now, I’m just not entirely sure of how this is being facilitated.
Jacobsen: Following the question on religion and the incorporation of feminism, how might religions incorporate feminism? How can arguments for a higher power help with this?
Abhasakun: I don’t think that belief in a higher power can exactly helps, in fact, clearly, belief in a higher power is used to abuse women.
And yet, the fact of the matter is that many people cannot help but believe in a higher power. Many people have had experiences in which they were very, very likely to die, and something that can only be described as miraculous happened, and they didn’t die. When things like this happen to people, it’s often impossible to convince them that there is not a higher power.
If people are going to believe in a higher power, here’s what needs to happen:
People of faith must begin by looking at their holy texts from objective standpoints. This means that secular education is crucial. All children must be taught to simply read texts, and then come to conclusions, rather than approaching any text with a preconceived idea that it is from God.
People can then begin to view religious texts from a historical standpoint. They can begin to think, “Maybe the treatment of women in this holy text exists because this was written in a backward time period.” Then the question can become “What can I draw from this book that is useful today, and what do I need to discard?” From there, the understanding of God will hopefully move away from a judgemental guy scowling down at all of us, to a force that permeates through the universe.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Tara.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/17
Sara Al Iraqiya is a USA-based 2nd generation Iraqi-American social scientist, writer, and activist. Raised under Sunni Islam and a survivor of attempted radicalization in American mosques and centers — she has both lived experience as well as academic experience with Islam. By age 20, after gaining the freedom to live autonomously and exercising her right to protect herself, she left Islam altogether. Sara aims to educate her fellow Americans and lovers of Western civilization on the horrors, inequalities, and injustices that occur in Western-based mosques and Islamic centers. Sara has been published in two languages (and counting). A world traveler, she briefly lived in France, Jordan, and even Cuba in order to complete her Masters of Arts in Global Affairs specializing in Global Culture and Society. Sara Al Iraqiya has been published in Conatus News and Spain’s ALDE Group.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to the written word, when did you get a start? How did this develop over time into education and professional life?
Sara Al Iraqiya: As soon as I could take a pen to paper. I recall a project in elementary school where we learned about the concept of the biography versus the autobiography. We were asked to write a “tentative autobiography” up to retirement age. I left the graded assignment which was bound like a small booklet in my family home. My dad read it. Since that day, he encouraged me to not only continue writing but to share it with others. He did not know I enjoyed writing up until then. His sister is also a writer and she and I have a special bond — particularly when it comes to our passion for global human rights and of course the cliché “strange writer habits” that we share.
Jacobsen: What seems to demarcate a good and a bad writer, and a great writer from the two of those?
Al Iraqiya: I want to be corny and say there is no such thing as a good writer or a bad writer but I also want to answer your question. Perhaps a bad writer is one who commits plagiarism — I really have zero tolerance for that. Also, I understand that many folks use ghost writers, but that concept has just gone over my head. A great writer takes his or her time. They feel emotionally and perhaps in a sense spiritually moved by words. A great writer is either extremely afraid or extremely unafraid of his or her feelings. The point is to not be afraid to record those sentiments and share them with the world. These are simply my own personal observations.
Jacobsen: We did an interview before. What else is new? What are some new initiatives or projects ongoing at the moment for you?
Al Iraqiya: I am a bit low key when discussing these things. I work in television which is interesting because I do not own a television! I stay posted on the global liberty movement. I notice the liberty movement brings in many different folks with differing proposals to increase freedom and I find it intellectually beneficial to hear from as many of them as I can. Even if I disagree with them. Perhaps especially if I disagree with them.
I moved to New York City — the Big Apple! I absolutely love it because I can be fucking weird and it’s normal here, you know? The city is full of candor. Washington, D.C. was a bit uppity but again I will be corny and say going back to D.C. is very sentimental for me and I enjoy my frequent visits back to my nation’s capital. It is a place I called home for 20+ years. I also love going into the historical outskirts of D.C. such as Mount Vernon. It’s nice to get away from the incessant city noise — but I always have to be back where the action is! I cannot stay away.
Jacobsen: What article are you most proud of writing, and why?
Al Iraqiya: “Muslim-American Femicide and the Intersectional Feminist Enablers” for Conatus News. Because it pissed people off. But many of those same people actually took a step back, questioned their own beliefs, and thought critically about why their visceral reaction was adverse. Thought provoking — I think every writer wants to be thought provoking. Also, it lit a fire under the asses of feminists who did not realize their own bigotry, hypocrisy, and yes — misogyny. I wrote that article for my missing friend. I wrote it for the young women who died for their authenticity. I wrote it for the women who continue to suffer in silence. I also received interesting criticisms which I welcome. Come to me with respect and I am all ears. Civil discourse is not dead!
Jacobsen: Men can be the source of a lot of inspiring work and a lot of horrifying catastrophes. What can men do, and women encourage, for a healthier sense of masculinity for boys becoming men and guys becoming more mature men?
Al Iraqiya: It was the men in my life who inspired me to be the woman I am today. Male family members, male friends, and male mentors. What they all had in common, when I was sort of an isolated walking stereotype of a writer, was “Sara you need to get out there!” They really pumped me up! I cannot thank the wonderful men in my life enough.
What all of the aforementioned men in my life have in common is a high level of success due to their work ethic. As for boys becoming men and men becoming more mature men — the advice I can give regarding healthy masculinity from a woman’s perspective is to embrace your masculinity in a way that makes the most sense to you.
Some men embrace what many call a “feminine” side. Why are we calling it that? Some examples of men who have been described as “feminine” would be artists who incorporate striking and flamboyant physical appearances such as David Bowie, Prince, and Freddie Mercury but I say this is still masculinity. Because it is a male doing it. Merely existing is masculinity. All three were go-getters and trailblazers for their time and place. They were “out there!” Masculinity is not all about being rugged, rough, and tough. It is about vision, determination, and innovation.
Too often I’ve seen men from certain cultural or religious enclaves where there is a pressure to — and I’ll be frank — there is a pressure in those communities to treat women like garbage in order to be considered a so-called “real man.” This is detrimental to something very important for a man’s growth — his relationships with women. You have to take a step back from any toxic communities and practice intellectual autonomy. It is the most precious thing we as free human beings have. I think the healthiest thing a man can do is think for himself. Stay away from counterproductive modes of thought. Just act natural.
Jacobsen: Thank you!
Al Iraqiya: Thank you for interviewing me, Scott. Anytime.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/17
Charlotte Littlewood is the Founding Director of Become The Voice CIC. A grass roots youth centred community interest company that she has built in response to the need to tackle hate, extremism and radicalisation within communities and online.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: To be involved in activist work to humanitarian efforts, it takes an intrinsic level of motivation. Indeed, the focus and perseverance need to be high as well. Finance cannot be the motivating factor. It will have to be ethics. What drives you?
Charlotte Littlewood: So, from a very young age, I was interested in human rights, and what we can do to protect humanity from gross violations of human rights. At school, I was a Holocaust memorial ambassador. I did a law degree with the aim of working in human rights. Whilst doing the law degree, the war in Syria broke out. There was very much a sense of the next human rights issue being around a clash of civilization between East and West, and cultures and religion, rather than states and state power.
I started reading and learning Arabic. I started reading the Quran as well. I come from an atheist background but then I took a big interest in faith and religion in university. I took an interest in Christianity and Islam. I was then equipped for a job in cohesion and integration work — working with faiths and minority groups. Eventually, It led me to start my own community interest company in that. That has always been my drive. It is to tackle human rights abuses and stand for minority rights abuses but from a standpoint of bringing us all together and cohesion.
I don’t work on human rights from the perspective that we should put minorities above everyone else. No matter what they’re believing in or action they’re involved in. It is involving everyone on the same level, bringing everyone together, and making sure no one’s rights are violated. For instance, I would not work with a minority group that believed homosexuals should be thrown off the cliff and stoned to death simply because they are a minority group — as we have seen in a shift with some leftwing thinking.
We are pro-individual liberty and the right to choose sexuality. If you take a key tenet like that, it is about bringing everyone aboard with that way of thinking and protecting those people’s human rights rather than standing with a minority over everyone. That is my belief system. That is what I felt is very important and needed to be done to protect the world from future genocides and huge atrocities against any kind of group. It is bringing us together on the central message of cohesion and belonging togetherness.
Jacobsen: How do you overcome the inevitable setbacks in the process of founding and growing an organization — noting, of course, BTV was started in January 2018?
Littlewood: It is important, to note. We are very, very young. We are only just developing our funding strategy. We had some bits while in Palestine. But we need a more sustainable model. We are working with Think Try Do, which gives free support to Exeter alumna students to build their businesses and social enterprises. They are helping with being more product focused and meeting with schools around the products, getting an idea of what people’s needs and wants are, getting a wishlist in essence, and then matching that with funds to help pay for the work to be done if the school needs it.
We are working with that model for our products. What is needed? Will the funds cover the need? With regard to Palestine, which is a big project that we would like to return to again, we have funding meetings from October 20th to October 24th with thinktanks, philanthropists, and trusts, they will hear our report from the Palestine Project (just finished) and our proposals moving forward.
That is really exciting. But at the moment, it is about building out core objectives and core products, matching what needs and products with have with appropriate funds, and using what we can including free tools — Think Try Do has been useful and then using what other free human resources we can. So, one of my directors is good online. She built the website and doing that for free. It is under the knowledge of paid roles when we get some funding.
My other director coming back to Palestine once we have a project; he will help with the bids and funding. it is about passionate people willing to invest their time, they are also able to put being a director on their CV, which is good. It is getting whatever free support that you can get. I set myself a goal. It is about being realistic. If I haven’t be funded by January or haven’t got the Palestine project funded by a philanthropist or a trust, then I will shift a lot more of the responsibility of the CIC to the directors.
One has a part-time job. One is a masters student; financially, both are comfortable and can do it in their spare time. For me, it is full-time. However, I am optimistic. The meetings for October are promising, I am hoping to talk with you again after that time, to see how it has gone. It can give some insight into whether what we have done is successful. If it successful, it means that we will have our first successful money-raising after 7 months. A lot of CRCs and charities do not see the first bit of significant money for a year.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Charlotte.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/17
Tara Abhasakun is a colleague. We have written together before. I reached out because of the good journalism by her. I wanted to get some expert opinion on women’s rights, journalism, and so on. I proposed a series. She accepted. Abahasakun studied history at The College of Wooster. Much of her coursework was in Middle East history.
After graduating Tara started blogging about the rights of women, LGBT, and minorities in MENA. She is currently a freelance writer. She is of Thai, Iranian, and European descent. She has lived in Bangkok and San Francisco. Here we talk about the main attacks on women’s rights in the US, pornography and ethics, and incorporation of feminism into religion.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are the main attacks on women’s rights in the United States?
Tara Abhasakun: I think the most timely issue is the Kavanaugh confirmation. Kavanaugh was confirmed without a full FBI investigation into his possible sexual assaults of three women. On top of that, as we all know, he was nominated by a president who claimed to have grabbed women “by the pussy” so there’s that too. I don’t even know what else to say about either of these things, because they are both so utterly ridiculous, yet they’re apparently both possible, and real.
Jacobsen: The socio-political Left, in general, view pornography with mixed emotional and intellectual evaluations. One branch sees this as legitimate paid work and, in some way, a means for economic independence of some women. Another view argues these are abuses of and exploitation of women. Still, others argue pornography is a branch of sexual liberation, and so on.
People have admired female forms for millennia. They have abused and degraded women for the same time. Also, these have been a basis of economics and trade, even with women as chattel or property to be bought and sold — including for sexual slavery.
Pornography reflects these histories and human propensities as if a prism for renewed reflection of ethics. What seems like the best position to take on pornography in the modern period?
Abhasakun: Firstly, let me acknowledge that there may be many women who truly enjoy working in the porn industry. I think the issue, however, is what “consent” truly means. When there is money involved, and someone knows that they will be paid to perform certain sexual acts, it means that they may feel pressured to perform those sexual acts in order to maintain their livelihood. Is that really consent?
One could argue that this same logic could be applied to any job, and that we all have to have a job, however, I believe that sex is different because sex is something that we usually acknowledge must be wholeheartedly consented to, unlike a desk job in which many people think “I don’t really want to go to work today, but I have to.” In ordinary sexual situations in which no money is involved, we acknowledge that people must give full, enthusiastic consent to sex, and not feel pressured into it. I have a hard time believing that everyone who works in the porn industry is giving their full, enthusiastic consent, when there is money being dangled in front of them.
I have begun to hear more about feminist porn, and porn being done in more ethical ways. I have not done much research on this, and therefore don’t want to give a definitive answer on what I believe the right answer is. This notion of “feminist porn” however, I want to believe that it’s possible. As of right now, I’m just not entirely sure of how this is being facilitated.
Jacobsen: Following the question on religion and the incorporation of feminism, how might religions incorporate feminism? How can arguments for a higher power help with this?
Abhasakun: People of faith must begin by looking at their holy texts from objective standpoints. This means that secular education is crucial. All children must be taught to simply read texts, and then come to conclusions, rather than approaching any text with a preconceived idea that it is from God.
People can then begin to view religious texts from a historical standpoint. They can begin to think, “Maybe the treatment of women in this holy text exists because this was written in a backward time period.” Then the question can become “What can I draw from this book that is useful today, and what do I need to discard?” From there, the understanding of God will hopefully move away from a judgemental guy scowling down at all of us, to a force that permeates through the universe.
If the understanding of God remains the same as it is for so many religious communities now, then it will be best to lose God entirely. I just happen to think that many people do still need a belief or hope in a higher power.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Tara.
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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.
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“VATICAN CITY — Religions, which are meant to build bridges, contradict their very nature if they stop pursuing the path of peace, Pope Francis said.
“Our differences, therefore, must not pit us one against the other; the heart of a true believer seeks to open paths of communion always and everywhere,” the pope said in a written message to an annual international gathering of religious and cultural leaders.
The Vatican released the pope’s message Oct. 14 as the international “Bridges of Peace” meeting was beginning; the meeting was organized by the Rome-based lay Community of Sant’Egidio and hosted by the Archdiocese of Bologna.”
“ Donald Trump announced “Islam hates us” and then went on to exclude citizens of five Muslim-majority countries from the United States, on the grounds that they are inherently violent and require “extreme vetting.” In the language of critical social theory, Trump “othered” Islam, declaring it intrinsically un-American. It was Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) who introduced a new perspective on the distinction between self and other, arguing that women in her era differentiated themselves with regard to men, whereas men needed no such reference point. She wrote, “He is the Subject; he is the Absolute. She is the Other.” Her insight is just as apposite to the relationship of Christian European culture and Islam. But what if, as I argue in my new book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires, Islam is not Other for those of European cultural heritage but very much Self?”
Source: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/170142.
““I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.”
This phrase before is based on a quote from the 1977 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ short story “Empire of the Ants.” In the revised quote, “robot” replaces “insects,” the idea of the meme being that anything can: llamas, octopi, robo-dogs, you name it.
When it comes to AI overlords, the joke hits closer to home. That’s because there’s a real fear that AI will assume godlike qualities, taking over humanity along with our beloved institutions.”
Source: https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/10/13/ai-effect-on-faith-and-religion/.
“WASHINGTON, D.C. (RNS) — In 2004, as George W. Bush was running for a second presidential term, his campaign asked religious supporters to share their churches’ directories, which staffers hoped to combine with voting registration records. The strategy was criticized by some conservative religious leaders, who felt it violated churchgoers’ privacy, the New York Times reported at the time.
Fourteen years later, the spread of social media and digital profiling has made such privacy concerns seem almost quaint. Powerful data-mining tools allow today’s campaigns to connect religious voters with their political viewpoints and to micro-target ads to fit their particular brand of faith.
“It’s definitely happening at a greater level,” said Terry Schilling, executive director of the conservative American Principles Project.”
Source: https://pres-outlook.org/2018/10/data-mining-gets-religion-as-campaigns-target-voters-of-faith/.
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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.
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“Thaghaleyn cultural institute is to manage the event which will be held on Nov. 29 and Dec. 13, 2018 and Jan. 3 2019 respectively in the cities of Tehran, Mashhad and Qom, Shafaghna website reported on Monday.
The meeting subjects on the general principles of women’s rights in Islam, necessity of same religion in marriage, polygamy, women’s positions (management, judgment and authority).
It also deals with marriage rights, women’s alimony and family management including, education, employment after marriage, woman’s departure from home and husband’s permission.”
Source: https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/428591/Jurisprudential-challenges-of-women-s-rights-to-be-studied.
“TORONTO — Carey Mulligan is a letter writer.
As a young woman with acting aspirations, she wrote to Kenneth Branagh asking for advice after seeing him in “Henry V.” At 16, she wrote to “Mr. Eminem” to tell the rapper what a fan she was of “8 Mile.” After Julian Fellowes visited her school, she wrote to the screenwriter, too, forging a connection that led to meeting casting directors and ultimately landing a part in the 2005 film “Pride & Prejudice.”
“I didn’t have any way into the industry. I didn’t know what my route in was,” says Mulligan. “Sometimes, I feel compelled to write to someone to tell them how brilliant they are. I wrote to Amy Adams after ‘Arrival’ and I was like: ‘You are the best actress on the planet.’”
That Mulligan found her way by seizing it with something as old-fashioned as pen and paper is appropriate. Since her debut in “Pride & Prejudice,” her career has frequently been one of time travel. In a long string of period films, from her breakthrough in the 1961 London-set “An Education” to her latest, “Wildlife,” set in 1960s Montana, she has vividly brought to life portraits of women through history, women whose own paths were too constrained to be freed by sheer force of will and a stamp.”
Source: https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/living/carey-mulligan-on-her-womens-liberation-trilogy-250197/.
“GENEVA (Reuters) — Saudi Arabia must immediately and unconditionally release all women it has detained for campaigning for human rights, officials mandated by the United Nations said on Friday.
Saudi authorities have detained more than a dozen women’s rights activists since May. Most campaigned for the right to drive — which was granted in June — and an end to the kingdom’s male guardianship system, which requires women to obtain the consent of a male relative for major decisions.
Friday’s statement, from experts who report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, called for the release of six women.”
“WOMEN ARE grossly underrepresented in leadership roles in Myanmar and continue to experience widespread discrimination, despite comprising more than 50 percent of the population.
A sharp increase in reported cases of rape in recent years has prompted calls for a special law to protect women in Myanmar, which signed on to the United Nations Convention on Discrimination Against Women in 1997.
Campaigners for gender equality are concerned that most women have only a slim grasp of the laws that affect them.”
Source: https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/surge-in-sex-crimes-prompts-calls-for-womens-rights-law.
“It’s been 40 years since Italy legalized abortion with a landmark vote, but many women still struggle to access the procedure. The very law that decriminalizes abortion, in fact, contains a clause that exempts doctors and other medical personnel from performing a termination if they “have a conscientious objection, declared in advance.”
In this deeply Catholic country, where the division between church and state is still somewhat tenuous in practice, conscientious objectors have found it easier to progress in the health care system than nonobjectors. The number of Italian gynecologists who will not perform an abortion has increased from 58.7 percent in 2005 to a staggering 70.9 percent in 2016. And in some of Italy’s more conservative regions, fewer than 7 percent of doctors will carry out the procedure.
This means that women often have to visit several hospitals, encounter outright hostility and even travel hundreds of miles to find a doctor who will help them abort safely.”
Source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-10-15/italian-cities-turn-back-clock-women-s-reproductive-rights.
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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.
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“While the provisional United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is progressive for Indigenous peoples in all three countries, it doesn’t do enough for Indigenous women and girls, says the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC).
“We need to make sure it’s not just the Indigenous community being included at the table,” Francyne Joe, president of NWAC, told iPolitics. “We need to bring forward a gender-specific conversation.”
Last summer, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland laid out her plan for a progressive NAFTA 2.0 renegotiation, which included two separate chapters: one dedicated to gender rights and another to Indigenous peoples.”
Source: https://ipolitics.ca/2018/10/12/new-trade-deal-leaves-indigenous-women-out-advocates-say/.
“Speaking on behalf of the Holy See’s Permanent Observer, Archbishop Bernadito Auza, First Counsellor Monsignor Tomasz Grysa expressed satisfaction over significant progress in promoting and protecting the rights of indigenous peoples, particularly mentioning the adoption of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. However, he said the environmental, cultural and spiritual patrimony of many indigenous populations remains under significant threat.
The First Counsellor lamented that at the local and national level, both economic and ideological colonization, imposed under the banner of so-called progress, continue to be carried out without concern for the human rights of indigenous peoples or for the environment in which they live.
Amazonia
Msgr. Grysa said this trend is particularly apparent in the Amazon basin, where new forms of mining and the extraction of valuable minerals and other resources by large corporations and business interests have led to devastating environmental degradation and deforestation, as well as the displacement of persons.”
“The Supreme Court’s recent decision on the reach of the federal government’s duty to consult with Indigenous peoples is an important and controversial one. But the focus of attention seems to be in entirely the wrong place.
It is not about whether the government must consult with Indigenous people during the law-making process as a matter of constitutional law. Instead, it ought to be about whether the government should consult as a matter of doing the political right thing.
Constitutional law simply lays down the basic floor of duties and obligations that are placed on governments as they go about their work and implement their various political agendas. However, there now seems to be a sense that, if the Supreme Court states that there is no particular duty, then this relieves governments of a reason or responsibility to act.”
Source: https://www.wortfm.org/open-line-indigenous-rights-and-environmental-justice/.
“The Supreme Court’s recent decision on the reach of the federal government’s duty to consult with Indigenous peoples is an important and controversial one. But the focus of attention seems to be in entirely the wrong place.
It is not about whether the government must consult with Indigenous people during the law-making process as a matter of constitutional law. Instead, it ought to be about whether the government should consult as a matter of doing the political right thing.
Constitutional law simply lays down the basic floor of duties and obligations that are placed on governments as they go about their work and implement their various political agendas. However, there now seems to be a sense that, if the Supreme Court states that there is no particular duty, then this relieves governments of a reason or responsibility to act.”
“It’s an agreement 20 years in the making.
Leaders from six Sto:lo communities across the Fraser Valley signed an MOU agreement Saturday with provincial and federal reps that was focused on inherent rights and paves the way to a final treaty settlement.
“Our goal has been to get out from under the Indian Act and to assert our lawmaking authority on S’ólh Téméxw, our land,” said Chief Terry Horne of Yakweakwioose First Nation.
“We do this today for our children tomorrow,” Chief Horne said about the agreement signed Oct. 13 in a ceremony in the Leq’á:mel community.”
Source: https://www.theprogress.com/news/six-stolo-chiefs-sign-mou-agreement-affirming-indigenous-rights/.
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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.
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“What if I told you my truck runs on wishes? When I hopped in the cab this morning, I closed my eyes really tight and muttered, “I wish this truck could get my kids to school” and when I turned the key, sure enough, it started. I successfully drove my kids to their respective schools and made it back home on one wish. Later, I have to take my little boy to the orthodontist in town, which is 20 minutes away, and again, I’ll sit behind the steering wheel, hope out loud, and we’ll get there and back no problem all on a single, solitary wish.
What if I told you that so far, this year, I’ve saved close to five grand running my truck on wishes instead of gas?
With any luck, I have religious people reading this. People who put their faith in the existence of a god or even a self-sacrificing prophet. I would like to know, specifically of believers like this, what would it take for you to believe my truck runs on wishes? Is it enough for you that I have insisted this is my personal experience? What if I told you I could feel it, deep within me, that my truck does not require petrol? What if I said you’ve just got to have faith, would you believe me?”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessmom/2018/10/3-questions-that-defeat-modern-day-atheism/.
“Secularity, the concept of keeping ideas and thoughts separate from religious beliefs, presents itself in many forms, and is accepted in varying degrees throughout the world. This year’s Snider Lecture titled “The Muslim Enlightenment: The Rise of Secular Thought among Young Muslims,” held on Tuesday October 2, explored the potentially severe consequences of atheism and secular thought in countries dominated by Islam.
Dr. Ali. A Rizvi, an oncologic pathologist and award-winning author who made the decision to turn away from religion and become an “ex-Muslim,” lead the conversation.
Although Rizvi has chosen to turn away from religion, this does not imply that he condemns the practice of religion. “I believe strongly in freedom of religion. But a really important part of that freedom of religion is a freedom from religion. In a free society, that means respecting both someone’s right to practice their religion, and my right to challenge and criticize it,” Rizvi says.”
Source: https://themedium.ca/features/atheism-and-secular-thought-in-islam/.
“Patricia and Tony Pargeter claim (Oct. 3 Herald) that because they are atheists, they do not harbour “any beliefs, preferring the mental activity of ‘thinking’ to that of ‘believing,’” and that secularism arose as a response to the competing “belief systems” of religion. Really? Atheism is not a belief system? Atheistic communism with its suppression of individual rights in support of an all-controlling secular state was/is not a belief system?
Normally Wikipedia would not be my first choice, but its definition is a good start when it states that belief systems “can be classified as religious, philosophical, political, ideological, or a combination of these.”
The Pargeters believe that their “perspective on reality, unlike that of ‘believers,’ is wholly defensible, grounded as it is in objective facts and reasoning.” In other words, they believe their belief system is the correct one. The truth is that we all view objective facts and evidence through the lens of our belief system or worldview.”
“A few years ago the pastor of an evangelical-fundamentalist church with whom I’m acquainted announced on the Sunday after Easter that he had become an atheist. He told his stunned congregation that he had been an atheist for a year and a half and that all attempts to revive his faith had failed. So on the Sunday after Easter he publicly left Christianity and moved on with his life — a life with no more Easters.
A few days after his bombshell resignation I met with this now erstwhile pastor. As I listened to his story, it quickly became apparent that he had not so much lost his faith in Christianity as he had lost his credulity for fundamentalism. But sadly he had been formed in a tradition where Christianity and fundamentalism were so tightly bound together that he could not make a distinction between them. For this fundamentalist pastor, if the Bible wasn’t literally, historically, and scientifically factual in a biblicist-empiricist sense, then Christianity was a falsity he had to reject. When his fundamentalist house of cards collapsed, it took his Christian faith down with it. In one remarkable leap of faith, a fundamentalist became a newly minted atheist. I did my best to explain to him that he had made the modern mistake of confusing historic Christian faith with early-20th-century fundamentalism, but by now the damage was done and it appears his faith has suffered a fatal blow.”
Source: http://mennoworld.org/2018/10/12/the-world-together/a-formula-for-atheism/.
“We now live in a world where, more than ever before, our ideas and values come under scrutiny and assault. What makes our times more interesting is that we have ready access not only to ideas that challenge us, but also to ideas that support us. The question is how we can work out which ideas contain value, and which are rubbish or simply false.
As Jews, we face attacks from all sides. Our defenses, though, have never been stronger. The trouble is that so many of them are either pathetically simplistic or sophisticatedly misleading. From the arrogant banality of a Yossi Mizrahi to the sophisticated apologetics of Chabad or Aish Hatorah, they rarely survive rational scrutiny. The range is broad and baffling.
I remember, in my yeshivah days, all the American bochurim I came across were enthusiastic about Rabbi Avigdor Miller’s book Rejoice O Youth. I found it very disappointing — trashing the whole of the non-Jewish world as if there was not one good person there. And conversely praising Jews to the heavens as if there were no gangsters or sinners among them.”
Source: https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/10/11/in-good-faith-challenging-religion-and-atheism/.
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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.
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The former International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organisation, now Youth Humanists International, Secretary-General, and a current Humanists International Board Member, Gulalai Ismail, was arrested in Pakistan a few mornings ago.
She is a well-known humanist campaigner. Within the humanist community, she is an important frontrunner for the rights and equality of humanists. She spoke at the Conservative Party Conference in the UK.
But she left and arrived in Pakistan at the Islamabad airport. The Federal Investigation Agency arrested her on the spot. Now, she has been released on bail. However, the potential prosecutions are threatening.
Also, she is under a travel ban and, therefore, stuck in Pakistan as a result without the ability to leave. They also have her passport. Ismail remains an award-winning human rights defender. This is an important moment.
She co-founded an organization called Aware Girls. This is an organization devoted to women and girls. That is, it remains a women’s and girls’ rights organization run by Ismail. She is an impressive person.
In terms of the two most prescient rights initiatives of the early 21st century, Ismail continues to speak on them: the advancement and empowerment of women, and the peace-building. Indeed, she was named the 2014 International Humanist of the Year in 2014.
She is young, runs an important organization, and wins awards for her pursuit of human rights.
Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK and President of IHEU (or Humanists International), stated:
We are gravely concerned for our dear friend and colleague. Gulalai is a brave humanist and human rights activist, whose tireless efforts for peace and human rights have earned her respect around the world. Pakistan should be proud to have produced such a daughter and we urge the authorities to release her, return her passport, and restore her freedom to travel.
‘We have written today to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Pakistan High Commission in London urging them to support Gulalai’s urgent release and offer her the full protection of the law.
Humanists UK has written to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Pakistan High Commission in London with the statements urging for the removal of prosecution in addition for the rightful return of Ismail’s ability to travel, e.g., removing the travel ban and returning her passport to her.
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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.
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Sarah Mills is a Managing Editor and Writer at Conatus News, as well as a writer at Areo Magazine, Huffington Post, Litro Magazine, and Culture Project. We have been colleagues for well over a year now. I reached out about garnering some intel, some insider information, on writing and editing within the new media, especially as a journalist. Here we talk about the new media and navigation of the modern terrain.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The new media presents a unique set of challenges for people involved in journalism and electronic dissemination of news and opinion, whether editing or writing. How can newer editors and writers navigate this terrain?
Sarah Mills: One of the biggest challenges is the sheer number of outlets vying for public attention–and receiving it. In the digital era, we’ve seen countless outlets spring up to challenge traditional media, with varying results. Many consumers treat them as legitimate sources of information when they fail to uphold the code of ethics that standard news outlets are held to. They use biased or charged language and lie by omission, and their stories are picked up and shared across social media by influencers. With the rise of citizen journalism in the digital era, anyone can go to an event, upload a video, and see it go viral. This is not altogether a bad thing, depending on who is holding the camera and what his or her intentions are. But it has resulted in mass scepticism of traditional media sources. While scepticism is a good thing, users on social media often share stories based on whom they are following, often without even reading the article itself or checking the source. Writers and editors must be diligent to always trace back sources, trace back the money, and counter the spread of misinformation when the epithet of ‘fake news’ is attributed merely to sources at odds with the perspective of the accuser.
Jacobsen: The basic premise of the media trends in the 2010s and projected into the 2020s is the slow death by a thousand cuts of print-based media while there is a transition into electronic media. How can journalists adapt to this trend and landscape?
Mills: The newspaper industry has taken quite a blow, and the losses suffered have happened so quickly and on such a great scale that one wonders whether growth in the digital sector can offset them at this time. It has been a challenge to monetize digital journalism. Some outlets have responded by putting up paywalls and employing ads. Others have yielded to the temptation of the clickbait, which invites misreading and encourages sharing by social media users, again, often without ever having read the article in its entirety. It certainly isn’t all doom and gloom though. Change is always challenging. It is also true that there is potential for a more even playing field. Anyone with something captivating to contribute can hop online and do so. You inevitably get the sleazy opportunists, the painfully inadequate writing that is a result of the ‘death of expertise,’ but also the brilliant.
Jacobsen: How are editing and writing probably easier in some ways and more difficult in others with electronic assistance and internet-based communication with colleagues?
Mills: I began working in editing and writing in the online environment. So I never really had the chance to experience it otherwise. I correspond with a team that is spread out all across the world. At the click of a button and from the comfort of my own home, I can contact people for interviews, I can conduct background checks on them, I can network with colleagues, I can reach people in war zones and they can videochat live with me from the scene. It’s grand and humbling to be living in this time, despite the challenges. You only need a reliable Wi-Fi connection and you can have the world at your fingertips.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sarah.
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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.
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Emily LaDouceur is a mother of two boys and Executive Editor for The Good Men Project. After working in higher education administration for over a decade, she left the field to dedicate her life to dismantling the systems and internalized biases that oppress all of us. LaDacouer is a very active and valued member of the team at The Good Men Project. I decided to reach out, as she has been running in politics, recently. She is part of the unprecedented trend in terms of the number of women entering into civic and political life in the United States. It is exciting. Also, it is educational. She agreed to take some time for short interview sessions, where this represents the first one. Enjoy.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why did you decide to enter into politics?
Emily LaDouceur: For many years, I had been engaged in the political process, volunteering on numerous campaigns…even shaking Obama’s hand after a day of canvassing in Westchester, PA in 2008. In those times, I never saw myself as someone who could even run for office. It was only after watching so many women stepping up to run for office, many of them winning, that I said to myself, “I could do this. I SHOULD do this.”
Jacobsen: In the US, post-November 2016, we see the record numbers of women entering into civic and political life in America. Why?
LaDouceur: We’ve been left out of the political process for too long. Women are waking up more and more every day, realizing our own oppression and unpacking our internalized sexism. We feel compelled to act! If not us, then who?
Jacobsen: How did you become part of the asynchronous, grassroots move on the part of women and mothers to become civically and politically more engaged — in leadership roles — than ever?
LaDouceur: I don’t think it’s been asynchronous at all. Women have been the strongest organizers on the ground since the dawn of time. We’ve just shifted our focus from propping up male candidates to elevating ourselves, encouraging each other to run and beginning the process of grooming young women for leadership roles. Succession planning will be key for us to sustain this movement.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Emily.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/30
“The annual International Blasphemy Day will be marked on Sunday as multiple countries continue to treat this as a criminal offense and dole out convictions.
The date marks a controversial anniversary, stemming from the publication of the 12 cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, which sparked riots in Muslim communities around the world. The incident sparked a wider debate about censorship, criticism of Islam — a religion which strictly prohibits depictions of its most sacred religious figures, let alone ridicule — and about criticism of religion generally.
Now, 13 years later, the offence of blasphemy continues to be criminal not only in some Muslim-majority countries but many others, as it remains an “astonishingly widespread” practice, according to a report published last year by United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The report lists 71 countries that punish acts of blasphemy, with the sentences ranging from a mere fine to corporal and even capital punishment.”
“Religious liberty has become a particularly politicized topic in recent years, and recent months were no different. In a long-awaited June decision, the Supreme Court decided in favor of a Christian baker who refused to make a custom wedding cake for a gay couple. In July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions introduced a “religious liberty task force” that critics saw as a mere cover for anti-gay discrimination. And Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s record has been scoured for evidence of what his appointment to the Supreme Court would mean for future decisions in which Christian beliefs clash with law and policy.
But when it comes to religious liberty for Americans, there’s a disturbing trend that has drawn much less attention. In recent years, state lawmakers, lawyers and influential social commentators have been making the case that Muslims are not protected by the First Amendment.
Why? Because, they argue, Islam is not a religion.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/opinion/islamophobia-muslim-religion-politics.html.
“SINGAPORE: The fault lines that have been the most worrisome in Singapore since the nation’s independence are, after 53 years, no longer so in the eyes of its people.
Instead of race and religion, what worries Singaporeans more is the class divide.
That is the finding of the latest, and one of the largest, surveys on this topic, which Dr Janil Puthucheary, the chairman of OnePeople.sg — the national body promoting harmony — worked with Channel NewsAsia to commission.
Almost half of the 1,036 citizen respondents felt that income inequality is the likeliest to cause a social divide here.”
“How to handle religion in the workplace is a contentious and litigious issue that many business leaders struggle with. The subject is so third-rail hot that even Harvard Business School has devoted relatively few courses and case studies to it.
“Religion and business is considered one of the last taboos,” says Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever. “Our students have been asking for it because they see very clearly that they will be in positions of global leadership where they will have to deal with it.”
To fill that need, van Bever wrote the case study Managing Religion in the Workplace, using two high-profile cases of religious discrimination that were argued before the US Supreme Court in recent years: one about a young Muslim woman who battled Abercrombie & Fitch for rejecting her job application because she wore a hijab for religious reasons; and the second about a baker whose religious beliefs compelled him to refuse to design a cake for a gay couple’s wedding reception.”
Source: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/religion-in-the-workplace-what-managers-need-to-know.
“While men tend to be less religious than women, nearly 70 percent of Black men said they are religious — compared to 65 percent of Hispanic women and 55 percent of White woman — the Pew Research Center reported on Wednesday.
Black women are the most religious demographic in the nation at 80 percent, the analysis of 2014 data from more than 35,000 Americans across the county found.
Pew determined levels of religious belief based on answers to four questions: frequency of prayer, belief in God, attendance at religious services and importance of religion in their lives.”
Source: https://michronicleonline.com/2018/09/30/heres-how-important-religion-is-to-african-american-men/.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/30
“We are not done yet.
Of all the thoughts I have had this week in response to Senate hearings and the testimony of Dr. Blasey Ford, this thought keeps returning. We are not done creating a society that guarantees justice and equality for women.
There are many lessons to learn in this moment about sexual assault, white male privilege, public expressions of anger, gender representation in government, the judicial nomination process in general, and the various ways it can be compromised. It is easy to feel disappointed with elected officials, disgusted with some of our social values, and despair at the disproportionate amount of violence still directed towards women as women.”
“The news made headlines around the world: Saudi Arabia, the only country to bar women from driving, ended the ban in June 2018. Pioneers hit the roads to cheers — and stares — and celebrated the demise of a notorious restriction on the freedom of women. But the advancement of women’s rights is uneven at best in Saudi Arabia, as well as across North Africa and the Middle East, a region that regularly rates worst or second worst to sub-Saharan Africa in overall assessments of gender equality. The role of women is the subject of sustained public debate, with campaigns for equal treatment resisted by entrenched patriarchal and conservative forces.
1. Why did Saudi Arabia let women start driving?
The change came amid the Saudi monarchy’s ambitious campaign to diversify the economy and wean the kingdom from dependence on oil revenue. If more women are to have paying jobs, they need to be able to drive to work. Promoting civil liberties wasn’t really the point. In fact, the government jailed some of the country’s most prominent women’s rights campaigners before the driving ban was lifted, accusing them of collaborating with unspecified hostile foreign entities.”
“Access to daily necessities has long been a priority for social-reform movements. As tea had been on British shopping lists since at least the early 17th century, Boston turned its harbor into a tea party to protest a tax on the quotidian beverage while lacking the ability to vote on that tax.
When it came time for women to get the vote, tea played a role too. Women like the wealthy Alva Vanderbilt-Belmont held “suffrage teas,” where support for the cause was proclaimed. The tea parties also served as fundraisers, a practice that extended to the teas themselves.
In California, suffragist women showed how both tea and women’s suffrage of the national movement could be democratized at the state level. Two suffrage teas generated revenue for political organizing in the run-up to the 1911 election on women’s suffrage. Equality Tea sprang up in Northern California and spread throughout the state. In Southern California, Nancy Tuttle Craig used her position as one of the only female grocers in the state to package a “Votes for Women” tea.”
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/09/how-tea-helped-women-sell-suffrage/571546/.
“Sao Paulo — Erica Malunguinho is one of the 27,000 Brazilians running for office in Brazil’s October election. She is part of the 31 percent of candidates who are women, four percent who are black and 0.19 percent who are transgender.
“I decided to run because I had no other choice”, she said.
“People like me, we have no other choice than to confront the system. More than a need to stay alive, we have a need to be in positions of power,” Malunguinho, who is running for state deputy in Sao Paulo told Al Jazeera.”
“Calgary junior high students are honouring their school’s namesake during Canada’s first-ever national Gender Equality Week.
Many grade nine students at Annie Gale School are wearing homemade buttons to highlight Annie Gale’s historic role in the fight for women’s rights.
Gale was the first female member of Calgary city council, and when she took office in 1918, she became the first woman in Canada to hold an elected position.”
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/4490662/annie-gale-school-calgary-womens-rights/.
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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.
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“In response to Douglas Benn’s letter to the editor, “State buries, not promotes religion” (Sept. 11, 2018), where he blames the N.E.A. and secular humanism for the immorality of our country and that we need to return to Christianity.
Well! Contrary to Mr. Benn’s lament, Christian-run governments had their day and opportunity to prove themselves in Europe, where they ruled for a thousand years before the Renaissance, and they failed miserably at “righting” the world. At that time, the Christian Church’s word was law and men were burned at the stake for doubting it.
We do not need to go back to religious laws that harm the rest of us by a sectarian-bias government. Secular humanists live by extending ourselves, not to the heavens, but to the horizon. It connects us to human beings in the generations to come. What kind of societies are the current inhabitants of the planet going to bequeath to those who follow? Lest we stick them with a world governed by the angry nationalism and dark authoritarianism that is being pushed now, we must win the fight for global cooperation. (Forget what religion countries have; we all want the same things with democratic values-human values.)”
Source: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/sep/30/we-all-want-same-things/.
“Ryan Bell is in a room full of atheists, agnostics and religiously undecided — dozens gathered inside a room at USC’s University Religious Center for a Sunday dinner hosted by the Secular Student Fellowship.f
As USC’s humanist chaplain, he plans to introduce himself to the group, many of whom are freshmen and likely don’t even know what a humanist chaplain is.
Bell, a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor turned atheist, is here to help secular students on their spiritual journeys.”
Source: https://news.usc.edu/149337/humanist-chaplain-winding-road-from-adventist-pastor-to-usc/.
“One of the most important subjects I explore for a wedding ceremony is religion. I want to know something about the couple’s faith traditions, if any. What is their thinking or practice at this time in their lives? What are the family traditions (if any) and how important is it to honor those, even if the couple themselves are not strongly tied to these beliefs?
It is not unusual in our modern world to find that young people are not as deeply religious as preceding generations. The Pew Research Center reports that young adults are more likely to be religiously unaffiliated, especially in North America. Unaffiliated doesn’t necessarily mean non-believer, but clearly there is a shift.
Why there is a decline in religiosity is debatable, but one reason may be that with more education comes more questioning. The more data-driven and analytical we become the more likely we are to apply that to religion. Think about it — around 100 years ago, more than a quarter of children in America did not even attend school. Today 37% of Americans between the ages of 25 to 34 have at least a bachelor’s degree.”
Source: http://www.poconorecord.com/news/20180930/humanist-approach-to-weddings.
“ There is a valuable intersection that is often overlooked when people discuss humanism. And that intersection is the mixture of the principals of humanism and the goals of those who do conflict work. In today’s post, some time is gonna be taken to discuss what conflict work and humanism have in common. As someone who is studying how to respond too, manage and wherever possible transform violent and otherwise negative conflicts and as someone who is a humanist and writes about humanism occasionally, I’d figured if anyone in our community was going to talk about this topic it ought to be me. At the end of this post, I’ll also talk about an eventual goal of mine that might interest people.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/singod/2018/09/conflict-work-humanism/.
“Secular humanism is individualism free from controls of religious beliefs, traditional morals, even government. This thought is pervasive wisdom among today’s liberals and progressives. Forget persons Kavanaugh and Ford for now; consider the confirmation chaos caused by the left — its government, media and academia lapdogs.
Consider the new normal thought process that any man must be presumed guilty if any woman alleges sexual misconduct by him.
Supporting quotes from senators Hirono and Murray are easily found. “Liberal Currents” espouses “The importance of believing the victims of sexual misconduct prior to, and even in lieu of, hard evidence in support of their allegations has become something close to a consensus view.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/30
“26 September 2018 — Joan Carling, one of the most prominent fighters for environmental and indigenous rights in the Philippines, has been recognized for her work with a Champions of the Earth Award for lifetime achievement, the UN’s highest environmental distinction.
For more than 20 years, Carling has been at the forefront of the conflict for land and the environment, fighting for communities worldwide locked in deadly struggles against governments, companies and criminal gangs exploiting land for products like timber, minerals and palm oil, often bringing her into conflict with businesses and the Philippine government.
In her youth, Carling was inspired by the struggle against the construction of hydropower dams along the Chico River. If developed, these dams would have affected 16 towns and villages and displaced 100,000 tribal peoples, tearing apart their livelihoods and social fabric. Over the years, she has seen first-hand the environmental devastation caused by large dams and gold mining, and stood up against these projects.”
“ANDUNG, Indonesia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Indonesian officials touted a new agrarian reform law as a major step forward in an ambitious land distribution program, but activists warned on Wednesday that the plan will fail without legally recognizing the territorial rights of indigenous people.
President Joko Widodo this week signed a decree on agrarian reform, which seeks to issue titles to the landless and raise farm incomes. The government aims to register all land in the country by 2025.
“The president has clearly stated that redistribution of land to peasants and indigenous people is a priority,” said Moeldoko, chief of staff to Widodo.”
“A veteran NDP MP used the most unparliamentary language to blast the Liberal government’s push to complete the Trans Mountain expansion project despite concerns from many Indigenous groups.
“Why doesn’t the prime minister just say the truth and tell Indigenous Peoples that he doesn’t give a fuck about their rights?” Romeo Saganash asked in question period Tuesday, stunning the House of Commons.
Though some NDP MPs applauded, House Speaker Geoff Regan immediately called on Saganash to apologize.”
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/09/25/romeo-saganash-trudeau_a_23541694/.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/30
“In 1931, Plennie L. Wingo tried to walk around the world backward. He didn’t succeed. Why did he try?
Is opera in America dead? Probably: “It is not that grand opera is incapable of appealing to American theatergoers. Even now, there are many Americans who love it passionately, just as there are regional companies such as Chicago’s Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera that have avoided making the mistakes that closed City Opera’s doors. Yet the crises from which the Metropolitan Opera has so far failed to extricate itself suggest that in the absence of the generous state subsidies that keep European opera houses in business, large-house grand opera in America may simply be too expensive to thrive — or, ultimately, to survive. At its best, no art form is more thrilling or seductive. But none is at greater risk of following the dinosaurs down the cold road to extinction.””
“In response to the “gnawing pain in my heart and soul about the meaning of life,” Australia’s former governor-general, Bill Hayden, a life-long atheist, was recently baptized at the age of 85.
After living a great deal of his life in denial of the Creator, the former politician renounced his atheism and joined the Catholic Church. He said witnessing so many selfless acts of compassion by Christians over his lifetime — as well as a season of reflection following a stroke — inspired his decision.”
“Referring to Hitler and Stalin, the New Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins has written that there “is not the smallest evidence” that “atheism systematically influences people to do bad things.” Gary Saul Morson, reviewing Victoria Smolkin’s A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism, finds ample evidence to refute Dawkins; to the contrary, he writes, “Bolshevik ethics began and ended with atheism.”
Only someone who rejected all religious or quasi-religious morals could be a Bolshevik because, as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and countless other Bolshevik leaders insisted, success for the party was the only standard of right and wrong. The bourgeoisie falsely claim that Bolsheviks have no ethics, Lenin explained in a 1920 speech. No, he said; what Bolsheviks rejected was an ethical framework based on God’s commandments or anything resembling them, such as abstract principles, timeless values, universal human rights, or any tenet of philosophical idealism. For a true materialist, he maintained, there could be no Kantian categorical imperative to treat others only as ends, not as means.”
“The CBS drama, God Friended Me, is taking a daring step by showcasing a lead black actor as an atheist. This is remarkable groundwork for television because when it comes to black religious portrayals and mass market TV scripts, black Americans are often mostly portrayed as one-note, stereotypical, head-shaking, foot-stomping believers with no other elements or nuance. This show turns that stereotype on several heads by offering various viewpoints of how one or two people of color look at and digest and struggle with faith.
And that’s a good thing.
God Friended Me is about Miles Finer, who runs an atheist podcast. Finer is later sent a friend request from God, and he thinks the request is a joke. He deletes it. That is, until things start to happen that make it seem like an omniscient presence really is calling the shots. Finer makes new friends and strong connections as he researches who this “God account” might belong to. Miles is an atheist but he’s also a PK, that is, Preachers Kid. And in true Touched By An Angel style, this CBS original offers a lot of hope and discussion points for the faithful and unbothered-by-faith alike. Finer is portrayed by Brandon Micheal Hall of The Mayorand Search Party fame.”
“Irish Atheists will today launch their campaign for a Yes vote in October’s referendum on removing the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution.
After a decade of lobbying, Atheist Ireland will present their campaign posters at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin this afternoon.
Chairperson Michael Nugent said it is about freedom of speech and the separation of Church and State.”
“Many atheists think that their atheism is the product of rational thinking. They use arguments such as “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science” to explain that evidence and logic, rather than supernatural belief and dogma, underpin their thinking. But just because you believe in evidence-based, scientific research — which is subject to strict checks and procedures — doesn’t mean that your mind works in the same way.
When you ask atheists about why they became atheists (as I do for a living), they often point to eureka moments when they came to realise that religion simply doesn’t make sense.
Oddly perhaps, many religious people actually take a similar view of atheism. This comes out when theologians and other theists speculate that it must be rather sad to be an atheist, lacking (as they think atheists do) so much of the philosophical, ethical, mythical and aesthetic fulfilments that religious people have access to — stuck in a cold world of rationality only.”
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/god-versus-science-atheists-arent-rational-you-might-think-opinion-1141436.
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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.
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Author(s): Feng Chin Wen and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/27
Introduction to Humanism
Humanism, no doubt, provides not only the denial of a few claims about the nature of the world and its operation but also gives a basis for consideration of the bountiful possibilities from modern science and in the ethical duties based on human compassion.
Our efforts as human beings relate to the basic ways in which we wish to work with one another for our collective benefit. It is about love, trust, commitment, fidelity, cooperation, rational decision-making, evidence, scientific and naturalistic viewpoints, and so on.
Introduction to Pastafarianism
Some entry points to this philosophy can come from the parody religions including Pastafarianism. Those faith groups taking a spin on the formal religious or faith claims about the world and the proposition of a designer or an architect of the universe. One that we can see.
Their take is one of a noodle God that can be seen in all the different swervy, fractal manifestations of the natural world. It comes from the perception of the natural world and then a joke based on the widespread confirmation bias about seeing design in nature.
Effective Change: Numbers Speak
I (Chin Wen) started to promote humanism and establish Taiwan Humanism Studio (THS) since 2015 Darwin Day by translation and writing of humanistic articles or videos. In that period, I mimicked the method of a popular science blog and wanted to attract more freethinkers to join. However, scientists have had several huge communities formed by academia in Taiwan and humanists don’t. Therefore, there would not have a chance that anyone would join the studio automatically before the community has established. I started to focus on the community building and advertising work but the consequent is limited.
As we can see the figure which illustrates how many fans our facebook page has. During almost two years of development, we only have less than 500 fans. Even though we improved our advertising skill by using inspirational memes and quotations, it only could reach 1,500 fans. After our announcement to be Pastafarianism, it grew to 5000 in a few weeks. That’s three times more than before! We have more than 8000 fans now and keep growing with more than 100 per week.
The Age of Experience
Religions did have an educational function before. it taught literacy, moral, and other knowledge to pre-modern society. Even in the Industrial Era, religions still guide people’s personal lives and ethical decisions. Therefore, humanists aim at debating with the churches on knowledge, moral and ethical issues.
However, the core of religion has changed. The New Religious movement and the Charismatic Movement religious competition of believers from theology to experience. People in the modern world struggle with psychological and emotional strain rather than physical struggles.
They are not interested to be a man who is desirable for gods. Instead, they want to enjoy the miracle to reduce the pressure from livelihood and improve work efficiency or self- achievement. If they have to listen to a lecture on the gods’ love of the people and the way to achieve redemption, they feel the information is both tiring and useless. Religion is a place for mysticism and to feel a relief from the daily stress of living.
The “Entertainmentization” of Religion
From now, humanists pay less attention to this social trend about — what might be called — entertainmentization of religion. How can we convince people to get rid of superstition if they just want some feeling and fun? Pastafarianism may be the nearest innovation for non-believers in this era. People can have fun, cosplay, and eat.
Pastafarianism is not only the strategy for advertisement but also reframing the concept of humanism.
Humanism is not a religion talking human as the god; it develops within human subjectivity to let people can determine their own destiny. For example, humanistic psychology aims for the development of human needs, capabilities and creativity rather than psychoanalysis and behaviourism. Humanism is not about what human should be but how human could be.
Pastafarianism deconstructs the concept of religion to disenchant the sanctity totally. Moreover, it’s concerned with the basic need of human “physiology”, by boiling Pasta’s holy body and eat it. It’s not a different philosophy but an adjustment for the need for people.
The Next Steps
The next religions will be a mixture of ultra-seriousness and super-playfulness. Pastafarianism will be akin to the form of the super-playful. Those super-serious ones can be seen in the techno-utopians. These different manifestations of options for people who choose what works for them amount to a reflection of the decline of traditional religious structures and the rise of miniature groups and individualist forms of faith — for fun or science speculation.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/23
“Chris Pratt is a Hollywood actor known for his upfront attitude towards the Christian faith. He even delivered a mini-sermon when he accepted the Generation Award from MTV, insisting that God is real and loves everybody. Pratt is quite sure that Hollywood is not anti-religious . In an interview with The Associated Press, he said there is a false narrative in circulation that Hollywood is anti-religious or anti-Christian. The Jurassic World movie hero said contrary to popular perception, the culture of Hollywood pushes people to heartily welcome whatever they like and feel authentic.
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=56219.
“There’s more to the world’s largest interfaith event than 10,000 people talking about religion.
“Talk about religion — yes. But also very much experience it,” said Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, co-chair of the Parliament of the World’s Religions being held Nov. 1–7 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Toronto will be the seventh city to host the event since its inception during the 1893 World Fair in Chicago. After a 100-year gap between the first and second parliaments, the event has become a more regular gathering with plans to convene every two years after the Toronto parliament.”
Source: https://www.catholicregister.org/item/28061-toronto-ready-to-host-the-world-parliament-of-religions.
“ The aftermath of the Pennsylvania Catholic sex abuse scandal is ongoing and is having vast effects on several aspects of the church. There have been calls for resignations, imprisonments, and reformation from all over the nation as groups descend on the church’s chaos to make demands. The Fallout Continues in The Pennsylvania Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal TWEET THIS The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is demanding an investigation into the abuse scandal from the Department of Justice. The FFRF claims the degree of abuse and widespread cover up efforts within the church requires a top to bottom examination of the Roman Catholic Church. This would be a concerted effort to oust, imprison, and punish those who were responsible for the abuse and subsequent cover ups that occurred in the area. After all, six of the eight dioceses in the states reported abuse with thousands of victims over the course of decades. To the FFRF, the fact that the Department of Justice has not taken any action yet speaks to the problem of uncovering abuse helping victims that has plagued members of the church.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=56235.
“ Two Christian organizations, Special Forces of Liberty and Warriors for Christ, have filed a case against the Lafayette Parish Library as it will host “Drag Queen Story Time.” This event will witness the Delta Lamda Phi chapter of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette reading to children aged between three to six years. The aim is to celebrate diversity by helping children to look beyond gender stereotypes and accept differences. Defendants, in this case, include Teresa Elberson, the Library Director, and John Bel Edwards, the state Governor, and Jeff Landry, the state Attorney General. Religious Groups Suing Louisiana Library for “Drag Queen Story Time” TWEET THIS The Library board has for now stuck to its stand. It declined to discuss this item on the forthcoming September 24 meeting agenda. It also took the decision to abstain from any kind of public discussion before permitting residents to put forward their respective views. The event was denounced on record by Councilman Jared Bellard and Councilman William Theriot of Lafayette City-Parish Council. This was symbolic as the council has no influence over Library matters. The two were joined by Councilwoman Nanette Cook, who felt that the event was not appropriate for young children. She, however, said that her vote mirrored only her personal opinion. The remaining six council members declined to any action.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=56230.
“ An American Journal of Epidemiology study shows children with a religious upbringing tend to enjoy better mental and physical health as they grow older. The study, bearing the name Associations of Religious Upbringing With Subsequent Health and Well-Being From Adolescence to Young Adulthood: An Outcome-Wide Analysis, was made with the help of T.H. Chan School of Public Health of Harvard University. The study found that both children and adults engaged in spiritual practices or religious activities were at a much-reduced risk of substance abuse complications and mental health issues all through their lives. Study Shows Religious Upbringing Results in Better Health and Well-being TWEET THIS The Longitudinal data from the above study were analyzed through the application of generalized estimating equations. Sample sizes varied from a minimum of 5,681 respondents to 7,458 respondents. The numbers depended on the outcome with a median age of about 14.74 years. The follow-up time ranged from a minimum of eight years to a maximum of 14 years. The study began in 1999 and subsequently was followed up in 2007 or 2010. Some respondents were checked again in 2013. Errors of multiple testing were negated by Bonferroni correction.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=56170.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/23
“Last year, Nov. 6 marked 100 years since women gained the right to vote in New York state, preceding nationwide passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Through Friday, the Sidney Memorial Public Library, at 8 River St., is taking its turn as the 17th host of a traveling exhibit celebrating the milestone.
According to press materials, “Recognizing Women’s Right to Vote in New York State,” a five-panel display, “looks beyond the traditional narrative and explores the history behind the movement that made New York such an important place in the fight.””
“Although women’s rights and religious freedom are not commonly associated with one another in the world of the 1.6 billion Muslims, there is a correlation that must be uncovered.
According to Women and Religious Freedom by Nazila Ghanea, inherent in religious freedom is the right to believe or not believe as one’s conscience leads, and live out one’s beliefs openly, peacefully, and without fear.
Freedom of religion or belief is an expansive right that includes the freedoms of thought, conscience, expression, association, and assembly. For the Muslim world, the Quran reads in Sura 2:256, “Let there be no compulsion in religion.””
“Dolly Parton famously steers clear of politics — almost as much as she eschews frumpy frocks — but the country singer’s latest track is an explicit celebration of women’s rights.
Parton’s muse for her new song was the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (that would be women’s suffrage, for those of you who skipped history class). Parton sings of the women who marched to bring it about and how women have fought for their rights “since the very beginning of time.”
The country music legend has long espoused a sort of folksy feminism (see 9 to 5), so of course it’s no dry historical exegesis.”
“ SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA —
New Zealand has marked the 125th anniversary of a historic move to give women the vote. It was the first country in the world to enact suffrage for women.
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s third female prime minister said the nation’s 19th century fight for economic independence and equal rights was still continuing.
The gender pay gap in the South Pacific nation is, on average, 10 percent, although for working mothers it is about 17 percent — a pay difference known as the “motherhood penalty.” Women are also under-represented in some senior corporate positions. Among New Zealand’s top 50-listed companies female executives make up just a fifth of directors.”
Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/new-zealand-celebrates-women-s-suffrage-anniversary/4583583.html.
“Female foreign ministers meeting in Canada for the first summit of its kind vowed on Saturday to bring a “women’s perspective” to foreign policy.
The two-day meeting, which began Friday in Montreal and brought together more than half of the world’s top women diplomats, focused on topics such as conflict prevention, democratic growth and eliminating gender-based violence.
“This meeting represented a historic occasion,” said Canada’s top diplomat Chrystia Freeland, who also took the opportunity to announce the creation of Canada’s first ambassador for women, peace and security.”
Source: https://www.france24.com/en/20180923-women-foreign-ministers-summit-canada-freeland-wallstrom.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/23
“Today marks the eighth anniversary of the death of Argentine thinker and writer Mario Rodríguez Cobos, who wrote under the pen name Silo. The founder of Universalist Humanism or New Humanism described himself simply as a writer and thinker.
That his legacy goes far beyond that is beyond doubt. On this occasion we would like to publish excerpts from the preface of the book “Silo a cielo abierto” by his friend Dario Ergas.
“Silo would insist many times after that, one thing is pain and another suffering. Pain is overcome with the advance of science and justice, but suffering is mental, it is proper to consciousness and cannot be overcome by scientific or political progress; it requires an evolutionary effort to differentiate the essential engine of human life from desires, which trap us and distract us from true meaning. The noblest tasks of the human being, I would repeat in many ways, are the overcoming of pain and suffering. […]”
Source: https://www.pressenza.com/2018/09/tribute-to-silo-the-future-is-open-a-future-of-all-for-all/.
“At the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, an unusual group is catering to the spiritual needs of those who have no religion at all.
Ben O’Donnell, an inmate, grew up in the church, if not necessarily believing in God.
“I grew up in a very, very religious family,” he said. “We’re Irish to the hilt, and Irish people are Catholic one way or another even, if they’re not Catholic. So I was, strict Wednesday services, Saturday, Sunday. Reading the Bible. Had nuns that pinched me back here (on the neck). Those pinches, they’ll send a lightning bolt through you.”
Source: http://www.messengernews.net/news/local-news/2018/09/study-and-inclusion/.
“There is something special about walking into a bookstore and exploring the collection. Though I don’t do it purposefully, if it is my first time there, I tend to follow a similar path through the store to get myself acquainted. First, I float toward the literature section and walk across the wall from A to Z, scouring through the names of authors both familiar and unknown. Then, my eyes wander to the history and philosophy sections, where I can usually find esoteric titles that sometimes hint more at the tastes of the bookstore employees than the interests of their customers.
This brick-and-mortar meandering is in stark contrast to the clickbait world of the internet. In fact, online retailers such as Amazon have vastly changed the way we consume books. Any product, for that matter, is filtered through the technology giant’s recommendation algorithms and spit back at the customer in the hopes of making a sale. What we do not often consider is how these algorithms are destroying the humanistic side of reading and how we share books with others.”
Source: https://www.michigandaily.com/section/columns/alexander-satola-modern-reading-humanism-vs-algorithm.
“They looked the perfect couple, Robyn in her long white dress and Andrew in his kilt. They were married in Edinburgh in August by Caroline Lambie, a humanist celebrant, who had her own humanist wedding in 2007. But this couldn’t happen in England and Wales, where humanist weddings are not legally recognised and humanist couples are obliged to have a civil ceremony in addition to one that reflects their beliefs. This not only involves more greater cost and more organisation, it patently discriminates against their human rights.
Change came to Scotland in 2005 when the registrar general changed the law. Since then humanist marriages have mushroomed in number. Last year there were 28,440 weddings in Scotland; the Church of Scotland conducted 3,166, the Roman Catholic Church 1,182. In contrast, there were 5,912 humanist weddings, 3,283 of them conducted by Humanist Societycelebrants. More and more couples are opting for a non-religious belief ceremony that reflects the strong values held by humanists — values that do not depend on a deity or supernatural source for their convictions.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/humanist-weddings-scotland-england-wales.
“Two religious organizations in Louisiana have filed a lawsuit in federal court in an attempt to stop their local library from hosting a Drag Queen Story Time, which they say is unconstitutional.
Filed Tuesday in Lafayette, Louisiana, by Warriors for Christ and Special Forces of Liberty, the groups maintain that the much publicized event, which is slated for Oct. 6, at the Lafayette Library, violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it furthers the religion of secular humanism, according to local media outlet KADN.
“By bringing this lawsuit, we are unapologetically and firmly defending the civil rights movement led by Pastor Martin Luther King,” said Christopher Sevier, an attorney who’s representing the two organizations.”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/23
“Atheism isn’t as big of a deal to me, anymore.
I’ve made peace, somewhat, with the idea that there is no God. When that happens, atheism isn’t so much presence. It feels more like absence.
When I first left Christianity, I was a new atheist who was trying to carve out something to fill the void. But the thing I found is that the world did not wait for me to fill that place that was once filled with Christianity. The world didn’t change because I found out God didn’t exist; God had never existed in the first place. Everything kept moving, as it always had. I just knew that God wasn’t real.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/barrierbreaker/atheism-isnt-really-a-big-deal/.
“Dear Sugars,
I’ve been an atheist for many years. My loving and spiritual wife accepts me for who I am. Her family doesn’t know that I’m a nonbeliever, however, and we are both concerned that they’d be dismayed if they found out. In a few weeks we’ll be attending her family reunion for the second time. The reunion includes a number of longstanding traditions, the most important of which is attending church two or three times a day. The services are very participatory and involve singing and reciting Bible verses. Because almost everyone attends, they’re an important place to socialize with relatives during the weeklong reunion.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/style/atheism-religious-family.html.
“British actor Thandie Newton has come under fire for declaring she’s an atheist and calling God “her” at the 2018 Emmy Awards Monday night.
“I don’t believe in God, but I’m going to thank her tonight,” Newton said in her acceptance speech after winning Outstanding Supporting Actress for her role as Maeve in HBO’s “Westworld.”
“I am so blessed. I am so blessed,” she added before dropping an F-bomb.”
“Once popular Christian alternative rock musician Michael Gungor of the musical collective Gungor fully embraced atheism for a year, according to his wife, Lisa.
The rocker’s wife also revealed in the July-August issue of Relevant Magazine that she’s not sure how she would define her faith either after briefly declaring herself an atheist during her spiritual evolution.
In her recently published book, The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Seen, Lisa — who founded Bloom Church with her husband in Denver, Colorado, in 2006 — discusses the evolution of their faith as a couple and how their questions about God and the Bible forced them out of the fundamental Christian space.”
Source: https://www.christianpost.com/news/gungor-i-dont-believe-in-god-anymore-227508/.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/23
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to family background, was religion important in it?
Muhammad Salman Khan: Religion holds quite a lot of significance in the Pakistani society I live in, my family has always been moderately Muslim but still “Muslim”. Growing up it played a significant role in my life too, but not anymore. As far as my family is concerned now, it is a private matter and I’m quite fortunate to be blessed with a family where religion is never taken that seriously as compare to families of my around me.
Jacobsen: How did this influence personal upbringing?
Khan: Religion holds quite a lot of significance in the Pakistani society I live in, my family has always been moderately Muslim but still “Muslim”. Growing up it played a significant role in my life too, but not anymore. As far as my family is concerned now, it is a private matter and I’m quite fortunate to be blessed with a family where religion is never taken that seriously as compare to families of my around me. Growing up and still living in Pakistan, religion dictates every aspect of our culture and daily life. I have always struggled with my religious beliefs, there was a time when I was 18 when I was quite religious but that changed when I questioned the religion I was born in. I questioned it because I found many of its religious connotations as being somewhat too fundamentalist and extreme for my personal belief. I have always been a die-hard nature lover and staunch Darwinist; religion never gave me the answer to the origin of life that’s why I had to question it. I further wanted to know more about myself and the religion of my ancestors that’s why I did a brief comparative study of religions and was attracted to a more Sufi and dharmic interpretation of religion in my early 20s. In the meanwhile, I struggled to reconcile my faith with my sexuality this when I slowly and gradually gave up on it.
Jacobsen: What is the treatment of transgender people there?
Khan: Transgender community or the “Khawaja Serai” as they’re called in Urdu, is an ancient community that has been living in South Asia for thousands of years. Transgender community in South Asia were once held in a very high regard, they were considered as a blessed community and due to many superstitious views that people held the transgender were not only revered but people were afraid to even harm them. Unfortunately, in Pakistan quite a lot has changed, this year alone around more than 10 transwomen have been murdered and the law enforcement agencies/ ministry of human rights fails to implement measures to protect their lives. Pakistan has recently passed one of the most progressive legislation on trans rights and equality, but as activists we look forward to effective and fast forward implementation of this law across law enforcement agencies and government departments. The recent passage of the ‘Transgender Bill of Rights, 2018’ has been hailed as a significant victory by many human rights and LGBTQI activists who view this as a significant victory that can page way for more sensitization and equality for all oppressed gender and sexual minorities in Pakistan.
Jacobsen: Do the restrictions and social punishments come from religious traditions? Those restrictions and social punishments against members of this minority community.
Khan: Much of the prejudice that the LGBTQI community faces stems from the religious traditions which ultimately shuns them from the mainstream society. I personally don’t blame ‘Islam’ as a religion to cause this, the issue is its interpretation. Most religion have a varying degree of acceptance and tolerance for the LGBTQI community, especially when it comes to Abrahamic religions which aren’t so tolerant and accepting. But around the world, we are seeing that religion is not taken up as source of inspiration for legislation that seeks to promote LGBT equality and rights. This is one of the reason why around the world, we are able to see legislation passed in rights of minorities e.g. LGBTQI community.
Jacobsen: What happens during the coming out of someone in Pakistan? This tends to be a big moment in life for finding public acceptance for the sexual orientation and gender identity minority communities.
Khan: For most gay men, coming out can be the most difficult moment of their lives. Many don’t even chose to come out like in the way we see gay men come out in the West. The fear of being disowned, ostracized or worst killed by your family and society is just too real. Fortunately, I am blessed with a very small and not so conservative family, despite belonging to the middle class background I believe I’m quite fortunate that they aren’t only accepting of me but are accepting of my sibling as a transwoman too. In Pakistan, even transwomen aren’t mostly accepted by their family or the society they live in. Most are forced out of their homes at a very young age and many had to deal with sexual abuse at a very early age.
Jacobsen: Who are some prominent activists? Why should people pay attention to them?
Khan: Some of the most hard working and committed transgender activists that are always there for the community and I really feel deserve to be highlighted are following, Nisha Rao, Bindiya Rana, Aradhiya Khan from Karachi, Maavia Malik, Laila Naz, Jannat Ali from Lahore , Nayab Ali from Okara, Uzma Yaqoob and Bubbli Malik from Rawalpindi, Farzana and Nadra Khan from KPK.
Jacobsen: What are the most extreme consequences for those who do not hear to the faith or the majority sexual orientation or gender identity? What are the least extreme consequences?
Khan: The most extreme consequences for those who aren’t belonging to mainstream cisgender and heterosexual narrative of Pakistani society is a life of discrimination, often we see in case of gay men even lesbians that they are forced into marriage, while transwomen being a more visible minority are discrimination for their gender identity, they face the threat of human trafficking and gender based violence also. The least, which is unfortunately quite prevalent and common is constant bullying, harassment and psychological trauma that many LGBTQI face in a deeply conservative, homophobic and transphobic society of Pakistan.
Jacobsen: What are some effective activist efforts to garner more and more acceptance for this community?
Khan: We are seeing that the collective effort of the transgender community was able to spearhead and pass the legislation for their rights from Pakistan’s National Assembly. There is much positive reception of the transgender community in the media than ever before, a lot of work needs to be done but many transgender and queer activists are bringing forward much needed visibility and social change that are slowly but gradually changing the age old regressive views against the transgender community.
Jacobsen: Looking ahead, how can people donate time, money, skills, and professional networks to help this community inside of Pakistan and from outside of Pakistan into Pakistan?
Khan: LGBTQI allies at home and aboard are more than welcome to contribute their time and effort in support of the LGBTQI activists working at such great personal risks to their lives. I would like to see more LGBTQI activists and organization’s from the neighboring countries and aboard come forward and initiate programs for cross cultural dialogue and strengthening capacity of LGBTQI human rights defenders from Pakistan.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Muhammad.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/16
“Do you believe in God? Britons are more likely to answer “yes” when faced with their own mortality, as figures show that religious faith is far stronger among patients admitted to hospital than the general public.
More than half of Britons are happy to declare that they have “no religion”, according to the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, which found that 52 per cent of people have no religious affiliation. This figure drops to 15 per cent among NHS patients.”
Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sick-britons-find-religion-in-god-swaiting-room-jsxwv9tff.
“African pastors have recently become popular for all the wrong reasons. They are now more known for their extravagant and luxurious lifestyles than for preaching the word of God.
In their quest for this life, many have resorted to bizarre rituals of ‘healing’ and ‘luring’ more people to their churches. Just recently, news that a South African pastor, Prophet Rufus Phala, made his congregation drink Jik bleach has been going viral on social media. Six people have died as a result of this act.”
“BEIJING — The services at the Zion Church were different from usual on Sunday. A lot different.
Instead of having 1,300 or so congregants pack into their usual space in northern Beijing, the members of the church walked the streets in small groups, listening to a downloaded sermon on their cellphones.
Pastor Jin Mingri was forced to disseminate his sermon this way after the Chinese authorities shut down his church a week ago, declaring it illegal.”
“ A new Brazil-based religion is combing elements of Christianity, Judaism, Egyptian, and even Incan religions to form their own belief system, and they are gathering steam. Right now, there are 800,000 adherents of “Vale do Amanhecer” (Sunrise Valley), throughout the world, and their belief system is leading some to have a range of emotions. Some people believe the group is interesting while others believe that the religion is more cult-like. A Religion Based on Alien Reincarnation? TWEET THIS The issue that is most often raised with people in the Sunrise Valley religion is that their core belief is centered on something odd, that they are reincarnated aliens. Their beliefs include the notion that aliens had come to earth about 32,000 years ago with the lofty goal of helping to advance humanity towards better things. Over time, the aliens’ descendants reincarnated themselves until they have reached their present state which is now called “the Jaguars.” The entire religion was established beginning in 1959 when Aunt Neiva experienced psychic episodes and was later guided by Pai Seta Branca towards understanding her visions. The result has been a religion that is growing quickly, flashy, and interesting from the inside and the outside. In fact, the religion is one of the fastest growing in all of Brazil. There have been 600 temples developed in dedication of the Sunrise Valley religion around the world.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=56020.
“Last week saw the publication of the ‘Way Forward,’ the final report of the UK Commission for Religious Education (RE). The report was published in response to the increasing diversity of religious attitudes in Britain and concerns about the quality of RE teaching in British schools. As one commentator put it in a recent issue of Schools Week, religious education has become a subject that is “withering on the vine.”
At a time when the links between religion and politics are increasingly controversial one might ask, ‘so what?’ For many people religion carries associations of intolerance or extremism, and the school subject of RE has been seen as divisive and perhaps even anachronistic — the strange descendant of 1950s religious instruction and the state’s subsequent interest in community cohesion. However, there is much in this report that is fresh and challenging, especially its key recommendation that the curriculum be broadened to teach religions as one example of a range of different worldviews alongside non-religious frames such as atheism, agnosticism and humanism.”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/16
“With the suffrage anniversary this week, an advocate says we still have a way to go when it comes to women’s rights.
This Wednesday will mark 125 years of suffrage for New Zealand women.
Dame Margaret Sparrow has been the main voice in advocacy for women’s reproductive rights in the country.”
“ISLAMABAD: The Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Sunday commended Dr Shireen Mazari for launching vigorous campaign to educate people about rights of woman to inheritance.
In his tweet, the minister embedded a link of the story carried by The News, in which Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari was reported that the ministry has taken initiative to educate the women about their rights to inheritance.”
“During my years in Idaho’s Legislature, it was bad news to me when I would see David Ripley lobbying legislators. That would usually mean an attack on women was pending.
Ripley is the director of Idaho Chooses Life, and it is a rare day when the majority of legislators turns their back on any bad idea he has concerning women’s health. They will pass any proposal of Ripley’s, even knowing it may be unconstitutional.
One legislator who happily supports Ripley’s every whim — denying women the right to their own decisions — is Carolyn Nilsson Troy.”
“Suffrage was a stepping stone to other major social reforms for women.
The fight for women’s right to vote was not an end in itself. For Kate Sheppard and the thousands of women who petitioned and campaigned for women’s suffrage, it was a necessary pathway to influence policy related to poverty, violence and alcohol. In their sights were prohibition, equal wages, equitable divorce law, improved health, access to contraception, repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act — under which any woman suspected of being a “common prostitute” could be picked up off the streets, taken to hospital and compulsorily treated for venereal disease — and an end to the detested corset.
In 1885, Sheppard co-founded the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), arguing, as did women around the world, that the excessive use of alcohol led to poverty, ill health, abuse and neglect of women and children. With almost 2000 pubs in the country — one for every 150 adults — colonial New Zealand was no stranger to the effects of alcohol abuse.”
Source: https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/history/womens-suffrage-movement-wasnt-only-fight-right-vote/.
“As the country prepares to celebrate 125 years since women were given the right to vote, South Canterbury’s own links to the anniversary will also be recognised.
The National Council of Women South Canterbury will hold their annual breakfast on Wednesday, with a separate committee organising a planting and display opening ceremony in Timaru. A ceremony is also planned for Waimate.
On September 19, 1893, the Electoral Act 1893 was passed, putting New Zealand in the spotlight for women’s rights.”
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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/17
Scott is the Founder of Skeptic Meditations. He speaks from experience in entering and leaving an ashram. Here we talk about existential risks of someone who leaves a cult or cult-like group.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What bigger existential risks exist for the individual who leaves the cult, immediately?
Scott from SkepticMeditations.com:
About experiences when leaving the ashram cult of Self-Realization Fellowship, I would say the biggest existential risks are:
1) Feelings of despair and meaningless after leaving the group. A huge draw of cult-like groups is their promise to deliver ultimate meaning and purpose in life. Whereas, I believe similar to the existential philosophers like Nietzsche, Camus, and Kierkegaard, that life itself and the universe is ultimately meaningless. Each of us must grapple with that reality. Yet, cult-like ideologies promise answers to the ultimate questions of existence. Gurus and authoritarian leaders short-circuit or bypass the natural process of us grappling, struggling, and resolving for ourselves individual and as a society the meaning and values we make or bring to our lives and existence.
2) Only leaving a cult-like group physically. That is not leaving it also in your head, or psychologically. There are several layers of nuance when we refer to “leaving”. There is leaving physically, which is perhaps less complicated. You split from the ashram and move out. Easier said than done when highly controlled members are often dependent completely for food, shelter, clothing, community on the cult-like group. Leaving the group psychologically is much more complicated. For reason cited above in my response #1 above about desire for ultimate meaning and purpose. The existential challenge of leaving a cult-like group is loss of identity which often has been wholly shaped by the disciple’s existence within the group’s worldview. Leaving the group physically is no guarantee of leaving the group psychologically. For many followers-disciples of the cult are actually living outside the close-environment of the ashram. It is just that living physically within the confines of the “headquarters” or “center” puts follower-disciples under greater influence by the cult-like psychological manipulations. Such as fear of reprimands for not attending classes, not showing up for group meditations, not appearing obedient to a superior’s suggestions or instructions. Entire books have been written on this topic. One book that I have found particularly relevant to the topic of psychological manipulations within the guru-disciple relationship context is The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad.
3) Notice that I use the term “cult-like” for my investigations into so-called cults led me to realize that all people, organizations, and societies contain “cult-like” attributes: deference or obedience to authority, ideological and cultural myths that bring ultimate meaning, and cultural norms that put pressures to comply or risk being ostracized or shunned by the group. Perhaps these traits are not unnatural or evil, when seen within an evolutionary context. Primates display these traits: obedience to and dominance of the alpha male gorilla in the herd has many evolutionary benefits, including the alpha male getting to mate with more female gorillas, passing on “strong” genes to more baby gorillas. Also, the alpha gorilla beats his chest and perhaps scares of outside predators and dangers that allow the group as a whole to survive another day. Cult-like behaviors are on a spectrum, a matter of degree not of kind. If Guru Baba (fictitious name I just made up) demands obedience from his followers, to the degree disciples obey his commands without challenge or question, to that degree we might call the group cult-like.
Jacobsen: How does someone view the world if the cult or cult-like group is all they have ever known in life?
Scott: I was raised Catholic. As a teen after Catechism indoctrination found the faith wanting in reason and sense. While in college I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yoganada, the guru whose ashrams in California I was to live in as a monk a few years later. My identity as a person as a self was, probably still is even though I do not believe consciously, in souls, gods, or karma (heavens or hells in some afterlife).
There are many cult-like groups who indoctrinate infants and children. All that is needed is to be born within a group or society and walla — indoctrination by the culture, traditions, and meanings of the family and group. Is the goldfish swimming in my fishbowl aware it is existing within water? Jumping out of the water and landing back in the bowl could be fatal to Goldie’s existence! In the same way we all have these fishbowls we swim in. Jumping out of them, at least momentarily, gives us an opportunity to see or experience from the outside and potentially generate entirely new ways of viewing the world and our existence.
Jacobsen: How can they — those for who the entrenchment and indoctrination are arguably the most thorough — leave mentally and then physically?
Scott: As I mentioned above leaving a cult-like group physically is perhaps the easiest part of “leaving”. Though sometimes in some groups leaving can be fatal. Apostates who “leave’ the faith of some religions, fraternities, or political parties can be shunned, excommunicated, even assassinated. For leaving the group be a threat to those who remain within the cult-like group. Especially when detractors or leavers of the group speak out against the group or join rival groups. Again, in the deep-seated sense these are existential threats at a collective and individual level. Most of these existential threats are seldom articulated as such but are underlying, lurking underneath our conscious awareness in the unconscious.
The way I left mentally or psychologically the SRF systems of thought-control, which I experienced eventually as cult-like behaviors and attitudes, was through a gradual, years-long process. I really can’t’ say I found a silver bullet, or one or even a top ten things that helped me to escape. However, in all honesty, it was the community within the ashram cult-like group that allowed me to come out as questioning authority of the leaders and organizational systems of SRF.
The monks at that time had started these encounter-like groups. We had begun to confront our existence as a community. For instance, we would sit in a circle of maybe 10–50 monks and discuss questions such as: If SRF ashram was an instrument to our feeling the bliss, joy, and love that our guru, Yogananda (1893–1952) promised followers-disciples then why were we mostly feeling fear, despair, and hopelessness? Why were the leaders of SRF seemingly indifferent to our despair? Could it be that the leaders and the organizational systems gained its very power over the fear-based systems of psychological controls? These and many other questions were discussed for a year or two in the ashrams. Until the leaders shut down the conversations by banning our ashram “encounter” group sessions. My questions are by no means representative of all the questions raised during the encounter groups, which by the way were instigated by the Spiritual Life Committee. A group of 3–6 senior monastics who were given the role of leading the sessions along with outside professional psychologists as facilitators.
Jacobsen: Do halfway houses or safe transition houses exist for ex-cult members as with women domestic abuse victims?
Scott: I am not aware of any halfway or transition houses for members who leave cult-like groups. There is some apostates or members who leave some groups, like Scientology, SRF, or Mormons, who take people into their homes, provide jobs or job training, and basic support to establish a home and life outside the high-control group. There are numerous films on Netflix about children who runaway from high-control communities like the Warren Jeff’s Mormons who believe in polygamy. Girls see they will be married off to a much older man and do not feel the group is treating them right. So, they leave family, everything, to try to make a go of it in the “outside” world. Also, some interesting documentaries, one called Amish: Shunned. I believe this was first aired on PBS and may be viewable on Netflix. These documentaries all illustrated my earlier point: its not about particular groups labelled cults, though we need to be aware of dangerous controlling organizations. The difference between a cult and normal group is zero. It is a difference of degree in how leaders-disciples relate to each other and not a difference in kind versus other groups who may have lower degree of guru-disciple worldview. Substitute guru-disciple with tradition, faith, myth, political party, church, mosque, synagogue, team, whatever. I am not saying these groups are bad. Just trying to point to the nuance of degree. Even degree is not so easy to pinpoint. As one person’s too much control might be another person’s just right. However, as an individual and society I believe we can find some ordinary agreement about what is too much and what is potentially or dangerous. But then it again raises who gets to set what is too much? Too cult-like? These are tricky but worthwhile questions for us individually and collectively to discuss and explore. That is what I do as a hobby and in my blog and Facebook page. I use meditation and yoga techniques and groups as a jump off point for getting underneath to the existential crises and issues that these groups and worldviews promise to solve and/or create.
Jacobsen: Do some never ‘get over’ their experiences, the trauma for example?
Scott: Correct. Some, perhaps most if not all who spent many years within high-control groups, may never get over the abuse or controls. Why would we want them to get completely “over” it? For me, the lessons I learned getting out of the ashram cult-like situation, both physically and psychologically, was perhaps one of the most defining experiences of my life, of my psyche. I have scars and trauma lurking underneath my psyche. On the outside I live a fairly ordinary life, with fairly unremarkable job, car, family, friends and accomplishments. But most people I know do not know what I have been through. How could they? I heard of soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who say the same thing. They miss the meaning, purpose and intense camaraderie of war, or at least their band of brothers who were trained for war and killing. Soldiers who return whom after serving their country honorably, if they are lucky may integrate into a society from which they may feel alienated from, especially after living through and seeing the horrors of war, blood, and death. Should they “get over” it? Then, be “normal”. The greatest lessons are often those hardest earned. Frankly, as I think about it, perhaps no one really has a “normal” life psychologically. I am not saying we are all traumatized but what I am trying to get at is the nuances. It has easy to focus on the physical, the normal, what is on the surface layers, while forgetting underneath is mostly the struggles for meaning and not questions of kind.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Scott.
Scott: My pleasure. I have enjoyed our discussion.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/16
“How can clinicians stay humanistic — respectful, empathic, and compassionate — with patients with complex behavioral, social, or physical issues? In our interprofessional patient-centered medical home for homeless Veterans, we designed a compact set of techniques, summarized on a pocket card, and termed the Humanism Pocket Tool (HPT). It comprises heuristics for interacting both with patients and team members, because staying compassionate requires a culture of humanism within the clinic.”
Source: http://www.annfammed.org/content/16/5/467.full.
“Meet 2018’s Humanist of the Year. For his advocacy work on responsible and progressive economic ethics, Nick Hanauer will be honored as Humanist of the Year by the Humanist Hub, an organization based at MIT and Harvard. In a statement, Hanauer said, “It is an honor both to receive this award, and to join the Humanist Hub in helping to change the way we think and talk about the economy. It turns out that most people get capitalism wrong. Capitalism works best when it works for everybody, not just for zillionaires like me.” The Humanist Hub, a nonreligious philosophy group, annually celebrates a public individual they believe embodies the ideals of humanism, a philosophy of living ethically to serve the greater good of humanity. (Watch Hauner’s TED Talk.)”
“Very few people identify a personal life philosophy that governs them. The broad band of humanity travels happily along a road of convenience choosing diverse plans that offer the most for the moment.
In our day, commitment levels are low and personal gratification is the main course on the menu.
If you boil down all tangent issues, life is usually governed by two competing philosophies. Secular humanism or a biblical worldview account for the two major approaches to life.”
“A clarification to the letter writer who conflated the term “atheist” with the term “humanist.” Just as there are many forms of Christianity and Judaism (and Islam and Hinduism and a whole bunch of other world religions) humanism has several distinct strands.
While secular humanism does appeal to those who identify as atheist, religious humanism covers a wide spectrum of beliefs and practices.
At base, humanism affirms and promotes the agency and responsibility of people to affect the world as they find it in the here and now. In that, many may share the values espoused by the ACLU and the SPLC, but I can find no evidence that these organizations or the others mentioned in the letter promote hatred.”
Source: http://www.ocala.com/opinion/20180914/letters-to-editor-for-spetember-14-2018.
“ It is not an overstatement to say moral standard in our society has for long been trampled upon as a result of our crave for materialism. While the average adult opportunist in our society indulges in illicit financial dealings, cronyism and insincerity in both high and low levels, the youths rake in other vices such as sexual abuse, robbery, murder, cultism, flagrant breaking of laws and order, drunkenness, drug addiction, thuggery etc. Everybody in Nigeria lives in fear over the level of moral decay in the country.
Some may attribute this to civilization and westernisation, but our expectation of civilization is a well developed and organised human society. It should be that of a positive human relationship, respect for self, law and maturity.”
Source: http://www.thetidenewsonline.com/2018/09/12/the-evil-of-secular-humanism-2/.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/11
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are part of two important initiatives. One, you are the co-founder and vice president of Intentional Insights. Two, you are the co-founder of the Pro-Truth Pledge. There are important, along with others around the world, of critical thinking and science and evidence-based thinking.
When it comes to young people and keeping an eye out for things that seem as if based on evidence, where there is the use of the language of science and evidence but aren’t actually based on any, what are some hints or clues that they should keep in mind, whether in the presentation of the information or in the language used?
Agnes Vishnevkin: That is a fantastic question, Scott. If folks want to know about the initiatives, they can check out protruthpledge.org or intentionalinsights.org. We talk about behavioral sciences and psychology, how they impact daily life and how they, sometimes, cause us to make decisions and have inaccurate beliefs.
When you are reading or hearing information, one thing to think, “Does it already play to your beliefs?” If I think, hypothetically, it is terrible to eat meat, and then someone says, “It is fine. Animals don’t suffer.” I say, “You’re wrong. I am opposed to it.” You are saying something opposed to my beliefs.
This involves something called Confirmation Bias. If something goes against my beliefs, I would be disinclined to believe it. It is important to guard against that. Do we have reasons? We should be prepared if it is only something comfortable to my current beliefs. That is one thing to be mindful of.
Jacobsen: I do not mean this as a question to impugn any organization as a whole. However, are there common societal institutions or organizations in which non-evidence-based propositions or statements about the world are put forth to young people more often than others — when, in fact, there is little to no support for some of those claims
put forth to young people?
Vishnevkin: Yes, I think that young people. This can happen in a different variety of ways. I am not going to make guesses about all the different places. I would say to consider something that, for example, there are groups in which we are or are not a member of.
It is human to form ourselves into groups. The sense of belonging is deeply wired into our minds. Humans first evolved in the savannah. We lived in groups of 100–150 people. It was a simple world. We still have these in our brains and minds.
This strong desire to belong and a strong fear of rejection. It is a matter of life and death. That is why it is painful when we imagine being rejected. I think there are places in which we belong to certain organizations or to our family, or to any kind of group — where we would find it hard if we were rejected.
I would say that is one place to stay tuned. I am not saying the family is necessarily pushing any misinformation, but I would stay cautious in that case. Because it is hard for us to take information and say, “I do not agree with you. It is not according to science.” It is hard for us to do. Our emotions do not want to disagree with the groups with which we agree.
People who we like. We really tend to agree with them compared to people we dislike. We need to mindful if our emotions are for or against someone. If it is for someone, we might believe something not science or evidence-based. These are some of the ways in which to protect ourselves. Our website at intentionalinsights.org has multiple blogs written, actually with young people in mind. We want to make sure this scientific knowledge is available for anyone.
I hope your readers find a bit of information at our blog.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Agnes.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/15
I want to talk about a problem today. The problem reaching to all corners of the globe, in nations, in communities, maybe, even, in your own family. It is an unfortunate fact of the modern world. That’s the reality of illicit substances or drugs, and their various abuses, overuses, and at-times associated overdoses.
Our current era of technological marvels, scientific wonders shedding new views on the natural world and our relationship with the cosmos, comes with the concomitant problem of easier illicit production, distribution, and consumption of potentially harmful substances or drugs (WHO, 2018a; WHO, 2018b).
In particular, and on even one metric of opioid overdoses, there are 70,000 to 100,000 individuals dying from opioid overdoses each year, which is the main cause of the estimate 99,000 to 253,000 deaths from to illicit drug use in 2010 (UNODC/WHO, 2013). 8,440 overdose deaths happened with the EU28 in 2015 (European Monitoring Centre for Drug and Addiction, 2017). Indeed, there were 1.3 million high-risk opioid users in Europe alone (Ibid.).
In America, there were about two-thirds of the 64,000 deaths associated with opioids or synthetic opioids (Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2018). These types — and there are others — of substance have the potential to be addictive and harmful, in the short or the long term. It is both sad, moving, and a clarion call for our need to make the world safer for the next generations. What can we do?
We can first of all pay attention to the experts of the world. Those taking significant portions of their lives to commit themselves to the study of important topic areas in medicine, in biological sciences, in pharmaceutical sciences, demography, anthropology, human psychological sciences, and so on.
Many girls and women are impacted by drug addiction and overdoses, even deaths. They even have fathers, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, and sons and grandsons who have died from drug overdoses. However, the long-term and overwhelming evidence is men use more illicit substances and deal with more of the consequences in personal life (NIH, 2018a; NIH, 2018b).
That means the impact on men and boys creates impacts in the lives of women and girls. Men and boys they love. Women and girls who are loved. When looking at the important organizations on the international stage, we can look into those who have made the warnings and calls to action about drug abuse and use, e.g., the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UN General Assembly Session on the Approach to the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) in its 2016 unanimous conclusion, through drug policy and the Sustainable Development Goals, and others (UNODC, 2018; Yakupitiyage, 2017; UNODC, 2015; Sustainable Development Goals, n.d.).
One of the main global organizations for the health and wellness of the public is the World Health Organization. The main collective entity representing the world’s population, and which produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 70 years ago, is the United Nations. Both the World Health Organization and the United Nations issued a joint statement calling for the decriminalization of all drugs (WHO, 2017).
Former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres called for the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal and instituted the programs while the prime minister there. Now, Guterres, following Ban Ki-Moon, is the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He is also calling for decriminalization from this station as well (Secretariat to the Governing Bodies UNODC, 2018).
Indeed, even the late Kofi Annan, he made a call for the decriminalization of drugs around the world for the better wellbeing of the world’s peoples (Pablo, 2017). Same with the Global Commission on Drug Policy comprised of 12 powerful former heads of state (2016). Even in the US, the public is mostly in favour of the decriminalization of cannabis or marijuana, which would comprise harm reduction methodologies (Geiger, 2018).
In select nations, there is a continuous call for decriminalization and then the eventual enactment of the policies and initiatives of decriminalization of drugs in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Portugal, and other countries (Travis, 2014).
Prominent among them is the success of Guterres. It is an affirming legacy in the process of decriminalization and the interests and wellbeing of the public. The major organizations in the global order see the wisdom in decriminalization. Many nations are seeing eye-to-eye with them.
Then in Canada, two of the three major federal or national political parties have called for the decriminalization of drugs too. The main health officials of some of the most populated city centres in Canada — Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto — have called for decriminalization as well (Dickson, 2018). There is this continual groundswell internationally, multi-nationally, and nationally, especially close to home nationally with Canadian society.
The reason is stark, and clear. Canadian citizens are dying because of overdoses. The punishment-oriented or punitive approach is the methodology for dealing with drugs most visible in countries like the United States, where the purpose is to punish. They imprison and fine drug users or holders to make an example of them and others.
As far as the evidence is concerned, it tends to increase drug use and overdoses. It does not decrease them. That is why the experts are not calling for more or even continued criminalization of drug users. It impacts the poor and minorities the most (Fellner, 2009). To further the criminalization of drugs, it would harm people in penurious circumstances and with minority ethnic backgrounds more than the richer and dominant ethnic groups in a country.
But what is the alternative? Why are there calls for decriminalization at all levels of the world system?
The alternative is harm reduction (Harm Reduction International, 2018). Decriminalization is part of the process of implementing harm reduction philosophy. But what is harm reduction outside of the calls around the world for decriminalization? It is, in fact, a wide range of policies, programs, and practices devoted to the reduction of harms associated with drug use.
It is an acceptance of drug use in the society with an emphasis on ways in which to reduce the harms to the general public, especially in the sectors of the population without the want or the will to halt personal substance use. When HIV was becoming more prominent and spreading throughout some of the subpopulations in some countries of the world, harm reduction began its early development processes.
Some of the first beneficiaries were drug users who inject the substance into them with a needle. In Canadian society, we see the work of safe needle exchange sites to reduce the transmission of HIV and infectious diseases. Without a clean needle, the diseases can spread from user to user through contaminated needles. It sounds simple. But it is akin to the first people who found out about washing hands prior to surgery as a good idea to prevent infection from the surgery.
The harm reduction philosophy means more then these too. It is akin to reproductive health services for women. Where women deserve and reserve the right to reproductive health services, including abortion, women should have safe and equitable access to these services, as noted by Human Rights Watch. It is stipulated in a number of human rights documents. Similarly, the point of harm reduction is not forcing drugs on the citizenry but providing safe and equitable access to the least among us — the forgotten, bruised by life, and often coping with substance abuse.
They deserve our care, compassion, and concern as fellow global citizens and travellers in this journey called life. But these are lofty notions and ideals. How do we best work in the pragmatic and implement programs for the needs of the least among us? Some of the solutions already mentioned and proposed by major organizations of the world and health authorities representing nations in the world or of major cities in, for example, Canada.
Others include the safe needle exchange programs. Still others, they include the work to incorporate access to safe injection sites for a reliable and safe place for drug users. Also, the provision of a drug called naloxone through kits (Miles, n.d.). These can stop overdoses in their tracks. The reason is they block the opioid receptors of the body, so the fentanyl-laced opioid substances do not kill them.
Thousands of people are dying every year in the one of the highest-ranked on measures of wellbeing nations in the world, Canada. It is due to this opioid epidemic spreading across the nation, where naloxone kits can prevent overdoses enough to provide time for proper medical care in the uncommon cases of overdoses in drug users who can be abusers.
The safe needle exchange programs, the safe injection sites, the naloxone kits, and the decriminalization all help reduce the deaths and health problems to the public. These harm reduction measures improve the overall health the society, which would, otherwise, be impacted by the deaths of individual drug overdoses. Remember the drug fentanyl mentioned before.
That is a major culprit here. It should not be laced with opioids and other drugs. However, the problem is the illicit or criminal status of the drugs. The criminalization is the problem, which directly relates to the illicit status and illegal-unregulated production of the drugs. When done this way, the opioids are accidentally, and sometimes intentionally, laced with fentanyl, which is a deadly drug. Decriminalization reduces the harms there. Many of my fellow Canadians and global citizens would not heartbreakingly be dead as a result, too.
Take, for example, the case of Guterres with Portugal. What was the actual impact of the harm reduction measures?
The situation is in stark contrast to the punitive measures. There are no arrests for drug possession. More people have begun to receive treatment. As a direct result, the total number of people having addiction problems, HIV/AIDS, and drug overdoses have plummeted in Portugal (Vastag, 2009). What if this happened in Canada? What about the rest of the world, as per the calls for harm reduction to be implemented through decriminalization?
These harm reduction measures have been nationally empirically proven to be effective to greatly improve the public’s health and safety. Harm reduction is an evidence-based approach to combatting the drug problems of the world and has been recognized around the world by the health experts to improve the lives of the general public. It is all the more urgent based on the potential to reduce harms to individuals, families, and communities, to implement the methodologies shown to work almost immediately — within a couple years or less.
Given the demographics of who is imprisoned or fined, the public health benefits would accrue to the most vulnerable populations of most societies, which are the minority subpopulations and the lower classes/the poor. Those public health benefits would make their lives healthier, easier, longer, and less mixed up — unduly — with the law.
These populations are the most deserving of better consideration and equal opportunity within the society, whether considering deliberate cultural genocide and attempted extermination of the Indigenous population in North America or the slavery of the African-American population in the US. They continue to suffer under the consequences of a long history of repression and abuse. Indigenous men and women in Canada only got the right to vote in 1960. African-Americans in America saw only further equality with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. The War on Drugs, in America, or the criminalization of crimes without victims mostly affect these more vulnerable populations.
With the evidence before us, and with the stark contrast between the outcomes of the punitive approach and the harm reduction approach to the drug issue around the world, and with the calls from all the relevant experts internationally and nationally, one major step to tackle the problem of drugs will be the recognition of harm reduction as the way to solve this problem.
The next steps will be education of the global public about the empirical evidence with the examples before us, with Portugal and others as positive successes. Following this, we should work towards a national and international collective set of efforts to solve the issue of drug abuse and overdoses. Human beings have used drugs for thousands of years. They have abused them for as long as they have been around. However, we have the means, through minimal expenses and compassion, to reduce the harms to those all over the world impacted by addiction, drug abuse, and overdoses.
This is not a trivial thing either. Speaking as a high-level representative of the UN community, the harm reduction approach is based on a firm, strong commitment to the health of the general public, as explained before, and human rights. Who can help work for the public health and human rights?
Our communities, frontline works, policymakers, politicians, and researchers to name a few. Then there are those heading out into the world as the next generation of educated workers and leaders. You are the investment of the future of the rest of the world. You can be the positive force for good that the world so desperately needs, as we have issues in climate change, nuclear proliferation, food shortages, natural disasters, and so on. The problems of the drug epidemics are one of those grand challenges recognized by the most influential organizations and people in the world as a problem.
The best part of these solutions is that they are typically low-cost, low-risk, and high-payoff. They respect the individual to make their own informed choices about drugs. But they provide the health services to the public. And if someone has a moral objection to them, they do not have to use them. But for those who do need them, they have them available for use. It respects all involved parties, produce real positive outcomes for the population, and works to create a more stable world for all.
Become a part of that future, we need you.
References
Dickson, J. (2018, July 30). Despite calls, Ottawa won’t decriminalize drugs apart from cannabis. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4361721/decriminalize-drugs-ottawa/.
European Monitoring Centre for Drug and Addiction. (2017, June 6). PERSPECTIVES ON DRUGS Preventing overdose deaths in Europe. Retrieved from http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/2748/POD_Preventing%20overdose%20deaths.pdf.
Fellner, J. (2009, June 19). Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/19/race-drugs-and-law-enforcement-united-states.
Harm Reduction International. (2018). What is Harm Reduction?. Retrieved from https://www.hri.global/what-is-harm-reduction.
Geiger, A. (2018, January 5). About six-in-ten Americans support marijuana legalization. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/05/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/.
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Global Commission on Drug Policy. (2018). The Opioid Crisis in North America. Retrieved from http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-GCDP-Position-Paper-Opioid-Crisis-ENG.pdf.
Miles, T. (n.d.). World Health Organization Recommends Naloxone to Prevent 20,000 Overdose Deaths in U.S.. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-health-organization-recommends-naloxone-to-prevent-20-000-overdose-deaths-in-u-s/.
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NIH. (2018b, August). Sex and Gender Differences in Substance Use. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/substance-use-in-women. Sustainable Development Goals. (n.d.). 3 Good Health and Well-Being. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/health/.
Pablo, D. (2017, October 3). Ex-UN Chief Kofi Annan Calls for Cannabis Legalization. Retrieved from https://denzelonline.com/ex-un-chief-kofi-annan-calls-for-cannabis-legalization/.
Secretariat to the Governing Bodies UNODC. (2018). 61st session of CND, video message by Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=kF-6t0FdYG0.
Travis, A. (2014, October 30). Eleven countries studied, one inescapable conclusion — the drug laws don’t work. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/30/drug-laws-international-study-tough-policy-use-problem.
UNODC. (2015, November). Drug Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/Health_Poverty_Action/HPA_SDGs_drugs_policy_briefing_WEB.pdf.
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UNODC. (2018, June 26). World Drug Report 2018: opioid crisis, prescription drug abuse expands; cocaine and opium hit record highs. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2018/June/world-drug-report-2018_-opioid-crisis–prescription-drug-abuse-expands-cocaine-and-opium-hit-record-highs.html.
Vastag, B. (2009, April 7). 5 Years After: Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/portugal-drug-decriminalization/.
WHO. (2017, June 27). Joint United Nations statement on ending discrimination in health care settings. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/news-room/detail/27-06-2017-joint-united-nations-statement-on-ending-discrimination-in-health-care-settings.
WHO. (2018b). Management of substance abuse: Facts and figures. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/information-sheet/en/.
WHO. (2018a). Management of substance abuse: information sheet on opioid overdose. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/information-sheet/en/.
Yakupitiyage, T. (2017, June 22). “Big Reflection” Needed on Opioid Crisis. Retrieved from http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/06/big-reflection-needed-opioid-crisis/.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/11
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Regarding critical thinking, what are some baseline things young adults should bear in mind?
Bentley Davis: Critical thinking is a superpower that gives you control over some things in the world and peace about the things you can not change. It helps you understand what is really going on. It takes work but it is worth it. Emotions are a critical part of critical thinking. Understanding emotions help you understand people’s motivations.
Jacobsen: How can they use these skills and thought processes/analytic tools to process junk science, non-science, and pseudoscience from real science?
Davis: As you learn about rhetorical devices, language choices you learn when you need to look deeper before accepting the information you encounter. Looking for multiple opinions and evaluating their sources will guide you to the truth and reduce how often you are fooled by people trying to manipulate you (even if they have manipulated themselves).
Jacobsen: How does science and skepticism and fact-checking build into the app at www.reasonscore.com?
Davis: Reasonscore is a place to see other people’s research on facts you encounter. You can see all the facts for and against a claim in one spot so you don’t have to search through the whole internet. You can also add any additional facts you find that are missing. You can share it with others so they can quickly get up to speed on a topic.
Jacobsen: How can people get it?
Davis: Go to ReasonScore.com.
Jacobsen: What have been some of the feedback about it?
Davis: I don’t have much feedback yet as it’s pretty new.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Bentley.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/10
“On day two of the confirmation hearings for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s second nominee to the Supreme Court, Senator John Cornyn of Texas brought up the 2000 case Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, in which the court ruled that sectarian prayers at high school football games violated the clause of the First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion.
Mr. Cornyn repeated Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s complaint that the decision “bristle[d] with hostility to all things religious in public life.” In fact, the plaintiffs in the case identified as Catholic and Mormon, and it is safe to say that they were not hostile to religion, but to the presumption that one religion speaks for all.
Judge Kavanaugh, eager to signal his agreement with Mr. Cornyn, tossed back the catch phrase that Mr. Cornyn appeared to be fishing for: “religious liberty.””
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opinion/kavanaugh-supreme-court-religious-liberty.html.
“In a recent letter to the editor, dated Aug. 18, a local writer deplores the role and effect of religion in society and our nation. He blames religion for its negative impact on Indigenous people. But while applauding the idea of a special national holiday to honour them, suggests that religious organizations should be charged “…for damages and costs, all their assets being forfeited to government.”
The writer goes on to berate religion as “just a bunch of people that prey on the minds of the weak and the vulnerable,” that “religions have been the cause of most wars….” He states that “the reality of life is that you are born, live and survive, then you die and turn to dust and dirt.””
Source: https://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/opinion/columnists/is-religion-obsolete-1.23425142.
“Figures out last week suggest more trouble ahead for the Church of England, with fewer people turning to God in old age. This should come as no surprise. The proportion of the population describing itself as being “of no religion” in the broadest sense has increased dramatically — now over 50 per cent, up from less than 30 per cent in 1980.
Yet the decline of certain organised religions has been accompanied by the emergence of a powerful new morality, with none of the redeeming qualities of the old one. Characterised by a rigid adherence to politically correct standards, a dismissal of the value of free speech, and the elevation of the principles of identity politics above all else”.
“IT was set up to be a bastion of Presbyterian tradition and for more than 400 years it has been a male-only preserve.
But now, for the first time, a woman has taken up the post of Head of the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, ending centuries of only male posteriors occupying the chair at the top of the table.
Professor Helen Bond said she hopes to bring a fresh outlook to the role and to inspire others to take a look at a subject some may regard as dusty and dry.”
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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.
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“Davis’s activism around gender and media began when she noticed the bias in the kids’ TV programs her young daughter watched. Program executives didn’t believe her so she set out to collect the data to prove there was bias in the onscreen depictions aimed at young children.
“I feel like this is the easiest fix. It’s the lowest hanging fruit in the panoply of problems we have and it’s also the most urgent. Why are we teaching kids something we try so hard to get rid of later on,” she said, citing the motto of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media: “If they see it they can be it.”
“A girl sees Hunger Games, she goes out and buys a bow. A woman sees CSI or X-Factor, she goes into the STEM fields,” said Davis.”
“The events and the arguing and the booing that would make this a US Open final unlike any other began when Serena Williams’ coach made what she insisted was an innocent thumbs-up, but the chair umpire interpreted as a helpful signal.
It was the second game of the second set Saturday, in a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium, and Williams’ bid for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam title already was in real trouble because she was being outplayed by first-time major finalist Naomi Osaka.
Chair umpire Carlos Ramos warned Williams for getting coaching during a match, which isn’t allowed. She briefly disputed that ruling, saying cheating “is the one thing I’ve never done, ever.””
“Gender equality advocates criticised a major Thai police training academy this week as “ignorant” and “on the wrong side of history” for its decision to ban women from its programmes next year.
The Royal Police Cadet Academy (RPCA), on the western edge of the capital, Bangkok, declined to explain why women candidates would no longer be accepted. It is considered the country’s main commissioning institute for budding law enforcement officers, particularly those hoping to be considered for top positions in the force.
Though women can still become non-commissioned officers at other institutes, analysts and women’s rights advocates said the decision would cut the number of women in the force and affect the treatment of female victims of sex-related crimes.”
“DETROIT — A black pastor’s controversial eulogy at Aretha Franklin’s funeral laid bare before the world what black women say they have experienced for generations: sexism and inequality in their houses of worship every Sunday.
In eulogizing the beloved artist known as the Queen of Soul, the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. declared that as “proud, beautiful and fine as our black women are, one thing a black woman cannot do — a black woman cannot raise a black boy to be a man.””
Source: https://www.timescolonist.com/for-black-women-at-church-it-s-more-than-the-aretha-eulogy-1.23425633.
“When you really think about it, the fact that women all over the world are still fighting for equal rights defies all logic. Humans have mastered flight, walked on the moon and created the internet but women still can’t be trusted to make autonomous decisions about their own bodies, be guaranteed freedom from violence or harassment or get paid the same amount as men for doing the same damn work.
When we look back on this decade, it will, in part, be defined by the multi-pronged fight for women’s rights and the incremental mainstreaming of feminism — that most revolutionary of ideas, that all people, regardless of gender, are equal. From Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s rallying cry “We Should All Be Feminists” to the galvanising success of the Me Too movement to the global impact of the intersectional feminism practised by gallant women and girls such as the Honduran indigenous and environmental rights defender Berta Cáceres, Turkish LGBTI rights leader Hande Kader, Brazilian councillor and anti-police violence activist Marielle Franco and Pakistani girls’ rights and education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, the movement for gender equality has taken centre-stage.”
Source: https://www.equaltimes.org/and-still-we-rise-the-global#.W5YcBehKiM8.
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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.
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“In the last couple of decades, religious affiliation has been on a steep decline in all modern societies1. Many worry that religion’s loss of influence will result in nihilistic societal values — a loss of the sense of purpose, meaning and morality. This fear rests on the assumption that religion is the source of these qualities, and that they were inherent at the origin of the universe, imbued by a benevolent creator.
Before the transformative scientific insights of the last few decades, it could quite reasonably have seemed self-evident that our world is purposefully designed and controlled by some sort of intentional higher power. It might even have seemed naive to suggest that the ingenious complexity that characterizes our world could have arisen spontaneously.”
“A local atheist never liked to call himself a Humanist. Although he revels in narcissism and hating on Two Broke Girls, deep down he is a Humanist as defined by the American Humanist Association:
Humanism is a progressive lifestance that, without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical lives capable of adding to the greater good of humanity.
Friends of his may be surprised by this fact. However, the devil is in the details. The definition only states our ability and responsibility not to be dirtbaags. It doesn’t boldly state human beings are angels.”
“President Donald Trump hosted a White House dinner for 100 evangelical leaders in late August. When the President entertained the church leaders aligned with his Republican base, I thought back to a summer visit to Plains, Ga., the hometown of President Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. At the old Plains High School, now a museum featuring the Carter’s lives, I saw the book “Living Faith” that Carter wrote back in 1996.
I had read Living Faith 20 years ago and remembered Carter recalling a particular White House encounter: “A high official of the Southern Baptist Convention came into the Oval Office to visit me when I was president. As he and his wife were leaving, he said, ‘We are praying, Mr. President, that you will abandon secular humanism as your religion.’ This was a shock to me. I didn’t know what he meant. I am still not sure.” Carter goes on to mention in the book that in his 1976 run for the White House, “the evangelist Jerry Falwell condemned me because I ‘claimed’ to be a Christian.””
Source: http://www.news-gazette.com/living/2018-09-09/don-follis-the-truly-faithful-have-nothing-fear.html.
“A provincial organization promoting secular humanism questions why B.C. communities including Saanich continue to grant tax exemptions to properties that religious groups own.
“With the upcoming municipal elections, we think it’s a good time for residents to start talking about what they want to see in their community,” said Ian Bushfield, executive director of the B.C. Humanist Association. “Every municipality is facing tight budgets and councils have to make difficult decisions about how to best balance the needs of different sectors of the community.”
Places of worship receive a statutory tax exemption under the Community Charter with councils having no say in the matter. (The statutory exemption applies to the assessed value of the building and the value of the land under the building).”
Source: https://www.vicnews.com/news/humanist-group-says-saanich-taxes-public-purse-with-church-exemptions/.
“The modern university is commendable for fostering an atmosphere of learning, research and education. Texas State University supports this with the Albert B. Alkek Library, a collection of more than 1.5 million printed volumes, 99,700 electronic journals and 625 databases. Furthermore, it is an open space that favors the promotion of learning and research.
Evidently, the purpose of seeking a university education is to develop a career and to secure eventual employment. In a universe that seems to dedicate attention on the economic question, that is, the gross production of wealth, it appears that the human person is at the mercy of a system in which the competition for gainful employment is impersonal and unforgiving. In the end, it is a question of economics and the human element disappears behind numbers.
Humanism forms the tradition of the modern university and traces its origin to the Renaissance during the 14th century in Italy. Humanism is an intellectual movement that focuses on the re-discovery of humane letters from the classical Greeks and Romans, giving way for a rebirth of the classical patrimony of Europe after centuries of absence during the Middle Ages.”
Source: https://star.txstate.edu/2018/09/the-modern-university-can-recover-its-humanism/.
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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.
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“Religious education in schools needs a major overhaul to reflect an increasingly diverse world and should include the study of atheism, agnosticism and secularism, a two-year investigation has concluded.
The subject should be renamed Religion and Worldviews to equip young people with respect and empathy for different faiths and viewpoints, says the Commission on Religious Education in a report published on Sunday.
Content “must reflect the complex, diverse and plural nature of worldviews”, drawing from “a range of religious, philosophical, spiritual and other approaches to life, including different traditions within Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, non-religious worldviews and concepts including humanism, secularism, atheism and agnosticism”.”
“With apologies to Richard Dawkins, the New Atheists are old news. But we’ve got a bigger problem.
You remember them, don’t you? Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris? These so-called “New Atheists” drew crowds with their bombastic and occasionally clever attacks on God and theism. For a while their books were best sellers, “The God Delusion,” “God Is Not Great,” for example. But as atheist and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson recently wrote, “The world appears to be tiring of the New Atheism movement.””
Source: https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/eric-metaxas/americas-burgeoning-apatheism-atheism-apathy.
“When atheists reject the concept or existence of God, their conclusion is based on limited perception because we human beings are like a speck of creature in this colossal universe incapable of fathoming its enormity.
Their case does not win credibility either by just ridiculing those who believe in God.
And those under theism believing that God exists in physical form or in some supernatural and transcendental actuality, and offers a sensory experience, then it is merely an unjustified and ritualistic impression. This conception can be easily rejected in the face of the rationale-seeking contemporary society.”
Source: http://thelinkpaper.ca/?p=70173.
“Did America’s founders intend it as “one nation under God”? Does the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion extend to freedom from religion?
In a new book, “Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic,” Professors Emeriti Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore explore these questions and atheism in America from historical and legal perspectives. The book appeared atop a list of new and notable titles in The New York Times Book Review of Sept. 2.
“The Pledge of Allegiance was changed in 1954 to distinguish the United States as a godly country, from what Americans considered then the godless, atheistic Soviet Union,” Kramnick, the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government Emeritus, said in a recent interview.”
Source: http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/09/moore-kramnick-explore-atheism-america-new-book.
“IT IS as well to remember, when thinking about atheism, what a very relative term it is, a word with multiple meanings. After all, early Christians were accused of being atheists for not honouring the many Roman gods of their day. And, as John Gray reminds us, if we want to understand atheism and religion, we must forget the popular notion that they are opposites. Some forms of atheism merge with mysticism at a deep level.
Seven Types of Atheism is not an exhaustive list of all the atheisms of the world, but merely a convenient way for the author to break up his material as he explores the theme, while pursuing his own interests through Western philosophy. His quick dismissal of the New Atheists of today is a delight. They are given short shrift for directing their campaign against a narrow segment of religion while failing to understand even that small part. Contemporary atheism, he suggests, in seeking a surrogate for the Creator-God that it has dismissed, tends to find meaning and redemption in ideas of progress.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/08
Claire has a background in law and psychology, and is currently working on her degree in Religious Studies. She has been involved in the skeptic movement since 2013 as co-organizer of the Czech Paranormal Challenge. Since then, she has consulted on various projects, where woo and belief meet science. Claire has spoken at multiple science and skepticism conferences and events. She also organized the European Skeptics Congress in 2017, and both years of the Czech March for Science.
Her current activities include chairing the European Council of Skeptical Organisations, running the “Don’t Be Fooled” project (which provides free critical thinking seminars to interested high schools), contributing to the Czech Religious Studies journal Dingir, as well as to their news in religion website. In her free time, Claire visits various religious movements to understand better what draws people to certain beliefs.
Claire lives in Prague, Czech Republic, with her partner and dog.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Who are your heroes?
Claire Klingenberg: In a broad sense, it is my mom [Laughing]. It is not very original, I know [Laughing]. In the atheist movement, it is Maryam Namazie.
Jacobsen: Why Maryam Namazie?
Klingenberg: Because of the unyielding pursuit of her message and of the work that she does, and how she manages to push her message, and be heard. Not being afraid too.
Jacobsen: Who else?
Klingenberg: Taslima Nasreen, she is an activist from Bangladesh. She left her home country for a couple of years because of the death threats that she was receiving, but she wants to return to work on her activism there.
She wants to spread activism there. She is one of the few women from that area who left her faith and country, even inspite threats to her safety. She is incredible.
Another incredible woman is Nina Sankari. She founded one of the Polish atheist groups. I got to know her quite well, personally.
She is a very, very tough and unyielding person. I love the way that she does not allow anyone to get away with anything, and how she is always on top of things — as well as her approach and dedication to her message.
Jacobsen: Even if you look at not only the secular moment in particular, who are some of the brighter lights who provided a basis in logic and science to bolster a secular worldview?
Klingenberg: The first one is not academic. It is Scooby-Doo [Laughing].
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Klingenberg: [Laughing] I remember watching Scooby-Doo as a child. I think that bolsters critical thinking. You find out the monsters are not real. You find out there is always someone behind the mask.
Jacobsen: That is such a good point. That is so not trivial.
Klingenberg: It has shaped me a lot. Not much later, I started reading Nancy Drew. These detective stories were the first introduction to logic and analytical thinking. I found them crucial. It taught me to ask questions, especially to ask questions, be inquisitive, and be curious.
That later translated to other passions and studies. People would expect me to be saying Carl Sagan.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Klingenberg: But Scooby-Doo [Laughing] was one of my most forming experiences. That formed me for the rest of my life [Laughing].
Jacobsen: I find that interesting, if I may. If I look at the presentation of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Amn Druyan, Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carroll, and others, the main emphasis amounts to explicit science, technology, and, sometimes, logic and, sometimes, emotional appeal as the basis for argumentation.
The examples you gave are not trivial. Even though, we laughed. I find a seriousness there. The Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew, it makes for a nice rhyme. At the same time, it makes for an indirect presentation of critical thinking.
Things may seem mysterious, but, at the end of the day, for the most part, are natural. If something is amiss, it is probably someone behind it. For a generation or two behind us, I would suspect Sherlock Holmes.
Klingenberg: I was going to mention him. When I was older, I read Sherlock Holmes. Of course, I read Hercule Poirot as well.
Later, when I started reading philosophers, my thinking was influenced by Charles Pierce, William James, and Chauncey Wright. Also, reading John Dewey and Bertrand Russell, but that was later on.
Jacobsen: I love that transition from Scooby-Doo, Nancy Drew, and Sherlock Holmes to that implicit appreciation for methodological analysis of a situation into the explicit process of discovery through science and the methodology of critical thinking through these other authors. It makes sense.
It is pretty close to ideal, probably.
Klingenberg: Yes, the whole field of Philosophy for Children, I found out about this field 4 or 5 years ago, works pretty much based on that. It shows how you can teach even kindergarten children critical thinking by reading to them and having them question what they hear.
When they ask questions, do not provide answers, just ask back and help them figure it out. I think that is a good way to get people skeptical from a young age. I think that the main focus of the skeptical movement is on adults and trying to change their, already established, thinking patterns. I believe we should focus more on approachable material for younger age groups.
I, personally, am working with teenagers. That is a challenge [Laughing] in and of itself. They already have patterns and trails of thinking, which already are difficult to deal with.
Reading to kids and having them actively participate in receiving information is crucial to make them into critical thinkers. However, television shows can be an effective way to spread tools of skeptical and critical thinking, too.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Claire.
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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.
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One of the important figures of the non-religious community in the United Kingdom, Andrew Copson — Chief Executive of Humanists UK, talked about one of the most important British surveys, which is the British Social Attitudes Survey.
A recent, updated accounting of the attitudes of the British has been released to provide some information as to the views on a variety of social issues and topics of the British public.
Regarding the more important part of the survey and message from Copson, there remains a continual uptick in the number of individual British young adults who do not identify with the Church of England.
This reflects a decline in Christianity in a number of advanced industrial economies or countries. Copson reported that only 2% of young adults belong to the Church of England.
This is a “historic low.” He also is quick to identify an asymmetry in the proportion of the young adult population with this identification and then the representation of Christianity in a number of other areas of the nation.
He notes that one-third of the state schools are run by the Church and then Christian worship is an enforcement in every single state school. In political life, it is reflected there too. There are 26 bishops in the House of Lords.
Dr. Stephen Law, the famous philosopher, skeptic, and secular humanist, has stated this in the past as well. There is a non-religious majority now. However, they face a number of discriminations through such examples as those given. It seems imperative to work on the reduction and eventual elimination of them in due time, sooner rather than later.
Humanists UK and others, individuals and organizations, are working on the creation of a society more representative of the modern constituencies of the population — more secular, more non-religious, and more skeptical of religious institutions as the drivers of national life.
These are only some of the challenges which the non-religious majority face. We’re determined to tear down barriers and ensure equality in all walks of life.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/05
There is a fundraiser ongoing for those who have been victims of the extremist group Boko Haram. It is for the Al-amin Dagash IDP Camp, in Maiduguri, Nigeria.
Many refugees remain, against their life plans, in dire circumstances and then stay open to the elements with poor housing provisions, because they are refugees. The live in huts with “thatched” roofing.
However, whenever the rain comes in, this causes leakages and problems for their quality of life, even in as terrible as circumstances as they are in post-Boko Haram.
One possible solution proposed, through the fundraiser, is the use of tarpaulin to prevent further leakages in the huts. If you can spare some finances to help these refugees, it would be greatly appreciated:
https://brighterbrains.institute/clinics/tarpaulins-for-al-amin-dagash-refugee-camp
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/02
“Clay Routledge, author of the new book “Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World,” was watching his university’s football team play for the national championship on TV. There were about 20 of his friends in the room, when a girl of 9 or 10 twirled in. She pointed out that just because their team was ahead didn’t mean they still couldn’t lose.
One of the men told the girl to leave, saying that if she came back, she would jinx the game.
And everyone else just kept watching the TV, as if this guy had not just said something both mean and, well, crazy. How could a girl’s being in or out of a TV room possibly affect the outcome of a football game?”
“If you think religion belongs to the past and we live in a new age of reason, you need to check out the facts: 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religious group. Members of this demographic are generally younger and produce more children than those who have no religious affiliation, so the world is getting more religious, not less — although there are significant geographical variations.
According to 2015 figures, Christians form the biggest religious group by some margin, with 2.3 billion adherents or 31.2% of the total world population of 7.3 billion. Next come Muslims (1.8 billion, or 24.1%), Hindus (1.1 billion, or 15.1%) and Buddhists (500 million, or 6.9%).
The next category is people who practise folk or traditional religions; there are 400m of them, or 6% of the global total. Adherents of lesser-practised religions, including Sikhism, Baha’i and Jainism, add up to 58m, or well below 1%. There are 14m Jews in the world, about 0.2% of the global population, concentrated in the US and Israel.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is-faith-growing-and-what-happens-next.
“Religious people who lack friends and purpose in life turn to God to fill those voids, according to new University of Michigan research.
Belonging is related to a sense of purpose. When people feel like they do not belong or unsupported by their relationships, they consistently have a lower sense of purpose and direction in life, says lead author Todd Chan, a doctoral student in the U-M Department of Psychology.
Chan and colleagues say that having a belief system that adequately “substitutes” for some of the functions of human relationships, like having a God that values and supports them, may allow socially disconnected people to restore some of this purpose.”
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180830113038.htm.
“ One thing that distinguishes Christianity from other religions is not only its doctrine of purity, but also its sophistication and erudition. While all other religions talk about love and care for your neighbours and kin, Christianity goes beyond human comprehension of love and advances it to love and care of even your enemies. This is why others chide Christian faithful and believers are taken for granted. But that is what makes it stand out as the true religion.
Lev. 19:17–18 states, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. 18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”
The above is the law as was given to Moses. It says one should not do his neighbour any evil, including harbouring hatred in his heart towards him. But the inference drawn by the Jews from this teaching was that one should only love his neighbour and probably his kin. This, they believed would make them pure and dutifully comply with the law. They supposed that if they loved only their neighbours, they must, of course, hate the other. The entire world believes religious conviction should end at this doctrine of only loving your neighbour.”
“LOUISIANA, Mo. — Labor Day marks the anniversary of an important freedom of religion case that took place at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Louisiana, Mo., on Sept. 3, 1865.
The case’s resolution, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1867, helped lead to the elimination of loyalty oaths, which were popular after the end of the Civil War.
“It’s a remarkable story and was really significant for the time,” said the Rev. Louis Dorn, who retired as priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church on Wednesday. “It also was remarkable for the ecumenical partnership that occurred during it.””
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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.
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“President Rodrigo Duterte has been “very supportive” of women’s rights, even when he was still mayor of Davao City, the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) conceded Sunday after criticizing his joke on rape.
Duterte last week drew ire for saying in jest that Davao City, which he ruled for 22 years, has the highest number of rape cases in the country because it has many beautiful women.
As mayor, Duterte organized Davao City’s Gender and Development Office which gives legal assistance to victims of sexual assault and mounts information campaigns at the community level, said PCW Chairperson Dr. Rhodora Bucoy.”
“The American Association of University Women Guam chapter will meet to discuss women’s rights and the historic Roe v. Wade case on Sept. 8 at the Hilton Guam Resort & Spa in Tumon.
Guam attorney Anita P. Arriola, a partner at Arriola, Cowan & Arriola, will deliver the keynote speech on “Promoting and Preserving the Rights of Women — The Importance of Roe vs Wade.”
Arriola is a tireless advocate for women, who has won a U.S. Supreme Court case for Guam women, according to a news release.”
“Tributes poured in over the weekend for Alice Yotopoulos-Marangopoulos, the country’s first female university rector, a leading criminologist and former president of the International Alliance of Women, who was laid to rest on Saturday in a civil funeral. She was 101.
“Alice Yotopoulos-Marangopoulos’s institutional and political legacy is an emblematic academic career and a committed — indeed uncompromising — battle in defense of the fundamental rights of man,” said Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos.”
“Among almost 200 independent nations across the world, there are probably few more different in their national characters than Canada and Saudi Arabia.
The current diplomatic dispute erupted when Canada’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted concerns after several social activists were arrested in Saudi Arabia, including Samar Badawi, sister of imprisoned dissident Raif Badawi, whose wife is a Canadian citizen. The language used in the tweet was consistent with past media releases by successive Canadian governments criticizing the Saudi human rights record.
The monarchy counter-tweeted, vexed that it had been shamed by the public platform used by Canada to call for the release of the prisoners. It expelled Canada’s ambassador, ended two-way trade, liquidated its investments in Canada, ordered about 15,000 Saudi students out of Canadian universities, and threatened other retaliation.”
Source: https://www.theepochtimes.com/riyadh-overreacts-to-canadian-stand-on-womens-rights_2639158.html.
“The organisers of the largest women’s rights protests South Korea has ever witnessed say they have been forced to hide their identities after threats of acid attacks and the risk of losing their jobs in a backlash against an unprecedented wave of female-led activism.
In a rare interview, the group, which calls itself ‘Women’s March For Justice’, told The Telegraph that “we are ridiculed and even fired from our jobs because we speak out … women can only survive by maintaining their anonymity because Korean society is run by men.”
The traditionally conservative society of Asia’s fourth largest economy has seen snowballing protests against sexist behaviour since the start of the year after a female public prosecutor went public with allegations of workplace sexual harassment, adding a Korean voice to the global #MeToo movement.”
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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.
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“A clarification to the letter writer who conflated the term “atheist” with the term “humanist.”
Just as there are many forms of Christianity and Judaism (and Islam and Hinduism and a whole bunch of other world religions) Humanism has several distinct strands. While Secular Humanism does appeal to those who identify as atheist, Religious Humanism covers a wide spectrum of beliefs and practices. At base, Humanism affirms and promotes the agency and responsibility of people to affect the world as they find it in the here and now. In that, many may share the values espoused by the ACLU and the SPLC, but I can find no evidence that these organizations or the others mentioned in the letter promote hatred.
The writer claims he doesn’t know any Christians or Jews who are offended by someone claiming atheism, but the tone of his letter suggests just the opposite. He seems mightily offended by the suggestion that the public square is just that — public. Identification with any one religion — no matter how dominant — has no place in public gatherings.”
Source: http://www.ocala.com/opinion/20180831/letters-to-editor-for-august-31-2018.
“Renowned historian and professor of African Studies, Prof. Toyin Falola, has described humanities skills as the most relevant tool in solving Africa’s problems. The Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker chair, who spoke on the topic ‘Humanism And The Future Of The Humanities’ as the third guest lecturer of the Kwara State University Humanities Lecture, pointed out that with the digital revolution, lots of jobs are already gone in developed countries. “With the close up of the third revolution, comes the fourth revolution which is the digital age, high technology or new technology in human body. A lot of jobs are already gone in developed countries. Young people have to be part of the evolution. We are to make Africa the centre of our knowledge too”, he said
Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/09/africa-needs-more-humanistic-ideas-for-devt-prof-falola/”
“The first humanist weddings took place this weekend in Northern Ireland. This follows the Belfast Court of Appeal’s ruling in June that humanist marriages must be legally recognised.
On Saturday 25th August 2018, Emma Taylor and Paul Malone were married at Queen’s University Belfast, while on Sunday 26th August 2018, Alanna McCaffrey and Ronan Johnson tied the knot in County Fermanagh.
Humanism is a non-religious approach to life which trusts scientific method, evidence and reason. According to Humanists UK, humanists reject the idea of the supernatural, and make their ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, and a concern for human beings and other sentient animals.”
Source: https://rightsinfo.org/humanist-weddings-northern-ireland/.
“Humanism is the cardinal element of human life. Its absence turns a human into a beast and barbarian. The concept of humanism whirls around human values and the promotion of human capacities. The one who carries it forward is called a humanist. Based upon this definition of humanism — very few qualify to be called humanists within our current political spectrum. While most are just misleading the public while calling themselves humanists; activists, only human and social rights activists qualify this definition.
Unfortunately in our parts of the world, human or social rights activists are not as politicised as one would hope. The reason for this is obvious as they consider the current system extremely exploitative for the common citizens of the state.
For here, only the affluent rule. However those activists are politicised that have created their own political parties- as they aren’t willing to become a part of the existing ones. It will albeit take time for these emerging political parties to establish themselves.”
Source: https://dailytimes.com.pk/291890/humanising-politics/.
““Making the world better” with no direction or assistance from God is a faith that rests on the belief that science and reason can deliver humanity from evil. It is a faith that spawned a “humanism” that for over two hundred years has caused confusion and chaos concerning justice, wisdom, responsibility, love and hate, responsibility, the value of life…all the most important things in life…which are playthings to reason and impenetrable to science.
While the earlier humanism of the Renaissance magnified the importance of humans as humans, it acknowledged the necessary connection between human beings and their Creator. But secular humanism abolished that link and trashed what is sacred in human life. This faux humanism gave us the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 (updated in 1973 and 2003) and the Secular Humanist Declaration of 1980. Manifest in these documents are distortions of reality that have been internalized by a great many people. This should hardly surprise us, considering that secular humanism entered the field of education in the first quarter of the last century, through the public schools, acting as a wedge between past and present and putting America on a course toward a collective society — thanks to activists of the benighted left.”
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/toxic_humanism.html.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/02
“LOS ANGELES — At 59, Emma Thompson continues to shine as one of the finest actors of her generation. In “The Children Act,” director Richard Eyre’s film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name, Emma plays a judge in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, Fiona Maye, who must decide a case involving a teenage boy, Adam Henry (Fionn Whitehead), and his parents who are refusing a blood transfusion on religious principle.
Emma tackles the role, complicated by the judge’s crumbling marriage as she decides on the difficult case involving a young man’s life, with depth and intelligence.
The English actress is further challenged by the fact that she has to sing and play the piano live in the movie.”
“This is from a few years back but deserves a repost because there is some debate going on here about how to define “atheism” and how I define it. Here goes…
I was recently sent a book to review, by Franz Kiekeben, called The Truth About God which is a whistlestop tour, I think, through atheism and counter-apologetics to arrive at the conclusion not that God is improbable, but that God is impossible. I will be interested to see where that goes (click on the image to buy it).
Why I mention this is that I am pleased the author started off the book by briefly sketching out the different ways of seeing atheism and stating that there is a modern trend to defining atheism as a lack of belief in God. This is something upon which I have commented in various places before, and something which I feel quite strongly about.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/09/01/how-i-define-atheism/.
“I have no wish to insert myself into the back and forth between Kenneth Kully and Doris Wrench Eisler, but I do want to correct a couple of mistakes and false assertions in Mr Kully’s letter, “Real Morality — Loving Your Enemies And Helping Them — Is A Radical Concept,” Aug. 22 — including the lazy and tiresome trope of conflating secularism and atheism with the atrocities of communist and totalitarian regimes, and the actual meanings of “atheism” and “secularism.”
“Atheism” is a position that there are no gods. That’s it. Atheism does not speak to whether religion is good or bad. Whether we should have religion or not have religion. There is no dogma. No call to action. No behaviours that must be adhered to. It is simply a position that there are no gods.
“Secularism” is the assertion that the state should be neutral on matters of religion. Not for religion. Not against religion. Simply that “the true neutrality of the state presupposes abstention in the matter of spirituality.” That isn’t just my opinion. That is the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2015 Saguenay ruling — and it’s exactly this position on secularism that PROTECTS religious freedom.”
“Should atheists engage in proselytization? I solicited questions about my philosophy of atheism on Facebook and that’s the topic of the first question:
Do you think trying to “convert” people to atheism is a good idea generally or at least sometimes?
I don’t think atheism is something you “convert” to. Atheism is just one philosophical position, not an entire system of beliefs or anything like the complex set of beliefs and practices and communities that religions involve. There are religions that are atheistic and there are people with a (metaphorically) religious zeal about their atheism. There can also be atheist philosophies and communities that are not exactly religions but to one degree or another developed and organized and defined alternatives to religions.
But the real question being asked in the prompt question is whether it’s a good idea to try to get people to become atheists.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2018/09/atheists-should-persuade-but-not-proselytize/.
“Dear Christians, here is how to prove God’s existence to an atheist.
In a recent Facebook video, a Christian speaker, author and apologist named Frank Turek argues that atheists are stealing their reasoning from God.
He explains that the common arguments used by unbelievers are all based on things created by God, adding that this proves that they fundamentally wrong.
Proof of God’s existence
Turek goes on to use a simple acronym: CRIMES to make his case. C stands for Casualty, R for Reason, I represents Information and Intentionality, M is for Morality, E for Evil while S stands for Science.”
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/31
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In the light of outspoken ex-Muslims being silenced, imprisoned, tortured, driven into exile, or murdered (not simply killed) by theocrats or the state or religious fundamentalist vigilantes, how do we support and protect them?
Waleed Al-Husseini: To support us there are many ways, listening to us, see our suffering in our country, and don’t talk about Islamophobia, you see what happens to us, and we still fight and try to have our rights!
Let us talk about Islam more and more and when we talk about some issues don’t say its rare! Because this is the way of thinking for the whole of the society, we need to talk about Islam and the crisis of Islam to make it accept us, supporting it, let’s us do without labelling, all the religions were under criticism, why not Islam?
Today, all the non-believer’s organization should support us with speaking about us and show our fight and support us within the UN and the governments by asking to stop blasphemy laws in Arabic and Islamic countries.
We need a huge collective to stop blasphemy laws, hope they will listen and try it!
Jacobsen: What laws and rights — such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating freedom of religion, freedom of belief, freedom of conscience, and freedom of expression (not simply freedom of speech) — protect ex-Muslims apart from solidarity from the international community.
Al-Husseini: No, they’re not real laws for ex-Muslims, they talk about us in general; we need some laws like this. Because we lose our lives, we should have clear laws for ex-Muslims!
Jacobsen: What are some of the newer ex-Muslim organizations that need support, donations, skills, professional and activist networks, and coordination and cooperation of other non-religious organizations? The new ones without adequate resources.
Al-Husseini: We have some, and as you know this type of organization was started by Facebook, then when they have the members they make it and register it, that is the way, but until now we have many, and we try to make collectives for all of us. One day we will succeed.
Jacobsen: What have been some noteworthy news items about the ex-Muslim population — globally speaking — over the last 4–12 months?
Al-Husseini: We made one conference with ex-Muslims Norway. We speak about our stories and then about the dangers of Islamism in Europe!
It was a good one, especially the European situation that really is dangerous. We should find an effective way to fight Islamism, because of Islamization of society in the works!
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Waleed.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/29
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background in religion? What are your own story and educational background? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Ceejay Pastrana: It’s kind of expected to be inheriting the religion that your parents have by the time you are born and my parents happened to be Latter Day Saints, but that was until I was in first grade. We converted to Roman Catholicism and being a Mormon was never mentioned again. I recently asked my mother why that happened and she said to me that they were obliged to do something that was “not right”. (She did not go into details as I noticed that she did not want to talk about it.) So, my family left for good. We were not really full-fledged Catholics either (religion was just not a topic in our house), or were against religion. We just realized the impracticality and illogicality of religion.
Since the beginning of my educational path, I attended a Catholic school and it was okay with me. As expected, we were made to recite prayers and sing chants. Again, it was okay with me. I was okay with everything as long as it does not affect or harm me in any way. I only have one principle and that is to “Do good and avoid evil.” As biblical as it sounds, we cannot deny that it applies in all situations.
I’ve always devoted to doing things to help others and for the sake of helping only. I wanted to step my game up and widen my exposure. That was when I met the current Executive Director of Humanist Alliance Philippines, International (HAPI), Alvin John Ballares. He introduced “Humanism” to me and asked me to try out and attend a meeting of HAPI. I found my niche and I have been an active member of HAPI since then.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte? How are humanists generally treated in the Philippines? How do Filipinos, in general, view humanists and the humanist community?
Pastrana: The world outside of the Philippines considers Duterte as the Filipino version of Trump. Should I be happy? Of course not. It is sad, but it’s true. It is sad because not only that they consider him as Trump, but also the fact that he really is like Trump, a populist, saying only what the mass wants to hear (like some of the churches). This affects how humanists are viewed in the country. We see and foresee the truths and realities of life and it is not something that most people want to hear. They like to be blinded, to see only what they want to see.
Most Filipinos merge “humanism”, “atheism”, and “secularism” into one concept and automatically regard it as “evil”. That is why I have to lay low for a while, while I am still in a Catholic school. People need to be enlightened about the terms mentioned earlier or just be taught not to be judgmental and not to assume stereotypes. You should not look at a person for what he or she is, but look at what he or she does.
Jacobsen: How can the non-religious overcome religious privilege, e.g., building a coalition and a solidarity movement? What are the areas of religious privilege within the Philippines?
Pastrana: I am handling the HAPI Jr. right now and we have projects such as conducting seminars to schools on education, leadership, environmental, etc. Whenever we try asking permission from the principal of the school, we usually don’t mention “secularism”. We try to be on the safe side as some people don’t like the idea of secularism and, again, they tend to associate it with atheism which is a different concept.
Religious privilege does not only affect the non-religious ones, but also the ones with religion as well. I go to a college wherein they offer working scholarships to people who are Catholics and strictly Catholics only. It is sad to know that some students (with religion other than Catholic or none at all) who are less fortunate are doomed to suffer and embrace poverty because of this so-called “religious privilege”.
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics?
Pastrana: Populism, an act of appealing to ordinary people. As I mentioned earlier, some politicians use this method to gain support as they try to say and promote what the people want to hear. Some, if not most, use religion in fishing out votes. They use this to their advantage knowing that the population of the Philippines comprise mostly of Roman Catholics.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Pastrana: Even in the history of the country, religion is a major topic. The Spaniard used it to try and rule the Philippines. It contributed greatly to what the Philippines has become and that is why it is still a great influence on things today.
Some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines is that they are called and assumed as a cult member or worst, a Satanist. People just want to believe what they want to believe and disregard anything that disturbs their comfort zone. We are all humans who are capable of feeling compassion. “Not all believers are good; not all non-believers are evil.” Simple as that. Just because we are more realistically attached to the concrete world, does not mean we are bad either. We cannot live a closed life believing things we want to believe. The world and the universe are too big for our little-sheltered eyes.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Pastrana: To conclude everything, just stick to the main principle — “Do good and avoid evil.” Look at a person for what he or she does and not what he or she is. Do not cling on to the past; have a wondrous eye for the future. We, humans, are always hungry for answers. Question everything and don’t let judgments cease your curiosity.
Being different doesn’t mean drifting away. It is blending in while standing out.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Ceejay.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/29
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background in religion? What are your own story and educational background? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Mark Wilson Janeo: I’m a graduate of bachelor science in information technology. I’m currently working as a lead generation specialist in a small outbound call center here in Bacolod and I’m also an online seller. I sell secondhand band merchandise.
I was baptized as a catholic. My parents are very religious and active in our local parish. I really can’t remember how old I am when I started to doubt the existence of god. When I was kid I’m fond of watching science and history documentaries, I think that triggered my curiosity.
I found HAPI from a friend that was in manila back then. He told me about the group and what it does. I was very interested to join. Back then I was a member of Filipino Freethinkers and most of us HAPI Bacolod pioneers. Ms. M told us to create a local chapter here in Bacolod and the rest is history. And so far we are the most active chapter in the organization.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte? How are humanists generally treated in the Philippines? How do Filipinos, in general, view humanists and the humanist community?
Janeo: They see the Philippines, a very bloody country under Duterte’s administration. Duterte’s drug war is like a double edge sword. Many criminals have been killed in the process and also innocent lives lost.
I think most of the Filipinos will probably believe about us (that are totally wrong):
-that we are devil worshippers
-we have no morals
-we are a bad influence to children
-miserable
-arrogant assholes
Some of us really face discrimination everyday. But as time goes by I think they will understand what we do and be more open minded.
Jacobsen: How can the non-religious overcome religious privilege, e.g., building a coalition and a solidarity movement? What are the areas of religious privilege within the Philippines?
Janeo: I think it’s very hard to overcome religious privileges here. Because we have laws that at present support particular religions when this shouldn’t be the situation. Also it’s illegal to “offend religious feelings,” which is what got Carlos Celdran in trouble. Some companies here hire people within a specific sect/religion which the owner is part of. Even our government funds or practices religious activities and functions when it shouldn’t.
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics?
Janeo: Religion plays a key role when election comes. Politicians always ask for endorsement to the religious leaders. To gain more votes or to secure victory. Because some religions practice bloc voting, just like the Iglesia ni Cristo.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Janeo: I think because of the influence of the Spaniards. They brought Christianity here and until now we are still the number 1 Christian country here in Asia.
Personally I have dealt with discrimination, below the belt insults, rejections and criticisms about my disbelief. Even some of my friends unfriended me in Facebook because I’m an atheist. I guess the main prejudice is they always link us with Satan. They think that we are immoral, miserable and most likely do bad things to people.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Janeo: Thank you for this opportunity. Let the sound of reason shine, godless.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mark.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/28
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was there any familial background in religion?
Marianne De Guzman Tucay: If your asking if I was part of a religion. I was Catholic. I was starting to piece together some things weren’t right in the book and felt that people take the Catholic Bible too seriously. Which is fine by me, people can believe whatever they want. But as an individual human being I felt that religion isn’t for me.
I want to be able to let other people think on their own and be open minded to sciences and facts, education, and many things.
Jacobsen: How did you find the non-religious community in the Philippines?
Tucay: I was friends with Andrew Sheurich and directed me to Marissa Torres Langseth. She is one of a woman that I think that stands for humanism. She’s head strong and her passion to think freely is now spreading out there. I think she is right and I understand. I understand the struggle in the Philippines and religion isn’t answer to everything. I think that emotional and also mental health is important. That is something that all humans have to be aware. Is to love themselves internally first-emotionally and mentally. It’s something that haven’t been talked about but lately is coming about.
Jacobsen: How are religion and politics mixed in the country there?
Tucay: If you meant (Philippines) religion and politics should not be mixed. There is an establishment clause. It prohibits the endorsement of any religion by the government.
Jacobsen: What is your own opinion on the functionality of religion?
Tucay: It should be private practice and should not be out in public. If it’s out in public, keep it to yourself and should not influence any doctrine laws. Nor should be shove on other people’s faces and throat.
Jacobsen: Is religion in general positive or negative for women’s rights? How so? Any examples of the bigger positives and negatives?
Tucay: It is both negative and positive. Positive: I used to work in a psych facility unit. It is interesting how people are different from one another and also different problems and depends on the person. I saw lost humans walking around lost in their own world and trapped themselves in a negative situation. Religion and God is a tool they need to cope. Religion and God are stepping tools to help them emotionally and find love in themselves-internally. But you can also find love in many different places not just religion or God but also through yourself for self improvement to boost your confidence. In general religion-God holds them together finding peace within themselves and a good practice in a positive way. Negative side: using religion and god for exploitation. It happens all the time and depending on who the people are. Religion is truly about business. This is why churches should pay taxes to help educate women not just women also MEN. It isn’t about women’s right also men’s right to respect women, it’s about people who are in position of power-religion that are willing to recognize women as equal partner in both religion and society-they live in that means letting them work and in position of their family. Whether or not the rules within their religion help or hurt women are they fair to the woman. Sometimes yes but many times NO. I truly believe that men should step up the plate it’s a two-way street.
Jacobsen: When you reflect on the nature of the presentation of women and men in the narratives of the Bible and Quran, how are men and women portrayed?
Tucay: The Christian, Catholic, and Quran have similarities. But I truly cannot speak for the Quran. I have learned from my Muslims friends. The attitude of these books are generally the same. The biggest difference between the new and old testament is the treatment of Mary the mother of Jesus as compared to many other women found in the Old and New Testament. In the old testament it’s usually partnered with their husbands and often times used as lessons example Eve was the one the bit the apple of knowledge. Lott’s wife was the one that turned around despite being told not to turn around looking back at the burning city. God turned her into a pillar of salt. The idea of submissive to their men is not a new idea. If you can change the Bible many times by humans I challenge them to change it.
Jacobsen: What seems like a healthy relationship between religion and science?
Tucay: It is not sciences job to prove religion or the existence of God. Sciences job is to observe the universe. Religion does not necessarily have a role in scientific discovery how ever let’s give credit when credit is due. We had to use religion to observe scientific phenomenon the Greeks had many gods but explain many aspects that explains the many aspects of nature and humanity from we moved; polytheistic to monotheistic. We have one God to explain everything moving through your that process we have been able to take principles to establish in more definitive and understanding of the known universe via the other scientific method. We’ve taken much of the framework of what we learned using religious ideals and applied them so that they are universal and repeatable.
Jacobsen: When you reflect on the situation i the Philippines and the non-religious community, how can the non-religious achieve greater legal and cultural equality?
Tucay: well… it all start with the people and respecting other people’s belief and some peoples non belief. And if we did strip away believe in the concept of non-believe we are still people. people don’t disappear. So perhaps people need to look at it as if there was no God Because all you have to depend on is each other.
I like this one can I post it. 😀
Jacobsen: What are the main impediments to equality for the non-religious in the Philippines?
Tucay: Christianity and Catholicism have deep roots in The Philippines and other countries. So it is understandable for people who lives in that society. To have difficulty tolerating in people who don’t share those beliefs.
But the main thing is to think empathy one must understand that all people have degrees of belief. And that there are laws that may disproportionately affect those who are not religious and in this case it’s all about how people treat each other.
Jacobsen: How did you find HAPI? What are some of the better accomplishments of the organization?
Tucay: Facebook have some great sources to find groups of people like HAPI. I first was recommending Marissa Torres Langseth and thought she was going to make me buys to those Mary Kay make up. I nearly did not add her but I am glad I did because I took upon understating her organization HAPI and how it can improve the lives of people if those people are open to free thinking. And as a free thinker you can accomplish a lot. Specially those children. I want people to be strong. I want kids to grow up as human beings to show empathy, love, happiness, and taking care of yourself as an individual human being.
I am glad HAPI exists.
Jacobsen: Any ways for people in or out of the country to help the non-religious community?
Tucay: I think respect is a two-way street and it helps atheists to understand people’s religion because it will help them understand the culture and biases. And at the same time, religious people should also be open to exploring the possibility that there is no God, and we’re it.
It’s a scared idea for people who are religious and I can understand the apprehension. But if we truly want to believe that there is something bigger than ourselves we also have to accept. That there might be NOTHING. And that we are specs of the known universe. That this is our one chance to make an impact to live positively or negatively depending on what you want.
But please do live positively.
Scott Jacobsen: Any final thoughts and or conclusion?
Tucay: In general, there is a moral imperative that could be followed regardless of belief or none belief and that is to be kind. Life is short be kind. I want to thank you for your time Scott. I hope that everyone live HAPI.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marianne.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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The Irish Examiner described how the numbers of Irish citizens moving more towards the equality of the LGBTQ+ community with the general population.
Individual Irish citizens have been marking the important passages of life — births, deaths, marriages, and so on — with fewer and fewer religious rituals. Others have been moving to advance the interests of the humanist population in Ireland.
The Humanist Association of Ireland is one such organization. The secularization of Ireland is an, apparently, rapid shift from the prior decades.
10% of the Irish (2016) population identify with no religion, which was a 75%, approximately, increase in only 5 years — compared to the 2011 numbers.
Then there has been abortion and same-sex marriage referenda in the national, and international for that matter, news of Ireland. This represents the shift and rub for the Irish. The conflict between the traditional moral norms of the Christian churches and the secular values of modernity.
Irish people, as with many others, seem to favor freedom over tradition. Humanist marriages were legalized in 2012 and this promotes the visibility and wider acceptance of a humanist outlook on the world.
As noted at the outset, the Irish people, with a decrease in important life stages marked by religious ritual, have been moving towards the universalistic message of ritual found in the non-religious, or if you prefer, the neo-religious or post-supernaturalist-religious world.
This presages or may foretell the decline and diminishment of religious commitment for the 2020s in, otherwise, highly religious Ireland. This could portend a diversification of the belief and social acceptance landscape within the nation known for Protestant and Catholic bigotries and riots.
One Dr. Teresa Graham was contacted as a humanist celebrant from Tramore, who is also a counselling psychologist. Interestingly, she, in 2017 alone, conducted 75 weddings as the celebrant of the couple.
“There are those who come from different religious backgrounds, where it would be difficult to decide on a religious ceremony to suit both families,” Graham stated, “The demographic varies. Lots of couples are in their early thirties, although I’ve done a ceremony for hippies in their sixties: All the music was the Beatles and it was in a garden on a beautiful summer’s day, with flowery dresses and guitars. That was lovely.”
Akin to the more well-known rituals of the religious, we find the development of semi-standard phenomena within the humanist celebrant repertoire (I would assume given the reportage).
Graham works with music and some rehearsed passages alongside, what she calls, unity candles — where “each family lights a candle representing the families, and when the couple have taken their vows, they move the flames to a single candle.”
Graham found the humanist community the Humanist Association of Ireland after the inauguration of President Michael D. Higgins. Professor Anthony Grayling is the Vice-President of UK Humanists. Both have an interest in the human rights laid out by the United Nations and agreed upon by the international community. Grahm, as with Grayling, prefers this outlook on life with human rights, compassion, reason, and science aligned for the greater good of all.
Grayling explained, “Humanism is a discussion about ethics, about how we should live and how we should behave… The key point about humanism is that it isn’t a set of do’s and don’ts and thou-shalt-nots, it is an invitation to treat other people with as much sympathy and generosity as we can muster, on the basis of our best understanding of human nature, which is a diverse and complex thing.”
Grayling views the atrocities by religious people throughout history amounts to the “religious mindset” in which faith and the promise of an afterlife in a heaven of some form excuses bad behaviour in this life.
He views this as an antithetical approach to the rational compassion ethics based on naturalism and science seen in humanism. The Humanist Association of Ireland has been working tirelessly to improve the state of secularization of the nation for 25 years.
Grayling remarked, “[The Catholic Church was] incredibly powerful. There were very large families and it was incredibly poor, and the grip of the church was incredibly tight… But in recent decades the change in atmosphere and the opening up of freedom that individuals have and the scepticism about the church has been remarkable to notice.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background in religion? What are your own story and educational background? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
O’Neal de los Trinos: I lived my youth steeped in two religious traditions: Roman Catholicism and Calvinist Protestantism. I was raised Catholic, became a Protestant in high school, and reverted to Catholicism in college (before becoming an atheist thereafter).
On my mother’s side, life and family centered on the Roman Catholic Faith and its traditions: everyone in my extended family went to Sunday Mass together, and almost all adult members prayed the Rosary together once a week, as time permitted. All major religious festivities and activities were faithfully observed, with high regard accorded to introducing children to established Catholic practices and keeping alive enthusiasm for the Faith among adults.
On my father’s side, Protestantism is the foundation upon which the religious life of the family is grounded. Though my paternal relatives are strict Methodists until now, my uncle’s denomination — the Presbyterian Church — had a deeper impact on my religious formation as a teenager. In fact, I converted to Presbyterianism, given I initially found Calvinism, as expressed in the Presbyterian Faith, more coherent than Catholicism. At my young age, I was already more partial to logical coherence than any other consideration, a factor that later led to my reversion to Catholicism and eventual “deconversion” to atheism.
I went to a Protestant “Bible School” for one year after high school. It was an experience I always pleasantly look back to. In college, I majored in the Humanities (with specialization in the Humanities) at the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P). I opened my mind to different, opposing paradigms by which to view or interpret reality. I was naturally susceptible to religious skepticism. Suddenly, Thomas Aquinas no longer proved to be the exclusive authority on any issue relating to the big questions of life: appeal to an unmoved Mover no longer seemed inevitable when we ask about the origin of the universe. Descartes’ epistemic doubt overturned experiential knowledge as the unarguable beginning point in natural theology, or in any discourse, for that matter. Kant’s localization of “causes” in the human psyche undermined the causal transcendence of God. Accordingly, Hegel’s elevation of the conscious mind as the ultimate arbiter of knowledge, and even “being” itself, compelled me to abandon divine revelation as the basis of pursuing absolute truth. Though Hegel’s archaic model is admittedly flawed, at least, his general vision of an all-encompassing, comprehensive logical system by which to understand and discover knowledge proved to be the way I was most comfortable of pursuing. At first, I applied much effort in intellectually justifying my Catholic religion philosophically; after college, I realized it was a futile exercise. A self-consistent worldview founded upon reason and evidence required some honesty that eventually drove me to atheism. Since the center of my evolving worldview was the human mind, it was natural for me to make its good the ultimate good. Its perfection the ultimate goal of life. Hereafter, I embraced humanism as the closest label behind which I could anchor my ideas and beliefs.
As for HAPI, its lovely founder, Mrs. Marissa Langseth graciously introduced me to it via Facebook. My recollection is poor, but I believe my first encounter with her was through a different atheist group, PATAS, sometime in 2012. There was a heavy atmosphere of negativity among them. Eventually, Mrs. Langseth founded HAPI. It had a clearer, more elevated vision, i.e., to help build the human community and raise the dignity of its marginalized constituents. Of course, I still have misgivings about its overall agenda, in view of the very visible participation of the LGBTQ lobby; however, all things being equal, HAPI is the best among humanist groups in the country — it welcomes everyone, both theistic and otherwise, insofar as the person believes in the power and primacy of humanity.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte? How are humanists generally treated in the Philippines? How do Filipinos, in general, view humanists and the humanist community?
Trinos: Strictly speaking, I cannot speak on behalf of outsiders with regard to their impression of the country under Duterte, but I have gathered enough feedback online and in international television news to give you a glimpse into this shared perception.
The Philippines is generally perceived to be a state overran by anti-drug vigilante death squads operating at the behest of a belligerent semi-dictator whose loose, vulgar mouth makes President Trump seem like a Victorian gentleman taking his afternoon tea. Both liberals and establishment conservatives the world over detest the alleged excesses of our president. Whether this portrayal is accurate is not part of the question.
How are humanists viewed and treated in the Philippines? Generally, the terms “humanism” and “humanists” do not register in the popular collective psyche. Of course, I am referring to regular Filipinos — the type you see executing the latest dance craze as they see it on television, or strolling aimlessly around the mall to beat the tropical heat. Even the ones who occasionally wax eloquent with armchair speculation about the latest political issues prevalent in the country.
Encounter with the concept of “humanism” is limited to studies of Western history in high school or college, if there were any at all. Regrettably, just like any piece of knowledge that does not readily contribute to a high-income career, it is forgotten. In my country, knowledge is mostly not an end in itself; it is merely a tool for future wealth. Any other avenue that leads to wealth is equally meritorious; the quicker, the better. For this reason, television gameshows and pyramiding business schemes are extremely patronized throughout the archipelago. Frankly, most Filipinos have very little familiarity with the technical term, “humanism”. Humanists are all around, but hardly any ordinary person would be able to consciously distinguish humanists, as conventionally defined, from just about any religious person who likewise devotes his time to caring for humanity and pursuing knowledge that precludes appeal to theistic assumptions.
Nevertheless, there is one group for whom the term “humanism” enjoys currency: Evangelical born-againers. “Humanism” has had its reputation soiled in Evangelical circles where the term is associated with a disordered worship of the human potential in contrast to humble faith that puts God at the center. “Humanism” is occasionally mentioned in Evangelical pulpits as a trend indicative of a prideful rebellion against God. Since the Evangelical faith is growing in popularity, especially in urban localities, I can only expect resistance to the acceptance of humanists among the general public, in the event the term enters popular culture.
As far as my experience in the country can tell, Liberal arts students are the ones who are most equipped with a functional, appreciable grasp of “humanism” and what it entails. They know it when they see a genuine “humanist”. Among the relative few who associate with humanists and know what humanism truly is, there is admiration, to a generous degree.
The humanist community in the Philippines is at its nascent stage of growth. It is only becoming well aware of its need to make its identity established and its presence felt through charitable activities geared towards community development and education. Social media exposure also helps advance its online visibility in the wider world, in hopes that such will eventually make certain the positive acceptance of humanism and humanists in the public arena.
Jacobsen: How can the non-religious overcome religious privilege, e.g., building a coalition and a solidarity movement? What are the areas of religious privilege within the Philippines?
Trinos: The pervading cultural infrastructure in place do not allow for conditions that are conducive to the introduction of coalitions and movements that are straightforwardly “non-religious” or, as I interpret the use of the term in the question, “atheistic”. Whereas “humanism” has very limited foothold in the public consciousness, “atheism” is decidedly a divisive concept that connotes loose morality and even the wholesale abandonment of an ethical conscience. Atheists are people even serial killers and prostitutes in my country deride. Atheists are the untouchables. Declaring one’s atheism presents a definitive guarantee that one’s courtship or job application will not end in success.
I see no conceivable opportunity, at present, by which to promote a “non-religious” (atheistic) agenda to counteract the force of religious privilege. Atheists who are humanists must content themselves with promoting independent initiatives that primarily focus on community building, charity, education, and health that may be indirectly oriented towards a secular agenda but in no way threaten the status quo or the power of the Church. This is what HAPI is doing. Despite the fact millennial youth are more receptive and open to challenges against established religion and are even critical of some church leaders, they do not see a group directly promoting the denial of God at the expense of faith as a constructive force that deserves a permanent voice in public life.
In any case, with regard to the last part of this question, areas of religious privilege are public policies and legislation that favor the majority religion (declaration of holidays, limitations on family planning, and traffic rerouting schemes to accommodate religious festivities), bloc voting (some sects, at least) on the national and local level, and tax exemptions for religious institutions.
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics?
Trinos: Bloc voting is the most potent and direct means in the context of political appointment and implementation of public policy.
While the Catholic Church is, to a significant degree, not involved in this regard, another sect is: The Iglesia Ni Cristo. This is an indigenous church that wields political power of a scale that disproportionately exceeds its members’ representation in the general population. Politicians, both Catholic and Protestant, openly court the leader of this religion during the election season. This is a very dangerous phenomenon that most people take lightly. In this liberal democratic country, the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) is, for good or ill, labeled as a “king-maker”. Not even the president is principled enough to untangle its grip on power.
As things stand, in a democratic setting, a person’s vote equals power. Therefore, more than mere endorsement, instructing members of a religion to cast their vote for a candidate endows the religious leader with political leverage by which to arrange deals and agreements. Once the anointed candidates win, they will not abandon their benefactor. Debt of gratitude is deeply ingrained in our culture. This religion, in the process, is assured of undue privileges and benefits that non-partisan churches or interest groups do not enjoy.
On the whole, politicians see association with Roman Catholicism and other mainstream Christian denominations as a practical route to maintaining a likable public image. Support of religious institutions is an investment with desirable returns in one’s political career. Openly invoking God is a staple in congressional debates on legislations to be enacted. It is neither controversial nor shocking to see a senator or congressman quoting Scriptures to highlight his position. Separation of church and state is only embraced in legal theory; in practice, it is anything but.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Trinos: Why is religion such a large influence in my country? Family. My country is blessed to have a family-centered social culture. It is not uncommon to see married children still living with their parents. Parents, regardless of social class or education, see raising their children strictly in the faith as their indispensable vocation and responsibility. Freedom of religion seems to apply only when a person already has a job and is no longer too dependent on his parents for his financial needs. This socio-religious culture is further solidified by the tendency of Filipinos to remain in their “safe zone” or in areas where they are most comfortable or familiar with. We are inherently not risk-takers or adventurers. Our curiosity geared towards the unknown is limited to just foreign food, more or less. Thus, Catholics remain Catholic, for the simple fact they were born in that religion.
The combination of this family culture and the general tendency to stay within the confines of what one is accustomed to strengthens the hold of religion in the mind. Once multiplied a million times over in many individuals, the result is a reliably irresistible force.
As for the prejudice, I have addressed that point in a previous question.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Trinos: While I support the humanist movement, of which I am a part, I feel a segment of this movement embraces radical feminism that promotes the pro-choice agenda in the name of “female empowerment”. I am convinced this is anti-humanism.
As a humanist, I believe every human being has a right to life, regardless of gender, race, and — yes — age (or phase in human life). I believe the unborn, in virtue of their human dignity, qualify as persons, and, therefore, have as much right to life as any human person living in the outside world. To deprive the unborn of this right to life amounts to the denial of their personhood, which forms the basis of that right in the first place. No human is a non-person; every human is a person. Indeed, the being produced at conception is a human through and through.
This right to life is not predicated upon properties that are characteristic of — but not necessarily essential to — human nature in some of its phases. Consciousness, sensation of pain, and physical autonomy are not determinants that indicate whether a subject is entitled to the right to life, the absence of which do not make a person less deserving of the right thereof.
As a humanist, I believe all human life must be equally protected in all of its stages. It is my hope that the humanist movement will come through as a unified force, someday, for the preservation of the human race and the creation of a living atmosphere that optimizes individual freedom within its moral limits.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/27
Humanism Day was held through the Freethought Party of India (FPI) and the AMOFOI on the birthday of the former Prime MInister Rajiv Gandhi. It is the 5th death anniversary of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar.
It was celebrated on August 20th to highlight the successes of science and the values of humanism. The General Secretary of the FPI noted Rajiv Gandhi was a great humanist and had a high level of lifelong dedication to the scientific perspective on the world discovered through the methodologies of science.
He had Sam Pitroda from the United States of America, a prominent telecom engineer, come to India in order to advance the telecommunications industries and kickstart the revolution in India.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/26
“As ASEAN celebrates its 51st anniversary this month, I wonder whether freedom of expression and press freedom can become part of its values.
Looking around, the signs are not very promising.
According to the Reporters Without Border 2018 press freedom index, all ASEAN member states rank poorly in the bottom third of the world.
Of 180 countries, Indonesia was ranked 124 while the Philippines is at №133. From there, it’s a steep plunge. Myanmar is at 137 and Juntaland-Thailand ranks 140. Hun Sen’s Cambodia sits at 142 followed by Malaysia at 145, Singapore 151, Brunei 153 and Laos 170.”
“Jakarta. The executive board of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest independent Muslim organization, said complaints about the volume of a mosque’s loudspeakers should not be considered blasphemy, after the Medan District Court in North Sumatra sentenced an Indonesian woman of Chinese descent to 18 months in prison for insulting Islam.
“I don’t think a complaint about the volume of a mosque’s speakers is an expression of hate or hostility towards a certain group or religion,” Robikin Emhas, the board’s head of legal affairs and human rights, said in a statement on Tuesday (21/08), as reported by state-run news agency Antara.
Meiliana, 44, was found guilty of blasphemy for saying that the Islamic call to prayer coming from a mosque near her home was too loud and that it hurt her ears, when she asked for the volume to be turned down.”
Source: http://jakartaglobe.id/news/blasphemy-conviction-buddhist-woman-seen-threat-freedom-expression/.
“Words get lost in today’s world and more often than not you miss out on expressing your InnerVoice, so the elite evening organized by Transcon was crafted to give a glimpse of all the luxuries and triumph through thoughtful tales that were expressed in feelings.
Mumbai — The City of Dreams, where the dreams are big, but the time is short. The charm of the city can be alluring at first, but can often lead to burnout to those that cannot keep up with the stresses and pace of the city, turning it unfortunately then, into a nightmare.
With a pace that never pauses, a hustle that constantly has people competing for those limited dreams and space that is at the top, it has become imperative to find a right balance that can help maintain the sanity and enjoy the journey like it is truly a dream!”
Source: https://www.siasat.com/news/city-dreams-gets-engrossed-freedom-expression-1397510/.
“Responding to news that a Tajikistani court has released independent journalist and prisoner of conscience Khayrullo Mirsaidov after more than eight months behind bars for making allegations of government corruption, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:
“The release of Khayrullo Mirsaidov is welcome, but he should never have been charged in the first place. We will continue to call on the Tajikistani authorities to immediately quash Khayrullo’s conviction and to undertake a thorough, impartial and independent investigation into his allegations of government corruption.””
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/26
“NEW YORK — He’s one of the longest-serving employees in Donald Trump’s family real estate business. Through triumphs, scandals and bankruptcies, he was there.
Allen Weisselberg was handling the books when Fred Trump ran the company in the early 1970s. He was handling them when his son Donald made his mark with Trump Tower in the early ’80s, then teetered on personal bankruptcy in the ’90s. And he was there when Trump transformed the business around his TV celebrity in the new millennium and went on a global licensing spree.”
Source: https://www.weyburnreview.com/prosecutors-grant-immunity-to-longtime-trump-finance-chief-1.23411660.
“Enough with the preoccupation with cannabis. How about focusing on really important issues for a change?
When will the Trudeau government recognize the need to build more water bombers? Let’s start with an order for 50 (to be built in Canada) and begin a program to train pilots and other staff as needed; it is surely clear to any thinking person, given the current dire situation in B.C., that we are going to need them!
How to finance such a huge expense?
How about a determined effort by Ottawa to put an end to tax evasion by tracking down and eliminating any chance of hiding funds offshore. This would bring in billions with which to finance much-needed projects that would benefit all Canadians including, for example, a national pharmacare plan, help for First Nations, improved services for an ageing population, upgrading of infrastructure and more.”
“NEW YORK — He’s one of the longest-serving employees in Donald Trump’s family real estate business. Through triumphs, scandals and bankruptcies, he was there.
Allen Weisselberg was handling the books when Fred Trump ran the company in the early 1970s. He was handling them when his son Donald made his mark with Trump Tower in the early ’80s, then teetered on personal bankruptcy in the ’90s. And he was there when Trump transformed the business around his TV celebrity in the new millennium and went on a global licensing spree.
Now the private and loyal Weisselberg is in the spotlight as the latest Trump confidant, and perhaps the most significant, to strike a deal with federal investigators for protection and to tell what he knows. Federal prosecutors have granted the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer immunity in the federal probe of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen as the president lashes out at people “flipping” to the feds.”
“Socialist countries have always had banks: central banks, savings banks taking local deposits, commercial banks, and export banks. Che Guevara was even the director of the National Bank of Cuba. What makes socialist banks “socialist”? And what are the relationships between socialist and global finance? How was socialist finance taken over by networks of secret services and company managers, who supported and structured the transition to authoritarian, capitalist parties in the late 1980s and 1990s? Here we look at the entanglements of global and socialist finance in Yugoslavia and to reflect on the new forms of peripheralization generated by financial flows in post-crisis Europe.
Johanna Bockman is Associate Professor of Global Affairs and Sociology at George Mason University. She is the author of the book Markets in the Name of Socialism: The Left-Wing Origins of Neoliberalism and the article “Socialist Globalization against Capitalist Neocolonialism: the Economic Ideas behind the NIEO” in Humanity. She is currently working on socialist, nonaligned banks and globalization.”
Source: https://socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed-video/ls397/.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/26
“The Taskforce recently took note of a video showing a mother who was abusing her children that began circulating on social media.
“While it is not the first time that videos of such nature are being shared on social media, nor are they always filmed locally, it must be reminded that acts of violence against children are not tolerated under the International Convention for Children’s Rights, to which the Kingdom of the Netherlands and by extension its constituents are signatories,” it was stated in a press release on Wednesday.
The Taskforce urges the public to refrain from sharing such footage when received, as it negatively exposes the identity of victims, ultimately hampering their recovery process. It also encourages the public to familiarise itself with the articles of the convention, to recognise abuse immediately as it becomes apparent. The public is also advised to verify the country from where the videos originate, and if it is determined to be local, to notify the competent authorities immediately.”
“Children’s rights group Save the Children Philippines has spoken out about the short film “Virgin Marie” saying it is not in the best interests of children and it does not help protect children from sexual abuse.
“Showing a film that raises doubts about children’s experiences of sexual abuse, and about the intentions of people who are supposed to be helping them seek justice is not in the best interest of children, and does absolutely nothing to help protect children nor improve how our society treats them,” the group said in a statement.
It also called for Filipinos to use their talents and voices to support the much-needed advocacy instead of besmirching it.”
“ One of the most distressing issues today is the predicament of children who end up detained in immigration centres, which often leads to psychological harm. Regrettably, immigration laws in many countries…
Please credit and share this article with others using this link:https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1528150/universal-child-rights-an-absolute-must. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Bangkok Post Public Company Limited. All rights reserved.”
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1528150/universal-child-rights-an-absolute-must.
“C hild’s play: “An easy task,” sniff the dictionaries. “Something that is insignificant.” Such definitions are not only wrong — they are a danger. However messy and mucky and mysterious to the hovering adult, play is vital to the child. Yet most of the UK gives it no priority: councils shut hundreds of playgrounds, year after year; property developers throw up expensive boxes with as little green space as they can possibly get away with; and schools squeeze playtime to cram in more lessons. Who cares? It’s only child’s play! Under such a regime, play is treated as a luxury good, and we know what happens to luxuries: they become unaffordable to those without money.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/22/child-right-to-play-wales-law-budget-cuts.
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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.
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“Donald Trump may be roiling financial markets, threatening to widen a trade war or predicting “the market would crash” if he is impeached, but one presidential endorsement has some American CEOs cheering.
Last week, the president tweeted that he had asked the world’s “top business leaders” what would improve their lives. Their answer? Stop the current system of reporting earnings every three months and move to a six-month system.
“That would allow greater flexibility & save money,” Trump wrote. “I have asked the SEC to study!””
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/26/trump-quarterly-earnings-reports-six-month-system.
“St. John’s, N.L. — A 31-year-old man is facing charges for theft after an incident at a city business Saturday night in the centre area of St. John’s.
Around 8:15 p.m. the RNC were called to the incident. As a result, the man will be charged with theft under $5,000 and four breaches of court orders.
He will appear in court at a later date.”
Source: http://www.thetelegram.com/news/local/man-charged-for-theft-at-st-johns-business-236610/.
“Many Canadians are worrying about how U.S. tariffs will affect our economy, but there’s a hidden and deeper threat. U.S. tax reform has eroded Canada’s tax advantage and made it harder for U.S. companies that do business in Canada.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau appears poised to respond with his own tax reforms, perhaps as soon as this fall. But will Canada follow the United States into a tax-cutting war we cannot win — or will he do the right thing to improve the business climate while shoring up our system?
The reform has cut U.S. corporate-tax rates to around 27 per cent from 41 per cent on average (it depends on which state in which the business operates). That’s about the same as in Canada, following big rate cuts by the Chrétien and Harper governments.”
“A business that has operated in Moose Jaw for nearly two decades is closing its doors.
Curtis Temple, owner of Scuba Guys’ Dive Shop in Moose Jaw, announced Friday on social media that his business is shutting down.
Temple blames road work on High Street, where the dive shop is located. He said construction equipment has been in front of his business for most of the past year, with the road ripped up and traffic blocked on both ends for months.”
“TORONTO — Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week:
More beats for banks?
Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, TD Bank and National Bank are set to report their third-quarter results this week. The results from the four banks follow Royal Bank and CIBC, which both reported profits that beat expectations and raised their dividends last week.
Duties deadline
The U.S. International Trade Commission votes on final phase anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations into newsprint from Canada on Monday. The U.S. government gave most Canadian newsprint producers a reprieve earlier this month by lowering final anti-dumping and countervailing duties after several U.S. businesses and politicians complained the tax on Canadian newsprint threatens the already-struggling newspaper industry.”
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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.
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“Can novels where bodices rip and manhoods throb be considered sacred?
The creator of a new podcast says the answer is an emphatic, “Yes! Oh, yes!”
“For something to be sacred, the way we think about it, it has to teach you to be better at loving,” said Vanessa Zoltan, the 36-year-old who created the podcast, which will be called — ahem — “Hot and Bothered.””
“WHEN this weekend’s visit to Ireland by Pope Francis is over, people around the world will have picked up some confusing messages about a land long revered as a cradle of saints and religious scholars. On one hand, the Irish republic is much less Catholic than it was in 1979 when a previous pontiff, John Paul II, toured the island and electrified its people. On the other, the Catholic faith retains a large residual strength. For better or worse, the Catholic faith or memories of the faith still influence those who are outside its ranks.
As we write in the Charlemagne column this week, the share of Irish people who say they attend mass regularly has fallen to barely three in ten from eight in ten a few decades ago. But this still makes Ireland one of the more devout nations in Europe. Among Irish citizens aged between 16 and 29, nearly 40% say they have no religion. But then 91% of Czechs, 75% of Swedes and 70% of Brits in that age bracket deny any religious affiliation. And a remarkably high 31% of young Irish people say they pray at least once a week. Even if some are fibbing, it is telling that they choose to make that claim.
So where exactly does Ireland stand on the spectrum between Catholic and post-Catholic?
“Clay Routledge, author of the new book, “Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World,” was watching his university’s football team play a national championship on television. There were about 20 other friends in the room when a girl of 9 or 10 twirled in. She pointed out that just because their team was ahead didn’t mean they still couldn’t lose.
At which point one of the men told the girl to leave and if she came back she would jinx the game.
“Hey, take it easy!” “She’s just a kid!” “Don’t be a jerk!”
Sorry — none of the adults said any of that. They just kept watching the television, as if this guy had not just said something both mean and, well, crazy. How could a girl twirling in or out of a room possibly affect the outcome of a football game?”
Source: https://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/41/34/dtg-rhymes-with-crazy-2018-08-24-bp.html.
“ Today, Aug. 25, marks another significant day in the calendar of the Christian Church.
Almost 1,700 years ago, in 325 AD, as the ecumenical council at Nicaea concluded, they adopted the Nicene Creed, establishing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Regrettably, this core Christian belief is more a formula to bless ourselves than a lifestyle to imitate. As Karl Rahner suggested, if the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was dropped, the day-to-day lives of Christians would remain largely unchanged, since they behave as “monotheist.”
What would prompt a well-respected Catholic theologian to draw that conclusion? I am sure there are a variety of explanations, but as I understand Rahner, one of the principle reasons is our failure to truly imitate the hospitality and unconditional love that animates the inner life of the Trinity. What I mean by this observation is visually explained by Andrei Rublev in his icon, The Trinity. If you haven’t seen this icon, find one and use it for a guided visual meditation. Your understanding of the Trinity will be forever changed. And, more importantly, you will discover what is expected of those who profess their faith in the Trinity.
As expected, Rublev’s icon depicts the three persons of the Trinity: God the Father on the left, Jesus in the centre, and the Holy Spirit on the right. They look alike, there is a feminine quality to them, and the circular motion created by the way they are seated around the table represents the endless love that flows between them. Their distinctiveness is found in subtle differences, such as the colours of their garments, the way the fingers are held, and how Jesus and the Spirit look toward the Father. There is a great deal more I could say about this sacred image, but there are two critical aspects of this icon that really teaches us about the Trinity. The first is that the right hand of the Spirit is pointing toward an empty space at the front to the table. Secondly, in the space where the Spirit is pointing, there appears to be a little rectangular square. Most people pass right over it, but some art historians believe this is actually remnants of glue that once held a mirror. In other words, Rublev intended for all those who look at his icon that they will see themselves sitting at the table with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is remarkable when you think about it. We are offered a seat at the table. This privilege, however, carries with it a challenge. If we are in communion with the three persons of the Trinity, then it would seem we are expected to imitate them by leaving an empty space at our table?”
Source: https://www.thewhig.com/news/local-news/religion-is-there-room-at-our-table.
“The recent visit of Pope Francis to Ireland, following so soon after the discovery of yet more horrific crimes committed by Catholic clergy against children, prompts reflection the thorny relation between religion and science. How should a scientist react to the pope’s visit?
One answer is that scientists’ views of organised religion are as diverse as those of any other section of the population. While some well-known scientists take a decidedly critical view of the great religions of the world, others profess deeply held beliefs. Indeed, I have often heard prominent scientists describe how they reconcile profound religious faith with their science at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at the University of Cambridge. That said, I don’t always find such presentations convincing — my own view is that science and religion make strange bedfellows.
One obvious clash is the central issue of faith — the manner in which almost all religions assume the existence of a supernatural deity in the absence of any supporting evidence. Such a belief system may arise from an instinctive human need to believe in something larger than ourselves, but it is in marked contrast with the practice of modern science, where everything we assume about the world is based upon thousands of observations.”
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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.
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“Cycling from Campbell River to Victoria is no easy feat, but for 25 local women, the struggle is what helps them feel connected to who they’re riding for.
The Victoria Grandmothers for Africa (VG4A) are hosting their 12th annual Cycle Tour to raise funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign, an effort to help grandmothers across Africa struggling to keep their families together amidst the HIV/AIDS epidemic that is still sweeping the continent.
“It’s a really powerful story of collaboration, of older women doing what each other needs,” said Laurie Wilson, media spokesperson for the Cycle Tour 2018. “Some grannies say that when they cycle, that’s when they feel the solidarity. When it’s hard and hot and smoky and hills are long, that’s when you feel the most connected.””
Source: https://www.vicnews.com/news/victoria-grandmothers-cycle-to-end-stigma-help-womens-rights-in-africa/.
“Women’s Equality Day, celebrated annually on August 26, marks the date the Constitution was amended to include women’s right to vote.
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex,” the 19th amendment read, as of August 26, 1920.
That sentence, my loves, took almost a century of organizing to achieve.”
Source: https://mashable.com/2018/08/26/what-is-womens-equality-day/#dusjeZ07OqqG.
“As we observe Women’s Equality Day on Aug. 26, which commemorates the day on which the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote, was certified in 1920, it’s important to take the opportunity to take stock. How far has the United States come in terms of women’s rights — and how is it stalling, or going backwards? The news in many quarters seems positive. More Democrat women are running for office in the 2018 midterm elections than ever before, and the #MeToo movement continues to drive public conversation. But there are some fundamental rights for American women remain at risk.
“No country in the world has successfully eliminated discrimination against women or achieved full equality,” the United Nations commented in June 2018, adding that there has been “alarming pushback” recently against gender equality in many countries. For any of us observing the current state of politics in the United States, this will feel all too familiar. Just because the United States is following a global trend, however, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t its own, specific problems. If you want to make a change, register to vote, get active, call your representatives, and keep a watchful eye on your rights. Here are five areas in which women’s rights are particularly under threat in the United right now.”
Source: https://www.bustle.com/p/5-womens-rights-issues-in-danger-in-the-us-right-now-10188642.
“The observance of Women’s Equality Day in the United States is inseparable from the history of the fight for votes for women. After all, its Aug. 26 date marks the anniversary of the 1920 adoption of the 19th Amendment.
Women’s Equality Day got its official start when Congress granted Congresswoman Bella Abzug‘s (D-NY) request for a special day to commemorate the day the 19th Amendment was ratified — a day that guaranteed that American citizens would not be denied the right to vote on the basis of sex.
On the heels of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s, Abzug’s efforts ultimately led to then-President Richard Nixon’s proclamation of Women’s Equality Day.”
Source: http://time.com/5372770/womens-equality-day-2018-facts/.
“Half of the world’s population struggled for decades for basic human rights.
The right to vote, own property, even escape unhealthy relationships were all once denied to women.
But through the years, women fought and won their independence and equality.
To Trish Ruiz, the fight must continue.
Ruiz, the New Mexico Public Education Commissioner for District 9, served as the keynote speaker during the Carlsbad chapter of the American Association of University Women’s “Champagne Brunch en Blanc,” Saturday at the Riverside Country Club.”
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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.
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“Charles Blackman was not only a much celebrated painter but also exceedingly prolific. On both counts his immortality is assured. His remarkable contribution to Australian art was recognised publicly in the huge retrospective exhibition Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls and Angels at the National Gallery of Victoria, which travelled around Australia in 1993–94.
That exhibition coincided with the making of the documentary film Charles Blackman: Dreams and Shadows, of which Blackman himself somehow became the star. Always articulate and variously poetic, reflective, comical and crazy, Blackman revealed in the film some of the emotional intensity that underpins his art. His performance, in the company of the narration of Barry Humphries, captured the duality of fact and fantasy, or indeed surreality, of his art and life. But his profound and unaffected humanity more than anything else struck viewers.
English journalist John Pringle, writing in Britain’s The Observer in 1961, described Blackman’s humanism as “emotional and honest, compassionate but tough (and) rooted in the working class from which he comes”. Although no doubt partly true, the class cap never really fitted this mercurial self-made artist.”
“The former chair of LGBT Humanists, the special interest section of Humanists UK, has expressed concern about ‘transphobia’ among members of the organisation.
Chris Ward called out the president-elect of Humanists Students Angelou Sofocleous for retweeting a post that read “RT if women don’t have penises,” which enclosing an article titled “Is it a crime to say ‘women don’t have penises’?” published on The Spectator on Sunday.
The article referred to a series of penis-shaped stickers featuring the transphobic slogan that have appeared in various locations in London and Liverpool in the past week.
“As former Chair of @LGBTHumanistsUK, the opposition I experienced from a number of longstanding @Humanists_UK members to trans people and trans issues was a stain on an otherwise great organisation. And here’s the new President of @HumanistStudent RTing horrific transphobic s**t,” Ward wrote on Twitter.”
Source: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/08/23/humanists-uk-transphobia-student-president/.
“In June, the Belfast Court of Appeal ruled that humanist marriages must be legally recognised in Northern Ireland. This weekend, the first two legal marriages to follow that ruling will occur.
On Saturday, Emma Taylor and Paul Malone will be getting married at Queen’s University Belfast, while on Sunday, Alanna McCaffrey and Ronan Johnson will be getting married in County Fermanagh. Their celebrants are Stewart Holden and Lara Harris, both trained and accredited by Humanists UK. Humanists UK and its section Northern Ireland Humanists have expressed their delight at the news and congratulations to the couples.
A humanist wedding is a non-religious ceremony that is deeply personal and conducted by a humanist celebrant. It differs from a civil wedding in that it is entirely hand-crafted and reflective of the humanist beliefs and values of the couple, conducted by a celebrant who shares their beliefs and values.”
“The Freethought Party of India (FPI) and the AMOFOI here jointly celebrated “August 20”, the 75th Birthday of former PM Rajiv Gandhi and the 5th Death Anniversary of Dr Narendra Dabholkar, the founder president of Maharastra Andhasradha Nirmoolan Samiti, as the “Scientific Temper and Humanism Day.”
Speaking on the occasion, FPI general secretary B Ramchandra CST Voltaire observed that late Rajiv Gandhi was indeed a great humanist and a dedicated lover of scientific outlook. It was he who brought eminent telecom engineer Sam Pitroda from the USA and with his technological knowledge, he launched a knowledge-cum-telecom revolution in India. Besides, it was his humanism that could see the then Leader of the Opposition Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s successful kidney treatment in the USA.”
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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.
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“Never mind whether you regularly visit a place of worship: do you consider yourself a religious person? Yes, said 62% of 60,000 people across 68 countries polled by WIN/Gallup for a survey published in 2017. Back in 2005, the score for that answer was 77%.
Minus 15 percentage points in just 12 years — that’s a fairly steep decline. Does that mean that atheism is gaining ground worldwide? Yes, but not by as much as these figures seem to suggest, for three reasons.
Firstly, because there’s a large and growing middle between those who positively believe in God and those who positively don’t. In 2005, just 5% of those surveyed in 2005 considered themselves ‘convinced atheists’ — the remaining 18% were non-religious or ‘don’t knows’. In 2017, the fish-nor-fowl brigade had grown to 30%. ‘Convinced atheists’ had increased as well, but only to 9%.”
Source: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/china-and-europe-stand-out-on-world-map-of-atheism.
“The “new atheism” fad of Richard Dawkins, Samuel Harris, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and dozens of other ornery antitheists created a lot of noise over the God Question, reaching its peak in the late 2000s. The loud, kaleidoscopic festival of fallacies served up by these commentators attracted a lot of media attention.
Westerners had never had such a public and prominent debate on God’s existence, and millions were seduced by superficially intriguing yet ultimately facile questions like “who created God?” and “is a prime mover not equally as plausible as a giant plate of pasta floating in space?”
Western liberals bemoaned the crimes of the religious, dreaming Lennonishly of a world without fanaticism — as if Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hoxha had not amply proven that extremism can exist among the atheistic. There were religious responses, but too often they were simplistic and unconvincing, like the infamous “crocoduck.””
“DC Comics has just suggested that Batman is an atheist.
On the one hand, that seems a bit odd, since Batman — a.k.a Bruce Wayne — has met a wide array of gods and demigods personally. On the other hand, Batman’s atheism makes sense. When humans have super powers, what’s the use of gods?
Batman hangs out with Wonder Woman, who hobnobs with Zeus, Ares and other deities. He’s buddies with Deadman, a ghost resurrected by a goddess named Rama Kushna. In one memorable comic that gave me nightmares for years when I was a kid, Batman got turned into a vampire, which seems as if it would be hell on one’s skepticism. If you live in the DC universe, you’ve got to believe 12 improbable things before you eat your Bat toast. Being an atheist in those circumstances seems less a spiritual stance and more like carelessness.”
“Traditional Christian values have long underpinned popular children’s books such as The Chronicles of Narnia.
But now Richard Dawkins wants to give youngsters a different perspective with a new book — Atheism for Children.
The outspoken scientist, 77, hopes it will stop the ‘religious indoctrination of children’ by schools and family members.”
“Famed atheist Richard Dawkins said he plans to write a book titled “Atheism for Children” in efforts to arm the younger generation “against indoctrination by schools, grandparents and religious books.”
On Twitter, the 77-year-old author of “The God Delusion” said his new book will “be unflinching, not a storybook.”
“[C]hildren won’t beg parents to buy it for Xmas,” he said. “Are there parents who’ll want to buy it for their children anyway? Do you anticipate a demand? Would you like to see a ‘children’s God Delusion’ by me published?””
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/25
I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.
-Stephen Hawking
Genius is a rare combination of high intelligence, conscientiousness, and creativity. We lost one, recently. Stephen Hawking by recognized accomplishment of the scientific community, intellectual peers, and the public was widely recognized as a genius.
Hawking died on March 14 at the age of 76. For decades, he suffered from “amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a neurodegenerative disease.”
Colleagues, friends, family, and acquaintance, remembered him for mind-blowing books, theorization in theoretical physics about black holes, dancing with him, a wheelchair and permanent ability to only communicate through an electronically produced voice, and being a heroic scientist to many.
Hundreds were in line and mourned his death at the funeral. There was a tribute in Cambridge through graffiti for Hawking. Some publications have produced albums in tribute to Hawking’s legacy and life.
Due to the ALS, Hawking was bound to a wheelchair permanently for decades. Now, it is being put up for museum offers. Also, on the professional front, and intriguingly, even with all of the professional and public accolades for the accomplishments in theoretical physics; Hawking never won the Nobel Prize.
One US expert speculated that Hawking may have been suffering from other ailments as well, e.g., polio. He will be honored within the halls of the scientific community and for being an ambassador for science.
In one of his last appearances in a film setting, Hawking will be exploring the potential futures for humanity. In his gigantic intellectual and cultural wake, he leaves behind a wealth of great quotes for the general public, even the final gift of an Easter meal for the hungry.
Though dead, Hawking did not believe in an afterlife. He died an atheist.
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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.
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According to Psychology Today, a practicing Canadian psychologist and an American neuroscientist discussed religious claims to truth.
The psychologist is Jordan Peterson. The neuroscientist is Sam Harris. It has been an ongoing debate with the New Atheists dominating in the 2000s. They were ascendant and debating the prominent Christian philosophers and theologians.
The 2010s see a different debate happening with many of the prominent New Atheists aging or deceased. The current debate between the two were about religion and true speech with a connection to myths and then also the world of rationality and science.
As reported, “What makes the debate so mercurial is that Peterson himself does not believe in traditional Christian claims such as the resurrection. Rather, he sees religious belief as a Darwinian adaptation that remains mostly unconscious.”
The orientation of Peterson is the potential for a spiritual reality with the truths from the religious myths. That is, human psychology and societal structures can be illuminated through the mythologies of times past.
One evolutionary biologist, Bret Weinstein, moderated some dialogues in Vancouver and Dublin. Then there was one with Douglas Murray as well. Harris and Peterson looked into the roots of religion and the ways in which this relates to truth.
“One illuminating way of thinking about religious belief, evoked in their second debate, involves a loaded gun. If we are taught to treat all guns as loaded, the argument goes, we will be safer in the long run,” the article explained, “Whether or not it is true that a particular gun is loaded or not does not matter — so long as we treat every gun as if it is loaded, we will be more likely to survive. A society that believes that every gun is loaded, then, is more likely to survive than a society which does not.”
Harris spoke the literal truth and the metaphorical truth. The latter as having utility within the world of fiction. Then these metaphorical truths can be more helpful than literal truth in some cases. The thought is that the society built on the assertion of human beings being built in the image of the creator of the universe is better for having a basic purpose.
Peterson argued for the utility of the Biblical stories within the framework of Darwinian evolution. That these stories must have survival significance.
“In his lectures and writings, Peterson describes the story of Cain and Abel as a warning against envy and resentment, and the Tower of Babel as a call for caution against centralized, totalizing systems. These stories, he argues, are ‘metaphorically true,’ even if they are literally false,” the article stated.
Harris pointed to some of the religious narratives containing some moral data. However, they can be useless too. Because these assume gods or a God. It becomes a “misapprehension of the causal structure of the cosmos.”
Peterson’s concern comes in the form of a secular ethic coming from preceding ethics; if we lose those preceding ones, then we lose ethical systems now. We need to know their origins. He directed attention to human and animal sacrifice. The idea is give something up now for later. He argues for this as the discovery of the future.
Harris argued for the utility of the narratives but without the belief in revelation or the supernatural in essence.
“Here, the debate reached a kind of impasse. Peterson insisted that because so much of our thinking is unconscious, and stories are our way of describing the behaviors that emerge from that unconscious processing, our old religious stories might have far more to teach us about ourselves than we can rationally discern on our own,” the article stated.
Harris argued this was an evasion on the part of Peterson. However, for the three discussions, the main conversation focused on the nature of the truth. Peterson, apparently, echoed the arguments of one Christian philosopher, Alvin Plantinga.
That the adaptively evolved faculties should be judged on the ability for greater survival of the organism. Harris views this as a stretch. That even, in one thought experiment, if humans died off as a species; our fundamental scientific and rational discoveries would still be true.
Peterson stated that if we die based on some ideas then, maybe, those ideas are not true.
The article concluded, “At the end of the debates, the fundamental question of religion and the human mind remains unsettled. But that doesn’t take the joy out of watching two scientists tear out the foundations of truth, morality and culture beneath their feet and try to put them back together again.”
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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.
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According to Mondaq, there was a Supreme Court of Canada decision on June 15 2018 relevant to LGBTQ rights.
There was a landmark decision on the Canadian limits for their institutional religious freedoms. It amounted to the law school wanted by an Evangelical Christian University in Langley, British Columbia being rejected on legal grounds.
As reported, “The decisions concerned regulator rejections of a law school which required that students sign a covenant prohibiting any form of sexual activity outside of a marriage between a man and a woman.”
Two cases — Law Society of British Columbia v Trinity Western University and Trinity Western University v Law Society of Upper Canada — had the Supreme Court of Canada find both the Ontario and British law societies’ legal decisions to not accredit the law school came from a balanced place.
The law societies made the decision to not accredit the law school for Trinity Western University (TWU). The decision was said to have made a balance between the Law Societies’ mandates and religious freedom.
It continued, “TWU is a private post-secondary institution that provides education in an evangelical Christian environment. While LGBTQ students are not prohibited from attending TWU, all students are required to sign a covenant that prohibits any form of sexual activity outside of a marriage between a man and a woman.”
This limits students. With the covenant, the Law Societies made a vote. The vote determined a proper denial of the accreditation of the law school proposed by TWU. With extensive deliberations, it was decided that TWU was discriminatory against LGBTQ people.
“On judicial review, Ontario’s Divisional Court held that the Law Society of Ontario had properly exercised its statutory mandate to act in the public interest in refusing to grant accreditation to TWU’s proposed law school because its mandatory covenant was discriminatory,” the reportage stated.
The denial of the accreditation, apparently, violated the Section 2(a) religious right found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court was found to have made a proportionate and balanced decision on the equality rights and the Law Society of Ontario’s public interest mandate.
“In contrast, the British Columbia Court of Appeal reversed the Law Society of British Columbia’s decision not to approve TWU’s proposed law school. The court instead found that the decision’s effect on TWU’s religious rights was severe compared to the minimal impact on Law Society of British Columbia’s statutory public interest objectives,” the article said.
The appeal was then made to the SCC. The SCC made a staggering 7–2 decision to deny accreditation to the TWU law school. Most of the SCC found that the Law Societies violated the communal religious freedom of TWU.
However, with the Charter right invoked for the legal societies’ decision, the SCC used a decision-making framework from some previous decisions. It was the Dore/Loyola framework. It was meant for the balance of the Charter rights and the statutory objectives.
Reportage continued, “The Supreme Court held that the Law Societies had balanced competing interests reasonably and proportionately. As with many administrative decisions, the decision under review did not need to be correct; it was only required to fall within a range of possible reasonable outcomes.”
Two sides were present. The SCC ratiocinated that the religious rights of the TWU community were not limited based on the mandatory covenant because of this not being a requirement of the Christian environment.
The other was that the statutory public interest mandate is to prevent harm to LGBTQ students of law. It means a diverse bar with equal access and opportunities. The decision highlighted the balance between public interest and religious rights.
“In a minority concurring decision, Justice Rowe found that TWU’s religious rights had not been engaged by the Law Societies’ decisions. He argued that while religious rights protected individuals and faith communities’ beliefs and practices,” the article explained, “it did not protect their attempts to impose adherence to others who do not share their beliefs.[9] With no Charter right balanced against the Law Societies’ public interest mandate, the decision to deny TWU accreditation was entirely reasonable.”
There was another minority decision happening concomitantly. The Chief Justice McLachlin stated that the Dore/Loyola framework shall be applied. It was commentary from McLachlin on the freedom of association and the freedom of expression.
“She ultimately agreed, however, that the decision of the Law Societies was reasonable as they had a heightened duty to maintain equality and avoid condoning discrimination,” the article stated, “In dissent, Justice Côté and Justice Brown argued that the Law Societies’ statutory mandates did not include the governance of law schools.”
There was further commentary by Justice Côté and Justice Brown about the mandatory covenant not being discriminatory. Their argument was that the covenant did not target LGBTQ people in particular and, therefore, this did not comprise any form of standard discrimination.
It, on the implications, continued to state, “The decision serves as a high-profile example of judicial review of administrative decisions engaging Charter rights. The Supreme Court declined to depart from the Dore/Loyola framework, despite criticism in some circles.”
The SCC made balance with the statutory objectives and the religious rights within the context of the Dore/Loyola framework. The decision may show SCC deference to the statutory mandates of administrative bodies.
“The impact of these decisions extends beyond adjudging the quality of various legal tests. The number of interveners (23) across religious and human rights spectra illustrate how personally important these decisions were to groups across Canada,” the article concluded, “As noted above, the Supreme Court focused on interests of diversity and equal access to the legal profession in reaching its conclusions. Many will view these decisions favourably as a continuation of the use of the Charter to advance the rights of LGBTQ Canadian citizens.”
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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.
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According to The Atlantic, Dr. Richard Dawkins spoke on a cultural taste for the bells of cathedrals and a distaste for the calls of ‘Allahu Akhbar.’
Dawkins tweeted an image of himself in Winchester, England on a Sunny day.
Richard Dawkins is at it again.
The famous atheist and bestselling author of The God Delusion tweeted on Monday a picture of himself sitting on a park bench and enjoying a sunny day in Winchester, England. For many people, this moment might have been a chance to just kick back and relax. But apparently not for Dawkins.
“Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester, one of our great mediaeval cathedrals,” he tweeted to his nearly 3 million followers. “So much nicer than the aggressive-sounding ‘Allahu Akhbar.’ Or is that just my cultural upbringing?”
Yes, actually, it is, replied thousands of people. Many flat-out accused him of racism, xenophobia, bigotry, or Islamophobia. News outlets from The Independent to Newsweek reported on the public outrage. Even by Dawkinsian standards of provocation, this latest statement felt to many like a shock.
In fact, however, it’s pretty common for native English speakers to perceive Arabic sounds as “aggressive.” So much so that American accent reduction coaches make money off Arabic-speakers by warning them that their native language “may cause [them] to sound harsh or aggressive.” Another adjective often applied to the language is “guttural.” Many people characterize Germanin the same way.
Sociolinguists, who study the ways people’s cultural beliefs affect their beliefs about various languages, say this is no coincidence.
“A lot of times people’s negative or positive attitudes about a particular group get transferred onto the language,” explained Christopher Lucas, a professor of Arabic linguistics at SOAS in London. “They start to believe that it’s just the linguistic content of the language that is the bearer of those features that they experience as negative or positive, when that is almost never the case in actuality. … Sounds are just sounds. They don’t have any objective content that you can map onto specific emotional states.”
That’s not to say the perception of sound is entirely socially constructed. “There is some non-arbitrary link between sounds and the meanings people associate with them,” said Morgan Sonderegger, an associate professor of linguistics at McGill University. For instance, he said, it’s pretty well established that words with higher-sounding vowels tend to denote smaller objects, while words with lower-sounding vowels tend to denote bigger things; this is true cross-culturally. He cited a 2016 study that examined words from nearly two-thirds of the world’s languages and found that people everywhere often associate certain sounds with certain meanings. And an earlier cross-cultural experiment found that when people are shown a curvy shape and a jagged shape, and are asked which one is a bouba and which one is a kiki, they overwhelmingly associate the curvy shape with bouba and the jagged one with kiki. Sonderegger noted, however, that although human beings do seem to have some built-in associations, even these are just “raw materials that can be overwritten by cultural biases.”
The linguist Vineeta Chand argues that there’s actually nothing inherent in the sounds of a language that make it more or less enticing. Instead, people tend to find a foreign language attractive when the group it’s associated with enjoys economic or sociocultural prestige — think of the popularity of French as “romantic.” And the linguist Guy Deutscher argues that people tend to find sounds or sound combinations grating when they appear rarely or not at all their own native language — like the consonant cluster lbstv in selbstverständlich, which is German for obvious.
Lucas added that he believes Dawkins’s “vague soup of negative ideas [about Islam] is bleeding into his transcription.” The author’s tweet refers to “Allahu Akhbar,” but the proper transliteration would be Akbar, because this Arabic word contains no kh sound (as opposed to, say, the word sheikh). “He’s transcribing it as if it’s a kh, and for people who are native speakers of a language that lacks a kh sound — like most dialects of English — that is very often felt to be a harsh, ugly sound. People here in the U.K., when you ask them what’s your opinion about German, will say ‘Oh, it’s ugly! You’ve got all these kh, kh, kh sounds.’ But there are many other languages with these sounds, like Dutch. And no one in my experience says that Dutch is ugly.”
Dawkins posted a new status on Twitter on Wednesday, after a barrage of intense media attention: “The call to prayer can be hauntingly beautiful, especially if the muezzin has a musical voice. My point is that ‘Allahu Akhbar’ is anything but beautiful when it is heard just before a suicide bomb goes off. That is when Islam is tragically hijacked by violence.”
The tweet, which seemed meant to defuse criticism from the left, reinforces the linguists’ point: The words sound “aggressive” to Dawkins, not because of some inherent acoustic harshness, because he associates them with suicide bombers.
Earlier this year, Dawkins made headlines for giving away free copies of The God Delusion to Muslims after discovering that millions of copies had been illegally downloaded in Arabic translation in Muslim-majority countries. Yet for the atheist provocateur, taking issue with the Arabic language seems to be something of a pattern. He did it in 2013, 2014, and 2015. His 2014 tweet is especially striking for its similarity to this week’s remarks: “I’ve read that Arabic is the most beautiful language,” Dawkins wrote then. “I questioned that aesthetically & was bizarrely accused of racism. So I deleted it.”
But Dawkins keeps repeating himself. And many of his followers seem content with that: His “Allahu Akbar” tweet collected more than 16,000 likes.
“The people who get away with simplistic ideas about languages are people who don’t speak them and haven’t lived the experience of those languages being used to express love and anger and hilarity and sadness,” Lucas said. “If you’ve been exposed to a language a lot, that pretty much guarantees you’re not going to have simplistic ideas about it.”
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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.
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According to Friendly Atheist, many atheists in Indonesia fear for their lives and so live under fake Muslim identities.
Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims in the world. The number of Muslims in standard statistics may be misleading because of the fear of reprisal from the community, the family, and even the state. If someone is in fear for their livelihood, then they may simply work to fit into the pack.
As reported, “Living a double life isn’t all that uncommon in Indonesia, where atheists live in fear of being sent to jail (or worse) thanks to fundamentalist religious groups. AFP profiled one of these atheists, identified only as “Luna Atmowijoyo,” about her de-conversion from Islam years ago.”
Atmowijoyo lives with her parents. But still, she wears an Islamic headscarf to simply fit into the family and so the community, and to avoid the backlash, potentially and likely, of her father. She was told to not have friendships with non-Muslims.
She is 30-years-old and still finds a lot of the simple things bother her. Atmowijoyo stated, “Like I couldn’t say Merry Christmas or Happy Waisak to people of other religions,” where other problems involved the treatment of homosexual males and females as in some way dysfunctional/abnormal.
The juxtaposition of the Quran and science were also problems. Then the idea entered her brain, that God may not exist. The reportage notes the Abrahamic faiths’ marginalization of the sexual orientation and gender identity minority communities.
It continued, “But for most of us, going public with that idea will lead to a loss of family or friends. It’s not a death sentence. In Indonesia, atheists who speak out about their beliefs risk their lives and freedom.”
The law of the land in Indonesia does not help, either. It has some purported stipulations about the freedom of expression. However, the freedom expression of speaking about a lack of a belief in God or gods becomes something that places an individual at risk of arrest of killing by the authorities.
The six religions recognized by Indonesia are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and others. However, with over 90% of the population believing in Islam, the criticism of religion and a religious Theity, including the Islamic one especially, becomes potentially grounds for public and legal punishment.
It may even be a greater risk for a woman. In 2018, one student was charged for a Facebook post that made a comparison between Allah and some Greek gods, while also stating the Lord of the Rings is comparable in reality to the Quran.
Alexander Aan received 30 months in jail in 2012 for the posting of explicit material of the Prophet Mohammed while also declaring himself — Aan — an atheist. The government will not acknowledge any hypocrisy between allowing someone to be an atheist but only keeping it to themselves, under potential punishment with the force of law.
Abdurrahman Mas’ud, head of the research and development agency at the Ministry of Religion, explained, “Once somebody disseminates that idea, or the concept of atheism, that will be problematic.”
The article concluded:
Blasphemy laws are always going to be blasphemy laws. Nobody is falling for this “atheism is legal” nonsense, and there’s a good reason some atheists are hiding their lack of faith from everyone in Indonesia. Without reforming the culture and the laws — with the help of believers who truly believe in free speech — nothing will get better in this area.
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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.
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According to Laughing in Disbelief, one atheist is bringing his own brand of atheism to the world of stand-up comedy.
Keith Lowell Jensen is an atheist and a stand-up comedian. In this video The Lock In, he discusses the odd intersection between God, atheism, and dating.
Check it out!
The clip is from his comedy special Bad Comedy For Bad People.
Here’s the synopsis of the special:
When Keith Lowell Jensen started a Twitter account for his daughter, he didn’t expect @MaxTheTiger to gain an international audience. Then again, he probably never pictured having the “death talk” with li’l @MaxTheNecromancer as his small, ardent atheist tried to Lazarus a froglet. And even that one wasn’t as odd as learning a thing or two from the comprehensive “sex talk” his wife and several organic, fair trade bananas laid on their nephew. On his latest release from Stand Up! Records, Jensen considers the ethics of incarceration and homelessness, presenting a vegan yet still modest proposal and explores the capitalist response to teen depression (mainly through mall sales of Joy Division shirts). He even reasons that, if we learned anything from the Civil Rights Movement and the music that grew alongside it, gay marriage’s “slippery slope” is leading us to a better, kinder, future in which an aging, yet still wise and witty Jensen spends his dotage tending bonsai trees, building model railroads, and personally fellating all his male friends.
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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.
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According to Rome Reports, Cardinal Antonio Marto argued that the main issue for the religious is the actual lack of interest in religion. It was a short news article on the story of the cardinal and bishop, and his perspective on the waning interest in religion now.
Marto was the one who welcomed Pope Francis to Fatima — his city — in 2017 and the then-pope Benedict XVI in 2006. Coming from a family of deep faith, Marto knows the Roman Catholic religion and theology, and cultural and social life.
Marto was ordained as a priest with a doctorate in Theology with Benedict appointing him the bishop of Fatima, of the city. He was reluctant to take the position; however, the pope, at the time, wanted Marto to be the bishop.
As reported, “Fatima receives thousands of people from all continents every year. For this reason it’s interesting to get his opinion about what should be the Church’s priority.” Marto is concerned about the state of the Church. This is someone with authority, education, and influence within the Roman Catholic Church from a Catholic news source.
“At this moment, the priority is to bring God to the hearts of men and women, and men and women to the heart of God, and this is part of the message of Fatima,” Marto opined, “This is because we live in a time of religious indifference. Our greatest enemy is not militant atheism but religious indifference. This indifference is fought with the joyful and convinced testimony of faithful Christians.”
The decline in the global interest in religion — though continued growth in the numbers — remains a concern for the individuals within the Roman Catholic Church including the hierarchs such as Marto.
The article concluded, “It’s this issue he hopes to continue working on as cardinal and theological bishop of Fatima one who finds rests by walking in the mountains or spending time with his family and friends.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/19
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to the Filipino community at large, what seems like some of the more prominent cases of individuals abusing religion for personal gain?
Reginald Gajete: It’s politics. The Philippines is mostly populated by religious conservatives, so using religion will definitely give you an edge especially during your campaign.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte? How are atheists generally treated in the Philippines?
Gajete: From my standpoint, Philippines is on a radical paradigm shift under Duterte, there have been a lot of changes lately, some positive and some negative. I like to call it “The Birth of New Age Philippines” In general, atheists in the Philippines are still treated with disrespect and pity, but it’s slowly changing, people are now embracing this concept.
Jacobsen: How can the non-religious overcome religious privilege, e.g., building a coalition and a solidarity movement?
Gajete: To be honest it’s still a challenge. The best thing to do is not declare your disbelief and you’ll be fine.
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Gajete: If a new bill is passed but it’s not in line with the church’s teachings, it won’t be signed or it will take time to get it signed despite the social and economic benefits. One good example is the Reproductive Health Bill which was a big issue that took 14 years before it was finally signed. I think it’s when I got bored with atheism, got fed up with the endless arguments and nothing is being resolved. Then I came across a website about humanism, read their articles and then I realized that this is what I wanted to do. Upon researching, I found out that there’s no humanist organization in the Philippines.
That’s when a good friend of mine contacted me about a new organization she’s building, her name is Mrs. M or Marissa Torres Langseth. She asked me to lead the first chapter, so I said yes, then HAPI just kept growing and I’m so proud of what Ms. M’s mission have become.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Gajete: I think it’s because religion is closely tied with the traditions and cultures in Philippines. If you tell anybody that you’re irreligious then they’ll conclude that you’re immoral and evil, and then you’ll lose credibility in every direction.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Gajete: Thank you for giving me this wonderful opportunity. More power to you and your cause.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/11
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to the Filipino community at large, what seems like some of the more prominent cases of individuals abusing religion for personal gain?
John Miles: Abusing religion? No, using the religion at its full extent, yes. Because religion limits human thinking. The drift occurs when the person starts ignoring logic and his instincts. Separation from his instinctual nature inevitably plunges civilized man into conflict between conscious and unconscious, spirit and nature, knowledge and faith. It controls how people thinks and in the end those one’s on the top of it gains power.
I would like to share this message from Carl Sagan that got me in tears about his perspective of Earth, Space and Humanity as a whole: The Pale Blue Dot — https://youtu.be/wupToqz1e2g.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte?
Miles: Working in an oil/gas industry and living abroad gives me a very narrow view of this subject. Frankly, I don’t give a fuck.
Jacobsen: How are atheists generally treated in the Philippines?
Miles: Like the lowest kind of human being — my family struggled for years accepting the fact that I do not believe in any deities. I’ve struggled 2 years before that, trying to accept that I have been fooled my whole life of a lie. They tried their best to convince me and when they realized they can’t. I was disowned for years. Just recently they started talking to me, and I am very happy for that.
People, not only in the Philippines see us as “Satan worshipers” not realizing we don’t believe in Satan too. That shows the idiocracy of an individual and right after that, they change how they interact with me, so I learned fast when to shut my mouth and when to speak up.
Jacobsen: How can the non-religious overcome religious privilege, e.g., building a coalition and a solidarity movement?
Miles: The only way non-religious can overcome religious privileges is to take it away from them. Away from our government, away from our kids and away from our school system. But not take away their freedom of what to believe as long as they don’t affect the factors that matters the most. When an individual believer is trying to change the law in line with his personal faith, that’s where it should stop.
The more we educate children and give them the knowledge and freedom to question everything is the more our future will be a bit brighter without religion.
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Miles: Politics in the Philippines is greatly influenced by religion. Roman Catholics has a great role in Philippine’s political agenda. And for this I am ashamed of my country. People that have ridiculous ideology should never have anything to do with government, or in real life in general.
Culture is important but it’s time that we have to weigh things between nonsense religious activities to a more productive and viable or realistic things in life.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Miles: Religion has a large influence to each region around the world, whatever religion it is. Religion controls how people think and in Philippines —
1. When you have been told “There is a God.” all your life.
2. When religion has a big part on our culture. E.g. Television shows, celebrations, government decisions. Etc.
3. How people reacts and how they treat when they find out you’re a non-believer.
It’s pretty hard for people to think outside the box. Almost impossible, it’s even unthinkable for a person to even consider the possibility that there is no God. Despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to such claims.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Miles: I would like to share this quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson — “God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on.”
I am a great believer of unity, love, values and truth. And we all should be. Although I validate my views of truth in accord with recent facts and evidence discovered by science; but until the claim of a deity or any other religious ideologies proven true: Religion has no say of how I live my life, no place in my family, not included of category how I choose my friends, and should NOT be welcomed in our society.
Thank you for this opportunity Scott.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, John.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/12
“It’s one of the hallmarks of thoughtful people that either they think long and hard about a problem before taking a position on it; or else they take a position first and subsequently rationalise it so that it can be defended. So it is that our atheist friends have, over the centuries, presented many arguments in favour of their atheism, all of which, in my opinion, leave a lot to be desired. In the following, I have listed nine of the more oft-repeated ones, along with a few words explaining why they are no good. I am not necessarily saying there areno good reasons to be an atheist; just that no such argument has been presented to date. The reader will notice a recurring theme; namely, the atheists’ insistence on certain kinds of (easily attackable) gods, followed by a statement why belief in them makes no sense.
- There’s so much suffering in the world. This comes in many forms: There’s no justice in the world. Faith is rewarded to the same degree as unbelief. The resources are so unjustly distributed among people. If an omniscient, omnipotent and an all-good God doesn’t choose to prevent evil, He’s not all-good; if He is unable to prevent evil, He’s not omnipotent. All these arguments feature anthropomorphism — casting the deity in the image of man. While these are excellent reasons not to believe in an anthropomorphic God, they don’t quite do the job of invalidating the very concept of God. Good and evil are themes of mankind, not of God. Good and bad (like hot and cold, beneficial and harmful) are relative terms — when you enjoy a mutton chop it’s good for you, but not so good for the goat. An Absolute God cannot be judged according to something else.”
Source: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/08/06/nine-not-so-good-reasons-to-be-an-atheist/.
“You quite often hear it said that the youth of today, the Millennials and so on, are less religious than the older generations. This is certainly true in America as research has consistently shown. However, this can also be seen more globally. As ever, there are some countries who defy this pattern. That said, where there is a gap between younger generations and older generations in what they believe, the results almost always show that the younger generations have less religiosity than older ones.
Recently, the Pew Research Center reported:
But this is not solely an American phenomenon: Lower religious observance among younger adults is common around the world, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center surveys conducted in more than 100 countries and territories over the last decade.
Although the age gap in religious commitment is larger in some nations than in others, it occurs in many different economic and social contexts — in developing countries as well as advanced industrial economies, in Muslim-majority nations as well as predominantly Christian states, and in societies that are, overall, highly religious as well as those that are comparatively secular.
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/08/08/religion-atheism-and-the-young/.
“No matter the pretense, it is so obvious from his social media. It is common knowledge that atheism is not marketable in Nigeria, so coming out as one would have starved him of attention.
But coming out as if he belongs in and understands Christianity, while attacking everything the Faith stands for, became the password for the parasitic fame of his worthless campaign.
Generally, atheism blossomed in opposition to Christianity, and the answers they couldn’t find by proportionating everything — allowed them stick with the belief.”
Source: https://www.pulse.ng/communities/bloggers/the-atheist-daddy-freeze-id8702546.html.
“Muthuvel Karunanidhi was known not just for his mastery of Tamil and his political acumen, but also for his outspoken atheism.
Karunanidhi, who died on August 7, aged 94, once asked where the Hindu god Ram studied engineering; he was asking for proof of the bridge many Hindus believe helped the exiled prince lead an army of vaanars to Lanka.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) supremo also once said Valmiki, the author of the Ramayan, had called the epic’s hero a “drunkard”.
Karunanidhi’s party has its roots in the Dravidian movement, most closely associated with the rationalist EV Ramasamy (1879–1973) — also simply known as Periyar.”
“It’s amazing to think how a state who formally supported atheism as a statutory worldview has now got into bed with the church. The Russian Orthodox Church is certainly pulling the strings in the ex-Soviet state. Now, a Russian woman is facing five years in jail, for posting memes insulting religion. This seems insane.
As Newsweek reports:
A woman in Russia has gone on trial for “insulting” religious believers by posting memes on social media.
Maria Motuznaya, 23, was charged with offending the feelings of religious believers and “inciting” racial hatred after two women complained about images she posted on the Russian social networking site VKontakte, Radio Free Europe reported. Police then moved to search her home in May.
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/08/06/religion-and-atheism-my-how-russia-has-changed/.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/12
“Why need for racism label?
Re Joseph Parker visit to Whanganui High School.
If I arranged my birthday for tomorrow and didn’t invite Chronicle deputy editor Simon Waters or Whanganui resident Tony Grieg would they accuse me of “exclusion”?
Why is it that Māori and Pacifica boys can’t organise meetings to address their particular needs and concerns, and invite speakers, without being accused of “racism”?
Why is it that some Pākehā get so offended when other ethnic groups, especially Māori and Pacific, take positive steps for their own inherent cultural value, without the need for Pākehā involvement, oversight or control?”
Source: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/democracy/news/article.cfm?c_id=171&objectid=12103207.
“Weekly phone calls with my parents are rarely brief and often cover a plethora of topics.
During a recent conversation, my dad asked if I understood the connection between Biblical times as referenced in Jeremiah 8:22 and recent history. He recited the verse as follows: Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
As we conversed, the story unfolded. Dad explained the prophet Jeremiah was deeply hurt by his people’s rejection of God.
This region of Gilead was known for its balsam ointment. But there is no healing, physical or spiritual, for people who rebel against God.”
Source: http://www.sentinel-standard.com/news/20180805/where-do-you-stand.
“Dan Abata Fula (Muyiwa Dipeolu) in The Aparologist, Ode To A Laureate reminisces how as a child, he rollicked and pranced with other children in his rustic community.
And drawing from the past, the author in his younger mind wonders the import of life and why we must appease the gods to keep us alive, when after such oblation, the gods still take lives, not sparing our loved ones.
Seeing life as a strife and illusion, the author wonders why human beings are so desperate to acquire wealth, laurel and fear conquest, when life is full of deceit, plunder, vanities, gullies and uncertainties.
He sees death as ‘an end, yet a beginning,’ as a ‘destiny and a continuum.’”
Source: https://dailynigerian.com/soyinkas-humanism-eulogised-in-the-aparologist-ode-to-a-laureate-2/.
“What would it be like to sit in a dark room all by oneself and talk endlessly to a mobile app trying to get over depression? In the modern age one of major crises that we face is the lack of individuals who would come and listen to us without forming a judgement?
In traditional societies such as India it was not long ago that extended families lived together, cousins and siblings played in the same courtyard, uncles, aunts, grandparents and other elders were part of the growing up of children. One of the arguments given against this sort of a family arrangement is that people lacked their space and privacy, that even if they didn’t want to they were compelled to settle down with the choices of others and that there was no freedom.
While living with several other individuals may have the need to compromise and adjust compared to when living alone, it surely does have many advantages too.”
Source: https://thenewleam.com/2018/08/the-kingdom-of-apps-and-the-denial-of-humanism/.
“ In the spring of 1946, W.H. Auden came to Harvard to read a poem to the university’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Titled “Under Which Lyre: A Reactionary Tract for the Times,” the poem envisioned a postwar world in which, the war-god Ares having quit the field, public life would be dominated by a renewed contest between “the sons of Hermes” and “Apollo’s children” — the motley humanists against the efficient technocrats, the aesthetes and poets and philosophers and theologians against the managers and scientists and financiers and bureaucrats.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/opinion/oh-the-humanities.html.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/12
“Two interesting pieces of reading in The Guardian on August 4, 2018. ‘Stripping religion from public view in name of diversity’ by Gerry Bowler, a university professor from Manitoba, speaks about removing religion and religious symbols and language from the motto, the coat of arms and the literature of most universities and the public square in Canada in the name of diversity. It concludes, “A nation with no common values, except that the determination that we will have no common values, cannot long survive.”
And ‘Spiritual famine’ by Rev. D. Blair Sorrey, quoting Prophet Amos who lived eight centuries before Christ and a few other biblical lessons highlights the shortage of hearers of the word of God.
They depict a true picture of the absence or disappearance of the hunger and thirst for spiritual food. Every aspect of social outfit, the politicians, the media, the self-righteous zealots of public propriety, the intellectuals, secularists, modernists and everyone who can articulate anything is vying with one another to prove that there is no God. Or if he is out there he doesn’t have any business with humans and their world today, and there is nothing like spiritual or after life for humans. They deny God whom they do not know nor seek to find. For them, anyone or anything that is not visible, and tangible is non-existent.”
Source: http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/letter-to-the-editor/opinion-a-world-without-religion-232846/.
“As I was saying before I was interrupted by the war… this was roughly what Cassandra, a British newspaper columnist, wrote when he resumed his column as peace came after World War 2. I don’t presume to be the legendary Cassandra. Neither was I interrupted by anything so devastating and historic as a global conflict.
But I was laid off by a rather lengthy stay at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Here I am, glad to be back. Before I talk about anything else, I want to say just two things. Please take care of your health. It’s your temple. The only one that you have. Respect it.
Talking about respect, I have only good things to say about the ICU staff of Tan Tock Seng. This is not the first time I’ve been to this hospital. I was there for a month in 2014. I did not have a good experience. At that time, the hospital seemed to be rather messy. Somewhat disorganised. So I had some trepidation when I was admitted there again.”
Source: http://theindependent.sg/forget-race-language-and-religion/.
“Congregational meet-ups without the worship can boost wellbeing in the same way as going to church or attending other religious groups, a new study suggests.
Whether at the temple, church or mosque, worshipping together has long been linked to better mental and physical health.
Now people who regularly attend secular or non-religious groups are shown to get similar feel-good vibes, simply through social bonding, psychologists reveal.”
Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-religion-free-church-spirits.html.
“Australian school students are becoming more likely to identify with “no religion” even in religious schools, including a 68 per cent increase in Catholic schools.
The trend, which mirrors changes in the wider population, has led the peak independent schools body to warn religious schools to rethink their marketing.
Across all schools, 37 per cent of students identify with “no religion”, according to an analysis of 2016 census data by the Independent Schools Council of Australia. That’s up from 30 per cent in 2011.”
Source: https://www.smh.com.au/education/religion-in-decline-in-australian-schools-20180806-p4zvtb.html.
“WEIZHOU, China — A newspaper of the ruling Communist Party said Saturday that no religion is above the law in China, urging officials to stay firm while dealing with a rare protest over the planned demolition of a massive mosque in the northwest.
The Global Times said that local officials in the town of Weizhou in Ningxia, a region that’s home to many ethnic minority Hui Muslims, must act against what it described as an illegal expansion of a religious building.
Thousands of Hui people gathered at the towering Grand Mosque on Thursday and Friday to prevent authorities from demolishing the structure, residents contacted by The Associated Press said. It was a rare, public pushback to the party’s efforts to rewrite how religions are practiced in the country.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/13
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With respect to human rights activism and physician-assisted death access, for 18- to 35-year-olds, how can they become involved?
Shanaaz Gokool: Something I should have said in the previous interview, but I will say now is that we prefer the term either medical assistance in dying or assistance in dying. I will tell you why. Not just because “suicide” is inflammatory, but in Canada assistance in dying is a combination of two separate things.
Voluntary euthanasia where the IV administered medication will end your life or you can get a written prescription to take oral meds to take your own life. When you combine both, you get assisted dying because it is not just euthanasia in Canada — and it is not just assisted suicide. It is both.
As to your question, I like to clarify that for people. It is not factually correct to say one and not the other. That’s why assisted dying is a better term because it is neutral language and reflects what your options actually are and what your rights are.
You are entitled to either of those options. In terms of how people can get involved, many people are seeing loved ones that are dying. It is not necessarily assisted dying. It is not necessarily for people in specific age categories.
People who are older disproportionately die more than others just due to age. With that said, I think that we have started in Canada an independent witness program because in order to make a formal MAiD request.
You need two independent witnesses to witness and sign your request form. That is across the country, except in Quebec. They have different legislation. They don’t require the witness [Laughing]. But everywhere else, what we have found, it can be difficult to find independent witnesses for a variety of reasons.
Some want privacy. Some don’t know anybody. Sometimes, facilities are telling people and interpreting the legislation too restrictively, so that no one in the facility, if they are in long-term hospice or long-term care, can be an independent witness.
That isn’t true. As long as you are not providing direct personal healthcare and don’t own the facility, then you can be an independent witness, you cannot go forward with the request without witnesses.
Through Dying With Dignity Canada, we have about 150 volunteers…
Jacobsen: Wow.
Gokool: …signed up to be witnesses all across the country. We continue to look for more because we can’t always meet the demand. We get requests from doctors, from health authorities, from hospitals, from hospices. The program is very well-known.
It is a tangible thing for people to do. We’ve got an agreement and a guide and training. It is usually a buddy system to get people to the point where they feel comfortable going out and doing this.
It is an incredibly profound volunteer type of work, but, at the end of day, we don’t like the witnessing part of it. It is supposed to be a safeguard, but it is not a safeguard. But as long as it is in the legislation and as long as it creates a problem for access, then we will continue to support and grow that program. So, people don’t have that problem as another barrier to access.
That is probably the most tangible way that people can go and be involved with our organization.
We do advanced care planning training throughout the country. A number of our volunteers help coordinate events and do the training themselves.
We have actions on our website right now. The big one that we’re focused on is forced transfers for medical assistance in dying. That is for when you are in the facility, usually a publicly funded facility where they have been able to opt out from providing on-site. We have a petition. People can write letters to their premiers and health ministers in their province and territory to let them know that forced transfers are cruel.
That they can cause so much suffering, physical and psychological — emotional — suffering. They are wasteful. They can be very wasteful. They add a certain amount of cost to something. We’re talking about people who are very physically compromised. They shouldn’t have to be forced out of one facility because they are trying to access their right to an assisted death.
There are petition signing and letter writing that people can do. I think the most important thing that people can do. You don’t have to go to our website to do this, but people certainly can. You can have the conversation with friends and family and colleagues.
We have something called Digni-tea to help people have conversations around death and dying. They are not all about assisted dying, right? Often, they are about advanced care planning and what that looks like and making sure you have someone who will be your alternative decision-maker. So, the decision-maker, should you no longer be able to articulate your medical wishes or treatments or to stop treatment.
I think that the Carter Decision. I like to tell people that it unleashed a glacier.
When you are in a glacier’s natural environment, you can’t often see how fast their moving in the water, then one shows up on the coast of Newfoundland. That is what I think the Carter Decision has done for us in this country.
It has given us safe spaces to have all kinds of conversations around end of life care. There are all sorts of stories in the news about these issues and those become really important and helpful segues into having those difficult conversations.
I remember in the Fall of 2013. I didn’t even know Dying With Dignity Canada existed as an organization. I was listening on the CBC to the story of Don Low, who was a well-known doctor here in Toronto especially during the SARS outbreak. He was pleading for assisted dying as he was dying with his brain tumor, having those conversations with my brothers at those times. Because it was in the news. There will always be a story somewhere.
That having people start engaging those conversation is really critical to helping us all prepare for the inevitable. And, making sure that our loved ones are prepared. I sat down about a year and a half ago, maybe 2 years, with my mom and sister. We went through my mom’s advanced care plan. I didn’t know before I worked here to be honest. I helped to ensure my sister, who will be her substitute decision-maker, has a clear sense of what my mother wants.
She didn’t before, but she is very grateful for that, even though she is my mom’s main caregiver right now. I think that that doesn’t seem like a way to get involved, but it is probably one of the most important things people can do.
If you have an individual or collectives en masse having these conversations, that is a good thing for them and their loved ones. It is a good thing for the cause of making sure that people can have dignity in their death.
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.
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Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Publisher Founding: December 1, 2014
Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com
Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Journal Founding: August 2, 2012
Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year
Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed
Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access
Fees: None (Free)
Volume Numbering: 11
Issue Numbering: 1
Section: E
Theme Type: Idea
Theme Premise: “Outliers and Outsiders”
Theme Part: 26
Formal Sub-Theme: “The Greenhorn Chronicles”
Individual Publication Date: December 15, 2022
Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2023
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Interviewer(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Interviewee(s): Mac Cone
Word Count: 2,076
Image Credit: Cealy Tetley.
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN): 2369-6885
*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the interview.*
*Interview conducted December 5, 2022.*
Abstract
Mac Cone, according to Starting Gate Communications, can be described as follows: “Mac Cone is one of Canada’s most experienced riders having been a steady performer at the international level for over 30 years. In 1974, he married Canadian Brenley Carpenter and the couple has two daughters. Originally from Tennessee, Mac moved to Canada in 1979 and is one of only two riders to have competed on both the United States and Canadian Equestrian Teams (the other being 1984 World Cup Champion Mario Deslauriers). With the stallion Elute, Mac enjoyed victory in the $100,000 Autumn Classic in New York in 1994. Although the pair was selected for the 1995 Pan American Games in Argentina, they were unable to compete due to a last minute injury. Elute made a strong comeback, however, winning the 1996 Olympic Selection Trials at Spruce Meadows. In his Olympic debut in Atlanta, Mac was the highest-placed Canadian rider, a feat he would repeat at the 2002 World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain, riding Cocu. At the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Mac and Melinda were members of the Silver Medal Team. In his second Olympic appearance in 2008, Mac and the impressive Ole were members of Canada’s historic Silver Medal Team. In addition to his own riding, Mac is active as an instructor and clinician. His personal style, which is very low key and easy going, makes him very popular with his students, who have included 1986 World Champion Gail Greenough and 2003 Pan American Games competitor, Mark Samuel. Mac operates Southern Ways Stable in King, Ontario.” Cone discusses: gaining an interest in horses; the culture of people in the mid-20th century who wanted to jump a horse; a gradual evolution over time; the style of training; a substantial increase in the number of competitors and the number of countries competing in the 2008 Olympics; and team silver.
Keywords: 1968, 2008, America, Beijing, Canada, equestrianism, horsemanship, Mac Cone, Mexico, Ole, Olympics, Ontario, Tennessee.
The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1)
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, this is round 3. Anyone reading this, so, my mistake in not transferring over to the new computer, which has newer software. I used older software. We did approximately 2 hours of previous recordings. I don’t know what happened to those. One programmer says that those are corrupt and so lost to history. So, thanks to the grace of Mac, we are back. With respect to horsemanship or gaining an interest in horses, what were some of the earliest moments in life?
Mac Cone: I got started in a very – as opposed to now – unconventional way. I lived in Germantown, Tennessee. My father had bought a home in a neighbourhood, where there was some government land behind the house. The man who sold us the lot that we built our land on also kept horses on there with an agreement with the government. He’d keep the grass cut. He could keep the cows and horses out on the government land. My sister was always the horse nut. She talked my father into buying a horse and could keep behind the house. It was $150 horse.
I would ride it once in a while. I wasn’t crazy about it. A friend of hers brought her horse over also. We were riding in Western saddle. This girl had an English saddle. There were logs, poles, and jumps, out there. She would jump her horse over all these in her saddle. That was what got my attention, jumping the horse, “That looks like fun. I am going to start doing this a little more. I am going to teach this $150 horse to start jumping.” I did. I was painful in a Western saddle, as you might imagine. I talked my mother and father into buying an English saddle. I kept jumping the horse. Finally, I built a jump that, basically, consisted of two panels that were on two hinges.
I could make it wide at the bottom and not as high at the top, but, if I pull things in closer and closer, the height will go higher. When they were pulled all the way together, it was like 4 feet. I went on a goal. There were a lot of ups and downs, and more downs. Soon, I got the horse jumping 4 feet high. It was only about 6 feet wide or something. It was totally dangerous and stupid and everything, but I didn’t know any better. All I knew, I taught my horse to jump 4 feet high.
Jacobsen: Is that much of the culture of people in the mid-20th century who wanted to jump a horse? They built something in their backyard with these heavy boards and started at it.
Cone: [Laughing] I would say it was a more rough-and-tumble area then, even the top pros were more rough-and-tumble. The horses that they were dealing with were racehorses, rejects, and stuff like that. We didn’t have these Ferrari, Maserati, warmbloods everybody, and me, have now. No way! Also, the knowledge, we didn’t have the coaching and the system. Everything of how to do it right. We did more things wrong than we did right. Everyone was struggling, struggling away. Some of the heroes would be professionals who were doing more things wrong than right, at least according to us now. It was a more rough-and-tumble time, for sure.
Jacobsen: The original team that went to Mexico for Canada. Compared to the team that’s going in the most recent time, there are safety changes to a lot of the standards. The rails are lighter. The cups will be more shallow. How are these changes quite impactful and more of a gradual evolution over time rather than drastic changes?
Cone: Just a little bit of the history might be enjoyable to know, the ’68 Olympics was won by the Canadian team. It was the only team medal that we have won in Canada until our group, my group, in 2008. We were silver in Beijing. That was a long span there. The rails back then were very heavy, very long. There weren’t that many related distances. The jumps were huge because they didn’t come down as easily. So, you had to make them big to get a rail on the ground. Therefore, no breakaway cups. It could get [Laughing] a little bit to the barbaric side to get the winner. I think the Canadian team won the Nations Cup and won the gold medal with close to 100 faults. And they were the winners!
Jacobsen: Oh-ho!
Cone: You can imagine the other scores.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Cone: Jimmy Elder, I just talked to him a couple of weeks ago at the Royal Winter Fair. Immigrant, the one he rode, was only 6 years old and was right out of a riding school.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Cone: He hadn’t had that horse along at all. And he was the best one of the bunch. These are tough, tough people. Yes, it was totally different than what we are doing now. To your question about the history [Laughing], the cups came in on the back rails. The rails became much lighter. They became evenly symmetrical from left and right and right to left. Where, before, they were trees cut down, basically, and the branches taken off, maybe the bark taken off. They were thick on one end and narrow on another. The cups were deep. Now, the rails are as fine as a first grader’s pencil. They are totally round, nice and smooth. The cups are much shallower. Everything falls down so much easier. It is very much more horse friendly for sure.
Jacobsen: How about the style of training? The way in which you were describing your earlier experience. You were, basically, just setting a goal and going for it.
Cone: Well, I’ll add a little history first. When I became 16, 17, 18, I began to realize; I wanted to do the horses full-time. I knew I had to leave college, my friends, and the family. I had to get out of Tennessee. It wasn’t going to happen there. I told my mother I was to quite college and do the horse thing. She said three words to me, “Get a job.” I knew some people. I made one phone call to the lady who was involved with Conrad Homfeld and Joe Fargis, who ended up being the gold and silver medallists at the Los Angeles Olympics. She had those two guys. She didn’t need me. I went to George Morris who was the premier coach in the United States. I called him up.
I did one clinic with him only a few months earlier. He knew I was a country boy who could drive a tractor, could muck stalls, could groom horses, and do all this. He was wiling for me to bring a horse with me that he would give me lessons on in return for manual labour. This was fine with me. I am out of Tennessee and will learn from the best. At that time, you could tell what country people were from, by the way they rode. If they were German, French, Dutch, American, they all rode totally differently. As time road on through the decades, George became even stronger of a coach, even better of a system. His way of riding spread universal. Now, the sport is over 80 countries. It is all over the world now. That’s no longer the case. It was, probably, 10 or 15 countries before. Everybody rides pretty much the same. That’s because of George.
That’s the style and the coaching that has gotten so much better than when I was a kid. These kids can’t learn bad habits. They aren’t allowed to have a bad habit because everyone knows how to do it right. It matters simply who teaches the best and who can bring people along and can stick to the system that we know is the best., if that answers your question [Laughing].
Jacobsen: You mentioned something, which I didn’t really click in, in the first two sessions. In the ’68 Mexico Olympics and the 2008 Olympics, the trend over time, there would be a substantial increase in the number of competitors and the number of countries competing in the 2008 Olympics. That leads to two questions for me. One, why the big gap? Two, what differentiated the ’68 team from the 2008 team?
Cone: Well, let me tell you about that ’68 team, they not only won the Olympics gold, but, two years later, they won the World Championships Nations Cup in France. These were great riders, even by today’s standards. You had Jim Elder, legend, and a guy named Jimmy Day who rode as beautifully and classically correct in the 60s and 70s as you’ll see anybody riding now. Tom Gayford, who grew up with Jimmy, he wasn’t the most beautiful rider, but boy he could ride. He could ride anything and make a bad horse go good. These are hardcore, top talented people. At that top level, that’s what you need. It’s a little bit of an extra grit that shows up there. That you need to pull these things off at that top level. With the sport, things can go wrong, even when they go right. You need special people to be there. We’ve had some good teams, since then, but that was the beginning of the end – timewise – for, let’s say in the U.S. when I was with the U.S. team, horse being donated. The horses were, basically, drafted. It was great for me.
I got drafted to become a member of the U.S. team. I rode the horses that had been donated to the team. For old Mac, that was great! To me, it was real sport. You do well. You get a little bit of a name. You have results. You get drafted. What happened, as more of this industry started going, and more and more grands prix were popping up around home turf instead of just in Europe. Al these people said, “I’m not going to give the horse to the team if I don’t have to. I’m going to give it to my daughter or my friend. They didn’t have to go to the drafted team riders anymore.” We lost a little bit of the grit, I think; we lost the grit. We paid the price. There have been a lot of good teams for U.S., Canada, and everything. In Canada’s case, I think, it was the first time in a long gap that we had four exceptionally gritty, seasoned, talented riders that all had a good horse at the same time. I think that’s what made the difference.
Jacobsen: You were mentioning something in the first or second session about the team that was there for the 2008 Olympics. Three of the riders, the horses were pretty much on the tail-end, while one rider’s horse was just setting off. They ended up winning individual gold and kept going on. When you won that team silver, and that individual, Eric Lamaze, won individual gold, how do you sort of frame or explain his continual streak with Hickstead following that?
Cone: The team we had in Beijing, I’ll put it to you this way. We had three really, really top good, good horses. We had one superstar. That superstar was Eric’s horse, Hickstead. Ole was only 12. That’s my horse. Hickstead was 12. Ian’s horse, In Style, was 14, and so was Jill’s horse, Special Ed. Just the ages there are enough to understand what happened the next year, Ian’s horse was going to be 15, so was Jill’s. I’m close on these ages. I think I’m right. Hickstead and Ole, I think, were the same age. Ole got injured at the Olympics. So, he needed a year off, but Hickstead got through it unscathed. So, he was just able to march on and carry on what he got started at the Olympics. That’s the luck of the Irish [Laughing].
Jacobsen: Ha!
Cone: He came through it unscathed. The horse was young jumping horse wise. He could keep going. We were running into age, into soundness problems. We left it all in the field at Beijing. That’s life. But we came home with a silver medal.
Jacobsen: ‘You don’t lick it off the rocks’, as they say in Ireland.
Cone: Yes [Laughing].
Bibliography
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Footnotes
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Citations
American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition): Jacobsen S. The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1). December 2022; 11(1). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1
American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition): Jacobsen, S. (2022, December 15). The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1). In-Sight Publishing. 11(1). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1.
Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. D. The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Fort Langley, v. 11, n. 1, 2022.
Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2022. “The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 11, no. 1 (Winter). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1.
Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 11, no. 1 (December 2022). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1.
Harvard: Jacobsen, S. (2022) ‘The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 11(1). <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1>.
Harvard (Australian): Jacobsen, S 2022, ‘The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1>.
Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. “The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vo.11, no. 1, 2022, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1.
Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. The Greenhorn Chronicles 26: Mac Cone on Horsemanship, Canada, and the Olympics (1) [Internet]. 2022 Dec; 11(1). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/cone-1
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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, or the author(s), and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors copyright their material, as well, and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/09
The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) made an announcement.
The news came as a relief and sign of further hope for proper science and medicine to the humanist community in the United Kingdom. That is to say, the homeopathy remedies, according to the announcement, will no longer get their own brand of funding.
The homeopathic remedies may continue in some form within the private market; however, the public spending will not support the purported ‘remedies’ with the public funding any longer.
Evidence-based medicine expands beyond the work of Gordon Guyatt in Canada at McMaster University. It amounts to a method of empiricism, standards of evidence and transparency and peer review, and a philosophy of naturalism to come to the truth about the world — plus an ethic of doing no harm.
To waste money better spent on other things would amount to a harm, the work here is an important victory, though not pervasive enough for the funding of proper medicine in search of more modern cures and treatments with real evidence and efficacy.
CCG Clinical Chair, Dr Jonathan Hayes, said, “We are working hard to become an evidence-informed organisation because we need to make the best use of all resources to offer treatment and care to the widest range of people. The decision on homeopathy funding today is a step towards this and brings us in line with national guidelines.”
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/07
Ayaz Nizami is the Vice President of the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan. He is a blogger, who is now a political prisoner in Pakistan, of all places. He was arrest on March 24, 2017 based on the imaginary crime of ‘blasphemy.’
Those who want to enforce their faith over others to prevent criticism or ridicule will jail the dissenters. The dissenters do not have this ability. That form of asymmetry creates a nightmare for human rights activists, whether word or deed, and a dream tactic on the part of authoritarians to arrest political activists, such as Nizami.
He, at present, is facing the death penalty. This becomes a common phenomena with the people inside of theocratic regimes subject to the whims of the powerful and the privileged.
The charge is the translation of materials in English to Urdu. The material was to be published. He founded a website, realisticapproach.org,which amounts to an irreligious Urdu website.
Then he served as the Vice President of the AAAP. I was days from interviewing him for Conatus News, and then heard of the news of his arrest. He was arrested around the time of a cracking down on social media content seen as blasphemous.
These crackdowns were by the Pakistani government. Then there was a hashtag, #hangayaznizami, after the arrest of Nizami. Then his material and social media account were shut down because of the purportedly controversial content (freedom of expression denied).
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/06
Canada is taking a firm stance in support of the human rights dissenters internationally. In this current case, we see the firm stance of — someone who I genuinely like — Chrystia Freeland, the Foreign Affairs Minister in the Federal Liberal Government of Canada.
The Freeland stated that Canada will not be backing down from its stance for the human rights and women’s rights. Canadian values amount to internationalist values. Those ethics come from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — arguably one of the most important human rights documents in the 20th century and into the early 21st century.
The minister emphasized that Canadian foreign policy will remain in line with the work of the international and the rigths documents signed and ratified for decades. Those documents emphasizing the importance and relevance, and need to implement, human rights and women’s rights.
Global Affairs Canada, through its Twitter account, ‘tweeted,’ “Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia, including Samar Badawi. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful human rights activists.”
The Canadian ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Dennis Horak, was ordered by the Saudi foreign ministry to immediately leave the country (KSA). The foreign ministry of the KSA stated that the statement by Canadian representative organization was “unfortunate, reprehensible, and unacceptable in relations between states.” (Welcome to the International Relations by Tweet Era.)
The Saudi government was in disagreement over the statement by the Canadian government because of what the KSA perceives as an attempt by a foreign UN Member State to influence its owwn internal politics.
From their government’s point of view, it would be as if the KSA began to comment on the human rights situation within Canadian society, e.g. the treatment over the long-term into the present of the Indigenous peoples.
There are now sanctions in place, where this will cost about $15-billion in arms deals. Those costs come from armored vehicles sent to the KSA. The outcome on this arms dealings situation is unknown at the present.
The Canadian ambassador only had 24 hours to leave Riyadh. The embassy of Canada in the KSA remains open and available for business. There is now fervent work, even zealous if you will pardon the phrase, to have thousands of Saudi scholarship students leave Canadian schools in order to take their classes in other countries.
There are about 16,000 students from Saudi Arabia in Canadian schools at the moment. However, Freeland retorted with the statement that the students are still permitted to be here
Now, the airline Saudia suspended flights to and from the city of Toronto. This is viewed favorably by people in the KSA, according to Middle East Affairs Analyst Bessma Momani. These efforts of sanctions and so on could be seen as positive backlash against Canada for raising human rights concerns. Any raising of human rights concerns in the Middle East is a concern to the countries’ leaders in the region.
KSA has been becoming aggressive in the MENA region in general, trying to assert itself over the last few years. However, the posturing against Canada may remain something of note because it is easier to do this against a nation not in the region, so not as important to the Islamic theocratic regime.
The human rights organization Amnesty International stated that Samar Badawi, or the sister of the blogger Raif Badawi, has been detained. Also, a prominent female human rights activist, Nassima al-Sada has been taken in as well. There is an aggressive stance towards human rights activists and campaigners. They will detained. They will be arrest and kept indefinitely.
It is because the regime does not want to have to deal with its own human rights violations, probably, in part, to do with the fact that in a theocratic state the transcendent moral ethic trumps any secular universalist ethic from the international community.
Freeland stated, “Ensaf is a Canadian citizen, she and her family, therefore merit special attention from the government of Canada and a lot of Canadian civil society has been speaking up for her.”
The wife of Raif Badawi, Ensaf Haidar, lives in Sherbrooke, Quebec. She has been calling for the release of her husband for a long time, and now this extends to her sister as well.
This over time may have created the tension and, thus, the eventual international relations disagreement or “dispute” between Canada and the KSA.
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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.
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“Kolkata, India — In Kolkata, the old capital of colonial India, one street — Brabourne Road — is home to many abodes of God, with churches, synagogues and mosques side by side with temples of all faiths.
Up a flight of stairs in a yellow building in old Kolkata, at the back of a room decorated with gold and fine wood, is a small, hand-carved idol: Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy and a beloved deity in Chinese folk religion.
A garland of fresh white flowers hangs around her neck, a typically Indian way of paying respect.”
“Supporting Scottish independence is a “philosophical belief” akin to a religion, an employment tribunal has found.
Judge Frances Eccles said that believing in a separate state should be “protected” under equality laws.
The ruling came in the case taken by a former SNP deputy leadership candidate who is pursuing the Ministry of Defence, his former employer, claiming that he was unfairly targeted because of his support for Scottish nationalism.”
Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nationalism-is-like-a-religion-judge-rules-ln775cd6c.
“How often do you hear the expression “religious conflict”? Pretty often, we bet. Every day, headlines use this term to talk about violence and destruction in different parts of the world. But is it true that religion is an inciter of war, an obstacle to progress, or an issue to be handled?
The answer is simple. When it comes to today’s crises, religion isn’t just part of the problem — it’s part of the solution.
At Search for Common Ground, the world’s largest dedicated peacebuilding organization, we have learned this from working with communities of faith in five continents. We partnered with imams in Central Asia to prevent violent extremism. We worked with coalitions of Muslims and Christians to prevent atrocities in the Central African Republic. We joined forces with diverse faith leaders in the Holy Land to protect holy sites.”
“The time was late October 2012, two weeks before the presidential election. The occasion was a much-hyped match-up between two top-ranked college football teams in South Bend, Indiana. Tens of thousands of fans tailgating before Stanford and Notre Dame kicked off were forced into makeshift shelters by a steady, driving rain. Under one canopy, 30 or so revelers ran out of football stories to tell, so the topic turned to politics and the upcoming election. A Catholic priest pressed his beverage into the chest of a bystander and inquired, “So, tell me — are you a Joe Biden Catholic or a Paul Ryan Catholic?” The bystander reflected for a moment and responded, “Father, I’m a practicingCatholic. Does that answer your question?” The priest, well aware of the nuance, smiled.
A few days before, the vice-presidential candidates had squared off in debate. During the debate, in response to a question about the relation between his faith and his personal beliefs, Biden said that “my religion (Catholicism) defines my life.” Which happened to be a curious statement, given that he had contributed less than $300 to charity in the preceding year, and that absent a few weddings and funerals, hadn’t seen the inside of a Catholic church in decades and would likely have needed a GPS system to even find one. Ryan, on the other hand, was a regular communicant at his hometown church and active in several of its ministries.”
“In the opening montage of “Religion,” an episode on Aziz Ansari’s TV series Master of None, we see kids protesting miserably as their parents usher them off to church, synagogue, temple, and some kind of Scientology processing ceremony. They don’t want to go; they would much rather stay home. But their parents, it seems, believe they’re acting out of moral necessity: To introduce your children to religion, after all, is to give them a kind of road map to the art of being good.
Many parents assume that raising kids with some measure of religion is the best way to teach children how to behave ethically — both when they’re young and as they grow into adults. At the same time, in some societies, the role of religion has diminished, and people are becoming increasingly secular. Worldwide, the total number of religiously unaffiliated people (which includes atheists, agnostics and those who do not identify with any religion in particular) is expected to rise from 1.17 billion in 2015 to 1.20 billion in 2060. In the US, about a quarter of the population identifies as religiously unaffiliated today — up from 16% in 2007. In the United Kingdom, in 2017, 53% of adults described themselves as having no religious affiliation.”
Source: https://qz.com/1301084/should-you-raise-your-kids-religious-heres-what-the-science-says/.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/05
“Editor, the Advocate:
God founded this nation to be a Christian nation. The founding fathers were mostly Christian and used the Bible for many of our country’s founding principles — Preamble, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, etc.
The kingdom of darkness from the pit of hell is using secular humanism to try to destroy our nation’s Christian roots.
Look at the secular humanist with the Supreme Court for years coming against the Bible with their rulings.”
“DURING a meeting the other day, I mentioned that when I was a student I had a summer job as a guide at Craigievar Castle in Aberdeenshire. When one of the group said his brother had been married there, I was somewhat disconcerted. In the far-off days when I and a university friend were living in a caravan beneath the castle walls, memorising its history, and how to pronounce the family name, this would have been deemed heresy. The idea that strangers might enjoy a shindig beneath its pink harled turrets would have given its National Trust for Scotland guardian an apoplexy.
Even though today’s wedding parties don’t actually take place inside the castle — a marquee is erected on the lawn where we used to hang our washing — it is still a remarkable relaxing of the fiercely territorial attitude that once surrounded our most stately (and high-maintenance) homes.”
“The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China proposed by President Xi Jinping seeks to build a global axis of collaboration to stimulate cross-continental cooperation amongst countries in the landmass of Eurasia and Africa. It aims to provide opportunities for inclusive and sustainable growth in the world economy as well as help develop the infrastructure and economies of countries along the BRI.
The paradox of the BRI is that whilst it offers opportunities for political and socio-economic cooperation between the participant economies, the very attempt to connect these countries will inevitably be met with the challenges of cultural diversity. For instance, whilst the promoters of the BRI emphasize sustainable development as one of its main objectives, some have raised questions on environmental and social sustainability issues centering around the BRI.”
Source: http://www.ippreview.com/index.php/Blog/single/id/762.html.
“Weekly phone calls with my parents are rarely brief and often cover a plethora of topics.
During a recent conversation, my dad asked if I understood the connection between Biblical times as referenced in Jeremiah 8:22 and recent history. He recited the verse as follows: Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
As we conversed, the story unfolded. Dad explained the prophet Jeremiah was deeply hurt by his people’s rejection of God.”
Source: http://www.sentinel-standard.com/news/20180805/where-do-you-stand.
“Increasing numbers of Irish people are turning away from religious ritual and choosing humanist ceremonies to mark births, deaths and marriages, but what is humanism?
On the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Humanist Association of Ireland, Ellie O’Byrne finds out more.
There’s no denying that Ireland is a country that’s rapidly becoming more secular.
In Census 2016, the second-largest group after Catholic was “no religion”, with just over 10% of respondents ticking the box, a 73.6% increase on 2011.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/05
“Suicide is never an easy thing to talk about. To give some background, The Suicide Act 1961 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It decriminalised the act of suicide in England and Wales so that those who failed in the attempt to kill themselves would no longer be prosecuted (it was never a crime under Scots Law).
Under Common Law, suicide, or the intentional taking of one’s own life, was a felony that was punished by Forfeiture of all the goods and chattels of the offender. Under modern U.S. law, suicide is no longer a crime. Some states, however, classify attempted suicide as a criminal act, but prosecutions are rare, especially when the offender is terminally ill. Instead, some jurisdictions require a person who attempts suicide to undergo temporary hospitalization and psychological observation. A person who causes the death of an innocent bystander or would- be rescuer while in the process of attempting suicide may be guilty of murder or Manslaughter.
Religiously, suicide is commonly seen as a sin.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/07/31/suicide-religion-and-atheism/.
“What is Jordan Peterson talking about when he talks about God? Sometimes, it seems like even Peterson isn’t sure. At Quillette, Matt Johnson critiques Peterson’s insistence on speaking vaguely about God and the Christian religion. He makes several good points. All the more unfortunate, then, that the article around them is a tissue of bad philosophy and old canards about the history of Western civilization.
Johnson is right that Peterson’s definition of “God” is so malleable as to be functionally meaningless. Not content to leave his thesis there, however, he attacks Peterson’s claim that the enterprise of Western humanism is the outworking of a fundamentally Judeo-Christian ethic. Peterson has repeatedly needled atheist Sam Harris and his ilk by claiming that they only think they’re atheists. In fact, Peterson proposes, a logical atheist looks much more like Joseph Stalin than like Harris.
Harris is unamused. In fact, he’s more than a little angry that we are still having this conversation. For the last time, he says in his recent London debate with Peterson, atheism had nothing to do with the gulags and the gas chambers. Can we not “put to bed” this religious fiction once and for all? Indeed, Johnson boldly avows, “the most heinous crimes of the twentieth century were committed by people for whom God was still very much alive.””
“Atheist author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has announced that he’s working on two books aimed at introducing atheism to teenagers and children.
Some Christian columnists, such as Laura Perrins, co-editor of The Conservative Woman website, have warned that children are going to be “evangelized” to with philosophies of “nothingness” and “emptiness.”
“I’m actively working on [two] new books. Outgrowing God is atheism for teenagers. Second one (illustrated) is Atheism for Children. It still needs a title. Maybe OMG I think I’m an Atheist,” Dawkins announced on Twitter Saturday.”
“Richard Dawkins, atheist evangelist, is working on two new books, Atheism for Children which will be illustrated (!) and Outgrowing God, atheism for teenagers. I know, I can feel your excitement.
Quite what will be in these books, God only knows. Atheism is that odd faith that says there is no God, so perhaps the pages will be blank to reflect the emptiness of it all, the sheer nothingness of this belief that maintains life came from non-life, organisation came out of chaos, consciousness came out of non-consciousness and reason came out of irrationality.
Indeed, they will make spiffing Christmas gifts, not that any of the young recipients should be celebrating Christmas and all its traditions that mark the birth of Christ.”
Source: https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/what-is-atheism-for-kids-all-about-god-knows/21546.
“I had the opportunity a few days ago to read a column on atheism in El Espectador, and to delight in how easy it is to find like-minded thinkers even in a country as overtly Catholic as Colombia.
Valentina Coccia’s “Una vida sin Dios” is a meditation on whether one needs religion to live a full and happy life, and it’s an op-ed that wisely focuses inward, using the example of her own upbringing, with a deeply religious mother and an atheistic father, to show how different views can co-exist. Coccia does not use the term “humanist” to describe herself, but I feel ideological kindred to many of her sentiments all the same.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularspectrum/2018/08/atheism-in-colombia-not-as-different/.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/03
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background in religion? What are your own story and educational background? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Joshua Ofiasa Villalobos: Family Background in Religion. My parents and their parents were staunch Catholics. In fact, my grandmother use to pray for funerals in exchange of small amount of money.
And since I was born, i find myself being with her in every funeral where she use to offer her service. We do recite the ‘mysteries’ and ‘Our Father’ and ‘Hail Mary’ for a number of times in a single night of service.
When I turn 10, I discovered new religion for myself. It is called ‘born-again christian’ me and my older sister go to that church thrice or twice a week. And at age 11, I got baptized. Own Story. I was born on April 13, 2002.
I live in Bacolod City and I’ve also lived in Bantayan Island, which is the homeland of my mother. We are 5 in the family. My sister is 10 years older than me, while me and my brother has 8-year gap.
They both have their bachelor’s degrees, my sister in Elementary Education and my older brother in Marine Transportation. But both of them are still applying for the job that fits their educational achievements.
My father is a Janitor and a Messenger whose salary is not enough to cater our needs inside the house. While my mother is a housewife. She manages our very small ‘tiangge’ or sari sari store. We live in a squatter area near the river. Educational Background Since Grade 6, I have been active in the school organization.
In fact, that year I was elected as the SPG President and also graduated as Class Salutatorian. And on my 9th Grade, I joined the School Publication and other clubs such as Supreme Student Government(SSG), Youth for Environment in Schools-Organization (YES-O).
Here is the list of my participation in different organizations in the school this year: *Ang Tanawing Marapara (official Filipino school publication of Bata National High School) -Editor-In-Chief/Punong Patnugot *English Guild — President *Supreme Student Government (the highest student-governing body of Bata NHS) — Senator * Youth for Environment in Schools-Organization (YES-O) — Public Information Officer *Citizenship Advancement Training- 1st Lieutenant, S4 Assistant, Supply and Logistics Officer *Disaster Risk Reduction Management — Auditor.
Jacobsen: How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Villalobos: Honestly speaking, no filters and no dramas, I love HAPI. Since our first meeting, I have seen my life’s purpose and that’s to work with HAPI. Me and my friend, Glemir is very happy after our first meeting in HAPI.
Because the people are very witty, strong and kind at the same time the advocacy is very clear and the people are very happy to get along with. Before, even though we are leaders in our school, we don’t have that self-esteem.
But HAPI-Bacolod taught us how to believe in ourselves. In 2–3 months as member of HAPI Junior and now elected Head, I think I have developed to be a better me. My colleagues also talk about how they enjoy HAPI. For me, HAPI is very serious in their main advocacy of promoting humanism.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte? How are humanists generally treated in the Philippines? How do Filipinos, in general, view humanists and the humanist community?
Villabolos: Maybe some other people, especially those who are not Filipinos see the Philippines as a bloody place since the drug war has started. Maybe some of the people who are unaware of the killing scenarios here thinks that the Philippines is a beautiful place and it has many to offer in terms of it’s delicacies, tourist-spots and welcoming community, I think that the world see Duterte as a dictator and a fascist.
Jacobsen: How are humanists generally treated in the Philippines? How do Filipinos, in general, view humanists and the humanist community?
Villalobos: Secular humanism or simply humanism is not known to the Filipino people yet. Honestly, If I didn’t join or know HAPI, I wouldn’t know the essence or meaning of humanism.
Since the Filipinos are known to be respective, I think the humanist community is accepted and respected here in the Philippines.
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics?
Villalobos: Religion and belief greatly influence the politics here in the Philippines. Especially the Catholic community has been very active in joining or sharing their thoughts and stand at some certain issues here in the Philippines.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Villalobos: Maybe because we are once colonized by the Spaniards and they’ve baptized our ancestors. Our beliefs and traditions were greatly influenced by Catholicism. Here in the Philippines, if you’re irreligious, you’re bad. If you don’t believe in a god you’re an evil. If you don’t pray you go to hell [Laughing].
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Villalobos: Thank you for the opportunity, Scott! I am always here for another interview. I hope this might help HAPI, IHEYO, and other humanist community.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Joshua.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/02
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to religion or irreligion, what was your family background in it?
Michael Sherman: I was raised Roman Catholic in the American south. Mom was raised southern Baptist and dad was raised Catholic. So I actually had influences from both denominations; however we attended Mass regularly and only went to Baptist church when we visited friends who were Baptist. I college I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints (Mormons)
Jacobsen: How does personal background feed into this as well?
Sherman: My journey to humanism and agnosticism took a number of years. So as you will see by my answer to the first question I was involved in two cults, the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church. My move toward humanism was also influenced by a 3rd cult that I was involved in. This cult was called “Straight Incorporated (Straight).” Straight Inc. was a very controversial behavior modification program that touted itself as drug rehabilitation program for kids and young adults that promised to “fix” your child from drug use and to change any adolescent behavior that the parents did not like. (i.e. growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s) Straight was actually a money making organization that over its 17 year history brought in over $100,000,000 paid for by parents and insurance companies. The “therapy” offered by Straight was totally provided by children and former clients who were themselves still children. There were almost no medical professionals working in the organization and those that were provided no therapy. Think of Lord of the Flies. The treatment methods that were used were modeled after North Korean thought reform and brainwashing techniques of American GI’s during the Korean War. This included housing us in large metal buildings up to 350 kids sitting in chairs for up to 20 hours a day, depriving us of sleep, food, water, medical care, schooling and any actual human care. We subjected to beatings, harassment, rape, group verbal attacks, endless group thought reform, constant singing and physical intimidation. Our minds were never or rarely left to think on our own. It is very difficult to explain how it was in the program unless a person actually witnessed or lived it. For the most part the organizations higher ups were Christians of some sort and while Christianity was not the main emphasis, we did sing Christian songs. (For more information on straight, please google “straight, inc.” This was my first questioning of religion and Christianity. I remember thinking if these people are Christians, why are they treating us like this?
I moved away from Mormonism and ultimately left the church as I began to study and learn more about the church, its leaders and its teaching. I am somewhat of a liberal/progressive and the Mormon Church definitely leans hard to the right and has strong authoritarian beliefs.
Jacobsen: How has religion influenced you (me) personally?
Sherman: I went through the motions as a child of being religious but I really can’t say that it influenced me for the good. My parents taught me how to be a humanist by their examples; however they did not call themselves humanists. Both my parents are practicing Christians. As an adult, religion has influenced my attitudes and beliefs in a way that has made me want to have nothing to do with it. I see in the American fundamentalist religions nothing that would want me to be a part of it and I see nothing of the teachings of their Christ. Although, I still read the Sermon on the Mount and have been able to glean some good from that. Sadly, the passages in those sermons are not practiced by many American Christians.
Jacobsen: When did humanism become a practical reality for you?
Sherman: I think I have been a humanist longer than I knew what defines a humanist. By education and practice I am a geographer and city planner. This career choice has allowed me to practice humanism daily. In the later parts of my career, much of my focus as a planner has been on grass-roots, bottoms up planning efforts like the development of neighborhood plans, development of community garden programs, outreach to minority communities and underserved areas. So humanism became a practical reality for me in 1987 at the start of my career as a city planner, although at that time, I had no idea what humanism was.
Jacobsen: How did you find the humanist community?
Sherman: I was officially introduced to humanism by social networking and the Humanist Alliance Philippines, International (HAPI)
Jacobsen: What were some of your early involvements in the community?
Sherman: My early involvement in the humanist community as a humanist took place in June 2016 when I attended the Asian Humanist Conference in Manila which was sponsored by HAPI.
Jacobsen: How do people tend to come to the humanist community and become involved early on in their work with it?
Sherman: Humanism fulfills a need for many people to do work for the betterment of humankind as well as for non-human animals. The humanists that I know are all in for humanism with a great passion. The members of HAPI and the groups / organizations that we align ourselves with are leading by example.
Jacobsen: How does HAPI provide for the needs of the community in the Philippines?
Sherman: Responding to that question could take all day as HAPI is the leading organization of humanist efforts in the Philippines. Our programs focus on the betterment of all people in the Republic of the Philippines. We do this through our Nutri-Camp (nutrition campaign), SHADE (Secular Humanist Advocacy Development & Education) program, ARK (Acts of Random Kindness) project and the way our members live their daily lives. Some of the most amazing and selfless humans I have met are members of HAPI.
Jacobsen: What makes a good humanist?
Sherman: The first thought that comes to my mind is a person who practices humility and kindness in their daily affairs. A person who recognizes that it is possible to do good in this world without a belief or need for a god or book of rules (bible). I think the optimal word here is “practices”. Humanism is not only a belief system but also a way of acting and interacting with this world. Humanism is a belief system in action/
Jacobsen: How can people become involved in humanism?
Sherman: Start with being the change that you want to see in this world. Practice kindness. Practice humility. Follow the golden rule, treat others as you would want to be treated. Again, my belief is that humanism isn’t just a way of thinking; humanism is a way of action, a way to live one’s life. Also, I would recommend that someone interested in humanism find a group of like-minded people. Come visit our webpage. www.hapihumanist.org We are always looking for new members who are interested in learning more about humanism and those who are confirmed humanists and practice a humanist lifestyle
Jacobsen: How can people become involved in humanism?
Sherman: Action. Be the change you want this world to be. Humanism starts with individuals.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Michael.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/01
Claire has a background in law and psychology, and is currently working on her degree in Religious Studies. She has been involved in the skeptic movement since 2013 as co-organizer of the Czech Paranormal Challenge. Since then, she has consulted on various projects, where woo & belief meets science. Claire has spoken at multiple science&skepticism conferences and events. She also organized the European Skeptics Congress 2017, and both years of the Czech March for Science.
Her current activities include chairing the European Council of Skeptical Organisations, running the “Don’t Be Fooled” project (which provides free critical thinking seminars to interested high schools), contributing to the Czech Religious Studies journal Dingir, as well as to their online news in religion website. In her free time, Claire visits various religious movements to understand better what draws people to certain beliefs.
Claire lives in Prague, Czech Republic, with her partner, and dog.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Claire, what are the issues for young skeptics?
Claire Klingenberg: The issue for young skeptics is to find their passion in the movement and to find what they want to focus their skepticism on, or their skeptical work in.
It is to fight against the stereotypes because they are young and they might feel as if their opinions may not matter as much. They should realize that they need to get experience and get knowledge. Young skeptics should be given a platform to express where the focus is needed.
I think the skeptical movement has gotten much better at accepting younger voices and promoting younger voices, which attracts younger people to join.
Jacobsen: What are some other identifications that skeptic youth tend to gravitate towards, so if one is a humanist something like 90% of them or more will be atheists?
Klingenberg: I think that is also true of the skeptical movement. If you are a young skeptic, then you are most likely a young atheist, and a young humanist. If you are a humanist, then you are a supporter of LGBTQ communities and their rights.
You are usually politically progressive. Those things go, very much, together.
Jacobsen: If someone is young and takes on a view similar to an Einsteinian type of God, something equivalent to the laws of nature, at the same time they identify as skeptic or atheist, do they have harder time in the community with those who simply reject all forms or definitions of a God or gods including an Einsteinian one of some distant abstract found in the laws of nature?
Klingenberg: So, I am going to give a very unskeptical example here. At the QED, Question Explore Discover, a conference in Manchester, it is a wonderful conference by the way, they did a poll among the participants there.
“How many people here are atheists?” My eyeball assumption was that it was 90% were atheists. Maybe, 10% label themselves as agnostics. Some of them might believe or have this Einsteinian version of God or other versions.
The thing is most skeptical organizations can stay out of religion as long as religion stays out of science. For instance, even in the Czech Republic, we are an atheist country, a secular country, but we have a lot of Christians in our skeptical movement.
Their personal faith, as long as those do not interfere with skepticism and they do not apply that personal faith to the laws of nature, can be a non-issue. You might believe God was the one who set off the Big Bang.
There is a lot of discussion about what happened before the Big Bang: “So, why not?” Of course, it would be an issue if you said, “God created the world 6,000 years ago.” I do not think you would get very far in the skeptical movement.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Claire.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/31
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to your own background, how was religion or irreligion a part of it, especially in early life?
Melanie Wilderman: I’m born and raised in Oklahoma — have lived here my whole life. I was raised in a home where we went to church off and on, with some periods of steady church going, but the churches were pretty mild by Oklahoma standards. Two of the churches that stand out to me the most were a Lutheran church and a non denominational Christian church. I enjoyed Sunday school as a little kid, and I enjoyed being part of church choir and theatrical performances as a teenager, and going to some Christian summer camps. However, after I went to college and grew up a little, I questioned Christianity, and probably around age 22, I was able to say, I’m not a Christian, but it took a few more years for me to tell people truthfully that I didn’t believe in any of it anymore. And there’s a lot of people who probably still didn’t know — that is unless they watched the play or read any of the press. Then they have likely figured it out.
Jacobsen: There was a real story as the inspiration for “Faithiest.” Who was the basis of it? Jacobsen: What was her story?
Wilderman: There was a clip on TV a few years back that gave me a moment of inspiration. It was after a tornado in Oklahoma and reporter Wolf Blitzer is talking to a young mother with her baby and he kind of pushes the point of if she is thanking God for being safe, and she finally says she’s an atheist. Here’s the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LP3Zs_V_BQ I remember thinking, oh that poor woman. She’s going to take some shit living in Oklahoma. But I was also proud that she would say that on television in our very, very religious and conservative state. I always wondered if she regretted it or not.
However, the story is not about this particular woman. I don’t know her other than things I have read about her on Facebook groups or Reddit or in news articles after that tornado. We haven’t ever met, and the protagonist is not based on her life or personality or anything. There is only a similar moment to this clip in my play.
Jacobsen: How did you build this into the “Faithiest” narrative?
Wilderman: The Faithiest narrative is built more on the real-life friendship between me and my best friend of about 25 years. We are very different people, especially when it comes to religion. Her Christianity is very important to her, and I don’t affiliate myself with any religion, nor would I say I believe in God. However, we have made our friendship work, and she is as important to me as a spouse or my parents. But this is a work of fiction, and while the inspiration comes from that one moment on television and my best friend, it’s also inspired by my time living and working in a very small town in Oklahoma for eight years, from 2005–2013, and bits and pieces of stories other non believers have shared with me. And of course, some of it is just flat out made up.
Jacobsen: Where will this play be presented in its early play days?
Wilderman: It just finished a run in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at a place called The Venue OKC. It ran July 20–29 with four showings. I hope to have it run again in Oklahoma City next year, and after that I will look to some bigger cities to pitch to. I’m linking you to a review from the show: https://newsok.com/article/5602404/review-comedy-and-drama-balanced-well-in-faithiest
And also, here is a preview article before the show began: https://newsok.com/article/5601660/oklahoma-writer-goes-solo-to-produce-new-play-discussing-religion-and-friendship
Jacobsen: What have been the reactions to the play?
Wilderman: The crowds who came out for it seemed to like it. A lot of people would stay afterward and talk to me, and I heard a lot of things like, “thank you for writing this,” and people telling me I balanced many viewpoints well in the show. It’s also fairly comedic at times, so a lot of people seemed to like the comedy element to perhaps temper the serious topic. But, I think people who wouldn’t like it just wouldn’t come to the show. A few of my family members who came are pretty religious, and I think they were uncomfortable, but I think they still love me! I did have at least two people come up to me who were quite emotional, tears in their eyes, saying this show was important to them. I think this reaction comes from people in conservative states in the U.S. feeling like they can’t talk openly about being atheist, agnostic, humanist, non religious, etc.
Jacobsen: What other projects are coming down the pike?
Wilderman: I am considering teaming up with another writer to work on a show that would be a series of monologues about anxiety and depression (but again, this would be tempered with a comedic tone). And the director from this show, Rodney Brazil, and I are thinking of putting together an evening of short 1-act plays from Oklahoma writers. And, my husband and I co-wrote a stage play in 2013 called Alcoholidays that has run three times in Oklahoma City since then. We are currently talking with theaters around the country to get that one on stage in a larger venue. Here’s info about that show:
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Melanie.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/30
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to religion or irreligion, what was family background in it?
Rizalina Guilatco Carr: I grew up in a very religious family, just like many of us who are from the Philippines. I studied in private Catholic schools.
Jacobsen: How does personal background feed into this as well? That is, how has religion influenced you, personally?
Carr: My mother kept on having children (10 that lived, plus 2 miscarriages and 1 that died in the first few days). She would always get post-partum depression. The sisters of my mother, when presented with the option of her having an abortion to keep her sanity, could only say to my mother, “Fear God!” Only my father’s sister, who was a nurse, wanted my mother to have her “tubes tied” to stop having more children. My family’s constant fear of the church and the eternal condemnation of hell was the source of my angst. I struggled to get answers on my own, until I read the books of Richard Dawkins and then met my atheist husband.
Jacobsen: When did humanism become a practical reality for you?
Carr: Having gone through a traumatic period in my personal life, I managed to survive it without calling on a god. (“No outside intelligence!”) My husband and I didn’t mind going into personal debt to achieve what we thought was the right way of helping those for whom we cared the most and who had the ability to succeed in life, given a chance.
Jacobsen: How did you find the humanist community?
Carr: Through Facebook, I found the humanist community.
Jacobsen: What were some of your early involvements in the community? Also, how do people tend to come to the humanist community and become involved early on in their work with it?
Carr: My only contact with the humanist community is through HAPI in Facebook, although my husband and I share that perspective. From an early age, I was always part of “community building.” It started in my first year of college, through the Leadership Training Course sponsored by our local YMCA. Then I joined a “service-based” sorority, and it opened my eyes as to the many ways we can contribute in our community. My involvement with our Filipino and Canadian community has continued through my 38 years in Vancouver, Canada.
My husband and I were co-founders of GO-MED, a non-religious, apolitical medical mission group that provides free needed surgeries for the poor in the Philippines and Peru.
Jacobsen: How does HAPI provide for the needs of the community in the Philippines?
Carr: I admire HAPI’s commitment of service and Motherland needs everyone’s effort to nation building. After all, Philippines is a Third World country. On a personal note, we also have our own projects and other charitable work that we personally fund.
Jacobsen: What makes a good humanist — so to speak? Someone who adheres to and lives the humanist lifestyle.
Carr: A good humanist conducts his/her behavior in an ethical way. While some want their advocacy known, there are also those who contribute quietly. When you have many resources available to you, kindness comes naturally. It is more difficult for people to follow ethical behaviors if their stomachs are growling and their loved ones are suffering.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved in humanism?
Carr: We must try to be inclusive. Secular beliefs should be accompanied by good deeds, or people will continue to believe that atheists are godless devils. If we give opportunities through employment and volunteerism, and offer collaboration with local communities, we can open bridges in bringing many people together. Everyone has something to offer.
Jacobsen: Who are some exemplars of humanism to you, in the Filipino/Filipina traditions?
Carr: The people I grew up with, are examples of “taking care of one another.” I hope I honor these traditions through the work and help that I am still doing. Marissa Torres Langseth’s courage in having a loud voice to bring people together and to help one another in a common goal. Her message and commitment should be spread around!
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Rizalina.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/30
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to religion or irreligion, what was family background in it?
David Pulido: I’m from a catholic family, in a mostly christian community.
Jacobsen: How does personal background feed into this as well?
Pulido: That is, how has religion influenced you, personally? I don’t really think it has influenced me personally. But at the very least, I can empathize with people of fate and see things from their point of view so I don’t get biased with my secular decision making.
Jacobsen: When did humanism become a practical reality for you?
Pulido: When I took a long vacation in the Philippines in 2014, I decided to help out the local street children and homeless people. My methods may not be perfect, but at least I try. That is when I realized I want to contribute someway somehow.
Jacobsen: What were some of your early involvements in the community?
Pulido: Pretty much when I was in that Philippine vacation in 2014.
Jacobsen: How does HAPI provide for the needs of the community in the Philippines?
Pulido: While HAPI provides charity work, which is done by various religious groups in the Philippines, it is clear that one of the biggest problems of the Philippines is how religion and superstition get in the way of real practical solutions, and I’m hoping HAPI is the means for the Philippine community to understand that.
Jacobsen: What makes a good humanist — so to speak?
Pulido: Someone who adheres to and lives the humanist lifestyle. A good humanist understands that we are all human beings and because we share space in this world, we are accountable for one another.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved in humanism?
Pulido: By having practical understanding of the problems and utilizing practical solutions.
Jacobsen: Who are some exemplars of humanism to you, in the Filipino/Filipina traditions?
Pulido: I can’t really say I know anyone. Growing up in the Philippines, I admit I have become jaded and even pessimistic about the attitude of the Filipinos towards what really matters. I think this provides an opportunity for myself and others like me to be the exemplars for future generations.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, David.
Pulido: Thank you.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/29
“ Robin Williams was a comedy legend. Known for his hyper energy and spot-on impressions, he was a successful stand-up comedian, sitcom sensation, and celebrated actor. In 2014 Williams tragically committed suicide. The spotlight has returned to his life and death with the HBO documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind. However, there is one question that defies a clear answer: what religion was Robin Williams?
The Hidden Religion Of Comedian Robin Williams TWEET THIS Robin Williams’ parents were Episcopalian and Christian Scientist. He identified as an Episcopalian in some interviews. He described his faith as “Catholic lite: the same religion, half the guilt.” But he never was seen publicly describing religious tendencies in great detail. Given how open the actor was about his personal life, this seemed unusual. Part of the explanation could be his distance and strained relationship with his father. William’s father was gone for a large percentage of his life and was reserved in giving emotional support to his son.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=54761.
“WASHINGTON — As an elementary-school student, Ken Marcus once wandered down a street just outside his predominantly Jewish hometown of Sharon, Mass., when a group of children spotted him.
“They started throwing rocks and yelled for me to go back to my ‘Jew town,’” he recalled in an interview this week.
The episode, Mr. Marcus said, shaped his…”
“SOME people believe that a religious country would not be able to enjoy economic prosperity. In other words, as a nation grows more religious, it may have lower economic growth, whereas a more secular country that has civil liberties and political rights may have better economic growth.
Traditional values emphasise the importance of religion, respect for authority and family values. African and South Asian countries, such as Zimbabwe, Morocco, Bangladesh and Malaysia, are considered to have high traditional values.
Secular-rational values are the opposite. Ex-communist countries (Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine), European (Germany, France and Switzerland) and English-speaking countries (Britain, Canada and Australia) are those with high secular-rational values.
There are few notable observations on the relationship between religion and economic wealth.”
Source: https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2018/07/395602/dont-blame-religion-poor-economic-performance.
“As an evolutionary psychologist who has only fairly recently started really focusing on religion, I’ve been impressed by what a difficult topic religion actually is. Religious systems are complex, cross-culturally diverse, and hard to define. Religions vary in whether or not they explicitly evoke a concept of god(s), for instance, and religious social systems often swallow up other kinds of social systems that are not themselves inherently religious. For example, systems of morality, ritual, philosophy, and community can get tangled up with religion in some societies, but exist independently of religion in others. So it can be challenging to identify the essence of religion cross-culturally: what’s unique about the kind of worldview we consider ‘religious’, that sets it apart from ‘non-religious’ worldviews? Adding to the confusion are concepts like ‘spirituality’, which can seem very similar to religiosity in some but not all respects.
Despite the complexity of religion, I think there’s one way of conceptualizing it that does a particularly good job of capturing its essence. To describe this concept, I’ll use the term ‘existential theory of mind’. This specific term was coined by psychologist Jesse Bering [1], but as a general concept, existential theory of mind has been researched by many evolutionary and cognitive psychologists of religion.”
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/darwin-eternity/201807/what-religion-is-really-all-about.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/29
“Internationally acclaimed Human Rights campaigners speak in Wellington and Auckland on countering violent extremism
Humanist NZ and the Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH) are pleased to announce the international speakers arriving in New Zealand for a series of events focussing on ending persecution against non-religious people around the world, as well as the discrimination they face in New Zealand.
The events coincide with the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) General Assembly, which for the first time in its 66-year history will be hosted in New Zealand.”
“It is often noticed by religious individuals that people and organizations who claim to be without religion often still use religious notions, practices, and symbolism themselves.
Think of it; atheists often celebrate Christmas, agnostics often praise the golden rule, and humanists get together in groups to do good things for other people. Such people even regularly meet on Sundays to have lectures, coffee, and chat.
These tendencies become even stranger when the organizations in question are explicitly non-religious. Such organizations, which are often accused of either being religious in nature or trying to abolish religion, also seem to borrow many of the practices of organized religion as they help their members to not need religion.”
Source: https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/why-do-secular-groups-often-act-like-religious-ones.
“A renowned female health worker and politician at Nima, Hajia Damata Sulemana, has been recognized and awarded for her commitment to assisting the needy and downtrodden in society.
A ceremony for the bestowal of the award was held last Saturday at the Sundown Hotel in Accra which was attended by many people.
Hajia Damata was bestowed with the Integrity Merit Award by the award organizing committee of the African Integrity Magazine, a continental publication with offices in both Nigeria and Ghana.
Hajia Damata’s humanitarian service to the community is household knowledge.”
Source: https://www.modernghana.com/news/871145/hajia-damata-recognised-for-humanism.html.
“Blessed are the man and the woman
Who have grown beyond their greed
And have put an end to their hatred
And no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in the way things are
And keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
Which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not fall or wither.
Everything they do will succeed.
1st Psalm, adapted by Stephen Mitchell
I’ve been thinking a lot about David Loy’s 2015 book, A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution, and Ethics in the Modern World. I absolutely adore David, he’s both a scholar and a Zen teacher, a not unheard of, but not a particularly common combination. He’s also a pretty fierce social justice activist. So, you may get it, just my kind of guy.
In this book David outlined the major problem for Zen in the West, at least as he and I both see it, where many of us are trying to find a way that sees forthrightly the various problems within the received tradition as it comes to us from East Asia without then falling into the reductionist materialism that marks too much of modern Western thinking. I felt he really succeeded, and in his little book presents a synthesis of the best of East and West that may well become one of the early classics of what I call an emerging “Western Buddhism.””
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/29
“Polling shows that the number of Americans who self-identify as non-religious is rising. But many atheists say this is actually a difficult time for them in this country. That’s because lawmakers who cite deeply religious backgrounds often set policy. The Supreme Court is just the latest front in those battles.
We discuss it with a panel of non-religious people and leaders. In studio:
- Carol Hope, organizer for Secular Humanists of Rochester
- Linda Stephens, member of the Atheist Community of Rochester, and atheist plaintiff in the Town of Greece v. Galloway Supreme Court case
- Tony Karakashian, cyber security specialist, and skeptic
- Dan Courtney, co-founder of Young Skeptics, and an atheist activist
- John Morreall, author, and professor emeritus of religious studies at the College of William and Mary”
Source: http://www.wxxinews.org/post/connections-atheism-and-politics.
“The existence of God is a topic that tends to elicit strong passions. People have their beliefs about whether God exists or not, but they also have their hopes. Many people hope God does exist, but some prominent voices express a hope quite to the contrary.
This idea that one might hope God doesn’t exist appears deeply perplexing from a Christian perspective, so it is perhaps understandable why a Christian might be inclined to assume such a hope is automatically indicative of sinful rebellion. But is that necessarily the case? Or might there be other reasons why a person might hope God doesn’t exist?
Before going any further, we should take a moment to define the topic under debate. As the saying goes, tell me about the god you don’t believe in because I probably don’t believe in that god either. The same point applies to hope: if you hope God doesn’t exist, there is a good chance that I also hope God (as defined) doesn’t exist. So it is critically important that we start by defining God so as not to talk past one another.”
Source: https://www.christianpost.com/voice/on-atheists-who-want-atheism-to-be-true.html.
“Imagine you’re the president of a European country. You’re slated to take in 50,000 refugees from the Middle East this year. Most of them are very religious, while most of your population is very secular. You want to integrate the newcomers seamlessly, minimizing the risk of economic malaise or violence, but you have limited resources. One of your advisers tells you to invest in the refugees’ education; another says providing jobs is the key; yet another insists the most important thing is giving the youth opportunities to socialize with local kids. What do you do?
Well, you make your best guess and hope the policy you chose works out. But it might not. Even a policy that yielded great results in another place or time may fail miserably in your particular country under its present circumstances. If that happens, you might find yourself wishing you could hit a giant reset button and run the whole experiment over again, this time choosing a different policy. But of course, you can’t experiment like that, not with real people.
You can, however, experiment like that with virtual people. And that’s exactly what the Modeling Religion Project does. An international team of computer scientists, philosophers, religion scholars, and others are collaborating to build computer models that they populate with thousands of virtual people, or “agents.” As the agents interact with each other and with shifting conditions in their artificial environment, their attributes and beliefs — levels of economic security, of education, of religiosity, and so on — can change. At the outset, the researchers program the agents to mimic the attributes and beliefs of a real country’s population using survey data from that country. They also “train” the model on a set of empirically validated social-science rules about how humans tend to interact under various pressures.”
“The O2 arena is London’s largest. It is not some poky university lecture hall. So later this month, in between shows by The Muppets and Pearl Jam, when the atheist neuroscientist Sam Harris sits down for a debate against University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, there will be more at stake than just an academic argument.
There is a pop cultural title belt on the line, and for the first time in years, the atheist will be the clear underdog.
Peterson is a psychologist whose popular appeal is partly based on his repurposing of religious myth for modern life. He has said the question of whether he is Christian is “complicated,” and at a recent stop of this speaking tour in Vancouver, he said that although he does not believe in God anymore, he “acts as though he exists.””
“elebrity atheists such as Richard Dawkins appear to claim the moral high ground when it comes to violence. Dawkins, along with Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens, insist that because religion is intrinsically violent, then atheism is inherently more pacific. After all, if all the evils in the world can be blamed on religion, then arguably eliminating religion is not only desirable but a moral obligation for atheists who believe in peace.
Yet our research shows that in the War on Terror, these atheists have been surprisingly willing to align themselves with policies which are at least as violent — and in some cases more so — than many of those perpetrated in the name of religion.
Our study (jointly conducted by a Christian, an agnostic and an atheist) involved analysing the writing of Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens — the so-called “New Atheists”. We sought to establish their positions on US and UK foreign policy since the September 2001 attacks. We critically examined their bestselling books, along with their op-eds, social media posts and videos, to ascertain their positions — not on science or morality — but on politics, especially foreign policy.”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/25
There has been an Appeal Court ruling in Ireland, according to Raidió Teilifís Éireann.
The humanists have been hailing this as a significant transition in the movement for the rights of the non-religious in the area of partnerships. There was a failure to have the current ban declared a breach of human rights. Although, a reasonable argument could be claimed there.
As reported, “A model and international footballer, who won the right to have a lawful humanist wedding in Northern Ireland last year, failed to uphold a judicial declaration that the existing prohibition is incompatible with human rights legislation.”
Laura Lacole went with her husband, who is Eunan O’Kane. O’Kane is a Leeds United and Republic of Ireland star. Lacole considers the judgment still a win for the humanist community.
It is positive in the sense of moving the dial more and more with precedence to push for humanist marriages. The Appeal Court judges — three of them — found the prohibition on humanist celebrants in Northern Ireland, which are legally-binding ceremonies, discriminatory.
“However, they stopped short of declaring the law incompatible with human rights, explaining that an existing provision enabling couples to apply for temporary authorisation for celebrants to conduct humanist marriages ‘provides a basis for avoiding such discrimination,’” the article continued.
The court in Belfast stated that the definition of a legal marriage had no need of being expanded in order to incorporate “beliefs” including humanist. Humanist does not count to this court in Belfast.
The article said, “But they indicated the General Register Office (GRO) for Northern Ireland should now look favourably on future applications for temporary authorisations.”
Therefore, even with the loss of the case, Ms. Lacole considered this, on the whole, a move in the progressive direction for Northern Ireland the right for humanist marriages as recognized weddings in the area.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/25
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background in religion? What are your own story and educational background? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Rupert Aparri: Like most Filipinos, I was raised in a Catholic home. While the male members of the family weren’t religious, the females were (and still are) devout. My mother is 70 years old. When she went to a small town in Georgia, USA, right smack in the midst of the evangelical US South, the first question she asked was: “Is there a Catholic Church here?” My grandmas and grandaunts and great grandma all lived to be nonagenarians so just imagine being with these tough religious women who practically IMPOSED their beliefs on us, grandchildren. No, not in a violently threatening way, but through something more fearsome — the threat of eternal damnation. I recall my grandma (father’s side) and her sister together with my grandfather praying the rosary every night. And when they could no longer go to church because of old age, they’d wait for the priest to come on Sundays so they could receive communion. That’s how “Catolico Cerrado” they were.
However, while my paternal grandma was religious, she was, in fact, a liberal. In 1935, she got pregnant out of wedlock. That must have been quite a scandal in those times. Interestingly, she studied under the American Thomasites. They were intrepid volunteer teachers from the US who taught Filipinos in a non-religious set-up. It must be noted that under Spain, the friars had control in educating the masses, so we can suppose that they prioritized religious brainwashing to perpetuate the subjugation of the people.
My father, a lawyer-accountant wasn’t religious. He seldom went to church, and when he did, it was observably just by force of tradition, not because he was afraid to go to hell. He was, after all, a man of integrity whose reputation was absolutely beyond reproach and from his example I learned that one can be “good without God.” My siblings and I were sent to a Catholic school administered by Chinese priests forced to escape China during the Cultural Revolution. So aside from superb math and Chinese language lessons, I also grew up learning Catechism. I attended religion subjects which, in retrospect, were a waste of time. In college, I went to the University of the Philippines (UP), a secular public school established by the Americans in 1908 when they were still our colonial masters. Our public school system is among the best and lasting legacies of the United States, by the way but I digress.
UP taught me secularism. Prayers and going to Mass were no longer compulsory.
Ideas could be freely exchanged, and because I entered college right after the Marcos dictatorship was toppled, we breathed in the air of freedom with gusto — enthusiastically challenging conventions to which we were otherwise accustomed. My humanism germinated in UP but my absolute disavowal of the god-idea came in phases, culminating one day, ironically, when I attended a Catholic Life in the Spirit Seminar shortly after I got married.
By then I was already a doubter. So when I confessed to a priest by lamenting “Father, I have doubts about the Sacrament of Penance, and if it is a sin to doubt, forgive me.” The priest’s reply: “I’m not going to give you absolution.” And right there, it struck me. I really couldn’t force myself to believe in the bullshit anymore. I honestly don’t recall how I “found” humanism. I was barely even aware of the term until I became FB friends with Ms. Marissa Langseth. She referred me to a FB Group and we’d occasionally chat. I think this was after she read my FB Note on atheism. Or perhaps somebody referred me to her. One time I got into a weeklong online argument with an Evangelical friend on the existence of God. Of course, debating with believers is like banging your head against the wall, but I had lots of time and ammunition, so to speak. I had facts. My friend had verses of the bible. No match.
As a humanist, I haven’t been able actively engage in HAPI events because of my restrictive work schedule. But I’m happy to say that I’m raising my children to be good not because they are scared of an imaginary being or the promise of eternal reward, but rather because this simply is the right thing to do. My wife respects my views although she’s still keen on Pascal’s Wager.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte? How are humanists generally treated in the Philippines? How do Filipinos, in general, view humanists and the humanist community?
Aparri: Duterte is, to put it lightly, a controversial figure in Philippine politics. By appearances he is uncouth, disrespectful of women, scoffs at human rights, considers mainstream media as adversaries, and has cursed the Pope, Obama, and officials of the EU and the UN. Also, he probably isn’t aware of this, but he is a cringe-inducing racist. (He referred to Obama as “ang itim itim” — very black, and dark skin is derided in the Philippines, a country where skin-whitening soap and lotion sell like hotcakes.) Kinda reminds us of someone else, huh? Anyhow, Duterte doesn’t have a nuclear arsenal so we’re fortunate. Duterte is an admitted murderer though and has even bragged on national TV about killing people. Yet he still has a very favorable approval rating among Filipinos!
So how is he regarded internationally? I’ll say it’s a mixed reception. Democratic, progressive nations regard him with disdain. Consider the G20 meetings, for example. Traditionally, the Chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is invited to the G20 meetings, which was hosted by Germany in 2017. The Philippines was ASEAN Chair in the same year but Duterte was not invited. He and his government has been criticized by the EU, Australia, the UN, and even the US under Obama. But Duterte just retorted to such criticisms with profanities. He has been very friendly with China and Russia though. Ohhh, those parallels again.
As for the Filipino people and the Philippines, I can only offer snippets of impressions about us by foreign friends, now that Duterte is in power. I work in the field of international relations so I’ve had the fortune of visiting 17 countries in the past 3 years. Also, I have been hosting foreign exchange students and INGO volunteers since 2009. Aside from travelling in Europe, Asia, and the US, I have brought the world to my home. Germans, Swiss, Ecuadoran, Spanish, Turkish, Japanese, French, Belgian, Norwegian, and a Dutch have stayed with us as family members. No American because the US deemed our place “unsafe.” Right now, there’s an Italian boy with us.
Anyway, their impression of the Philippines naturally changed when they started living among the Filipino people. So once a foreigner actually experiences being among us, Duterte becomes an insignificant blur. Internationally, we’re probably known as seafarers (more than 50%of the world’s seamen are Filipinos); nurses (40 thousand in UK and Ireland, hundreds of thousands in the US) so we’re actually in the healing business; Filipinos are literally everywhere. In the US, Fil-Ams are the 2nd highest earning minority (after Indians) and among the best educated. We do have our sad stories as a poor nation (shithole?) but we are among the happiest and most resilient people on earth. We should be, otherwise we won’t endure living in a country located in the ring of fire, typhoon belt, earthquake zone, and tsunami prone area.
We’re also very welcoming. During the Holocaust, we were the only country that readily accepted Jews who were escaping from the Nazis. In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, we also welcomed the so-called White Russians. The Vietnamese boat-people also made our shores their home before they eventually proceeded to their final destinations. That’s how we are as a people, and I think it’s in our cultural DNA to be so accepting. There are also pejorative references about us. Like we’re regarded as “Oreos” — brown outside, white inside; a nation of domestics and caregivers, etc. Such impressions have stuck, no matter how unfair and we’ve learned to regard them nonchalantly or better still, dismiss them with humor.
Humanism has been a steadily growing movement in the Philippines. But compared to the religious, we are still vastly outnumbered. So humanists — and again the term and idea haven’t caught on yet among the majority of the people — have not yet reached a critical mass where they can disrupt commonly held beliefs and values. in other words, because we aren’t a “threat” at present, nobody really takes much notice of us. So HAPI members can go to communities and do philanthropic deeds and they will be welcome. But there are also levels of tolerance for humanism. You shouldn’t venture into Muslim areas if you’re an identified humanist. You’ll most probably be killed there. Yes, the degree of evil among modern day religions vary, with Islam sadly being the most toxic and violent now.
Jacobsen: How can the non-religious overcome religious privilege, e.g., building a coalition and a solidarity movement? What are the areas of religious privilege within the Philippines?
Aparri: Like the United States, we have a non-establishment clause in our Constitution. But this hasn’t really been observed. Cases in point: We have an Office of Muslim Affairs. This has been one of my pet peeves but I can only whine because I don’t want to get bombed! Shariah and Islamic lessons are being taught using public school facilities. Professors lead prayers before starting their lessons in public universities. Government resources are being used during Catholic Church events. There are churches, temples, and mosques built through public funds inside our military camps! Religious idols are displayed in government buildings. In my wife’s workplace, a Philippine government bank, Catholic masses are held within office premises every first Friday of the month! I could go on and on about religious privilege. We still have a lot of evolving to undergo in terms of being an actual secular democracy.
As humanists, we can’t just barge into the religionists’ zone and tell them they’re wrong. That’s the first thing I learned during my arguments with religious friends and family members, including my own mom. Logic will not persuade godly people. They will just yell back and bombard you with more nonsense. When you argue with them and point out the falsities of their religious beliefs, they tend to be defensive because you’re attacking their core; their being. Therefore, since we are obviously more reasonable, it is up to us to adjust to their tantrums. There are religionists, however, whose spoiled brat antics involve murder and mayhem, and with THEM, we have to be less congenial.
In terms of solidarity and building coalitions, we should primarily focus on environmental protection, because climate change poses an existential threat to our people, whether religious or humanist. To answer the question on how we can overcome religious privilege: I say through patience and education. It’ll take years to undo what was imprinted for centuries.
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics?
Aparri: Religion influences Philippine politics in many forms, from the completely insidious to the relatively benign. For example, the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) led by a certain Eraño Manalo is often courted by politicians because the sect votes as a bloc as dictated by the leadership. At about 5 million members, they can make or break political careers. Allegedly, in exchange for votes, favors are given to the sect, like plum positions in government, particularly the law enforcement offices. There’s also a sect led by Apollo Quiboloy, who refers to himself as the APPOINTED SON OF GOD. He’s extremely wealthy, the money raised from tithes, but which he attributes to the blessings of his father, God. For a time, he was visibly too friendly with Duterte, even offering to lend his private plane and helicopter to the president.
A thinking individual would be frightened to see his president palling with The Appointed Son of God, but that’s where we are now. The Catholic Church, as one would expect still meddles in our political discourse, vehemently opposing a Divorce Law, and a Reproductive Health Law. The RC still insists that contraception is a sin and one who uses condoms goes to hell. We’re the only country aside from the Vatican where there is no divorce. In this instance, Duterte’s irreverence has been helpful. He has ignored the Church’s importunings and threats of fire and brimstone.
The most damning influence of religion on politics, in my opinion, is the Muslim rebellion in Mindanao. While the Christian sects only try to influence political outcomes by threats to the soul and moral suasion, the Muslims actually kill in the name of Allah. And the government acceded to their demands by giving them autonomy — the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. Now they want more; their own state within a federal government. The Mindanao problem is complex, but suffice it to say that without the inherited hatreds passed on by religions, this would have been easier to address.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Aparri: Spanish friars spread Catholicism in the islands for 4 centuries. They did this not just by friendly persuasion but also by threat of physical harm and death. Colonizers used religion as a means of social control. Such a method was extremely effective. Fear of torture and execution, coupled with the thought of wallowing in a lake of fire for eternity are quite persuasive. The influence of the church in the country is thus a vestige of our colonial past that is difficult to forget. This isn’t to say that we have to expunge ourselves of our history. As a Filipino, I am proud to be a child of the East and West, and under the present circumstances thankful that I was born Christian, rather than Wahhabist or Salafist. But we do have to be honest and accept that our religious heritage stemmed from unholy intentions of mostly wicked men.
Atheists, or apatheists, and now humanists are considered “sinners” in the Philippines. I have been accosted, ridiculed, even asked why I say Merry Christmas when I don’t believe in Jesus Christ. But these are just the ridiculous chidings of pesky friends. More troubling, for instance, is equating communism with unbelief because it gives misguided and ignorant religionists in government to persecute you. Also, woe unto you who claims unbelief and you’re branded a Satanist. You could get physically assaulted.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Aparri: For centuries, religion has been an anchor in the lives of people and communities. It is no wonder therefore that absent such anchor, people and communities would feel hopeless; bobbing up and down, to and fro in an ocean of problems and uncertainty. At least with the god-concept, there is this notion of security and stability. It is a challenge for us, humanists, to articulate to our fellowmen, that we have EACH OTHER, and this in fact is more reassuring than beseeching an invisible, non-existent entity.
Having said that, in places where I am a stranger, I find sanctuary in Catholic church services, just to be with something familiar. And this, I think is the last purpose of churches and their rituals and incantations — to provide a sense of familiarity and camaraderie. It is only after recognizing this that we can begin an honest and fruitful conversation with the believers.
Thanks.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Rupert.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018//07/21
According to The Nation, Thorvald Stoltenberg, born 1931 and died 2018, was a Norwegian political who died after an illness. He was active in the helping of refugees and others.
He helped those coming from Hungary post-1956 invasion by the Soviet Union. Stoltenberg was a member of the United Nations peace negotiating team. He was a diplomat and politician in the 1990s.
As reported, “He was for a short year high commissioner for refugees in 1990, but Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland called him back to serve as Norway’s foreign minister again; and he had earlier served both as deputy and full minister of foreign affairs and defence.”
He then retired from the political world. Later, his son, Jens, would be the prime minister and then the secretary general of NATO. Stoltenberg, the deceased, was also the chairman of the Norwegian Red Cross.
“ His two other children were Camilla, a medical researcher and administrator, and Nini, a lawyer by training, like her father, but a victim of the liberal ‘hashish and heroin era’ of the 1970s,” the reportage continued, “She passed away in 2014 at an age of 51, just two years after her mother Karin Stoltenberg (nèe Heiberg) passed away, leaving Thorvald Stoltenberg without his lifelong partner.”
He viewed Nini as the most kind and sweet person imaginable. The late Mr. Stoltenberg even work a book about her, in order to discover why she was a drug addict and also to see if there was a way for others to become clean.
“By the time she died, she was ‘clean’, but the heroin and other poisons had taken their toll on her organs and she just wasted away and died after a short illness,” the article explained.
The article then pivoted into the legacy of Nelson Mandela. It was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela this year. He was seen as a humanistic idal of someone working for hope as a politician and as a statesperson.
“He based much of his thinking on his training and experience as a lawyer, with justice and fairness as cornerstones, My Pakistani lawyer friend Idrees Ashraf underlines the importance of his legal training and practice,” the article stated, “also continuing studies while in prison. Certainly, Mandela was a very unique and extraordinary man, yet also a very ordinary man, somebody who had met him told me.”
The report makes a comparison between both Stoltenberg and Mandela. With the unique abilities of each to connect with the people around them, an argued-for important capacity for encouraging individuals to do the right and good thing in the world.
Each person, the parallelism argues, were working on local and everyday things in addition to the universal concerns of everyone for a better world locally and internationally.
The reportage stated, “Mandela never denounced the use of violence in the struggle for justice in apartheid South Africa, or as a general principle, although he drew lessons from Mahatma Ghandi’s philosophy; yet, he rather said that those in power should refrain from use of violence. Stoltenberg, who i.a. served as minister of defence in Norway, was also not a pacifist.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/20
Professor Mir Faizal is an Adjunct Professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Lethbridge. I wrote an article for Science, Technology & Philosophy, which gained the attention of one of the people related to the work in the article. It happened to be professor Faizal. He reached out in appreciation for the publication and the accuracy of the reportage on the research. I then returned with a request for an interview because… physics and astronomy. I love the field. Previous interview in Canadian Atheist. Here we talk about some of the work continuing an educational and exploratory series.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the difference between classical and quantum logic?
Professor Mir Faizal: There is a fundamental difference between quantum and classical logic, or classical and quantum ways of thinking. In classical logic, two contradictory possibilities cannot be simultaneously actualized, but in quantum logic, this is exactly what happens. A cat can be both dead and alive, and a single particle can be present at two different places at the same time. Similarly, light is both a particle and wave in quantum mechanics. This is not a mere philosophy, but this way of thinking is essential to the correct understanding of nature. I would argue that this fuzzy way of thinking can also help resolve real-life problems, and the Israeli–Palestinian being one of them. In doing so, it would be not only possible to reconcile Zionism with democracy, but it would also be possible to reconcile Zionism with Palestinian Nationalism.
Jacobsen: How can quantum logic be applied to such a political problem?
Faizal: Just like we have to accept that the cat is dead and the cat is alive, at the same time, in the quantum world, we have to accept that all the land belongs to Jews and all the land belongs to the Palestinians, at the same time in the political world. So, this is where we need to think quantum mechanically. Just as wave nature of light and particle nature of light are both needed to get a complete picture, and relying on only one of these will create problems in understanding natural phenomena, we need to accept both the claims of Jews and Palestinians to all the land as being simultaneously true, to understand this social phenomenon. Accepting this quantum logic will help both the Jewish and Palestinians population to see the others point of view, without having to compromise their own point of view. They can even empathize with the other point of view, as both these communities have been historically displaced from their homeland, and have similar aspirations and the similar basis for their National moments.
Jacobsen: What is the basis on which you have stated that claims of both the Jews and the Palestinian simultaneously true?
Faizal: To do so, let us first understand what gives a certain part of human population preferentially more rights to live in a certain region of the earth (country), than the rest of humanity. When a group of humans lives in a certain region, they develop an emotional attachment to that region, and this gives them a preferential right to live in that region. This is the basis on which the concept of nationality is formed, and holds true for almost all nation on earth. Furthermore, when a new group lives in that region and develops a similar emotional attachment to that region, then that group also acquires a similar preferential right to live in that region of the earth. This is the reason why in most countries, citizenship can be acquired by staying in that country for a sufficiently long time.
Jacobsen: Does a group of people not lose this preferential right to live in a land, after living away from it for long? After all, humans evolved from Africa, but not all humans can claim citizenship of African countries.
Faizal: Now, there is also a question of people losing this preferential right. All the humanity has evolved from Africa, but most of the humanity does not have this emotional attachment with Africa. So if a group loses this emotional attachment to a region, it also loses this preferential right to live in that region. This usually occurs in a century for most groups, but the important question is what happens if a group does not lose this emotional attachment to a region. It is only logical to suppose that if a group of humans does not lose this emotional attachment to a region, they should also not lose the preferential rights to live in that region.
Jacobsen: Who according to this logic has the claim to the land?
Faizal: I would say that all the land belongs to Jews, and all the land belongs to Palestinians, and both these claims are simultaneously true. The only and strongest basis on which Zionism is justified is that the Jews have historically lived in Israel, and even though they have been removed from that region, they have not lost the emotional attachment with the land of Israel. A Jew has as much right to be in Israel as a German has to be in Germany, or a British has to be in Britain. But for the same reason, a Palestinian has as much right to be in Palestinian as a Jew has to be in Israel. Just like the Jews, Palestinians have also historically lived in that land, and have an emotional attachment to that land. What makes this situation interesting is that both these claims are equally true, and for the same reasons. Both these groups of people (Jews and Palestinians) have lived in that region, and have an emotional attachment to that land.
Jacobsen: What would be the practical implications of this for Israeli–Palestinian conflict?
Faizal: Now having established that all the land belongs to Jews, and all the land belongs to Palestinians as simultaneously true claims, we can think of real practical solutions for the issue. First of all, it would really help Zionism, if it accepts the claim of Palestinian Nationalism, and then used the same argument to argue for Zionism, as it would then win the support of moderate Palestinians, and greatly reduce the violence against Jewish people in Israel. Similarly, it would help Palestinians, if they accepted Zionism’s, and then argued for their cases using the same argument. As this would win them the support of moderate Jews, and that would, in turn, improve the rights of Palestinians. So, such an acceptance of Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism as simultaneously true would directly reduce the violence against Jews, and improve the lives of Palestinians.
Jacobsen: Is it practically possible for Jews to accept Palestinian Nationalism, given the high levels of anti-Semitism in Palestinians?
Faizal: It is important to point out that certain ideas have now mixed with both Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism, with is neither beneficial for these moments nor essential to them. The problem with Palestinian Nationalism is that is has been mixed with anti-Semitism, and a desire to remove the Jewish population from Israel. It does the most harm to the Palestinian cause, as it promotes right-wing political parties in Israel. Realistically, if the Palestinians leadership took a bold step and encouraged Jewish immigration and integration into Palestine, then Israel would be forced to be more restrained militarily, and more generous economically towards Palestinians territories. Also, the settlers would lose all motivations to live in settlements, if they could legally live in Palestinian territories along with Palestinians as Palestinian citizens. This would also cause a decline in right winged political parties in Israel, and this would be beneficial for the Palestinian cause. This new form of Palestinian Nationalism would be acceptable to most moderate Jews.
Jacobsen: Is it possible for Palestinians to accept Zionism as Zionism made them lose their homeland?
Faizal: The problem with Zionism is that a justified desire for the Jewish population to live in Israel has been mixed with an unjustified desire for the Palestinian population not to live in that region. In fact, if Zionism accepts the rights of Palestinians to live there, and uses this argument for the Jews to live there too, it will be viewed as great liberation moment and this way Israel can emerge as a real democracy. This will also cause a decline in support for groups which support violence, and increase the support for Israel in moderate Palestinians. This will cause a real decline in the violence against Jews in Israel. Furthermore, this would be the only way in which Israel can emerge as a real Jewish democracy. This new form of Zionism would be acceptable to most moderate Palestinians.
Jacobsen: A real concern for Jews to accept all Palestinians would be that they can easily vote Zionism out of existence, so how can Jews accept all the Palestinians to live in Israel/Palestine?
Faizal: It is logical for most Jews to be afraid of doing this because by allowing all Palestinians to return and give them equal rights, then they can vote the Zionism out of existence.
So, sadly at present, there seems to be only one solution. To allow Palestinians to return and give them equal rights, but freeze their vote to its present vote share. They can have a weighted vote. Apart from this all the Jews of the world should be given a vote in Israel, even if they are not legal citizens or residents of Israel. This political discrimination will end all social discriminations against Palestinians. Hopefully in future, when anti-Semitismends in Palestinians and most Jews are living nicely in Israel, then this discrimination can end too. But at present, the only way to end social and economic discrimination against Palestinians is for Israel to allow all the Palestinians the right to live in Israel, and equality in all aspects of life, but discriminate against them politically.
This is also important for the survival of Israel as a place for Jews to return, as both the Palestinian population with Israeli citizenship, and anti-Semitism in this population, can grow and vote Zionism out of existence in the future. However, such a discrimination need only be a temporary measure, it can end when a greater sense of nationhood develops in both these populations, and all the Jews have Israeli citizenship.
Jacobsen: As there is a religious dimension to this problem, what can be done about that?
Faizal: There is definitely a religious dimension to this problem. The central problem is that the Temple Mount/Majid Al Aqsa is holy to both the religions. However, in the Jewish tradition, it is allowed for non-Jewish monotheists (Beni Nao) to pray in Temple Mount, and they used to do that in early times. Furthermore, most Jews consider Muslims to be from Bnei Noa, and hence according to Jewish religious tradition they can pray at the Temple Mount.
According to Muslim traditions, a group of Christians was allowed by Muhammad to pray in his Mosque. Based on this, it is religiously possible for both these religions to share the Temple Mount/Majid Al Aqsa. There are also problematic traditions of Hadith, and verses in the Old Testament, which are used by certain religious groups to promote violence. However, the many interpretations have nicely justified the violence of such traditions away, and such interpretations should be promoted, and this would be beneficial for both Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism.
Jacobsen: What is your reaction to those who claim the land should only belong to the Jews or Palestinians?
Faizal: It should be realized that even if Israeli Jews wanted they cannot leave Israel, and even if Palestinians wanted they cannot leave Palestinian. No country will accept so many new immigrants. So there seems to be no other way than living together. In summary, the only practical solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue can come if both the contradictory claims are accepted as simultaneously true, and then real rational solutions are worked out to resolve this issue.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/18
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background in religion? What are your own story and educational background? How did you find humanism and HAPI?
Leonardo “Nards” Go: I grew up in a deeply religious (Catholic) and conservative, family. We were praying for the angels every night at 6pm, prayed with the rosary every night with my parents and grandparents in my elementary years, going to Church every sunday, participating in religious events.
My father was a Liturgical Assistant, my aunts and uncles, active in church groups, I was once an altar boy and ave maria, Boy Scout awardee (knights of the altar — the highest award for a Catholic Scout), went to catholic schools from prep all the way to college and of course, got my education from nuns in an exclusive school in my elementary then to proceeded to another exclusive school run by Jesuits in high school and all the way to college up to my Masters.
I once taught World Literature and Philosophy to a non-sectarian community college for a while in our hometown. At present, I work for the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO, that would be Emergency Management Agency in the US) in our city as assistant to the head.
My item is Environmental Management Specialist. Actually, I hold 2 offices, as I am also officially with the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (EPA in the US), but since my area and training is climate change adaptation and mitigation; hence, I also sit at the CDRRMO.
I found humanism, when I started to become politicized, during my college days, as I was starting to notice the hypocrisy, inequality, and beliefs and customs of society that I grew up in, specifically the kind fostered by the Catholic Church.
The most glaring is that of attributing everything as God’s will, even in gambling, Filipinos pray for signs before making a bet; ours is a combination of mysticism and Catholicism, after reading inspirational books (I started reading in High School) and exposure to Western culture through movies, TV, and other mass media sources, I slowly started to realise that we actually hold our destiny in our own hands.
While it is good to be inspired by God, to do good things in his glory, in our country, there were more disturbing cases to the contrary, our beliefs (and religious attitudes) in God have actually become a hindrance to our full potential as human beings.
Nowhere is it more evident than when it comes to disasters, it is a big part of my job to go around the city and the countryside giving lectures on how to make their communities more resilient.
It is always not easy, especially when people, believe that disasters are an act of god, and everything is his will and has a purpose and leave everything to his mercy and pray. Humanism for me is the ultimate empowerment, which seems to be the byword in government endeavors these days.
I came upon HAPI when I was invited by a Facebook friend, environmentalist and fellow caver, Jennifer Gutierrez, then the executive director of HAPI Phils International, it was only natural that I accepted the invitation.
Jacobsen: How does the world see the Philippines from the outside under Duterte? How are humanists generally treated in the Philippines? How do Filipinos, in general, view humanists and the humanist community?
Go: It’s mixed there are those who say, “It’s a dangerous place to live, what is with his War on Drugs and all the extra-judicial killings happening around,” while there also those who see that it is much safer since most of the criminals are either killed, arrested, or on the run: also because of his War on Drugs.
Jacobsen: How can the non-religious overcome religious privilege, e.g., building a coalition and a solidarity movement? What are the areas of religious privilege within the Philippines?
Go: By being non-political, and less confrontational, a lot of the non-religious groups are affiliated with the radical left, although they have worked with religious groups especially when speaking for human rights and against poverty.
That is because they find common ground, but that is still limited, when it comes to women’s rights, birth control. They are on opposite ends, using less confrontational methods, as opposed to leftist non-religious groups in promoting their agenda, which has actually turned off and alienated the middle class, who are actually the most influential sector in our society.
I am at a loss by what you mean by “religious privilege.” But if by that you mean, areas not influenced by religion, I can only say. Those that are affiliated with the left, of the political spectrum
Jacobsen: When in the Philippines, and looking at the political situation, how does religion influence politics?
Go: Very much, it has influenced our way of life, but consider this, almost every politician will always claim that he was sent a sign by God. Before he decided to run, he goes to church to pray prior to filing his candidacy.
If he wins, his victory is celebrated by a mass; no session, meeting, brain storm is done without prayers first. Elections take a form of evil vs. good, with everyone claiming to be the good guys. It was religion that helped the late Pres Cory Aquino topple the dictatorship of Pres Marcos.
It is religion that has influenced why family planning has never taken off here.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a large influence on the country? What are some of the main prejudices that the irreligious experience in the Philippines?
Go: It is said that our history can be summed up with the joke: 300 years in the convent (Spanish Rule) and 50 years of Hollywood (The American Rule), blame it on the Spaniards, who justified their conquest as a mission to spread Christianity (by the cross and sword) and to keep the natives submissive, and the Americans who perpetrated the same albeit to a lesser degree, still to keep the natives in their place.
When it comes to religious prejudice, let me just site a few personal experience as an example, when my sister got married to an American in Thailand, only our parents, and their friends, came. None from relatives because the wedding was done in a Buddhist church and ceremony.
When my daughter decided to become a born again Christian missionary, I was chided by my friends, and relatives, for not controlling my daughter and letting her leave the catholic faith. During previous typhoons, our governor and mayor ordered that we would not receive relief goods from the UN Commission on Population and Development, and not to accept joint projects with them because they supported The Women’s Reproductive Health Care Bill because the Catholic Church was against it.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Go: Humanism is and will always be, the ultimate empowerment.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Nards.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/17
Scott Douglas Jacobson: With respect to social media and humor, social media has positive aspects and negative aspects. The positives are the way in which people can mobilize and communicate with one another.
The negatives are some of the trivial aspects of it. With regards to the humor for building community and mobilizing people, as well as bridging divides, what are some examples of this that can be used as lights — to focus on in terms of building those communities rather than keeping oneself closed into one’s own community such as banning and shutting down people online as well as speakers in person at events?
Faisal Al Mutar: So, humor is one of the best ways to talk about serious subjects, especially the subjects that I touch upon from the Middle East to extremism to terrorism. These subjects tend to be dry.
If I have some spice, then people get excited about them, which makes using humor a necessity. I was making a joke about Buddhist monks. I started, “If you do not like ISIS, you should join them, because change comes from within.”
As a result, many people were offended by this post. Some had assumed because of my name that I am a Jihadist who is trying to recruit people to ISIS. The comments section, some people thought that the joke itself was offensive.
Because I am trivializing the experiences of some individuals. Unfortunately, because some of these jokes, some of them require some understanding of some things. The joke is, it is about how many Buddhists talk about subjects of change from within and so on.
With text, many jokes fly over many people’s heads. As a result, the reaction of reporting seemed immediate for many people, especially when you have a larger following. If you get reported by 1,000 people, even though it is trivial, it is 1% percent of my following.
However, it is enough for some pages to get shut down. I have not been banned permanently, but I have been banned for three months, the maximum. With the way social media and people are responding to this, it was not positive in my opinion.
Humor is dark, sometimes. It depends on what dark humor. Naturally, it is trying to expose their subjects. Not necessarily trivialize it, many people are not aware of it. For example, there is this meme that I like.
It has like a depiction of Joseph Stalin. It says, “Some say communism is like food. Not everyone gets it.”
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Al Mutar: When you look deeper to many of these jokes, you will see that what is being exposed is the totalitarian version of communism. The fact that many people under communism do not get food. It is not about making fun of people who are hungry.
It is a result of some of these complications. Unfortunately, some of the people immediately look at what is said alone. They interpret everything as literal statements. I am not trying apologize for the holy book, but it is about the context. It is about the interpretation.
As a result, people who have little to no sense of humor, and no understanding of how dark humor works, react with reportage. Sometimes, there is the case of Ellen DeGeneres. I do not know if you know her. There can be misunderstandings.
There was a Kenyan athlete who was considered one of the fastest people in the world. He is athletic. He runs fast. Degeneres made this like graphic. He was holding her, running.
So, she was saying, “Wow, this guy is running so fast.”
People interpreted from the social media environment: “Oh, look at the white woman using the black man to run.” They made a connection with slavery and racism. That is the opposite. It has nothing to do with slavery.
Nothing to do with the subject altogether. Yesterday, Heineken pulled its ad, which is for the light beer. They said, “Lighter is better.” Many of us like light beer. It is a good targeted advertising. However, some people interpreted that, “lighter is better,” means people with lighter skin are better than people with dark skin.
This is the worst possible interpretation of what is being said. The way some of these social media companies responded to the court of public opinion. If enough people are offended, that is enough for some of the posts to be taken down.
Scott: It reminds me of some statements of some people. I mean, every movement, every population has extremists. The point is not to let the extremist 1) drive the conversation or b) be the leadership.
Faisal: Unfortunately, this is an issue for many of us. We get into these situations. Sometimes, social media amplifies the scope of the problem. Let’s say a thousand people. Say I make a post about doing Trump or US politics, any subject in the world. Then 1,000 people offended.
On a major scale, if your following is 100,000 or above, then only 1,000 people are offended. You only offended 1 percent. But if the 1 percent were mobilized enough, all of them like each other’s posts. Then it looks like it is a big problem. It looks like everybody hates you.
But what’s happening in social media, everybody has the same equal amount of space when they come in as the other person. You could be Barack Obama and the other guy is a crackhead. They both have the same amount of section in the conversation.
It creates the illusion that there is an equal quality post. Sometimes, people get deluded, including social media companies. They get deluded when they see like “Oh, there is a controversy being created.”
But generally, it is small population. People probably do not care if Heineken made a “lighter is better” ad. However, there are 1,000 people. However, that is a small population. There are 2 billion users on Facebook. Only 1,000, it is not a big number.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Faisal.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/10
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your own affiliation or relationship with the non-religious community in the Philippines?
Mark Richardson: My connection with the Philippines started when I was introduced to a Filipina, at IDIC a community group, mainly for seniors, here in Seattle. I actually can’t remember how my association with Marissa and the HAPI group started except to say it was through Facebook somehow.
Jacobsen: What is your own perspective on Filipino lack of religion? That small number of people who do not adhere to a formal religion?
Richardson: I consider the atheists, humanists and freethinkers in the Philippines to be amongst the most respected of groups in my mind, not quite up there with ex-Muslims, but close. They, especially the youth, are at the front line in the battle with the church establishment. The saturation of religion throughout Filipino society and the immense societal pressure to conform from family, friends and community elders must make any expression of secular thought very difficult. It must take much courage for anyone to break out. I know Filipinos are one, if not the, greatest user of social media in the world and I hope they use this to counteract the influences of religion.
Jacobsen: What do you consider the best argument for reason and against superstition?
Richardson: I think Epicurious’ concise logic on the existence of evil adequately deals with the notion of God, the “loving”, omnipresent, omnipotent entity featured in the monotheistic religions. Other less perfect and less powerful entities that might be called gods I dismiss like they are in science fiction shows like Star Trek TOS (the episode “Who Mourns for Adonis” springs to mind) where false gods only appear god-like by having more advanced technology. I must make it clear, at this point, that I do not want to take away a persons need to have faith and believe in whatever they want. Without some form of sinister mind-control this would be impossible anyway. What is absolutely essential, though, is that this religious freedom does not impinge on the other aspects of our lives. Both historically and currently, it is clear that religious dogma, or interpretations of it, has led to persecutions towards minority groups, racism, generally bigoted behavior, hostility and, unfortunately, much bloodshed. The wall of separation between church and state is a concept of paramount importance that must be maintained and defended. Laws ands public policy in general must be determined through secular thought only.
Jacobsen: Do you have any recommendations for the young in terms of building a coalition of activists for secularism?
Richardson: Continuing the great work of the HAPI group (and others) with the focus on educational programs for the young, and building up the grass roots activism, is the best way forward I think. One concern I have is that the secular groups do not become too fragmented and thus lose the ability to effect change. This is an issue for the secular movement in the USA, in my opinion, and there is a definite benefit of having strength in numbers. With a strong grass roots membership and a minimum of organizations to represent them, I think it will be easier to influence the politicians, law makers and educators.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mark.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/04
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become involved in the humanist community in the Philippines?
Edgardo Reguyal Cayetano: To kill my curiosity, I searched for atheist groups in the Philippines and I come across a few including PATAS, ARMMC, I can’t remember exactly how I become a member of HAPI. But one thing I’m sure is when i saw Jamie’s post about her charity projects, i become interested and feel the urge to chip in a little bit to help out.
Jacobsen: How much does religion, such as the Roman Catholic faith, influence political life in the Philippines?
Cayetano: Religion and Politics are 2 legs chasing each other in the Philippines. It is either the politicians using religion or religion using politicians
I mean, religious institutions
Jacobsen: What do you consider the strongest are you meant for reason and against things like superstition or magical thinking? Why do so many Filipinos find magical thinking convincing? In fact, in a more humorous note, why does most of the world?
Cayetano: In the world of make believe, nothing is impossible. If you have nothing, you can only dream. That is magic! Poverty is one reason why people tend to believe in magic, wishing there’s a quick and easy way out. Ignorance is another, the lack of education and understanding makes people vulnerable.
Jacobsen: What kind of work do you do with the humanist community within the Philippines?
Cayetano: Physically I’m not involved in any work with HAPI i can only send support due to my busy work loads.
Jacobsen: What kind of charity events have you done in the Philippines before being formally a part of the humanist community in the Philippines?
Cayetano: I have been involved in person with charity events like feeding programs and relief good distribution in some areas of the Philippines.
Jacobsen: What is the organization The Good Fortune?
Cayetano: The Good Fortune was formed and organized here in Australia by myself and a friend. Its main purpose is to help out poor street kids in Manila doing feeding programs. It all started when my friend was touched with sadness looking at the kids begging for food. He then contacted me and a few more friends to help out. We come up with the feeding idea and we did it several times until we decided we need to continue and keep helping as much as possible when we can.
Jacobsen: What are your hopes for you the humanist movement in the Philippines? What can be an effective means for the young and the old to get together and rapidly change the Filipino culture for more secularism and set example for other countries throughout the world?
Cayetano: My wish is to see the rest of the word living a free life without fear being persecuted for something they haven’t done. Eradicate religion as much as possible and replace it with a much more effective human government concentrating on equality and safety of everyone.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Edgardo.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/03
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You have an interest in ecological validity and critical thinking from a psychological perspective. Psychology requires a Swiss army approach to problem-solving, as you have noted in other conversations with me, which is exemplified in the number of disciplines and sub-disciplines within the field. The external validity amounts to the extent that one can extrapolate and generalise the findings of psychology. Ecological validity is one aspect of the extrapolation and generalisation. It looks at the extensions into the real world. From a psychological perspective, how can the apparent simplicity of a research finding become troublesome when taken into the real world?
Dr Sven van de Wetering: I think your phrasing captures the problem: “simplicity of a good solid psychological research finding” is a delightful phrase because it captures so succinctly what is wrong with the way many research psychologists (including me in my less reflective moments) think of their research findings. Findings in physics are often satisfyingly simple and reliable. Think of Newton shining light through a prism, Galileo dropping stuff off of towers, or Robert Boyle goofing around with a vacuum pump. In this model of science, you find a result, you assume that the physical reality underlying the result is fairly simple. Furthermore, you assume that that physical reality will not change over time, and you feel free to draw sweeping generalisations based on the simple experiment (though it turns out Boyle was pretty cautious about doing that, an example we could probably learn from). That approach has gotten us far in physics, presumably because the assumptions of simplicity and changelessness correspond fairly well to the physical reality. A similar approach seems to be less useful in psychology, and I would argue that that is because the subject matter of psychology, human behaviour, is neither changeless nor straightforward.
To take a straightforward example, any good social psychology textbook, and most bad ones as well will talk about the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is also called correspondence bias, a term which I much prefer. In its simplest form, FAE is the tendency for people to assume that other people’s actions tell us a lot about their inner traits, beliefs, and values while ignoring the fact that many of the influences on people’s actions are situational in nature. The thing that irritates me about the name “Fundamental Attribution Error” is the word “fundamental” seems to imply that the error is anchored in a core aspect of human psychological functioning, one that is universal across individuals, cultures, and situations. When this assumption is examined, it is found that the tendency fails to occur in some situations, that there are individual differences in the degree to which people fall prey to this bias, and that members of individualist cultures are much more susceptible to the bias than members of collectivist cultures. In short, many investigators of the FAE seem to assume that people’s behaviour in a small number of fairly contrived situations tells us something important about the way they behave all the time. To maybe highlight the illogic of this, it almost looks like many of these investigators engaged in more egregious examples of FAE than the people in their experiments. If I were more psychodynamically inclined, I might even accuse these researchers of projection.
As I said above, I am probably as vulnerable to this tendency as anyone else. I wonder if part of the problem is linguistic. Research psychologists often formulate their hypotheses as universal generalisations, something like “People do X.” It is certainly true that some people, some of the time, under some circumstances, do X; if they didn’t, the results of the experiment wouldn’t have come out the way they did. Researchers are aware that universalism is an assumption, but it’s not problematised as much as it probably should be. Usually, if the phenomenon is replicated with a few slight procedural variations and a couple of different populations, the assumption of universality is considered provisionally acceptable. I don’t really want to be too critical of this; the time, energy, and money necessary to really thoroughly explore the limits of the phenomena studied by psychologists are often not available. Psychologists do what they can, and perhaps are too busy and harried to really take a long, hard look at the intellectual baggage that psychology has picked up that leads to those assumptions of universality.
Jacobsen: What research findings seem to show robust findings — highly reliable and valid — in the ‘laboratory’ but fail to produce real-world results? Those bigger research findings one may find in an introductory psychology textbook.
van de Wetering: I’m certainly not in a position to give a comprehensive list, but here’s one I find a little ironic. One of the cornerstones of the critical thinking course you cited above was confirmation bias, which is a cluster of biases centred around the tendency to selectively test one’s hypotheses in a way that makes it relatively easy to confirm the hypothesis one already has in mind but difficult to disconfirm that same hypothesis. Some of my best students started to look into the literature and found that the whole intellectual edifice of confirmation bias was based on only a small number of experimental paradigms. Snyder and Swann developed one of the research paradigms in question in 1976. They asked people to prepare to interview another person. Their job in that interview was to find out whether the person in question was an introvert or an extrovert. It found that people often used what is called a positive test strategy; that is, if the interviewer was trying to find out if the person was an extravert, they chose a lot of questions that an extravert would tend to answer “yes” to. This has been taken to indicate confirmation bias on the part of the research participants.
What doesn’t get emphasised when most textbooks cite the above study is that the research participants did not create their interview questions from scratch. Instead, they were asked to choose some from a list. My students wondered if research participants would do the same thing if they could make up questions. We ran a small study on this question, and we did weakly replicate the original study; that is, people asked to find out if someone was an introvert were slightly more likely to ask questions that an introvert would say “yes” to, and people asked to find out if someone was an extravert had a nonsignificant tendency to ask more questions that an extravert would answer yes to. What we found striking, though, was that a substantial majority of the questions our participants came up with were not yes-no questions at all, but rather open-ended ones that at least had the potential to be informative regardless of whether the hypothesis was true or false. Thus, confirmation bias was, at best, a minor undercurrent in the test strategies used by most of our participants.
Jacobsen: How can those former examples become the basis for critical thinking and a better comprehension of ecological validity?
van de Wetering: One thing I take from these examples is that human behaviour is highly context-dependent. The issue in these examples is not that people have made a false universal generalization about human behaviour that needs to be replaced with a true universal generalization. The issue is that universal generalizations may not be the way to go in order to explain most facets of human psychological functioning. Nor do I think that we can see people as passive recipients of cultural influences or some other form of learning. Any given person does have neural hardware, an evolutionary history, a history of learning experiences, a social milieu, a set of goals, of likes, of dislikes, of behavioral predispositions, and so on. Most psychologists recognize that this is so, but their hypothesis-testing methods tend to be designed with the assumption that all these different factors operate independently of each other, without interacting. This is probably not a useful assumption to make. I also don’t know what to replace it with, because I’m not mathematician enough to know how to cope with the sort of complexity one gets if every factor interacts with every other factor. I know that some people advocate for a turn from a hypothetico-deductive psychology toward a more interpretive one, but no one has yet shown me a version of this that is disciplined enough to give investigators a fighting chance of overcoming their own biases. So I’m kind of stuck in a methodological cul-de-sac. My own tendency is to more or less stick with existing methodological precepts, but to try to be a little bit skeptical and aware that things may go badly awry. Situations matter, and should be in the forefront of the investigator’s mind even when there is no way of actually accounting for their influence.
Jacobsen: Let us take a controversial example with the pendulum swings within the educational philosophies. Some are fads, while others are substantiated. In either case, the attempt is to make a relatively controlled setting, e.g. a single school’s educational environment in one community or standardized tests, extrapolate into improved school performance on some identifiable markers such as those found on the PISA tests, university English preparedness or — ahem — university preparedness, or even training for citizenship in one of the more amorphous claims, and so on. What educational paradigms, within this temporal and cultural quicksand, stand the test of time for general predictive success on a variety of metrics, i.e. have high general ecological validity for education and even life success?
van de Wetering: I confess I find this a thorny issue. Once again, culture matters. In the US, asking children to work on problems they have chosen themselves is very much more motivating than asking them to work on problems chosen by their mothers. In some collectivist cultures (maybe most or even all, this hasn’t been tested a lot) the reverse is the case. This sort of thing makes me wonder how important something like child-centred education is.
One fad we probably shouldn’t get too excited about is the idea that all important learning is procedural, and that it is, therefore, unimportant to learn about content. In the area of critical thinking, it turns out that the most important single tool (if you can call it that) is lots and lots of domain-specific knowledge. Once a person has that, procedures may increase that person’s ability to use that knowledge effectively, but without the knowledge, all the procedures in the world don’t seem to do any good. Reading an article from Wikipedia doesn’t cut it; those bullshit detectors that are so important to critical thinking only develop as a result of fairly deep engagement with a body of material. That said, procedural knowledge is tremendously important; my issue is with the assumption that because knowing how is important knowing what is unimportant.
Probably the number one most important factor in education is an attitudinal one. If we think of educating our children and young adults as a sacred mission, we have a reasonable chance of success. This goes along with reasonably high social status for educators, though not necessarily money. If we think of education as something we do because it keeps kids off of the streets until they are 18 or because it enhances people’s “human capital” for the sake of the job market, then we may be trouble. Then you risk having educators going through the motions; if your educators are not passionate about what they are doing, it is pretty much guaranteed that your students won’t be, either, and then you’ve got a real problem.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sven.
van de Wetering: Thank you, Scott. As always, a thought-provoking exercise.
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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.
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The Atlantic reported on the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting the Earth.
Six busy bees work inside of the ISS. As these are some of the smartest and most talented people from each country, they are important. They take part in this space odyssey.
The group of six travel at thousands of miles per hours. These amount to peaceful ends. Other people want space for different purposes. One of which is for war.
If a single country owns the orbits of the Earth, then they own the surveillance of it. They have the strategic advantage of space-based weaponry too.
The Trump Administration has talked about the so-called Space Force or a Space Corps.
“The debate in Congressover whether to create a Space Corps comes at a time when governments around the world are engaged in a bigger international struggle over how militaries should operate in space,” as described in The Atlantic, “Fundamental changes are already underway. No longer confined to the fiction shelf, space warfare is likely on the horizon.”
These produce concerns for the potential for Sino-Russian relations to increase in intensity. A multinational military response to a space warfare initiative by the United States.
There are international agreements about the operations of war in land, water, and air. But this leaves open questions about space. Few countries can access low Earth orbit.
Few have a space program. Even those that do, like South Africa, it cannot compete. The US, Russia, and China dominate space. So, Sino-Russian relations will see reactions to US innervations into space.
Astronauts get reactions from cosmonauts and sinonauts.
The article stated, “It’s presumed that International Humanitarian Law would apply in outer space — protecting the civilian astronauts aboard the International Space Station — but it’s unclear whether damaging civilian satellites or the space environment itself is covered under the agreement.”
The guidelines for war in space are limited. They are outdated too. How could they not be? With fewer contenders and rules, what would stop a nation from domination of low Earth orbit?
No military conflict took place in space; not in a major way.
The article stated, “In 1962, the United States detonated a 1.4 megaton nuclear weapon 250 miles above the Earth’s surface.”
1/3 of the satellites orbiting around the Earth got obliterated. One region of space became poisoned with radiation for several years. It came from one bomb.
US, Russia, and others signed a treaty to not test nuclear weapons in space. North Korea and China did not sign it.
“In 2007, China tested an anti-satellite weapon, a conventionally-armed missile designed to target and destroy a satellite in orbit. In the process, it annihilated an old Chinese weather satellite and created high-velocity shrapnel that still threatens other satellites,”
The Atlantic explained.
What of the consequences for tests, debris created, and damage to satellites from tests?
Do we have any treaties for this signed onto by everyone?
Wth space warfare, the US may lose out the most. It can gain by establishment of norms. But it can also lose a lot more. Because half of the satellites in space are owned by the US.
Or they remain owned by US-based companies. Two times as many as Russia or China together. All modern conveniences rely to some extent on them.
The article said, “When the U.S. military deploys troops overseas, satellite communications connect forces on the ground to control centers. When North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile, the U.S. and its allies depend on early-warning satellites to detect it.”
With agreements signed onto for limits, everyone can be safer. But the US spent lots of money developing space warfare-intended technologies.
This can cost them money. Lots and lots of money, it creates problems. The first human satellite flew into orbit in 1957. Then the US and Russia owned 9/10ths of the world’s satellites.
That’s a lot. It is a helluva of a lot. But the race began for the perfection of ownership of space. This race was based on fear of the other.
Science, discovery, and diplomacy seem less reasonable than deterrence and control. Starting in 1990, the second stage of the space era began. Now, the landscape of low-Earth orbit is conquered by many actors.
Still the US dominates it, the private comapnies and other nations take part in it. It is a diversifed landscape. Private comapnies have more satellites in orbit than militaries.
“More players in space — particularly more unpredictable players — means more opportunities for aggressive behavior,” the article said, “like developing anti-satellite technologies or hacking satellite communications.”
Iran or Northt Korea could function and operate in ways not seen before. This escalation in space age technology. This spread of it. It can lead to potential standoffs. This was known from the start.
The article explained, “The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 was written to govern a space era far different from the one seen today. Since 2014, a majority of space launches — civil, commercial, and military — have come from outside of the United States and Russia.”
There are work to create a functional guidebook for operation in space have not worked. Russia and China made aproposal for the proper conduct in space. However, the US did not sign onto the proposal. When the US gave explicit support for the EU 2014 proposal for the governed use of conventional weapons in orbit, Russia and China did not agree either.
The article concluded, “Since the congressional debate about a Space Corps, people have been taking the prospect of a war in space seriously, in a way we haven’t seen before. Now we should start talking about how to avoid that war. To prevent conflict in the upper atmosphere, all potential adversaries — the United States, China, North Korea, Iran, Russia, the EU — need to align, and agree on norms of behavior. They need rules.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/30
According to The News Minute, A case has been filed against babu Gogineni for hurting religious sentiments.
Many rationalists and humanists have expressed solidarity with Gogineni. He is known as a human rights activist. The activists showing solidarity condemn the actions using the police by religious fundamentalists to silence critics.
The article stated, “Members of the South Asian Humanist Association, Science for Society, Jana Vignana Vedika and Indian Humanists held a joint press meet at the press club in Somajiguda, where lawyers representing Babu were present. Film critic and actor Mahesh Kathi was also present.”
Gogineni got taken by police, recently, because of accusations against him of both sedition and the hurting of religious sentiments, and some other charges.
“The petitioner, Veera Narayana Chowdary, claimed that his religious sentiments were hurt after watching Babu’s earlier speeches, which prompted him to file the case,” the article continued.
Gogineni and others believe that he has the rights of freedom of expression. The lawyers for him believe that this case will not stand in court. However, this may set a precedent or example, along with others, to silence any critics of the fundamentalist religious authorities.
One lawyer said, “The police which is investigating the case will come to a conclusion on how many charges will stand after scrutiny and how many will not, following which they will approach the court.”
This is a crucial time for Gogineni because the attack came when he could not defend himself. Some view this as an attack on Gogineni as well as a larger attack on humanism and rationalism in the early 21st century.
The president of the Lakshman Reddy, Jana Chaitanya Vedika, reported that he has known Gogineni for a long time and has worked with him around the world. The work has been focused on human rights and humanism.
They spoke together at many villages against superstitions and, indeed, their negative consequences on communities. With this form of attack by police, this becomes an attack on the larger freethinking community.
Gogineni’s allies came to the Cyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar and with a representation submitted to him. Sajjanar stated that he would look closely at the case.
“The lawyers present also explained that the petitioner, Veera Narayana Chowdary, had filed a private complaint in court, following which the police were ordered to look into the allegations,” the article stated, “As it was a court order, the police first registered a case and then began investigation. The police also informed that the petitioner was yet to submit his evidence to them.”
The full listing of the charges are as follows:
The case was registered under Sections 121 (waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the Government of India), 124a (sedition), 153a (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 153b (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 292 (obscenity), 293 (sale, etc, of obscene objects to young person), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 505 (statements conducing public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code.
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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.
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The Des Moines Register talked about a woman who was raised as a Lutheran from a first-person perspective.
The woman, Kimberly Glassman, pointed to a slippery slope argument of some of the Conservatives. She characterized the argument in the following terms, “ If people can love and marry people of their same sex, then there’s nothing to stop them from demanding the right to love and marry their parakeets or their microwave ovens.”
She does not agree with this argument. Glassman argued the slipperiest slopes come with religion. The example being the Supreme Court in the UNited States with the interpretation of religion and the phrase of “sincere and meaningful belief.”
The belief does not have to incorporate a Deity, some ultimate existent thing. Since the idea is a sincere and meaningful belief without the need for a Supreme Being, Glassman notes that this is not even needing to be in the scope of the First Amendment in terms of the gathering together of a bunch of like-minded individuals.
Then these people can get a bunch of superb tax breaks and protections against the social and cultural milieu’s criticism.
Glass queries, “Don’t want to get your children vaccinated? Declare a sincerely held belief. Don’t want to bake a wedding cake for two women? Trot out your abiding faith in a just and loving — of some people — God. Don’t want to uphold your Hippocratic oath if the patient doesn’t conform to your view of right and normal? Get Congress to pass a law protecting your appalling lack of ethics or simple humanity as a ‘religious freedom.’”
She further notes that this does not have to include the Bible or the Quran, or a Theity, but, rather, simply needs to include religion.
She relates the idea of White supremacists who remain a “clear and present danger” to American society. Glassman imagines seeing people flying a Nazi flag while walking down the flag.
“If I were to see one walking down the street flying the Nazi flag, would I be within my First Amendment rights to hit him with my car? Probably not. What if I were an EMT and my ambulance came upon him bleeding in the street? Could I refuse to administer medical assistance or carry him to the hospital?”
She asks these great questions. Glassman does this to illustrate the absurd privilege of religion above other systems and categories in the United States to exemplify the undue deference to religion.
Glass man continued, “Your sincerely held belief might be that left-handedness is the mark of Satan. After all, only about 10 percent of the population is left-handed. It is clearly not ‘normal,’” she said.
What about the banning of the scissors for the lef-handed and the blacklisting of the switching sides baseball players when at the plate to bat. There could be the denial of jobs and housing to those who are left-handed and why not. I would be a faith-based initiative and religious freedom issue.
Why is religious freedom a valid excuse for bigotry and denial of the fundamental rights of others?
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/26
According to CNN, India has become, or maybe remains, the single most dangerous nation on the face of the Earth for women.
This is based on a survey reported on by relevant experts. The Thomson Reuters Foundation produced a survey of 550 experts on women’s issues, which found India as the most dangerous for women in a number of particular areas.
For one, the sexual violence domains, where women are the vast majority of the victims around the world. Another area is in human trafficking for sexual slavery. That is mostly women and girls too.
The other areas are for domestic work, forced labor, and then forced marriage. Each disproportionately women and girls who tend not to have any or if they do few rights in the international scene.
There were other areas in the research domains. One was the look into the dangers for women regarding the cultural traditions that impact women in a negative way and, of course, disproportionately.
There were a number of unique, almost, to women areas including acid attacks against them, female genital mutilation, infibulation, clitoridectomy, child marriage and then physical abuse.
These are the contexts for women and girls, which are, for the most part completely different than the concerns for the men and boys in the world and in particular in India, which is one of the most populace nations in the entire world.
Thus, the concern is amplified based on the number of women in the country being subjected to these brutal, harsh, and unjust conditions. It moved up from fourth to first place in terms of danger for women regarding the comparison between the survey from seven years ago.
Nine of the tenn countries with the worst conditions for women were in Asia and the Middle East and Africa. Interestingly, number ten in the world wwas the United States of America coming in at 10th place.
It is the only country from the West where this is the case. The Thomson Reuters Foundation claimed this was the reason for being a catalyst country for the #MeToo movement.
The top ten countries are as follows:
1. India
2. Afghanistan
3. Syria
4. Somalia
5. Saudi Arabia
6. Pakistan
7. Democratic Republic of Congo
8. Yemen
9. Nigeria
10. United States
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/25
“After failing to fully resolve two difficult cases this term, the Supreme Court signaled Monday it was still not ready to decide whether a Christian shop owner can refuse service to a same-sex wedding or when some states have gone too far in gerrymandering their election maps for partisan advantage.
The justices said they would not hear two similar cases in the fall, instead sending them back to lower courts to be reconsidered under the hazy standards recently issued by the high court.
The brief orders, issued without registered dissents, suggest the justices are essentially deadlocked on both issues for now.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy usually acts as the tiebreaker in close cases, but he apparently declined this month to decide on the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering or whether store owners can claim a religious exemption from a state civil rights law that requires equal treatment for all customers, including gays and lesbians.”
Source: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-court-florist-20180625-story.html.
“When the famous American cosmologist and science popularizer Carl Sagan made his 1980 documentary Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, his script struck what his wife and co-writer Ann Druyan described as a deliberately “biblical cadence.”
“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be,” Sagan said. “Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”
It was no accident that his opening lines evoked the same sense of primitive wonder as the opening lines of Genesis, according to a new research paper. Presenting science in the rhetorical garb of religion is an effective trick that has been recently repeated in the documentary’s remake, Cosmos: a Spacetime Odyssey, hosted by the American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Both programs illustrate just how deeply modern science has been “enchanted” by religion, according to research presented at the recent Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Regina. Popularizers of science borrow religion’s ancient tools of awe, reverence, and wonder to pitch to a younger generation that has largely abandoned organized religion, but still yearns for deeper meaning.”
“The idea for the film came to Arora when she had taken a sabbatical from her job — she works in the development sector and has been associated with several non-profits over the years. “I wanted to explore this topic for two important reasons. One, I have always been a feminist, even before I knew the term and two, I had my love-hate relationship with religion,” she told Scroll.in. “I was a fairly religious child and as I grew up, I saw how religion is used as a tool for discrimination. That was something that motivated me to explore how different religions in our country affect the human rights of women.”
Her experience in the non-profit sector had also showed her that when it comes to women’s rights, no real change is possible without examining the role of religion in society. “We always talk about changing the mindset of people and I think we definitely cannot ignore the dynamics of structures like religion and caste when we are trying to do that,” she said. “Religion is something which in India you just can’t escape.””
“ The ninth edition of Pew Research Center’s annual report on religious restrictions revealed a rise of limitations in 2016 . Researchers found that approximately 42 percent of the surveyed countries have considerable religious restriction levels. This includes hostile acts carried out by private individuals or government. The study comprised a total of 198 nations. Religious Restrictions on the Rise TWEET THIS This is the second consecutive year that religion suffered empirical restrictions either through actions led by the government or pressured by religion or social groups. To compare, it was 40 percent in 2015. Much higher than 2007 when it was only 29 percent. The study found the number of countries dropping into this repressive list have risen over the years. The statistics point out that about 28 percent of nations within this survey imposed high or extremely high government restriction levels on religion during 2016. This is a rise of 25 percent from 2015. The Pew study showed that the number of countries with religious hostilities remained the same at 27 percent. When it came to mapping politics with geography, the Pew study showed citizens of North Africa along with the Middle East suffered the most government restrictions on their religion. Both Americans and Europeans went through a period of increasing averages on the issue of hostility based on religion and society. The nationalist groups played a pivotal role in the religion restriction upswing, specifically through targeting certain religious and ethnic minorities.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=53754.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/25
“Despite the Trump administration’s trotting out of out-of-context biblical references to justify its wrongful civil authority as “ordained by God,” the maneuver fell flat with most religious leaders, including the Pope. After all, to be moral in an immoral society is the grand calling of most major religions, including in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as secular humanism. In the end, the sounds of wailing, caged children stunned the nation, causing even an amoral and famously non-empathetic president to reverse course and take the very action that days earlier he and members of his Cabinet had claimed was not possible.
For more than 2,000 children, that backtracking came too late. Having been ripped from their parents’ grasp by armed and uniformed officers and transported — often in the dead of night to at least 17 different states across the nation — will leave permanent scars on these little ones’ psyches. What’s worse is that agents at federal facilities allegedly were ordered not to pick up distraught children. It’s not hard to understand how the administration’s family separation policy, which seemed calculated to bolster Trump’s image as an uncompromising strongman, sparked widespread anger and protest. So the pious religious blather of the president’s sycophants seemed like more salt poured into the wound, sparking even greater outrage from the truly religious.”
“(THE CONVERSATION) When I overcame a flying phobia, I resolved to make up for lost time by visiting as much of the world as I could.
So in the course of a decade, I logged over 300,000 miles, flying everywhere from Buenos Aires to Dubai.
I knew intuitively that my travels would “make me a better person” and “broaden my horizon,” as the clichés have it. But I’ve come to believe that travel can, and should, be more than a hobby, luxury or form of leisure. It is a fundamental component of being a humanist.
At its core, humanism is about exploring and debating the vital ideas that make us who we are. We study music, film, art and literature to do just that. And while it’s important to explore these ideas in our own communities, people and places that are not like us have a role to play that’s just as crucial.
This is where travel comes in. It’s what sent me packing to see some of the places I have spent so long reading about. And it’s what compelled me to write “The Importance of Elsewhere: The Globalist Humanist Tourist,” in which I wanted to make a case for a new approach to travel.”
Source: https://www.myplainview.com/news/article/It-s-time-for-a-new-approach-to-travel-13016673.php.
“The most powerful presence onstage Sunday at the 72nd Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City was absence. A performance of “Seasons of Love” by the drama department from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School left the star-studded audience drenched in tears and the viewing public silently wondering about the lost potential of the 14 students shot dead on Valentine’s Day at the school in Parkland, Fla.
Despite the aching national wound the performance opened, its underlying message was one of unity and humanism, both themes that provided the foundation for a night in which winners made bold, heartfelt statements in support of LGBTQ rights, diversity, feminism, immigration, the perils of depression and the healing merit of art itself.
Although the show’s political overtones were many and obvious, the president was not mentioned until the eleventh hour, when, before introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen, Robert De Niro denounced Donald Trump by name and a bleeped epithet beginning in “F.” He received a rousing standing ovation for his efforts.”
Source: http://eng.majalla.com/2018/06/article55256708/messages-of-unity-humanism-at-tony-awards.
“Even as tech companies have weathered scandals, many have also redirected attention toward their more socially redeeming activities by promoting the concept of humanistic technology. Tom Gruber of Apple describes Siri as “humanistic AI — artificial intelligence designed to meet human needs by collaborating [with] and augmenting people.” Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has said, “Human-centered AI can help create a better world.” Google’s Fei-Fei Li has called human-centered AI, “AI for Good and AI for All.” Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg believes the company can build “long term social infrastructure to bring humanity together.”
The word “human” crops up in conversations across the technology industry, but it’s not always clear what it means — assuming it means anything at all. Intuitively comprehensible, it sounds nonthreatening, especially in contrast to alienating jargon such as “machine learning.” It also builds on the popularity of human-centered design in recent years, a practice that is best known for its emphasis on cultivating deep empathy between developers and users. But calling the results “humanistic” is ultimately rhetorical sleight of hand that suggests much and means little. Unless these companies reconsider their underlying approach, their words will remain empty.
Among the big tech companies, Google has voiced the clearest expression of the idea of humanistic AI In March, Li, chief scientist for AI research at Google Cloud, penned a New York Times op-ed in which she writes, “A human-centered approach to A.I. means these machines don’t have to be our competitors, but partners in securing our well-being.” Yet even as it was promoting the idea of human-centered AI, Google was actively pursuing Project Maven, a major Department of Defense contract to develop artificial intelligence for use in drones. Effectively acknowledging the disconnect, Google announced that it would not renew the DOD contract and laid out a set of ethical guidelines in which it clarified that it would not be “developing AI for use in weapons.” Recognizing the potential negative publicity that this application of its technology could generate, in an internal company email, Li warned: “Google Cloud has been building our theme on Democratizing AI in 2017, and Diane [Greene] and I have been talking about Humanistic AI for enterprise. I’d be super careful to protect these very positive images.””
“The lure of humanism is its universal appeal, and its global sense and commitment to human beneficence is its strength and compelling force. An international meeting of humanists, such as the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s Conference to be held in New Zealand in August presents yet another opportunity to assess the force and state of humanism in the world. This conference is an occasion to take stock and review the progress (if any) that the international humanist movement has made in the past years. The meeting is a platform to understand how the movement has tried to fulfill its goals and objectives especially the project of promoting the humanist outlook around the globe. In fact, at this meeting, humanists will be examining how the movement has tried to deliver a 21st-century humanism, that is, a form of humanism that is in accordance with the realities of the time. This meeting is an occasion for reflection, introspection and critical self-assessment especially by those who come from parts of the world where organised humanism has yet to make a very significant impact.
The fact is that humanism presents a perennial challenge. Every generation of humanists faces and tries to address this challenge. History is filled with attempts and initiatives by past generations of humanists to fulfill this obligation and exercise the duty of fostering human rights and other human values. So the question now is this: how can this generation of humanists confront the challenge of creating a more humanistic world? Put more pointedly, how can humanism help address the inequities around the globe? This is because structural inequalities -both political and economic — within nations and between nations are at the root of the crisis that bedevils the world. They underlie the palpable anger, frustration, and desperation that rage in many regions.
Whether it is the wars in the Middle East, the conflicts across Africa, or the terrorist attacks in Europe, Africa and Oceania, the displacement of persons in all these happenings indicates an imbalance in the configuration of the world. Due to these inequities, people have been forced to migrate and flee their home countries. People have been compelled to abandon their family members. In fact, many migrants have made hazardous journey across deserts, and on the seas by boats in search of a more secured life elsewhere. The global structure that has orchestrated this uprooting of peoples beckons for change because it cannot stand.”
Source: https://guardian.ng/opinion/humanism-and-global-inequalities/.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/25
“In light of the article written last month about atheism, it is clear there is a severe misunderstanding among some county residents about others. I was encouraged to help set the record straight as best I can on what atheism is and who atheists are.
Atheists, or non-theists, are people who do not assert the existence of God or any gods. That’s it. Note the lack of any other prerequisites. There’s nothing about needing to accept evolution as fact. Nothing about being pro-abortion. Nothing about being conservative. Nothing about being ABBA fans. And of course, nothing about worshiping Satan. It’s hard to worship something one doesn’t believe in.
Atheism has no dogma. Atheism has no creed. Atheism has no tenets. This doesn’t mean people who are atheists do not adhere to a dogma, creed, or set of tenets in their daily lives. Atheists do not necessarily share much in common with other atheists. Some atheists are spiritual (Theravada Buddhists), some believe in an afterlife or reincarnation, ghosts and spirits. Some atheists are wealthy while others are poor. Some atheists are artists while others build cars (arguably an art). Some are farmers, some are nurses, some are foresters, and some are business owners. Atheists may be the most compassionate people you’ll ever meet. And don’t quote me on this, but I hear that some adult atheists still cry when Simba finds Mufasa after the wildebeest stampede in The Lion King.
I hope this helps clear things up.”
Source: http://fillmorecountyjournal.com/devils-advocateatheism/.
“Towards the end of the Radio 702 interview about my book, You Have to Be Gay to Know God,Eusebius McKaiser asked whether I had switched to “the gospel of Richard Dawkins” since the book was published. I then shared my political misgivings about Dawkinesque atheism.
The social media pushback from some listeners compels me to point out how the proponents of atheism typically share the blind spots of liberals. The right to freedom of speech is normally invoked for their political activism. The limits on this right have been discussed ad nauseam by others.
Here’s the upshot: the bad-faith use of the right externalises the cost of an unjust economic status quo, while fronting a political innocence or self-righteousness that’s at odds with the speaker’s position, making a mockery of whatever liberal position the speaker claims for himself or herself.
I recognise this trick from religion, where heterosexually married, sexually satiated pastors recommend celibacy to me — don’t get me started on what they preached and lived with regard to money.”
“In recent years, as atheists have become more comfortable stepping out of the closet and living as out, open nonbelievers, we’ve seen an influx in believers lashing out against atheists, publicly stating they’re not welcome, or worse yet, should leave the country.
In just the latest example of this, the Boy Scouts of America, already known by the secular community to be discriminatory against atheists, reinforced their stance at their 2018 annual meeting. During the event, the BSA National Executive Board adopted a resolution entitled, “Reaffirming Duty to God.” In part, it says:
The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgement of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members. No matter what the religious faith of the members may be, this fundamental of good citizenship should be kept before them.
So basically, BSA doesn’t care which “God” you believe in, as long as you’re not one of those nasty nonbelievers. Those filthy atheists couldn’t possibly be good citizens. But was this resolution necessary? Did it change anything in the Scout Oath or Scout Laws? No. It didn’t do anything but restate what they’ve already said for decades. This was purely an effort to publicly reassure religious groups who have aligned with BSA through the years that BSA is still full of God-fearing people who deserve financial support. Translated, this says, “Hey baby, I know you’re mad about us letting in the gays, transgender kids, and now the girls, but we still love Jesus and want to keep out the atheists, so are we cool?””
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularvoices/2018/06/21/when-will-anti-atheism-be-viewed-as-bigotry/.
“Patton Oswalt, a comedian and actor who is known for his atheist beliefs, recently mocked the Bible and compared it to works of fiction.
“Dear people citing The Bible,” Oswalt wrote on Twitter. “It’s a cool book with some wonderful passages but it also has ghost sex & giants & super babies & demons. It’s why we don’t make laws based on Game of Thrones, My Little Pony or Legend of Zelda.”
Oswalt, who has appeared in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Ratatouille, and currently plays Principal Durbin on NBC’s A.P. Bio, often brings up atheism in his stand-up comedy.
But this tweet didn’t leave users laughing, with the actor-comedian receiving pushback.
“When DMK working president M.K. Stalin accepted temple honours at Srirangam last week, it immediately kicked up a minor storm, with many criticising him for allegedly betraying the party’s atheist and rationalist beliefs.
But then this is not the first time that Mr. Stalin is seen accepting a ceremonial welcome by Hindu priests. In 2015, he had held a meeting with temple priests in Kumbakonam and even visited the Thirukoshtiyur temple, where Saint Ramanuja, ignoring the warning of his guru, climbed the temple tower and administered the sacred Astakshara — Om Namo Narayanaya — to the public, irrespective of their caste or origins.
In fact, it is not just Mr. Stalin who is seen courting the devout. One could see more and more DMK MLAs coming to the Assembly flaunting their religious credentials, including smearing their foreheads with the holy ash or sporting the kumkum, a practice more common among the AIADMK Ministers and MLAs.”
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/23
WalesOnline reported on the increases in divisiveness and inteolerance spreading over the globe.
This has a number of co-occurring factors and influences. One of the big ones is the increased proliferation of communications technologies and the development of science implemented in technology.
These combined can increased the efficiency of physical and informational travel. That creates a world more global, smaller to transmit information or travel from point-to-point.
“In a world of increasing intolerance and division, a world undergoing dramatic change due to technological advance and globalisation, it is sometimes easier to become entrenched in narrow beliefs,” WalesOnline stated, “and to ignore the expanse of thought and imagination that there is in the world and the commonality of libertarian belief that there is in the world whether that be related to a belief in God or a rational belief in none.”
The article continues to argue in favour of humanism, noting its foundation as a long-term tradition for the free thought community. That has been a source of inspiration for some of the great minds and thinkers in the history of the world.
That is, it also created the foundation for the affirmation of the scientific revolution or empirical revolution more precisely.
The reportage explained, “Humanism is ethical; it affirms the worth and dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others.”
As noted in an earlier article, but this also extends into the entertainment world where the technological advancements, communications technologies infusions, and globalization of culture show themselves in full force, the cultural milieu has moved from the local to the global.
Majalla Magazine provided some insight into this. It talked about the creative performances of the night. The renditions of various music hits and the ways in which this was “broadcast int millions of American homes.”
It is interesting to note that statement. Something not possible centuries ago. Technology permits the closeness of and pervasiveness of shared experience. That forms a basis for humanism, non-explicit — quiet, in the veins of the society.
There were speeches and talks about diversity and representation of peoples not typically seen on the scene decades before, where the venues were blocked from them. Not these people as individuals alone, but also people who look like them, diversity and representation does not by necessity reduce the need for talent.
Talented people from a broad range of backgrounds.
The importance of diversity and representation was underlined repeatedly throughout the night. Even so-called trivial social media technology showed other items of interest, the article reported.
“Along with the politics and pathos, threads of whimsy, humor and hope wove through the proceedings on the heels of the hashtag #TonyDreaming,” It stated, “At the invitation of Groban and Bareilles, fans tweeted images of themselves engaged in theater, often at very young ages, and mostly looking earnest and hopeful. The results were projected here and there throughout the night, reminding viewers at home, and the famous faces in the room, of the power of theater to unite, even as it celebrates difference.”
Difference and unity, technology and culture sent to millions for a shared experience, this gives an impression of a silent humanism on the air, riding technology’s waves, and over the world’s shared airwaves.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/21
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If you could take a single person in Nigeria who has spread humanism the most, who is it? Why them?
Isaiah Akorita: Leo Igwe. I choose him because at the time when most of us were still finding our feet in this highly religious atmosphere, Leo Igwe was already championing the fight against child abuse in the form of witchcraft accusations and taking his activism into the international community.
Jacobsen:How do the youth view religion in Nigeria? Is humanism more of a minority belief system than the others?
Akorita:Religion is still a very huge part of the life of the youths in Nigeria. Our university campuses are filled with religious fellowships. Humanism is still a tiny minority in Nigeria.
Jacobsen:Are the youth more likely to reject religion than the older generations?
Akorita:Yes. We have accounts of many youths who have started questioning their religious upbringing due to contact with Humanists and atheists on social media. We can’t say the same for the older generations.
Jacobsen:How do the irreligious in Nigeria mobilize and bring themselves together for a common front in the light of the massive ‘lobby’ for the religious in the country?
Akorita:We are only just starting to take our activism beyond social media into the offline socio-political sphere. We hope to have a powerful voice soon and so far, it is looking good for us.
Jacobsen:How does religion influence politics in Nigeria?
Akorita:Oh. Our politics cannot be separated from the two major religions here. Christianity and Islam have a firm grip on the policies of this country.
Jacobsen:Any final thoughts or feelings?
Akorita:I think the Humanist movement in Nigeria is starting to gain serious traction and I’m hopeful we’ll start to make serious impacts soon. With the formation of the Atheist Society of Nigeria and the soon to be approved Humanist Association, we’re definitely on the right track.
Jacobsen:Thank you for your time, Isaiah.
Akorita: You’re 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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/20
Humanism and AI
The modern technological landscape continues to alter. The world with it. There has been use of the term “Humanism” to describe the orientation of giant technological companies in the development of artificial intellignece.
The Washington Post stated, “Tom Gruber of Apple describes Siri as “humanistic AI — artificial intelligence designed to meet human needs by collaborating [with] and augmenting people.”
Satya Nadella, who is the Chief Executive of Microsoft, said, “Human-centered AI can help create a better world.” In short, the rhetoric around artificial intelligence amounts to the utilization of the terms “humanism” and “humanistic,” or “human-centered,” to substantiate the mission of the AI development.
The Washington Post argues the terms such as the aforementioned emerge in the conversation around the bringing of humanity together. However, some important points come in the form of the rhetorical aspect and the connection to the reality of it.
“The word “human” crops up in conversations across the technology industry, but it’s not always clear what it means — assuming it means anything at all,” the article opines, “Intuitively comprehensible, it sounds nonthreatening, especially in contrast to alienating jargon such as ‘machine learning.’”
The orientation of the larger companies is proposed to be for ergonomy. The development of technologies by and for human needs and wants. This becomes the basis for the use, even abuse, of the terms humanistic, argues the article.
“But calling the results “humanistic” is ultimately rhetorical sleight of hand that suggests much and means little. Unless these companies reconsider their underlying approach, their words will remain empty,” the reportage continued, “Among the big tech companies, Google has voiced the clearest expression of the idea of humanistic AI In March, Li, chief scientist for AI research at Google Cloud, penned a New York Times op-ed.”
Google did not renew the Department of Defence contract and set forth ethical guidelines for the development of technologies not for weapons. AI weapons would be a bad future, a non-positive for humans future.
However, is this the case? Does the non-renewal of the contract and the orientation of the technological curve make for a humanistic technology movement?
The Washington Post explained, “Consider computer vision, a type of AI that was key to Project Maven (and is central to self-driving cars). Photographic images from cameras mounted on drones are widely used to gather visual evidence and provide forensic truth value for military decision-makers.”
The work requires a huge amount of human labor to make sense of the information collected. There are many cases in which a drone has misidentified a target. The question is the human value framework.
Although, as a small interjection, people have different values from one another. Thus, the conception of a single human-values framework implies a universalization of human values.
What if these human-values and humanistic values purported to represent all humankind simply reflect the orientations of the billionaires and technology companies?
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/19
WalesOnline reported on the possibility of Humanism providing for the need of unity and tolerance in the modern world.
Especially with the increasing divisions seen in the world with the increase connectivity of globalism and the onslaught of technological advances, we can only move forward with the encroachment of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the knowledge economy.
These changes seem inevitable. The question is less if and more when, and the answer: sooner than later. As the article states, “…it is sometimes easier to become entrenched in narrow beliefs and to ignore the expanse of thought and imagination that there is in the world and the commonality of libertarian belief that there is in the world whether that be related to a belief in God or a rational belief in none.”
However, argues the article from the perspective of Humanism, it can give scientific and rationalist basis for the development of creativity, free thought, and the proper framework for the affirmation of modern human rights for people, for individual human beings.
“Humanism is ethical; it affirms the worth and dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others,” the article explained.
The purpose is to use the developments of science in a humanistic framework with compassion to direct the neutral tools and technologies of science more towards their constructive future.
Democracy and human rights become the societal and universal versions of these with the solutions to the world’s problems from them. Do theocracies advance democracy? No. Are they humanist? No.
In this, humanism does more readily support democracy and human rights than some of the other belief systems. Historically, this does seem to be the case.
“It believes that with personal liberty comes social responsibility. It is undogmatic, imposing no creed and is committed to education free of indoctrination,” the article reported, “It is like, ethical socialism, a lifestyle, aimed at maximising fulfilment through the cultivation of ethical and creative way of living and offers and ethical and rational means of addressing the challenges of our times.”
The inequities of the world in terms of the division of resources continue to separate with the wealthy outpacing the themselves in avarice. “We live in a world where it is predicted that by 2030 50% of the world’s wealth will be in the hands of 1% of the population. Half the world flourishes whilst half the world starves,” the reportage stated.
The societies of the world become less stable and the nationalism erise for various reasons with one being the continued discontent of the individuals involved in this endeavour.
Humanism may provide a framework upon which to provide for those needs, at least as a tacit philosophy embedded in universal human rights, science, and compassion. It would necessitate the reduction of the global inequality seen in the modern world.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/17
“Non-religious families are creating a new landscape for teaching their children to navigate life without faith, according to an article from NPR.
For many parents who don’t believe or practice on a personal level, there is still a consensus that children need religion in order to be compassionate and moral. That’s what these families are trying to change.
People often, as you may expect, would leave religion during the rebellious teenage years — [Professor Christel] Manning says the baby boomers were the first generation to do this in fairly large numbers. But about half of them went back after they got married.
…
In addition to the spouses themselves, there are often parents and other family members who want influence, and kids who want answers. These are some pretty big questions — kids are asking about life and death, right and wrong, and who are we?
The answer to these questions was often found in religion. But this isn’t holding true for the current generation of parents. They aren’t returning to religious affiliation — or affiliating in the first place.
“There is increasing evidence that a correlation exists between a person’s social support and engagement and their longevity. At a bare minimum, it makes sense because it is challenging to manage chronic disease or recovery from hospitalization on your own. A new study looks at religious participation as a marker for that social integration and to avoid the bias of self-reported religious activity; the researchers measured religious involvement noted in obituaries. (Of course, they might also have induced a bit of bias on the report of grieving family members writing those obituaries)
There is a clear link between attendance at religious services and social support, even the number of close friends. Involvement in any group activity in the long-term fosters more social relationships. One theory, religion as a social value, suggests that being religious in a region where religion is socially valued may confer a halo of benefits, primarily stress reduction. The hypothesis tested by the researchers was that religious affiliation noted within obituaries would confer a survival benefit beyond that already conferred by marital status and gender.”
Source: https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092.
“A new survey has found that most LGBTQ adults in the United States are religious and more than half are Christian, to the surprise of people of faith in the community.
Conducted by Buzzfeed and Whitman Insight Strategies, the survey is the most extensive of its kind and talked to over 880 members of the LGBTQ community from across the country from May 21 to June 1. Overall, the study found that LGBTQ people are largely white, women and under 40-years-old. Of those surveyed more than half identified as bi-sexual while the smallest group of people surveyed identified as transgender.
While 39 percent of those polled said that they had no religious affiliation whatsoever, more than half of the respondents said that they were regularly involved in faith organizations. A majority of people who were religious were Christian, with 23 percent identifying as Protestant and 18 percent identifying as Catholic.”
Source: http://www.newsweek.com/lgbtq-gay-pride-catholic-church-religion-979966.
“The spectacle of the royal wedding last month, viewed by countless millions around the globe, didn’t reflect reality, not of times past and definitely not of today.
Bride and groom come both from broken homes. The bride had been married before. The pledge on the altar “till death do us part” may be an ideal, but is today, and perhaps has always been, far removed from reality.
A good number of those attending the ceremony, including three of the Queen’s four children, aren’t with the spouses to whom they originally made that pledge.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/17
“Havana, June 13. -Mexican professor and researcher Sandra Valera highlighted here the importance of teaching based on humanism, in the context of the second session of the International Congress on Science and Education.
In statements to Prensa Latina, Valera expressed her satisfaction with the priorities of the Cuban education system, marked by democracy, freedom, welfare and equal opportunities for children and young people.
She also noted that unfortunately the competency-based approach, similar to that of a business system, prevails in some countries, without taking into account that education has nothing to do with this area.
We have to prepare students for life, but from the deepest values, she added, and stressed the legacies of the Cuban National Hero, Jose Marti.”
“Dr. Leo Igwe is the founder of the Nigerian Humanist Movement and former Western and Southern African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. On May 27, 2018, we published an interview. Here, we talk on the responsibility that comes with public recognition of excellence.
Dr. Igwe and I were conversing on the subject of the widespread recognition in Nigeria and African, especially the non-religious and humanist communities for founding the movement.
The Nigerian Humanist Movement, the first person to enact this formal movement out of tens of millions. He is an ever-active activist for the non-religious and a spokesperson for the equality of men and women, of the need for the implementation of human rights, and the importance of critical thinking and scientific education.”
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/nigeria-sjbn/.
“Dr. Leo Igwe is the founder of the Nigerian Humanist Movement and former Western and Southern African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. On August 16, 2017, we published an interview. Here, we talk about gender roles.
Igwe and I had an extensive conversation on the nature of gender roles in the context of modern Nigerian. The sub-text of the conversation came from modern and Indigenous spiritualities of the African continent, the colonial religions seen in Islam and Christianity, and with the pre-text of humanism rejecting these Indigenous and colonial supernaturalisms to define gender.
When we began to talk more, the emphasis of the conversation focused on the humanist masculinity. What is it? What defines it? How is it constrained, defined, and set about in practical terms?
Igwe stated, “It is the idea of maleness that emphasizes the humanity of men and males, the fact that men are human like their female counterparts. That males have emotions, entertain fear and suffer pain like their female counterparts. Simply humanistic masculinity stands for maleness as humanness.””
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/culture/humanist-masculinity-igwe-sjbn/.
“The most powerful presence onstage on Sunday at the 72nd Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City was absence. A performance of Seasons of Love by the drama department from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School left the star-studded audience drenched in tears and the viewing public silently wondering about the lost potential of the 14 students shot dead on Valentine’s Day at the school in Parkland, Florida.
Despite the aching wound the performance opened, its underlying message was one of unity and humanism, both themes that provided the foundation for a night in which winners made bold, heartfelt statements in support of LGBTQ rights, diversity, feminism, immigration, the perils of depression and the healing merit of art itself.
Although the show’s political overtones were many and obvious, the president was not mentioned until the eleventh hour, when, before introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen, Robert De Niro denounced Donald Trump by name and a bleeped epithet beginning in “F.” He received a rousing standing ovation for his efforts.”
Source: https://gulfnews.com/culture/theatre/tony-awards-2018-all-about-unity-humanism-1.2234955.
“Humans need humans. Anyone who has changed a plane ticket with an automated phone teller, or plodded through a digital pharmacy order is sympathetic to this fact. If only a human were on the other side of that receiver — how much easier would it be to get that ticket or that prescription? In an increasingly digital world, this seemingly mundane point about the role of humans in our lives becomes profound.
The scientific literature is clear. Humans are born into a socio-cultural world with (hopefully) socially sensitive adults who offer information that flows through a socially gated brain. Humans do not even learn the building blocks of reading or mathematics in isolation. These skills emerge in the context of early adult child interactions that feed communication skills. For example, a child learning to read does need decoding skills. Even if they sound out a word perfectly, however, they will not comprehend it if it’s not in their mental dictionary. Children cannot gather meaning from printed text without background knowledge and a rich language base. Thus, a number of scholars urge practitioners to teach reading by enriching language learning. And language learning is itself rooted in early social interactions. Social interactions are the currency of our species. As Michael Tomasello of Duke University argues, we are the ultra-human species.”
“The lure of humanism is its universal appeal, and its global sense and commitment to human beneficence is its strength and compelling force. An international meeting of humanists, such as the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s Conference to be held in New Zealand in August presents yet another opportunity to assess the force and state of humanism in the world. This conference is an occasion to take stock and review the progress (if any) that the international humanist movement has made in the past years.
The meeting is a platform to understand how the movement has tried to fulfill its goals and objectives especially the project of promoting the humanist outlook around the globe. In fact, at this meeting, humanists will be examining how the movement has tried to deliver a 21st-century humanism, that is, a form of humanism that is in accordance with the realities of the time. This meeting is an occasion for reflection, introspection and critical self-assessment especially by those who come from parts of the world where organized humanism has yet to make a very significant impact.
The fact is that humanism presents a perennial challenge. Every generation of humanists faces and tries to address this challenge. History is filled with attempts and initiatives by past generations of humanists to fulfill this obligation and exercise the duty of fostering human rights and other human values. So the question now is this: how can this generation of humanists confront the challenge of creating a more humanistic world? Put more pointedly, how can humanism help address the inequities around the globe? This is because structural inequalities -both political and economic — within nations and between nations are at the root of the crisis that bedevils the world. They underlie the palpable anger, frustration, and desperation that rage in many regions.”
Source: https://www.modernghana.com/news/861455/can-humanism-provide-answers-to-global-inequities.html.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/17
“The day I told my father I didn’t want to go to church anymore, I may as well have turned into Satan himself. For hours, I tried to explain how I do not agree with the church’s teachings, but he wasn’t budging. I was just another “brainwashed liberal” that gathered all my ideologies from the internet.
While parents tend to be the last people you want to disappoint, I was tired of being shoved into a box of religion. They always told me, “It’s about relationship with God, not religion,” but failed to adhere to the fact that they were still following a religion, based on a book written more than 2,000 years ago, at least.
My parents were not always churchgoers. Eight years ago, my father began to attend with my older brother, eventually letting my little brother and I tag along, and soon enough, my mother was convinced, too. In the beginning it was nice. Everybody hugged me, spoke positively, occasionally provided free donuts for the youth, and so on. However, I was far too young to actually understand religion. I just figured, “Hey, these people are nice. I like this.””
Source: https://www.wintersexpress.com/sports-youth/education/atheism-scholarship-winner-essay/.
“Stalin counters Minister’s ‘double standards’ jibe; says DMK’s stand is clear
Legislators of the ruling AIADMK and the opposition DMK — both tracing their roots to the Dravidian movement — were engaged in an interesting debate in the Assembly on Wednesday, as they questioned each other’s stand on atheism, and whether there had been a departure from their respective stances over the years.
Participating in the debate on the demand for grants for the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department, DMK MLA and former HR&CE Minister K.R. Periakaruppan (Tirupattur) said though their party leader and DMK president M. Karunanidhi never visited temples, he was keen on the efficient functioning of the department.”
“Back at Easter time, I had quite a debate on Facebook with, amongst others, a friend I used to play rugby with. He is something of a conservative, in the classical sense — a sort of old-school CofE defender of the faith and conservative values. The sort of one who knows best because, you know, he used to be a left-wing Marxist-type, but he grew out of it (Alister McGrath, anyone?). I have many debates all over the shop, and what with all the very many things I do, and writing, blogging etc., I often don’t get to finish conversations and discussions as the next one comes along and takes up my time. I have to remind people to draw me back into conversations in order to get closure.
The problem is, the amount of time that Facebook discussions can take up only for them to be lost in the annals of time, I would prefer to commit those thoughts to a blog piece. Which will still get lost in the annals of time. But hey ho.
Let me look at his (and someone else’s) prominent comments — I am not differentiating the pair commenting here, since it is the ideas that need dealing with, so they have been spliced together.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/06/16/atheism-soullessness-and-a-lack-of-narrative/.
“Towards the end of the Radio 702 interview on You Have To Be Gay To Know God, Eusebius Mckaiser asked whether I’d switched to “The Gospel of Richard Dawkins” since the book was published. I then shared my political misgivings on Dawkinesque atheism.
The social media pushback from some listeners compels me to point out how atheisms’ proponents typically share liberals’ blind spots. The right to freedom of speech is normally invoked for their political activism. The limits on this right have been discussed ad nauseam by others.
Here’s the upshot: the bad-faith use of the right externalises the cost of an unjust economic status quo, while fronting a political innocence or self-righteousness that’s at odds with the speaker’s positionality, making a mockery of whatever liberal position the speaker claims for himself or herself. I recognise this trick from religion, where heterosexually-married, sexually-satiated pastors recommend celibacy to me; don’t get me started on what they preached and lived with regards to money.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/14
The Bangladeshi bloggers and writer, many of whom are quite likely humanists in some form or other and most prbably non-religious, continue to gain international attention due to their difficulties .
Humanists UK reported on Shahzahan Bachchu. He was a poet and writer. Bachchu focused on secularism and huumanism. The past tense is used because Bachchu was shot dead.
He was in his home village at the time: Kakaldi, Bangladesh. This amounts to one of a number of humanist who have been murdered around the country throughout the last five years.
He is dead. Others are dead. Most by murder. People were murdered for their beliefs. In particular, the smarter and more intellectual members of the community with moral integrity in more difficult circumstances than those in West.
Dr. Norman Finkelstein seems correct in the examination of the West. It can be a synonym for soft: soft people. Not necessarily bad or pejorative, but softer and less resilient, especially if finding ourselves in similar circumstances.
The campaign of murders have taken several lives over the course of five years. Bachchu was known for writing books and publishing poetry.He published about freethinking and other things through the publishing house called Bishakha Prakashani.
He was the purportedly the Munshiganj district unit general secretary of the Communist Party.
“Reports of the attack state that four men on two motorcycles shot Shahzahan dead as he sat at a tea stall in his home village before fleeing the scene. Militants and religious extremists had made numerous deaths threats to Shahzahan for a number of years,” Humanist UK stated in an emailed updated, “Speaking to the Daily Observer in 2015, Shahzahan said: ‘Initially I ignored the threats… But after the killings of Washikur Rahman Babu and Ananta Bijoy, I took the matter seriously. Basically my family has become afraid’.”
Since only 2013, murders and attempted murders have been rampant on humanist bloggers — writers more properly — with gunshots and machetes, up close and far away in other words. Humanists are not safe, if public , in Bangladesh.
The email continued, “The Bangladeshi Government has been unable to provide adequate protection to humanists, has been reluctant to bring criminal charges against perpetrators, and in some cases has given in to the demands of Islamists by prosecuting non-religious individuals for blasphemy..”
The Foreign Commonwealth Office stated that there was condemnation of the attacks. Andrew Copson, who is the Chief Executive of Humanists UK, stated:
We are devastated that the spectre of violence has returned to the freethinking community in Bangladesh. Every humanist writer and secular activist and freethinking publisher who has been killed in recent years has been a defender of the rights of others, a lover of humanity and reason and justice. Their murders stand against all these universal values. We once again call on the government of Bangladesh to root out the Jihadi networks perpetrating these crimes, and on the international community to bring pressure to bear on Bangladesh to protect and defends its humanists and human rights defenders.
Today as we mourn Shahzahan Bachchu, I would also like to pay tribute to others within the Bangladeshi humanist community who have suffered such violence including Asif Mohiuddin, Ahmed Rajib Haider, Sunnyur Rahamna, Shafiul Islam, Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman Babu, Ananta Bijoy Das, Niladri Chatterjee, Faisal Arefin Dipan, Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury, and Nazimuddin Samad.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/13
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did religion influence your own family background? What was it?
McJarwin Cayacap: I was baptized a Catholic as an infant. My mother was a devout Catholic; my father, so-so. But my aunts who lived with us were more devout than my mother. I was sent to schools run by Catholic orders — the Dominican Order, the Order of Saint Benedict and the Missionaries of La Salette. As a kid, I was a member of ‘Kids for Christ’ of the local diocese, while my parents were members of ‘Couples for Christ’. Other couples would come to our house, and organize prayer meetings and bible studies. My sister and brother were born in a Catholic hospital. When I had to get some stitches, my mother would send me to the same Catholic hospital, and would let nuns pray over me during surgeries. I did say that my father was a so-so; he left for South Korea when I was 5, so I have no idea of his religious practices when he worked there.
Jacobsen: How did religion enter your young life if at all?
Cayacap: The schools I went to had a general course for Religion or Christian Living Education. We would study passages and stories from the Bible, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments and the Eight Beatitudes. We would memorize prayers and litanies. We were expected to identify every piece that is on the Eucharistic table. We were required to attend Sunday mass and write a reflection paper about the homily. I was also a member of the school choir. I would give Bible readings at the lectern during school mass. We were required to dress up for the first Friday mass every month. That’s how religion entered my young life, and I accepted it whole-heartedly because I did not know better.
Jacobsen: Do you recall any moments of explicitly identifying as a humanist or an atheist?
Cayacap: I started intentionally missing the Sunday mass and not saying a single prayer. I felt it was a burden to make sure I do this and that on Sundays, before meal and before sleep. “Why can’t I just be good to myself and others?”, I asked myself. Whenever I was stuck in traffic, I would stare blankly at the window and think of the highs and lows of my life. Then, it dawned on me that something never made sense. When I had the opportunity to study the times of King Henry VIII of England and Pope Alexander VI, I grew disappointed with the Holy Mother Church. It was in 2014 when I first identified as atheist, but learning about secular humanism was the turning point of my life.
Jacobsen: When did you find the formal humanist community or at least the non-religious community in general in the Philippines?
Cayacap: Since I identified as atheist, I had been looking for people like me. I remember following Filipino Freethinkers and attending one of their film screenings in 2010. But since they mostly do meet-ups, talks and podcasts, I decided to look elsewhere. That’s when I found Humanist Alliance Philippines, International. But I did not sign up immediately. I was giving it much thought because I was very busy with work, too. It was not until 2017 when I finally had the time to busy myself with something other than work.
Jacobsen: How has Marissa Torres Langseth been an inspiration for you?
Cayacap: I met Marissa after I met HAPI. I signed up as a volunteer who was eager to learn how else he could contribute to humanity. I never thought the founder nor any of the leaders would have reason to talk to me until my first assignment in December of 2017. I was sent to a city outside Manila for a few days to represent HAPI. The city was having its first LGBT summit, and HAPI was a donor. I took photos and wrote an article about it, and that was how I got Marissa’s and the other leaders’ attention. Eventually, I and Marissa started chatting and learned about each other’s life story. What has inspired me is her courage to make HAPI happen and keep it despite a history of treachery and misgivings. She never lost the heart to protect her fellow Filipinos from the age-old misery disguised as religion. It is no easy undertaking but she still does it no matter what.
Jacobsen: What seem like some of the more important moves needed in the non-religious activism in the Philippines for increased equality of the humanists, atheists, agnostics, and other freethinkers?
Cayacap: There are a number of secular groups in the Philippines, but I must say it is a shame that they never have a united voice when asked about issues and policies that concern the common Filipino. We have, however, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. The conference speaks for the Catholic faith about almost every issue and policy there are, and that is exactly what HAPI would like to have beginning in Manila, the nation’s very capital. Soon, humanists, atheists, agnostics and other freethinkers can formally convene. Like the Congress, there will be representatives and committees as well. On a side note, HAPI has been offered to seek party-list representation in the Lower House. We are studying this offer very carefully now. All of us are on the same secular side; all we have to do is come together.
Jacobsen: What are your hopes for the future of the movements in the Philippines and elsewhere for that matte?
matter?
Cayacap: I hope that there will be a way for all secular groups to know each other and collaborate on a grand scale so we can approach every part of the world the appropriate way, and eventually get to the hearts and minds of many societies. In a decade or so, we expect to see more people identifying as non-religious. We can only attribute this to recent breakthroughs in science, and a more critically thinking generation of humans. Just the same, I hope for a united voice throughout the world.
Jacobsen: How can people start to get involved in their local non-religious community?
Cayacap: At HAPI, we walk the talk. We even act more than talk, and that is how we think people can best involve themselves in us. So, if a person is willing to volunteer time and effort for a good cause in spite of a rather busy schedule, then he or she is ever welcome in HAPI. For those who are not comfortable with physical activities, you can still join HAPI, especially in Manila, as we will do regular meet-ups to discuss important issues beginning this month of June. And for those not in the Philippines, know exactly what you can do — your natural talents and acquired skills — and find a local non-religious community where you can use some or all of those. That is how you get to love what you do while inspiring goodness. That is how I am having a great time now with HAPI.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, McJarwin.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/11
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was there a family religious environment?
Brian Dela Masa: I wouldn’t consider it as a religious environment. We just went through the motions like most christians do. We try to go to mass every sunday. We pray the rosary every halloween.
Jacobsen: How did you come to find religion as not for you?
Masa: I started having doubts while watching bishops lie through their teeth about contraceptives on tv. I found a group in facebook that was also fraustrated as I am about church leaders. It got me into researching about religion.
Jacobsen: Why do you think people are drawn to religion?
Masa: People can’t help it. They were raised with some form of religious belief.
Jacobsen: What is the best argument for humanism?
Masa: We only have each other.
Jacobsen: How did you find HAPI?
Masa: I was a part of PATAS before it branched off to HAPI.
Jacobsen: Why is the organization important in a largely religious country?
Masa: People should know that there are alternatives to religion.
Jacobsen: Does religion have sway over politics there?
Masa: Yes. It took an eternity to pass the reproductive health bill. And we’re the only country in the world without divorce.
Jacobsen: Is there a way in which religion can be weakened and more tolerable, and so away from the fundamentalisms that it is prone to?
Masa: People should be aware that religion and politics does not mix. That not favoring any religion would ultimately be beneficial to all religions.
Jacobsen: How many people believe in the devil, angels, ghosts, and so on in the Philippines?
Masa: Most Filipinos.
Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts?
Masa: A person’s beliefs is only a part of the person. We should always find the middle ground for us to get along.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/10
“Nothing appears beyond the reach of the social engineers, not even cake.
In a 7–2 ruling, the Supreme Court said the Colorado Human Rights Commission had failed to take into account the religious beliefs of a Lakewood baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has sometimes sided with the liberal wing of the court, was highly critical of the commission, which he said had written its anti-discrimination regulations in ways that were hostile to the faith of the baker, Jack Phillips.
Kennedy’s majority opinion specifically noted that the ruling was a narrow one and that the apparent tip in the balance in favor of Phillips was the language used by the commission, which appeared to the court majority to denigrate Phillips’ Christian beliefs.”
Source: http://www.sunjournal.com/supremes-make-case-for-freedom-of-religion/.
“To my utmost shame, over the past month I have become one of those dudes who’s into cryptocurrency. So far, I have spent about $105 building up a portfolio of coins of varying degrees of sketchiness, in the hopes that one of them will take off like a rocket and make me fabulously rich — or at least help me pay off my credit card. As one friend who enabled my nascent crypto day trading habit pointed out, “Putting money in crypto is the only conceivable path I’ve ever heard of with a bigger than one percent chance of me getting rich without trying.”
Right now, my $105 has seen a return of… negative two dollars. While I’ve already disabused myself of the notion that I’ll ever hit the big time with my little digital bag of digital coins, I still hold out hope that I’ll wake up one day and discover that my $103 is worth $110. Seeing as I’m in uncharted territory here, even my very modest goal of not totally losing my shirt requires a faith in something larger than myself.
Faith is about the only thing driving the cryptocurrency industry, which goes a long way towards explaining 0xΩ, a “blockchain religion” created by artist Avery Singer and Matt Liston, the ex-CEO of decentralized prediction market platform Augur.”
Source: https://theoutline.com/post/4862/oh-god-theyre-putting-religion-on-the-blockchain?zd=1&zi=pohizwsj.
“Several years ago there was a bit of a fuss in the media about a T-shirt that was being sold in the Provo area. It said, “I can’t. I’m Mormon.”
The entrepreneur involved told the Deseret News at the time that, growing up a member of the LDS Church in Nevada — where Mormons are well known but not a majority — the couplet served him well any time he was put in a position where he was resisting peer pressure to drink or smoke or any of those un-Mormon things that teens probably ought not do anyway.
“I found if I told people I didn’t drink, they didn’t know how to react,” Chad Ramos told the LDS-owned newspaper, “but if I said, ‘I can’t, I’m Mormon,’ they said, ‘Oh,’ and boom, it was over.”’
“HOW ONE RELIGION USED THE INTERNET TO GAIN FOLLOWERS
When one thinks of a religious gathering, the things that come to mind are large churches and steeples or perhaps a call to prayer echoing off the sidewalks and buildings of a major city.
The Kosmon faith is much more nondescript as it seeks its revitalization in smaller locations like storefronts in Brooklyn, New York. Although it was once a more popular religion, the Kosmon faith and its worshipers, “Faithists” fell to the wayside in the late 19th century.
Now, individuals such as Anthony Linton, the president of the Faithist temple in Brooklyn, are trying to revitalize the Kosmon religious interpretation of the world, one small step at a time.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=52944.
“Overall leisure time has increased by over an hour per day in the past ten years. How are we spending these extra 365 hours per year? Not playing with our kids, working on passion projects, exercising, or any other wholesome activity you may have guessed — we’re spending it in front of screens.
In 2007, just 33 percent of leisure time was spent on screens; today, that number has increased to 47 percent — over three and a half hours per day. According to research from McKinsey, smartphone users interact with their devices an average of 85 times a day and almost half of all users (46 percent) report they could not live without their smartphone.
Why are we becoming increasingly addicted to our devices?
The answer lies in increasingly sophisticated algorithms and strategies that social media sites, video streaming platforms, and mobile games employ to increase engagement, dependence, and loyalty.”
Source: https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/06/09/religion-isnt-the-opiate-of-the-masses-ai-is/.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/10
“Professor Anthony Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities at Rice University. He earned his B.A. from Columbia University, and M.Div. and Ph.D. in the study of religion from Harvard University. He is an author, humanist, and public speaker. Also, and this is in no way a complete listing of titles or accomplishments, Pinn is the Founding Director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning (CERCL) at Rice University.
Here we talk about the gender, race, humanistic aesthetics, and more.
Professor Pinn and I talked about gender, race, and humanism. I appreciated the time taken by one of the foremost humanist thinkers in America, especially for a Canadian. When I asked about the manifestations of the more restricted gender roles for men and women, I framed the question within European-American and African-American communities.
Pinn responded from a different perspective. That is, the view of gender roles cutting across the construction of race in social life. He stated, “That is to say, the restricted and restrictive nature of, say, masculinity and femininity are not defined in terms of ‘blackness’ or ‘whiteness’ but rather in terms of the larger social framework of the Western World. The difference is this: for African Americans, for instance, these restrictive gender roles are also tied to certain forms of stigma associated with race and class.”
I then asked about the humanistic outlook. The ways in which humanism may provide a broader set of possibilities for gender roles for men and women.”
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/professor-anthony-pinn-sjbn/.
“LAS VEGAS, Nev. — “If we believe in ‘deeds, not creeds,’” says Dr. Anthony B. Pinn, “then Sunday service is the least important time and place for us. What are we doing the rest of the week?””
Dr. Pinn is a professor of humanities and religion at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and, in addition, is director of research for the Institute for Humanist Studies in Washington, D.C. He holds a BA degree from Columbia University and an MDiv and PhD in the Study of Religion from Harvard. Among the more than 35 books he has authored or edited are titles such as When Colorblindness Isn’t the Answer: Humanism and the Challenge of Race; Humanism: Essays in Race, Religion, and Cultural Production; Writing God’s Obituary: How a Good Methodist Became a Better Atheist; and the novel The New Disciples.
A generous Wikipedia entry on Dr. Pinn summarizes his background and principal concerns as a scholar and activist. He also has a site at anthonypinn.com.”
“Africa has contributed to the world substantial literary, musical and cinematic works in the 20th century, with SA playing a pivotal role.
While it is often said that SA carried the hopes of democracy on the continent, what is often neglected is that the country also carried the hopes of the humanism of the anticolonial struggle in the world.
This aesthetic and philosophical contribution was the focus of a major conference in August 2017 when more than 300 scholars and arts practitioners from more than 60 humanities centres around the world attended the Humanities Improvised conference at the Castle of Good Hope, hosted by the Centre for Humanities Research of the University of the Western Cape. It marked the culmination of the first year of work of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation’s Flagship on Critical Thought in African Humanities awarded to the Centre for Humanities Research in 2016.”
Source: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2018-06-05-vital-potential-of-african-humanism/.
“Humanism welcomed
Columnist Kathleen Parker is correct when she says that secularism, also called secular humanism, should be considered a religion (“A war on Catholics,” May 26). The American Humanist Association has also referred to humanism as a religion, as does the Supreme Court in Torcaso vs. Watkins in 1961.
Although the AHA rejects belief in God, it promotes a worldview that includes a belief system and moral values (moral relativism) as most religions do. As its website states, “We strive to bring about a progressive society where being good without god is an accepted and respected way to live life.”
Humanism has become pervasive in the media, education and government. Interestingly, while the Judeo-Christian tradition has largely been rejected by these institutions for constitutional and ideological reasons, the religion of humanism is welcomed.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/10
“You may have seen a version of this meme before, perhaps via a religious relative on your Facebook feed. It’s meant to dismiss atheism by claiming it makes no sense:
Atheism
The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what-so-ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
Makes perfect sense.
It’s simplified to the point of being ridiculous — that’s the idea — but it’s also telling that whoever wrote it thinks evolution involves going from “self-replicating bits” to “dinosaurs” in one fell swoop instead of over several billion years.
Anyway, it’s the sort of statement you expect to see in a Ken Ham lecture or in a sermon from a pastor who didn’t do his homework that week and is desperately searching for material. It’s a cheap laugh for ignorant people.”
“The Greenville Avenue Church of Christ near Dallas, Texas recently distributed flyers announcing their summer sermon series in which, every week, “pulpit minister” Shelton Gibbs III will tackle “Dangerous Isms.”
For example, they’re going to talk about the problems with Pessimism, and Materialism, and Judaism, and Alcoholism, and Emotionalism, and wait-a-minute-let’s-back-up.”
“Atheism has always been a difficult concept to explain because, as with the divergent denominations of different religions, there are varied conceptions of what the term entails. As has been expressed by many thinkers on the subject, atheism is a unique negation. You generally don’t profess disbelief in unicorns or giant sea monsters; if you do, there is no widespread term for such philosophical stances. Religion has carved its own corner in this regard.
A new Pew study uncovered interesting facts about how Americans and Western Europeans view atheism. In fact, the study’s lead researcher, Neha Sahgel, goes so far to state that American “nones” — a term used to denote people who are atheist, agnostic, or don’t pay much attention to religion — are as or even more religious than Christians in a number of European nations, including France, Germany, and the UK.
Sahgel notes that while 23 percent of European Christians believe in God, 27 percent of American nones share this belief. Americans are more likely to assert that a higher power exists, even if that higher power never bothered to found a religion in its name.”
Source: http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/are-atheists-more-religious-than-christians.
“Nacer Amari is the Co-Founder of an in-development organization entitled United Atheists of Europe devoted to the united efforts of atheism and atheists in Europe. Here we talk about Tunisian background and the influence on development and work as an atheist, and more.
When I asked Amari about personal and family background, he talked about the southern Tunisian region of youth. This amounts to a region where religion dominates. The customs, social norms, morays, and traditions centre on religion.
Religion equates to life and blood. The nature of being births one’s relationship with God through religion. Why not? It would seem natural as an accustomed lifestyle and stance. People have the right to freedom of belief and religion. What happens when this becomes imposed by force on others with a sense of chauvinism and bigotry?
“I grew up in a Berber family with Arab culture where parents are illiterate and not religious,” Amari stated, “Usually, it has a negative impact on the child’s personality, but I consider myself to be lucky compared to the children where I grew up, even though my parents were illiterate and managed to raise me without being affected by religion.”
Sometimes, people can identify a moment of saying, “I am an atheist,” or feeling apart from the traditions and the religious community. In such a way, that religion becomes null and void to oneself. Then atheism is found as the proper label, eventually. An atheism prior to knowing one exists as an atheist. Atheism without name, but with form and substance — “sort of, like, kind of, you know?” — as the kids say.”
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/nacer-amari-sjbn/.
“The words “atheism” and “atheist” are used as insults to denigrate people.
These words are used like “liberal” and “communist” are used by right-wing blowholes on AM radio, who don’t have a clue about the actual meanings of those words. They use those words indiscriminately in order to blur the distinctions between them, in order to create fear and hostility and to promote an Us vs. Them mindset:
- Democrat = Liberal
- Liberal = Socialist
- Socialist = Communist
- Communist = Lying, murdering, evil bastard
But people who actually have some brain cells between their ears use these words with more care, and understand that these words have different meanings, different implications. Not all Democrats are liberals. Some Democrats are moderates, and some Democrats are conservatives. Not all liberals are socialists. Not all socialists are communists. Not all communists are lying, murdering, evil bastards.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2018/06/10/atheism-101/.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/09
The Friendly Atheist talked about the recent #ChurchToo movement building on the #MeToo movement. It is riding the proverbial coat tails of it. Many men “gain from defending toxic churches and preachers.”
However, some argue women and, of course, others should keep quiet about the abuse happening in churches. One woman who thinks so is Lisa Bevere. She is a best-selling author of Christian-oriented books.
Lisa Bevere is married to John Bevere Her position, as summarized by Friendly Atheist is “stop talking about your sexual abuse. It makes the church look bad.”
Lisa Bevere quoted The Godfather and said, “You never go against the family.”
Bever continued, “When we attack the church on social media, we are taking our mess-ups to a mob. Jesus already promised that the world is going to hate us. This does nothing but confuse the issue.”
The article argues that the exposing of abuse in the church does not amount to attacking the church. That churches working to hide the abuse of its staff in order to protect their reputation deserve exposing.
One reason may be to protect those going to that church or who may think of going to that church.
“Second, Jesus told his followers to expect to be hated in a time when being a Christian — that is, worshiping something or someone other than the Roman emperor — was punishable by death,” the Friendly Atheist explained.
Bevere wrote a post on Facebook to explain the importance of abuse victims going to the police. However, she considers the airing of dirty laundry a bad thing for the church.
The article concluded, “I can’t think of a single church that’s been affected by the #ChurchToo movement — that’s been exposed for harboring an abusive leader — that shouldn’t have been. They all deserved the reckoning. For once, churches should embrace more transparency. It’s better for everyone.”
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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.
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Activism comes in multiple forms. Art can be a form of self-expression, where the expression comes in the activist flavor. Many nonbelievers in Bangladesh write for their cause.
In solidarity and support of their activism, others perform musical performances for them. The composer Dorian Wallace did a premier of a new work.
Wallace dedicated the work to those who have been killed. The Bangladeshi bloggers being killed for words, for ideas, for expressing their views, and seeking to do so freely.
Religious terrorists who killed secular writers or bloggers. The cello concerto is called manusa. It incorporates Bengali rhythms and music played at some funerals.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/07
The new event of the summer is out from Humanist Students. It is called “Promoting humanism in the modern world” it will look at the ways in which to capitalize on the increasing number of young non-religious people.
Those who have humanist values. Those who do not. However, those who do have them should be better understood by the general public and especially on their campuses throughout Europe.
Michael Sani, the Chief Executive of Bite and the Ballot and an award winning campaigner, will be speaking at the evening. In fewer than 10 years, Bite the Ballot inspired numerous young people to be able to get excited and so involved in the democratic process with voting.
A record number of young people have been registering to vote in the 107 General Election. Sani will talk about the necessary steps for the construction and maintenance of a successful campaign in order to effectuate positive social change in line with humanistic values.
WHAT: Promoting humanism in the modern world
WHERE: Aberdare Hall, Corbett Rd, Cardiff, CF10 3UP
WHEN: 14 July 10.15–16.30
The event will be open to the Humanist UK students. Friends or members of other related societies can join for free now.It is free. However, RSVP ASAP. There is some minor accomodation for a limited few who may be travelling an extended distance for the event.
Please contact the Humanist Students Student and Youth Coordinator, Sean Turnbull, at sean@humanism.org.uk for more details.
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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.
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The National Post reported on the driver’s licenses for Saudi women.
10 women were issues their first driver’s licenses in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is in preparation mode to eliminate the ban on women driving. This will occur in about three weeks.
This amounts to the only ban of its kind in the world. Some Saudi women who protested were arrested and remain under arrest. The 10 licenses, interestingly enough, were issued to women who already held driver’s licenses from other countries including Canada, Lebanon, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom.
They underwent a driving test and eye exam prior to the issuance of their driver’s licenses. The General Department of Traffic in Riyadh — Saudi Arabia’s capital city — issued them. No media from other countries were present at this event.
Women around Saudi Arabia have been preparing for the right to drive. This event will occur on June 24. Women have been attending female-only college campuses.
“Some are even training to become drivers for ride hailing companies like Uber. Saudi women had long complained of having to hire costly male drivers, use taxis or rely on male relatives to get to work and run errands,” As noted in the reportage, “The surprise move to issue some women licenses early came as activists who had campaigned for the right to drive remain under arrest, facing possible trial.”
17 people, according to Saudi Arabia’s prosecutor, were detained in the prior weeks because of the suspicion that they may be working actively to undermine stability and security. Activists claim prominent women’s rights campaigners were targeted.
The National Post stated, “The prosecutor’s statement said eight have been temporarily released, while five men and four women remain under arrest. Among the women held since May 15 are Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef and Eman al-Nafjan, according to people with knowledge of the arrests who’ve spoken to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.”
Those three women were among the most outspoken and known women’s rights campaigners in the country. They risked arrest in order for Saudi women to be able to have the right to drive like men.
They have been calling for the guardianship laws to be abandoned. It gives the male relatives in the women’s lives the final statement in who the women marry and how or when and if they travel outside the country.
“Three other veteran women’s rights activists were briefly detained at the onset of the sweep. They had taken part in the first protest in 1990 against the kingdom’s ban on women driving.
Nearly 50 women took part in that first driving protest some 28 years ago,” the article said.
Many were arrested, lost jobs, had passports confiscated, and faced severe discrimination as well.
This is all part and parcel of the increased movement for more equality and democratic progression.
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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.
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“It’s a tough time to defend religion. Respect for it has diminished in almost every corner of modern life — not just among atheists and intellectuals, but among the wider public, too. And the next generation of young peoplelooks likely to be the most religiously unaffiliated demographic in recent memory.
There are good reasons for this discontent: continued revelations of abuse by priests and clerics, jihad campaigns against “infidels” and homegrown Christian hostility toward diversity and secular culture. This convergence of bad behavior and bad press has led many to echo the evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson’s claim that “for the sake of human progress, the best thing we could possibly do would be to diminish, to the point of eliminating, religious faiths.”
Despite the very real problems with religion — and my own historical skepticism toward it — I don’t subscribe to that view. I would like to argue here, in fact, that we still need religion. Perhaps a story is a good way to begin.
One day, after pompously lecturing a class of undergraduates about the incoherence of monotheism, I was approached by a shy student. He nervously stuttered through a heartbreaking story, one that slowly unraveled my own convictions and assumptions about religion.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/03/opinion/why-we-need-religion.html.
“What is happening to Israelis’ respect for religion and tradition? While they might not be indicative of a larger trend, two recent videos raise our concern.
The first was a segment on the prime-time, hit Israeli satirical show Eretz Nehederet. The actor who impersonated Education Minister Naftali Bennett was shown wearing tefillin on his head that mimicked the ponytails of Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai.
While the skit might strike some as funny, the country’s religious leadership, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Nentanyahu, did not appreciate the joke.
Netanyahu tweeted: “You don’t have to wear a kippa to understand the importance of our tradition and the future of our people. It is the essence of our existence. It is what distinguishes and strengthens us.
I am in favor of satire, but there are things you just don’t do.””
Source: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Respect-for-religion-559013.
“It’s a bold step indeed for Rouleur to mention religion and desire in the same edition. Maybe it’s some kind of resolution that involved alcohol. I considered the trouble I could get into on either subject and then decided: why not deal with both in one fell swoop?
You see, being born into Glasgow’s anguish with religion and a Presbyterian schooling that considered any desire as undesirable gives unique insight into the human condition.
Having stood on the blue side of the Ibrox terraces at Auld Firm football games as a youngster and listened to the abuse from Protestants directed at Catholics and vice versa could well have been all the education one needs in understanding belief, but luckily I had more — namely a great-grandmother who, despite not reaching the giddy height of five feet, was easily the fiercest woman I knew.
She was also a hallowed member of the Orange Order and was frequently seen marching the streets wearing a purple sash and carrying a great big shiny mace. These two items, I was told, meant she was important and got to be at the front of said marches. Apparently it meant she had faith too.”
Source: https://rouleur.cc/editorial/philippa-york-saints-desire-and-religion/.
“Millions of Americans will be braving long lines to see the new Star Wars movie Solo. Millions more will stay home to play Detroit: Beyond Human playing as androids seeking freedom from their human oppressors. Others might choose to watch Westworld to see the violent retribution of androids after years of mistreatment. Science fiction has recently gained new popularity in mainstream culture.
But does religion have a place in science fiction? And is the representation favorable? Usually not. Science fiction is a genre often asking philosophical questions, as what technology will exist in the future. It uses exaggeration to make issues of consciousness, morality, and the ties that bind society. One of the fundamental questions is the role of religion in society.
Several science fiction stories approach this by having characters meet their God. In Alien: Covenant, humans meet the alien species that created life on Earth. 2001: A Space Odyssey implies that human civilization only started with the intervention of an alien race.
Most of the time when they meet their makers, they are unimpressed. We are seen in the same way a child would see a pet goldfish, a forgettable pet or as a failed experiment. In Star Trek V, “god” turns out to be a trickster entity trying to infect the galaxy.””
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=52469.
“PETALING JAYA: Malaysians have voiced their say on the standoff over the Attorney-General’s post, urging that the right candidate be chosen regardless of race or religion.
The Star in its front-page on Sunday (June 3) reported that a proposal by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to appoint top lawyer and Constitutional law expert Tommy Thomas as the AG has sparked a major disagreement with the King.
Dr Mahathir is adamant about replacing Tan Sri Apandi Ali, submitting only Thomas’ name to Sultan Muhammad V.
However, the King insisted on more than one name, according to sources close to the royalty.
“The Constitution says Agong shall appoint the AG based on the advice of the PM. PM has advised. Now Agong should appoint,” he added.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/03
“Ian Bushfield, M.Sc., is the Executive Director of the British Columbia Humanist Association (BCHA). The BCHA has been working to have humanist marriages on the same plane as other marriages in the province. Here we talk about recent updates from the view of the BCHA.
Bushfield and I talked several months ago, but I had not caught up with him. So, I decided to follow up with him on the updates from the non-religious, and the humanist more particularly, the landscape in Canada, especially in British Columbia.
Bushfield directed attention to the Government of British Columbia needing to tackle the ongoing housing crisis. This means a committed and concerted effort to work with non-profits, faith groups, and others, to develop more affordable housing united.
He noted the developments — the housing crisis kind — have put vulnerable groups at risk of religious coercion. “While we understand the urgency of getting units built, this shouldn’t come at the cost of violating the human rights of the nonreligious, religious minorities or the LGBTQ+ community,” Bushfield opines.”
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/jacobsen-bushfield-sjbn/.
“Shawn Meagley came to secular humanism by way of a traditional religious upbringing that, in her words, “just wasn’t working for me.”
“The thing that I missed most — probably the only thing that I missed about anything to do with any kind of religious life — was having the camaraderie, the group gatherings, someplace to share as a family,” said Ms. Meagley of Toledo.
It’s part of the reason that she’s co-organizing a group of individuals, who, like her, believe that leading a life shaped by ethics, morals, empathy, and compassion need not depend on religious dogma.
Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are “good without God,” she said, drawing on a description that she didn’t coin but thinks is as good as any she’s heard to describe their views.
“It just kind of sums everything up,” she said.”
“From space colonization to resurrection of dinosaurs to machine intelligence, the most awe-inspiring visions of humanity’s future are typically born from science fiction.
But among an abundance of time travel, superheroes, space adventures, and so forth, biotech remains underrepresented in the genre.
This selection highlights some outstanding works (new and not so new) to fill the sci-fi gap for biotech aficionados.
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
VanderMeer’s work blends the technology backdrop of science fiction with fantasy creatures in delightfully weird ways and wraps them all into a fast-paced story with elements of mystery, action, and surrealism. The novel’s world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland over which the now-defunct biotech conglomerate simply called “The Company” presides. The Company uses genetic engineering to create creatures like savage feral children, a magician, and proxies of the ferocious ruler and simultaneous victim, a giant flying bear named Mord.
We follow the protagonist Rachel, a scavenger, who plucks a mysterious organism (a GMO to put all GMOs to shame, really) from the fur of sleeping Mord and names it Borne.
Rachel becomes Borne’s mother, but his endearing childhood phase rapidly tightens around the explosive triangle of Rachel’s jealous companion Wick and the deepening mysteries about Borne.
I loved the scene where Rachel and Borne run into a pack of ruthless Mord proxies on a scavenging mission, because what Borne chooses to do is fascinating (no spoilers!). The detail-rich story is a tour de force of imagination nestled between science fiction and science fantasy, the realm where everything is possible.”
“GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (KTRK) —
The Center for Inquiry is a national organization that advocates for a secular society with an office in metro Grand Rapids.
“We have and organized system of beliefs that’s called ‘secular humanism,’” said Jennifer Beahan, the Center for Inquiry Executive Director.
The group is suing the Kent County Clerk’s Office on behalf of all of Michigan saying its trained members should be allowed to officiate weddings.
“You know how important weddings are to people and to families. It’s a major life event and secular individuals should be able to celebrate that in a way that they want that’s most memorable and meaningful to them,” Beahan said.”
Source: http://abc13.com/society/atheists-file-lawsuit-to-officiate-marriages/3557121/.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/03
“Americans are deeply religious people — and atheists are no exception. Western Europeans are deeply secular people — and Christians are no exception.
These twin statements are generalizations, but they capture the essence of a fascinating finding in a new study about Christian identity in Western Europe. By surveying almost 25,000 people in 15 countries in the region, and comparing the results with data previously gathered in the U.S., the Pew Research Center discovered three things.
First, researchers confirmed the widely known fact that, overall, Americans are much more religious than Western Europeans. They gauged religious commitment using standard questions, including “Do you believe in God with absolute certainty?” and “Do you pray daily?”
Second, the researchers found that American “nones” — those who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular — are more religious than European nones. The notion that religiously unaffiliated people can be religious at all may seem contradictory, but if you disaffiliate from organized religion it does not necessarily mean you’ve sworn off belief in God, say, or prayer.”
“Following yesterday’s no-confidence vote against Spain’s leader Mariano Rajoy, his political rival Pedro Sánchez was sworn in this morning as the new Prime Minister.
And when the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party took his oath, there was no Bible or crucifix to be found. That’s because the new Prime Minister (of a nation that’s two-thirds Roman Catholic) happens to be an atheist.
Sánchez said in a (roughly translated) 2014 interview:
“I am an atheist and I believe that religion should not be in the classrooms, it has to be in the churches, in the classrooms you have to form citizenship, not people with religious beliefs, that corresponds to the private sphere”.
His godless oath today also reflected that mentality:
“I promise by my conscience and honor to faithfully fulfill the obligations of the office of President of the Government with loyalty to the King, and to keep and enforce the Constitution as the fundamental norm of the State,” Sánchez said.
While that’s the same oath all prime ministers of Spain take, Sánchez substituted the word “promise” for “swear.” It’s nice to hear an oath that praises “conscience” and “honor” over a deity who ultimately stands for whatever your political party supports.”
“People drift away from religion for many reasons.
For 22-year-old Ashlie Juarbe, her journey out of religion happened at her Catholic high school, when a male teacher shamed her for getting her period in the middle of class. She wrote about it in the New School Free Press:
“Ashlie, I said you’re up.” He was at the foot of my desk, the overhead light glinted off his bald head. I feared my jeans were stained.
“I’m not feeling well, Mr. Cooper. I’d like to sit this one out,” I said. I started to sweat again. There was no way Mr. Cooper would let me go up there if he understood. I hoped God would give him a sign.
“Ashlie…”
“But Mr. Cooper, I have…” I began, but his eyes were daring me to sit a second longer. I looked at my classmates, still the words “my period” wouldn’t tumble out. For a normal phenomenon that has over 5,000 slang terms, it was never talked about in public without hushed tones and uncomfortable faces. Going to an all-girls religious high school was worse. Talking about anything below your waist was blasphemy. If it wasn’t virtuous, it wasn’t taught.
You can probably guess what happened next. Only after Ashlie’s humiliation was witnessed by the entire class did Mr. Cooper grant her request to go to the bathroom.
“Can Islam and Christianity be seen as being the same, or similar, or as complementing each other, or are they so radically opposed and at loggerheads that it is a grievous error to see them as having anything meaningful in common?
At one extreme there are the “ecumenists” who like to speak about Christians and Muslims as “people of the Book”, united in their belief in the One God and, as such, a positive force for good in the world. At the other extreme, there are the atheists who endeavor to demonize both religions as being “people of the Book”, united in their belief in a non-existent tyrannical monolith called “God” and, as such, a negative force responsible for much of the hatred and discord in the world. Against both of these extreme positions, there is a third position, which simply states that Islam and Christianity are as radically opposed to each other as each of them is opposed to atheism.
In a practical sense, each of these three positions will radically affect, and indeed effect, our view of the world. How we see the global situation, politically and culturally, will be determined by which of these three positions we believe to be true.
Let’s consider Islam. The inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem states that Jesus “was only a Messenger of God”. He was not God’s Son. “Far be it removed from His transcendent majesty the He should have a son. It befits not God that He should take to Himself a son.… Praise be to God, who has not taken unto Himself a son, who has no partner.” Compare this with Christianity: “No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.” Cf. 1 John 2:23.
In a program called The Creed, hosted by Mike Aquilina and Scott Hahn on EWTN, Dr. Hahn spoke of his encounter in a restaurant with an Islamic scholar. When Hahn referred to God as “Father”, the scholar pounded his fist on the table and said, “Do not blaspheme. That is human, not divine.”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/03
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was there a family background in secularism and activism for it?
Scott Janis: There was not much background in secularism or secular activism in my family that I know of. Strictly speaking I was raised Christian, but religion was never a commanding influence on my life. My parents believed that I should be able to come to my own conclusions about religion, but I had read the Bible and even helped to teach Bible Study.
Jacobsen: What was your official position in the University of Wisconsin Whitewater’s Secular Student Alliance?
Janis: I was the president of UW Whitewater’s SSA chapter from the winter of 2014 to the summer of 2015.
Jacobsen: What tasks and responsibilities came with the position?
Janis: My official responsibilities were to lead meetings, reserve space for events, keep the officer team organized, maintain connections to possible speakers and activist groups, and to present justification for continued funding from SUFAC. It was also important however to make sure that everyone had a place and a voice in the group. That meant keeping up with members and their perspectives.
Jacobsen: What are your concerns for secularism on campuses now?
Janis: The big challenge for secular activism on college campuses is in my experience that active interest in groups like SSA can be ephemeral on smaller campuses like UW Whitewater. Even though there are plenty of people who believe in secularism, devoting an evening 2–4 times per month to focusing on secular activism is usually not enough to motivate students. For most active students, there are other groups with more visible missions that are also secular that compete for their time. The students that tend to be drawn to the SSA tend to be young people who have been brought up in families whose foundations are based in strict religious adherence. There seem to have been fewer students with that background on campus. I consider those to be points of evidence that college secularism is doing fine.
Jacobsen: What about in society at large (concerns for secularism)?
Janis: If you asked me this last year, I would say that I am not terribly concerned. Now I am becoming more concerned as I see more religious fundamentalism in positions of power and in no ambiguous terms focusing on instituting policy either to emulate or enable mandatory religious adherence on the grounds of some American spiritual identity. On the other side, I am concerned that secularism is becoming more of a peripheral issue to other causes. The example that comes to mind is Atheism+. However noble it may have been, it created division amongst secular activists that did not actually need to be there by packaging secularism with other causes and philosophies that a substantial portion of the movement either disagreed with or did not understand sufficiently to be confident in. This has created multiple in-group/out-group relationships between activists that previously worked together very effectively. When groups have tried to incorporate these initiatives at the same time, it excludes those who are unwilling to disagree as friends and dilutes the potency of any one event or group to the point that it becomes white noise to the people we are trying to reach. I do not see us making any impact until we drop the politics of activism and just focus on coming together for whatever we can all agree on at the time.
Jacobsen: What were some, at the time of your tenure, activities run through the Secular Student Alliance at University of Wisconsin Whitewater?
Janis: During my time as the president of UWW SSA we had Robert Price as a speaker, participated in Ask an Atheist Day, and did an event for Easter where we handed out secular philosophy quotes in Easter Eggs. There was a debate with Dan Barker who appeared on behalf of the SSA, but that was run through the UWW Philosophy Club.
Jacobsen: What is the importance of building those mentor and mentee relationships for intergenerational ties among secular activists?
Janis: The reason that mentor and mentee relationships are so important is not just the guidance through old challenges, but to provide a context for where we are today. Many of the people who have mentored me had developed under far more hostile conditions to atheism than I experience today. It has helped me to appreciate how far we have come as well as why it is so important to protect that progress. The most useful mentorship that I received though came from my predecessor. It is difficult to come into a new group of people and attempt to lead them. When affiliation renewal and SUFAC budget forms started showing up, having the former president to walk me through it all made a world of difference.
Jacobsen: What are some possible future initiatives for the SSA at University of Wisconsin Whitewater?
Janis: I have kept in touch with a few people and have left the channels open for anyone looking for advice in the future. I left the group in the hands of a very capable student who has already demonstrated her ability to plan events and maintain regular meeting times. I have not heard of any plans for future events since graduating however.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Janis: There are two points that I can think of.
In a United States that has seen a tremendous advancement of secularism and scientific acceptance, it is important that we do not give into prejudice against those whose perspectives seem irreconcilable to our own. Free thinkers thrive best where we are encouraged to consider any idea without fearing ridicule or shunning. While it may seem fun to pull a “gotcha moment” on someone, these are ideas that go to the core of who we are. To force someone to defend a belief to protect their own identity is cruel and counterintuitive.
Lastly, I have some advice to anyone who may be considering joining an SSA chapter: it is a team effort. Officers can do the research and correspondence necessary to plan events and crate opportunities to create real change to help people who may not have the privilege to spend an evening with fellow atheists, agnostics, and sceptics. To those trying to start or lead an SSA chapter: it is a challenge that takes a lot of work to rise to, but even when it doesn’t go perfectly it is still worth it. You are asking people that you do not know to have confidence in your leadership and your ability to enrich their lives. The needs and interests of your members should inform your priorities as a leader. It is your job to find a way to meet those needs and advance along those interests together. Remember that your job isn’t done just because you weren’t re-elected or you graduated. Make sure that your successor knows that you are a resource for guidance, and be mindful to step back and let them lead.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Scott.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/06/01
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How are sexual and gender identity minorities treated in the Muslim majority world?
Karrar Al Asfoor: They are treated in a very bad way. Their life is really miserable. They are considered evil individuals and less humans.
Jacobsen: How is this reflected in cultural representation and the social treatment?
Asfoor: They could be insulted, beaten or even assassinated. They suffered many large assassination campaigns by the religious militias in Iraq during the past years.
Jacobsen: What are some reflections of this in law in places like Iraq?
Asfoor: If someone is caught having sex with a same gender mate, they could be sentenced for five years of imprisonment and usually the judge sentences them five years and one day so that the 3 months’ reduction from every year would be useless for them.
Jacobsen: Do these laws violate the UN Charter and rights of said sexual and gender identity minorities?
Asfoor: I would start with article one of the universal declaration of human rights, which states that all human beings are equal to each other. That’s enough to have the same rights of other people, but these laws clearly violate the declaration. There should be more effective actions taken by the international community to protect those people, like sanctions for example.
Jacobsen: Who are some Iraq vanguards and spokespersons for the rights of the sexual and gender identity minorities?
Asfoor: Given that the Iraqi society is very strict, not only because of religion but also because it is a tribal society that consider “not being man” as a shame, many people avoid to talk even about the subject of the rights of the sexual and gender identity minorities.
Therefore, we are left with no one to speak for them, except very few not so famous social media activists .I am one of them. It isa really tough task because there is no tolerance for these minorities even among the Iraqi atheist community.
I would also mention Jaafar Al Qaraghuli who is an Iraqi poet and rights activist. He wrote several poetries defending their rights.
Jacobsen: What are some books by Iraqi authors that speak about these issues in depth?
Asfoor: To my knowledge, unfortunately there are none.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Karrar.
Asfoor: It is such an honor for me to participate in this interview with you, many thanks, Scott.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/28
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become a humanist? I guess it was a very long process. I am, after all, a son of a devout Roman Catholic mother and an Ex-Priest… And I did live in a predominantly Christian country… I did not know anything about Atheism nor humanism when I was very young… I was, however, always curious. I would read on Philosophy and Epistemology during my math class. I would engage myself in topics where everyone else in my age group would not have done otherwise.
Bede Daniel Garcia: When I was in college, I met a girl who would “strengthen my faith in the Judeo-Christian Religion”… I remember going to church everyday of the week from 4pm — 8pm (Afternoon prayers, consecration of the blessed sacrament, Rosary, evening mass, and vespers)… I would also stay over up until 10pm on saturdays because I was the lead Bass for the church’s choir. I would come back sunday morning to attend mass and sing in the choir….
It went to a point where I was being invited by the priests to join the seminary….
I guess, it all started when my mother was diagnosed with Cancer… I suddenly questioned everything even more… I went through the very same questions that every agnostic or atheist would go through… i wont go into detail as the arguments become very repetitive….
I then started delving into humanism as a means for me to find an anchor/compass if you will… I was so used to being “guided” by doctrine that my psyche was not able to function without one…
humanism became my religion…however, i do not treat it as one… I treat it as a guiding principle..one that I would base my actions with..
….
Jacobsen: What is your own personal goal in the humanist movement?
Garcia: Sad to say, I have gone quiet… I have lied low…
My only goal is that I educate the people who I am surrounded with… those who have the interest to learn.. In my opinion, I will have started to act like the hypocritical religious folks who try to force you into believing what the believe in… If i force them into understanding and following what I think, then I would be no better than them…
Jacobsen: How did you stumble across HAPI? Who was your first contact? What was the interaction like?
Garcia: I was introduced to HAPI by Ms. Marissa Langseth….
I have know Ms. M during our previous conversations when I was still with another group called PATAS (Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society)… But in my personal opinion, once a group becomes too grounded, they start to become very political…and that is why I left and became inactive…
Jacobsen: Why is humanism the correct view to you?
Garcia: Well…because humanism is tangible… when it comes to support, solving problems, anthropological issues…everything becomes very attainable because everything is limited by the simple fact that we are human…
i find solace in knowing that my support comes from my family and friends… i find comfort in knowing that what i do creates the meaning in my life… that all the problems are man-made and therefore needs man-made solutions… that I am who I am and that this is the only life that I can live…and that makes it even more precious… that my goal in life is to be happy and to create an impact to those closest to me…
Jacobsen: What are your hopes for the humanist movement in the Philippines in the coming years?
Garcia: With all due respect, when I held atheistic views..I have always thought that religion was the enemy..however, being a humanist… I only hope that people are guided with one single principle that I have learned throughout the years and throughout all the religions that i have studied… To always be kind to others and to treat them the way you want to be treated… To love humankind as this is the only thing that is certain in life…
Religion is a personal thing… and so is humanism and any other world view… the wonderful thing about being a humanist is that we see the beauty and good in all manmade precepts… religion, opinions, politics, and whatever else there is in the world…everything has had its beginnings and its end… I just hope that people begin to open their eyes and to act accordingly and to aim in the betterment of humankind… that is it…simple and straightforward… i do not with ill on theists, agnostics, or atheists… i just hope that everyone will get along… everyone will find the common denominator that will bind us all together.. and that is being human… the finite nature of being human, to my mind, must be enough to bring us all together…
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/27
“(RNS) — The overwhelming vote in Ireland in favor of allowing access to abortion shows that the pro-life movement needs a new strategy. Trying to preserve anti-abortion laws or trying to reverse the legalization of abortion is simply not working.
In almost every country where abortion has been on the ballot, abortion has won. Rarely have pro-choice laws been reversed. This trend is not going to change. To think otherwise is simply ignoring reality.
The American pro-life movement still holds out hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse Roe v. Wade, but even if that does happen, most Americans will still live in states where abortion is legal. Those who don’t will be able to travel to a state where it is, just as Irish women have long traveled to Britain.
The reality is that most Americans think that abortion should be legal even if they think it is immoral. There is no indication that this thinking will change. In fact, opinion is moving in the opposite direction, thanks to the attitudes of younger generations. The Pew Research Center shows Americans under 50 are more likely than their elders to support abortion in all or most cases. Likewise, in Ireland, younger people voted more strongly to change the law. Time is on the side of the pro-choice movement.
If making abortion illegal is an impossible goal, what should be the pro-life strategy for the foreseeable future?È
Source: https://religionnews.com/2018/05/27/irish-vote-shows-need-for-new-pro-life-strategy-on-abortion/.
“he theory of artificial intelligence will lead to altering the society where machines will make a huge leap of progress and eventually become smarter than human beings. Technology and artificial intelligence are tailored to the life of people from clothing to healthcare. Recently, the theory of artificial intelligence has been weaved into religion. Consider a hypothetical example, in 2040 humans are attending a wedding felicitated by Pastor Asimo at the church of humans and robots. This is kind of a ludicrous situation, but this same scenario is debated over by great minds of theology and technology. Are religion and artificial intelligence compatible?
It is not the first-time humans have worshipped non-human entities. The Sun, the Moon and other natural forces have long been the subject of worship. Also, we see human beings’ own creations: statues, man-made deities and temples have all been built and worshipped. Yet for the first time, creations made by human beings will be able to do more than just stand there mutely. In all the ways, it will be far superior to their creators. An ex-Google executive named Anthony Levandowski has already embarked himself as the leader of a new “religion” called The Way of the Future, which will emphasize on “the realization, acceptance and worship of a godhead based on artificial intelligence developed through computer hardware and software”.
Starting from daily prayer app to robot priest, different faith all over the world has entwined their religious modules along with technology to deliver it to their followers. Say for example devotees of Catholicism can tune into Confession chatbot app to interact in a live two-way conversation. This will help the person confess his innermost secrets without any hesitation.”
Source: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/are-artificial-intelligence-and-religion-compatible/.
“t took me over 30 years to come to this beautiful religion called Islam and I took my time for which I am happy. I explored it from all angles — from the perspective of professors, Islamic scholars to even so many negative articles online about Islam. People have actually put their full research online where they talk only and only ill about Islam. But in the end, I realised that what is right is right even if the world talks ill about it and what is wrong is wrong even if the whole world sides with it.
Since the time I began sharing this diary entry on my first Ramadan, I have been getting a lot of inquiries from non-Muslims who are curious to know what and how did I embrace Islam. A lot of people have been asking about my experience with Islam because some of them have this preconceived notions or rather misconceptions about Islam; some are on the brink of embracing Islam but just have a couple of doubts here and there and some just want to know about why I changed my religion.
I spoke to a couple of them about my conversion and I exchanged ideas, articles and information also about Islam explaining to them what brought me closer to Allah. But I was saddened by some of the online comments where people challenged my beliefs. What I found a bit disturbing was these people were not lost but instead “misguided”.”
Source: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/ramadan/do-proper-research-about-religion-before-following-it.
“Many may know the fourth of May as “Star Wars Day,” because you can say “May the Fourth Be With You.” But other fans count May 25–the date on which the originalStar Wars: A New Hope was released–as Star Wars Day (officially declared in Los Angeles as “Star Wars Day” in 2007). Many people feel passionately about one over the other, and then there’s me, with my Star Wars Day agnosticism, or maybe universalism: I believe in celebrating Star Wars whenever possible: I got to meet Mark Hamill in late April, I did lots of Star Wars posting on May 4th, and this weekend’s celebration will include a screening of Solo: A Star Wars Story. And next week, I’ll be off to the Scum and Villainy Cantina, a Star Wars-themed bar in Hollywood, for belated Star Wars Day drinks in honor of the franchise.
Practitioners feeling passionately about their interpretations and practices, and sometimes demonizing anyone who deviates from their ideology: sounds like religion to me! In a May 4 piece on Wired.com, Adam Rogers compared the two camps–May the 4thers and May 25thers–to the Council of Nicea, where Christian leaders debated the nature of the relationship between Jesus and God. He cited the conflict over Star Wars Day, saying “I can’t think of anything more emblematic of a new religion coalescing than an argument about when to put a holiday.” And at the core of this new religion–if that’s what it is–is the concept of The Force, a core monotheistic belief that lends itself to ideological layering by members of various faiths.”
Source: https://groknation.com/soul/star-wars-religion/.
“THE AMERICAN political system, despite its formal separation of church of state, still finds room for a sort of civic religion which lends dignity to military funerals and presidential inaugurations. In Britain, by contrast, a quirky unwritten constitution gives a central place to what might be called royal religion. This reflects the twin role of the monarch as the apex of secular governance and guardian of the Christian faith. That royal faith was on spectacular display on May 19th when an African-American prelate, Michael Curry, dazzled some and perplexed others with an exuberant hymn to love delivered at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
But any constitutional law buff can tell you that royal faith has its sombre moments too. As is argued by a couple of newly published studies by University College London, thought needs to be given now to the ceremonies which will take place when Harry’s father, Prince Charles, eventually succeeds Elizabeth II as head of state. “The ceremonies of accession and coronation help to define not just the monarchy but the nation whom the monarch is there to represent,” one of the reports by UCL’s Constitution Unit says. To put it mildly, that nation has moved on in the last seven decades. The report lists some of the vast social changes that have taken place since Elizabeth II became queen in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Post-war Britain was class-divided, deferential, militarised (with armed forces of 863,000 compared with under 150,000 today) and, at least formally, devout. Baptisms in the Church of England have declined from 672,000 a year in 1950 to 130,000. In 1956 a third of the British public professed the belief that the Queen had been specially chosen by God.”
Source: https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2018/05/24/the-difficulties-with-crowning-king-charles-iii.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/27
“What is Humanism?
Humanism is a set of beliefs which focuses on human beings and rational thinking as opposed to the divine or supernatural.
Humanists UK is an organisation founded in 1896 which is committed to putting Humanism into practice through ceremonies and pastoral work.
On their website they explain, “Throughout recorded history there have been non-religious people who have believed that this life is the only life we have, that the universe is a natural phenomenon with no supernatural side, and that we can live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity.
“They have trusted to the scientific method, evidence and reason to discover truths about the universe and have placed human welfare and happiness at the centre of their ethical decision making.
“Today, people who share these beliefs and values are called humanists and this combination of attitudes is called Humanism.””
Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6347546/humanism-humanist-funerals-weddings-theory/.
“A movement called Humanistic Judaism has taken roots and all Plymoutheans are invited to hear a representative of this ideology tell about his system and convictions.
The world is changing. A few years ago even Time magazine asked the question on its cover page, “Is God Dead?” Or was it a declaration, I forget. Whichever it was, today we have old and new ideologies categorized as political, religious, and cultural, that are not theistic, that do not have a god or gods at the center of their system. Example: Buddhism, Confucianism, Communism, Nazism, capitalism, and more. All have in common they are ideologies, with strong rules of behavior to guide followers in ethical decisions, including interpersonal and economic. Theistic religions are also ideologies. Theistic religions source their rules to gods or a god, who is the ultimate authority for the rules of behavior they promote. Humanistic ideologies source their authority in people, the followers, where the rules are selected and defined by the followers in very democratic ways. In other words humanistic is bottom up, theistic is top down. There are exceptions: communism was hijacked and became top-down, totalitarian.”
Source: http://braintree.wickedlocal.com/news/20180526/letter-humanism—is-it-religion.
“On the face of it, conservation seems like a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t we protect endangered species or land essential for an ecosystem? And yet, in the age of Trump, it clearly is not a no-brainer.
When I was growing up in the evangelical world, I heard any number of reasons individuals rejected conservation, for example:
- It is a New Ager’s idea.
- It is a liberal idea and liberals want to destroy America.
- We have been given dominion over the world (Gen. 1:26–28); therefore, the planet’s resources are ours.
- The last days are here; therefore the planet is going to burn up anyway.
- God wouldn’t have built a planet we could destroy.
(Have you heard of nukes?)
There was a time when I parroted back these responses, but, in time, I began to question them — particularly due to theological reasons.
I progressively wondered why God would create a planet he called “good,” but then be cool with his people screwing it up. I was also becoming a liberal Christian, so my conservation theology started to kick in, seeing creation care as also an essential mandate.”
“As a United Nations regional body focused on economic development, ECLAC emerged in the case of Latin America in 1948. Its first executive secretary was Mexican Gustavo Martínez Cabañas, author of numerous studies on financial issues affecting several spheres in his country.
At that time the Cuban Revolution was not yet a reality, but 11 years later with the victory, the paths of Cuba and ECLAC began to advance together.
Argentine Raúl Prebisch was at the helm of the Commission, between May of 1950 and July of 1963, during a period when the body had a decisive influence on ideas and development paths in Latin America and the Caribbean, contributing to UN efforts to achieve a more just international order, as is explained in his biographical profile.
Years later, Fidel would recall at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago de Chile, November 29, 1971, “We had the honor of receiving a visit from Dr. Prebisch. We showed him some things. We are sure that if he were to visit our country today, he would see many new things.””
“Prof. Imam Soharwardy is a Sunni scholar and a shaykh of the Suhrawardi Sufi order, as well as the chairman of the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Assembly,founder of Muslims Against Terrorism (MAT), and the founder and president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. He founded MAT in Calgary in January 1998. He is also the founder of Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC).
Imam Soharwardy is the founder of the first ever Dar-ul-Aloom in Calgary, Alberta where he teaches Islamic studies. Prof. Soharwardy is the Head Imam at the Al Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre.
Imam Soharwardy is a strong advocate of Islamic Tasawuf (Sufism), and believes that the world will be a better place for everyone if we follow what the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has said, “You will not have faith unless you like for others what you like for yourself.” He believes that spiritual weakness in humans causes all kinds of problems.
Mr. Soharwardy can be contacted at soharwardy@shaw.ca OR Phone (403)-831–6330. Original interview here. Some prior discussions here, here, here, and here. Here we talk about questioning and faith and non-religion.
Imam Soharwardy took the time for an interview with me. We talked the young. In particular, the young non-religious and religious. Those who may believe in humanism. Those who may believe in Islam.
Humanists, mostly, coincide with the beliefs as atheists. Others, like super-minorities, may be theists in some modified definitions, deists, and even pantheists.
Their emphasis is humanistic valued. I wanted to focus on dialogue between communities. I find some sects in Islam and communities of the non-religious do not respect freedom of religion and freedom of belief for others.
In some sects of Islam, as seems pointed to, often, the tendency seems a desire to eliminate atheists, the non-religious, the infidels, and to, in secular terminology, disregard freedom of belief and freedom of religion, which includes other metaphysical propositions such as atheism.”
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/imam-soharwardy-sjbn/.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/27
“The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, always ready to create a controversy where none exists, claims in a press release that the media is covering up the Santa Fe High School shooter’s atheism. His headline even reads, “MEDIA COVER UP TEXAS KILLER’S ATHEISM.”
That’s not true. You know how I know that? Because I read Donohue’s press release, which includes this line:
The only big media outlets that reported on his atheism were the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
What a cover-up! The only people talking about it are TWO GIANT MEDIA OUTLETS.
There’s another reason the shooter’s atheism wasn’t mentioned in a lot of the news coverage, though, and it’s not because everyone’s trying to hide something.
It’s because it’s Just. Not. Relevant.”
“Nsajigwa I Mwasokwa (Nsajigwa Nsa’sam) founded Jichojipya (meaning with new eye) to “Think Anew”. He is the Founder of Jicho Jipya/Think Anew Tanzania. We have talked before about freethought in Tanzania. Here we talk about atheist thinkers in Tanzania and atheist thinkers and literature.
Nsajigwa talked about an individual elder in the Tanzanian community, who was known as a public figure. His name is Kingunge Ngombale-Mwilu. In Tanzania, and an important point for even some more developed countries, Ngombale-Mwilu is the only person known, in a public position, to be sworn in without holding a Bible or a Quran.
Since Tanzanian independence, he has served in top ranking positions as a minister of the state. “That is, how we suspected him to be a nonbeliever and on interviewing him recently he came out as such, a freethinker who is Agnostic (though our society thought of him as a socialist communist),” Nsajigwa explained.”
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/nsajigwa-sjbn/.
“The steady decline of religion in the Western world is being mirrored by the growth of so-called atheist churches, statistics show.
According to the Washington DC-based Pew Research Center, the religiously unaffiliated are now the second-largest religious group in North America and most of Europe.
A study by theology professor Stephen Bullivant, from St Mary’s University in London, found that more than half of the UK’s population does not identify as religious. “The rise of the non-religious is arguably the story of British religious history over the past half-century or so,” Bullivant says in the introduction to his report, titled The ‘No Religion’ Population of Britain.
At the same time, there has been a growth in the number of atheist churches, which aim to replicate much of the church service atmosphere but without the religion.
A “small subset of those people who have lost their faith in a supernatural being still want the community spirit and behavioural norms that go with religious experience”, Phil Zuckerman, professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in California, told The Economist.
But what are atheist churches and what do they offer the people who attend them?”
Source: http://www.theweek.co.uk/93733/what-are-atheist-churches.
“The news media and the pundits are wading through another fog trying to figure out why the latest serial killer went on a rampage. As a sociologist who has written on this subject before, I can attest that serial killers have much in common, and this is especially true of young killers.
To begin with, let’s dispense with a popular myth about the latest tragedy. Contrary to what most are saying, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the killer who shot his victims at Sante Fe High School, did evince warning signs.
Soon after 10 innocent persons were shot dead, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, “The red-flag warnings were either nonexistent or imperceptible.” He was fed the wrong information.
A few weeks before the shooting, there were at least three perceptible signs of trouble: Pagourtzis made two alarming changes on his Facebook page, and, more importantly, he threatened to kill someone.
For example, he posted a picture of a black T-shirt on his Facebook page with the words “BORN TO KILL” on it. On the same day, he posted a picture of a jacket with genocidal symbols on it: the hammer and sickle of the Communist Party, and the Nazi Iron Cross of Germany’s Fascist regime. These two postings were obvious signs that something was wrong.
Then there is the tragic case of Shana Fisher. Two weeks before Pagourtzis shot her, he told the 16-year-old student that he was going to kill her. She told both of her parents. According to her father, who did not live with either his daughter or his ex-wife (he had remarried 13 years earlier), “He [Pagourtzis] had told her himself he was going to kill her. He was walking around planning this in his head for weeks.””
Source: https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/bill-donohue/media-covering-texas-killers-atheism.
“P.Z. Myers is an atheist Darwinist biologist who has turned sour on the New Atheist movement. Two cheers for his candor. He quotes another atheist activist, Eiynah, who writes:
It’s quite depressing that movement Atheism has turned into such a joke. I valued it so much once.
Professors Myers agrees about the “shambles [that] movement atheism is in right now”:
OK, that’s eerie — it’s the same scene, only about 5 years later, with different players. I noticed the “troubling turn” about 8 years ago, as more and more atheists began to rally around two themes: the Glorious Leaders who were fonts of inarguable Reason & Logic, and a definition of atheism that exempted them from all social responsibility or ethical obligation. The other big difference was that unlike Eiynah, I resisted criticizing with the excuses of #NotAllAtheists and they’ll outgrow the regressive social tendencies if we just keep trying. I was wrong. And it is quite depressing.
There’s some inside-baseball discussion of big names in the atheist firmament that have fallen to the earth, or are believed to have otherwise somehow betrayed their followers.”
Source: https://evolutionnews.org/2018/05/atheist-activists-lament-a-movement-in-shambles/.
“Jordan Peterson’s main problem with atheism, as can be seen from the below clip, is that atheism is, supposedly, morally bankrupt. The problem, he claims, is that atheism doesn’t have any grounding in morality. If you’re a “radical atheist,” he says, why not kill? Why not steal? Why not transgress? The only thing holding anyone back would be traditional Western morality, but in the scheme of atheism, without a personified foundation, this morality has no teeth or fundamental reliability.
This translates to a confusion, on his part, as to why atheists would want to do good — why not, he says, act in our own self-interest? Why not be psychopathic? Why not be completely and thoroughly selfish?
My response is that most of us are not psychopaths. Most of us care about each other and, in addition, acting as if we don’t will lead to mutually assured destruction. Sure, we all bend the rules a bit here and there, inevitably. But most of us care about other people beside ourselves — especially those among us who make us where we are, who allow us to recognize ourselves and our position in the world, or who we respect and admire as beautiful.
That’s something I’ve found about being an atheist — for me, other people replaced God as the foundation of places I find my worth and value.”
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/barrierbreaker/what-jordan-peterson-is-wrong-about-atheism/.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/20
“ A legislative document released by the Vatican instructs nuns to restrict their time on Social Media. The Religious Life Office in Rome insists that sisters must not be distracted by words, news, and noises.
The document states a concern that social media has weakened virtues like contemplative silence and recollection. Vatican Instructs Nuns To Drop Their Social Media Use The Vatican document gave guidelines that social media must be utilized with discretion and sobriety. The report is full of rules and many restrictions.
They include what type of content, what communication channels to use, and the number of messages that should be sent. The Catholic Church has always been successful in harnessing the communication medium of the day to propagate its ideas and thoughts. No wonder the Catholic Church deftly embraced social media like Twitter and Facebook. Pope Francis himself is a prolific tweeter.
As per SocialBearing, an analytics services company, about 18 million people follow him. The pontiff’s tweets have been viewed and read by about 3.5 billion times during the last six months. His tweets get retweeted approximately 10 million times. The subject of nuns using social media to get their points across came into prominence during the final days of April. A few cloistered nuns resident in Spain grouped to protest in Facebook after a Spanish court acquitted five men charged with gang-raping a teenager.
The scene of the incident was the 2016 Pamplona bull-running festival. The court instead charged them with the lesser offense relating to sexual abuse. Sisters of Hondarribia wrote the protest texts.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=52197.
“A Tennessee man named Charles Dwight Stout III, 20, pleaded guilty in a United States District Court for vandalizing the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in July 2017. He was indicted and charged along with his fellow conspirator Thomas Gibbs, 18, of planning to and committing a civil rights violation by damaging the Islamic Center in their hometown.
Man Found Guilty of Vandalizing Islamic Center with Bacon The two individuals came under the cover of darkness, with Stout wearing a Soviet gas mask, and defaced the property by using spray paint to create profane messages about Allah. This occurred on several areas of the building’s exterior and made the discovery of the messages an obvious and despairing moment for those who discovered the vandalism.
The other, perhaps more bizarre vandalism, occurred when the men decided to leave bacon around the property. Like Judaism, pork products such as bacon are forbidden for consumption by the adherents of Islam. Together, these two crimes showed that the men were defacing the property based on the religion of the individuals who attended, which is a very serious crime.”
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=52020.
“President Trump is moving forward with increasing restrictions on abortion. His administration has announced that were would no longer be federal funding for any health clinic that provides abortions or refers patients to abortion providers. The move is the restatement of a law passed by President Reagan but discontinued in 1994.
This is part of a concerted effort to severely limit or possibly outlaw abortion in the United States by Trump. How Evangelicals Explain Trump’s New Abortion Ban. But why is a man who in limit over a decade ago called himself “very pro-choice” trying to eliminate abortions? The answer is evangelicals Christians. They have consistently been Trump’s chief supporters. Over eighty percent of evangelicals voted for Trump.
They are staunch opponents of abortion. Over seventy percent of evangelicals want most or all abortions to be illegal. Like Trump, evangelicals have not always been against abortion. Evangelicals follow the Bible, which does not mention abortion and does not explicitly refer to protecting fetuses.
Evangelicals were historically not interested or even liberal on abortion issues. After Roe v. Wade Evangelicals became outspoken against abortion and became tied to Republican candidates fighting on their behalf.
Source: https://www.worldreligionnews.com/?p=52209.
“Santa Fe — The school district had an active-shooter plan, and two armed police officers walked the halls of the high school. School district leaders had even agreed last fall to eventually arm teachers and staff under the state’s school marshal programme, one of the country’s most aggressive and controversial policies intended to get more guns into classrooms.
They thought they were a hardened target, part of what’s expected today of the American public high school in an age when school shootings occur with alarming frequency. And so a death toll of 10 was a tragic sign of failure and needing to do more, but also a sign, to some, that it could have been much worse.
“My first indication is that our policies and procedures worked,” J.R. “Rusty” Norman, president of the school district’s board of trustees, said Saturday, standing exhausted at his front door. “Having said that, the way things are, if someone wants to get into a school to create havoc, they can do it.””
“Today, in an aggressively secular world, Rapunzel-length hair is often a signifier of wealth, excess, and reality-TV stardom. But for millennia, long hair has held religious power and served as an important link to the spiritual realm. That power is unabated.
In one example of many, you can trace the idea back to the Nazarites of the Old Testament — to Samson and the scissor-happy seductress Delilah. “Samson letting his hair grow was an oath to God. The deal was: As long as you don’t cut it, you’ll be powerful,” says Frank Korom, a professor of anthropology and religion at Boston University. “When Delilah had his hair cut off, she severed that oath, which made him weak and vulnerable. Hair is so often about power.” Even today, ancient parables like this still resonate. “In the case of Samson, the hero’s long hair connotes a cultural notion about manhood and endows him with a kind of holiness,” says Susan Niditch, a religion professor at Amherst College. It pleased his god.”
Source: https://www.allure.com/story/long-hair-and-religious-spirituality-connection.
“Not only is Queen Elizabeth the head of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, but she also is the Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith of the Church of England, the state church of England that broke with Roman Catholicism in the 16th century.
According to the royal family’s website, these titles date back to King Henry VIII’s reign when he was given the title “Defender of the Faith” by Pope Leo X in 1521. However, when the pope refused to annul Henry VIII’s marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, after she failed to produce a male heir to the throne, the king renounced the Papacy’s authority in 1534 and divorced her.
After this historical break with Rome, Henry VIII established himself as the “the only supreme head of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia,” according to the BBC.
While Mary I tried to restore Roman Catholicism in England, her sister Elizabeth I declared herself the “Supreme Governor” of the Church of England when she took over the crown in 1558. And since then, the royal family has practiced Anglicanism, a form of Christianity.”
Source: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/a20714679/what-religion-is-the-royal-family/.
“The most jarring takeaway from the ceremony redesignating a U.S. consulate building in Jerusalem as an embassy certainly was the juxtaposition of the self-congratulatory speechmaking with the killing on the same day. Forty miles away, Israeli forces killed 64 people and injured 2,400 more as Palestinian Arabs protested their confinement to the open-air prison known as the Gaza Strip. Also jarring, however, was participation in the ceremony by two bigoted American preachers who have conveyed messages that one might think would be offensive to the dominant religious faith in the host country, Israel. Robert Jeffress, an evangelical pastor from Dallas, has said that Jewish people who remain Jews and do not convert to Christianity will go to hell. Jeffress is an equal-opportunity bigot who does not pick only on Jews. He has said that “religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism…lead people to an eternity of separation from God in hell.” The other Texas preacher who was given a speaking role in the ceremony, televangelist John Hagee, has said that according to the Bible, Hitler and the Holocaust were part of God’s plan to return Jews to Israel.
The ceremony was at a U.S. diplomatic installation, and presumably the Trump administration put together the program. Perhaps many Israelis are unaware of what Jeffress and Hagee have preached, apart from the prayers they were permitted to offer at the ceremony. But other Jewish Israelis surely were aware. One wonders what they were thinking when Hagee and Jeffress appeared at the podium.
Of course, we know what Trump and his political advisers were thinking in putting the two on the program. They were appealing to part of Trump’s domestic base. Specifically, they were appealing to evangelical Christians, who constitute a larger part of that base than do the Jewish Americans who support him. The religious connection between that part of the base and Israel involves dispensationalism, a Christian doctrine in which, in at least some versions, Israel plays the theological role of forerunner to the second coming of the Messiah. (That’s the point in the prophesied story when all the Jews in Israel, or at least those who do not want to go to hell, are expected to convert.) American dispensationalists such as Jeffress brush aside any historical, demographic, or political disconnect between the Israelites of the Bible and the modern state that Benjamin Netanyahu leads. For them, their theology is reason enough to give unqualified support to whoever runs today’s Israel, as a way of keeping God’s pre-programmed story moving in the right direction.”
Source: https://lobelog.com/religion-corrupting-policy-and-vice-versa/.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/20
“The headlines in the newspaper and blared on television news often tell of ways in which the world may be getting worse, but the importance of seeing the world as it really is cannot be overstated.
In his new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, urges readers to set aside these lurid headlines and prophecies of impending doom and consider the facts underlying the reality of a happy and prosperous world.
Appreciating Modernity
Pinker provides an unapologetic defense of Enlightenment ideals — such as the belief in progress, the primacy of science, and self-determination — explaining just how the world has become better over the centuries.
“More than ever, the ideals of science, reason, humanism, and progress need a wholehearted defense,” Pinker writes. “We take its gifts for granted: newborns who will live more than eight decades, markets overflowing with food, clean water that appears with a flick of a finger and waste that disappears with another, pills that erase a painful infection, sons who are not sent off to war, daughters who can walk the streets in safety, critics of the powerful who are not jailed or shot, the world’s knowledge and culture available in a shirt pocket.””
Source: https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/a-full-throated-defense-of-western-enlightenment-values.
“Sincere Kirabo, writer and social justice activist, has been the social justice coordinator at the American Humanist Association for years. His posts at The Humanist have always been provocative and insightful, puncturing the pieties of the vague up-with-everybody universalism that passes for humanism in our not-so-new millennium.
Now he’s the former social justice coordinator at the AHA, according to the masthead, and Kirabo hasn’t clarified the reasons for his departure there. (I tweeted to ask him why he’s leaving, but his Twitter account hasn’t been updated for several days.) It can’t have been a very acrimonious split, since Kirabo says his final articles for the Humanist are still pending. But what gives?
It could be that Kirabo is banging his head against the wall at the AHA, and that humanists would rather pay lip service to social justice issues than engage with them.
Beware The Village Atheists
Kirabo’s articles at The Humanist have always outraged an organized secular community that’s continually patting itself on the back for its dedication to truth and reason, because he has always pointed out that we’ve failed to live up to our ideals. In posts like Three Warning Signs That Village Atheism Is Your New Religion, he describes a community who think skepticism is only about critically examining other people’s beliefs:
This subset of nonbelievers is overly wowed by the low bar it requires to recognize the inadequacy of the God hypothesis. Meanwhile, in many ways, they preserve or encourage a bounty of beliefs that are just as oppressive and pernicious.
“Faculty inducted into UBs chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society were, from left, front: Weidun Alan Guo, MD, PhD; Paula A. Del Regno, MD; and David M. Thomas, MD; Back: Andrew B. Symons, MD; Lynn M. Steinbrenner, MD; Dori R. Marshall, MD; and A. John Ryan Jr., MD. Wayne R. Waz, MD, was also inducted.
Fifty-four exemplary medical students, residents, fellows and faculty members have been inducted into the University at Buffalo’s Richard Sarkin Medical Emeritus Faculty Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS).
All of the honorees — who are medical trainees and physician-teachers at various stages of their careers — have demonstrated excellence in humanistic clinical care, leadership, compassion and dedication to service.
The society is a program of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that strives to elevate the values of humanism and professionalism in medicine worldwide.
“Arnold Gold was the sort of physician who truly personified what humanism in medicine is all about,” said Leonard A. Katz, MD, professor emeritus of medicine.”
“Chairman of the Bayit Yehudi party, Education Minister Naftali Bennet, who also serves on the Security Cabinet, spoke with Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Tuesday, 29 Iyar, explaining “humanism is not preventing the deaths of the enemy but to defend the citizens of Israel. The following is a synopsis of the interview.
Bennet told host Rino Tzror that in his eyes, “Hamas in Gaza is continuing to bang its head against a metal plate for Israel is not going to yield and not going to permit them to cross the border and threaten and harm the area kibbutzim. Together with the metal platter on the east, we must work to assist them to succeed economically. One of the solutions might be a port, perhaps in Cyprus.
I do not care if it is in one place or another. We cannot say there is an embargo in Gaza as we permit all legitimate items into Gaza.””
“CANNES, FRANCE — Hirokazu Kore-eda — who won the top prize at the Cannes film festival Saturday — is Japan’s answer to Ken Loach, a director whose stories about struggling ordinary people never fail to touch.
His gentle slices of ordinary life have been praised for their humanism, with “Shoplifters,” a film about a group of Tokyo misfits and crooks who form a kind of alternative family, called a “modern-day ‘Oliver Twist.’ ”
Variety said its “protagonists’ rough-and-ready lifestyle demonstrate that people can find comfort even in the worst economic conditions.”
Critics said that the film also exposes how the “state fails its neediest individuals.””
“What does it mean to be human? New York’s MoMA has amassed the world’s leading contemporary photographers to capture the concept of existing amidst a shift in human perception with its exhibit “Being: New Photography 2018.”
The museum’s “New Photography” series takes place every two years, spotlighting a prevalent societal theme through a creative lens. The notion of “being” has taken on a breadth of complexities throughout the past year alone: racial tensions, gender discrimination, and the polemic on immigrant rights have been thrust into the limelight of American culture, echoing global struggles. These have both enlightened and distorted the way in which individuals’ perceptions of each other evolve.
The 17 artists on display boldly challenge the traditions of photographic portraiture. Their techniques include masking, cropping, fragmenting, and overlaying — portraying clear depictions of human beings to the absence of them altogether.”
Source: https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/new-yorks-moma-captures-humanism-in-photography-exhibit.html.
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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/20
“LOS ANGELES — Eight years ago, Amanda MacLean enrolled for a singing course at Santiago Canyon College, a community college where she worked in Orange, Calif. All students were required to sing together as a choir. She was surprised when she found that the mandatory sessions not only included hymns but performances at religious events.
After singing at the City of Orange’s Christmas tree lighting three years in a row, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She went online to find herself an atheist choir.
“I knew there had to be nonbelievers out there who felt like I did, who had no place to sing without being forced to sing about Jesus,” said MacLean, now 40 and an administrative assistant at the J. Paul Getty Museum here. “I actually thought atheist choirs were a thing.””
“In the 2013 “Fool Me Once” episode in Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” women’s prison series, lead character Piper Chapman perfectly explains why a lot of atheists are atheists.
Here’s her long, gritty, stream-of-consciousness quotation, which I stumbled onto while ambling through the Stumbleupon bookmarking website (my hat’s off to the writer):
“I believe in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in Nate Silver and Neil deGrasse Tyson and Christopher Hitchens, although I do admit, he could be kind of an asshole. I cannot get behind some supreme being who weighs in on the Tony awards while a million people get whacked with machetes.
Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godzooks/2018/05/orange-new-black-atheism-netflix/.
“For those who do not believe in divine judgement, a worldly reckoning can sometimes await them. This is the case for the controversial atheist and daring YouTuber Sherif Gaber, who is caught in a sort of secular purgatory.
The prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer and activist Gamal Eid informed me that his organisation, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), had managed, on Monday 7 May, to help secure Gaber’s release from Cairo airport, where he had been unlawfully detained since the previous Wednesday because no official arrest warrant had been issued for him. After his official release, Gaber vanished.
He tweeted that, after four days “in hell”, he was “free”, but he did not go into detail about his situation, leading to fears he has been ‘disappeared’ and that the security services had somehow taken over his Twitter account.
Even now that Gaber is presumed free, he is not actually free.”
Source: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2018/5/17/egypts-jekyll-and-hyde-approach-to-atheists.
“Authoritarian regimes and religious institutions in the Muslim majority world see eye-to-eye on the topic of atheism. United by their fear of losing control over their populations and their desire for conformity, consecutive governments have pushed for unfair restrictions on their subjects’ beliefs since their inception. But even in society, non-belief remains a taboo. Should atheists in Muslim majority world become more vocal?
With the increasing number of persecution and punishment cases as well as discrimination campaigns against atheists in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, another question arises as to whether Islam establishes discriminatory demarcations to atheism or there are other factors that play a crucial role.
Since March 2018, the Parliamentary Committee on Religion in Egypt has been preparing a bill to criminalize atheism in Egypt. This move is one of many Egypt has recently undertaken to combat atheism. The proposed law consists of four articles. The first article defines Egyptian state’s understanding of atheism; the second criminalises atheism and imposes severe punishments upon atheists; the third stipulates that the penalties are lifted when a person abandons his/her atheistic beliefs, and the fourth is that the penalties for atheism prescribed by law should be “very strict”.”
“”Churches Fight Atheist Lawsuit that Could Result in $1B in Taxes on Church Leaders,” reads the headline in Amber Strong’s post on cbnnews.com. I have argued elsewhere that a billion is probably not the right number, but there is something even more wrong about the headline. The man who sparked the lawsuit about the constitutionality of tax free housing allowances for ministers is not an atheist , quite the opposite. Robert Baty considers himself a Christian and has for decades been a member of one of the Churches of Christ.
Among his hobbies is something he created called Atheism 101 — Critical Thinking Exercise that is meant to get atheists to reflect on whether they might be wrong. Then there is presuppositianalism, another of his obsessions that I don’t share. Presuppossitanlism is something that is supposed to bring atheists around, but Bob does not think that it works. Sorry to you theologians out there. I know there is a lot more to it, but unfortunately I am not going to get it.
What I do share with him are interests in young earth creationism, Kent Hovind and the parsonage exclusion. Bob contacted me because of my coverage of the Phil Driscoll case in 2012 and we have been blogging buddies of a sort ever since. He has a gift for aggravating people and has been kicked off a few internet sites because of his insistence that people pay attention to his obsessions, but that sort of behavior is not going to trouble me. Recently he claimed that he had triggered the current outbreak of constitutional challenges to the parsonage exclusion. I thought that was a claim that required some substantiation, so I contacted the Freedom From Religion Foundation, one of the plaintiffs.”
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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/20
Prof. Imam Soharwardy is a Sunni scholar and a shaykh of the Suhrawardi Sufi order, as well as the chairman of the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Assembly, founder of Muslims Against Terrorism (MAT), and the founder and president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. He founded MAT in Calgary in January 1998. He is also the founder of Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC).
Imam Soharwardy is the founder of the first ever Dar-ul-Aloom in Calgary, Alberta where he teaches Islamic studies. Prof. Soharwardy is the Head Imam at the Al Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre. Imam Soharwardy is a strong advocate of Islamic Tasawuf (Sufism), and believes that the world will be a better place for everyone if we follow what the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has said, ” You will not have faith unless you like for others what you like for yourself.” He believes that spiritual weakness in humans causes all kinds of problems.
Mr. Soharwardy can be contacted at soharwardy@shaw.ca OR Phone (403)-831–6330.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Although, humanists, as young people, want to find community and dialogue. That can come in the form of dialogue in community with young people who are from religious communities.
With respect to the Canadian Muslim community, what are some ways the young humanists and the young Muslims can have a respectful debate or dialogue, or a sit-down coffee to know someone of an opposite worldview to see where they are coming from and see that there are people behind these beliefs?
They are not simply beliefs.
Imam Syed Soharwardy: If you attend my congregation, especially the youth groups, you will see the lively discussion that I have with our students. There are teenage boys and girls up to 20 years old, or 18 or 19.
I have a son. I have a daughter. I have always asked my own son and daughter not to be a Muslim because your parents are Muslim. You want to be a Muslim because you believe in Islam and through your own conscience.
That is what is it is. Being a Muslim and following the holy book, the Quran, in almost every volume of the holy Quran, it says, “Why don’t you ponder? Why don’t you think? Why don’t you explore?” It says, “Why don’t you explore the world?”
It says to question everything in the Quran, then you will get the answer. We must not be a blind follower of the religion, or humanism, or any belief, whether naturalist or spiritual belief.
We need to understand why we believe. Is our belief system natural, normal, common sense or not? That is why I love to talk anyone of any age, young or old, girls or boys, and answer their questions.
Islam, in my opinion, and, of course, people disagree with religion; I follow a natural, normal, common sense of way of life. Yes, there is a belief system. There is a concept of God. There is a concept of life after death.
However, the steps to those make sense in intellectual discussion, not simply blind following or blind beliefs because I was born into a Muslim family. It is because it is a natural, normal, and common sense religion.
Our boys and girls have lots of questions. I never say, “You cannot question.”
I never discourage any youth who have questions in our congregation. You can question everything, every personality. You can question every symbol in Islam, but there is an explanation.
What happens, Scott, you talk to someone who does not understand his or her own religion. When the person him or herself is confused, somebody goes and asks the question, but the person cannot explain properly.
People think, “This is a stupid or a bad religion,” because they do not know what they are believing in. But, by the Grace of God, I am not bragging about myself. I hope that when somebody will talk to me that I should be able to answer their questions in a normal, common sense way.
Jacobsen: I like talking to you. I find the conversations enjoyable.
Soharwardy: Thank you.
Jacobsen: With raising children within the Islamic context where questioning is allowed and encouraged, what can a young person do who happens to, unfortunately, not be encouraged in a home setting?
Where the faith is forced on them and no reasons are given except that the parents happen to believe it? I notice this in Canada. The two bigger faiths are Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
I would assume in Sunni or Shia Islam. In many households, it would be akin to that, where the questioning is not encouraged and the young person may not have developed the capacity.
They may not have had capacity be encouraged to be developed to question those things. If they have a faith, they have a robust faith. If they do not have the faith, they feel okay and comfortable with their family in not believing.
Soharwardy: I completely agree with you. There will be families in the Muslim community who do not allow their children to question the faith. Some of the people and families are rigid. They have been told some things and simply follow it.
In my opinion, that belief is against Islam. It is against what the Quran teaches believers. That you should be pondering, exploring, and seeking. To be a blind follower, that person loses the spirit of Islam.
Some families, they do not allow thinking. It causes a serious harm to the boys and girl who have been forced to follow a belief system. Their heart is not in it.
In Islam, it is a requirement of Islam, a requirement of faith, to practice Islam based on your heart. In Islam, no good deed is accepted by God. Unless, your heart is in it. Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him), he has said it. In one of his sayings, the acceptance of your actions depends on the intentions behind the actions.
If my intention is not to pray 5 times a day, but I have been forced to pray five times per day, that person should know, according to Islam, their prayers are not accepted.
Jacobsen: Wow.
Soharwardy: Nobody should be forced to pray five times per day or fast during the month of Ramadan. It is absolutely non-Islamic that somebody is forced to follow Islam. lslam does not recognize a person’s faith if that person has been forced.
I always say that it bothers me, sometimes, when the newspapers talk about these terrorist groups. They are forcing people to convert to Islam. If people are forcing people to follow Islam, and if there is no compulsion in religion, then Islam does not recognize that person as a Muslim.
If I am forcing my children to pray five times per day because it is a requirement of faith, and if they do not want to because they do not have their heart in it, they may pray today and tomorrow.
When they grow up, they may develop a rebellion against the traditions, rituals, and prayers, which were forced on them while they were young. Why do we want to do these things while when they become adults, they will be against it.
I think it is very important for parents to teach their children explain, answer questions, let their children think and question. I remember, Scott, I had a debate with Irshad Manji. I think you know of her.
Jacobsen: Oh yes!
Soharwardy: She wrote a book, The Problem with Islam Today. I had a debate with her in her home in Toronto. She wrote that when she was a small child in B.C. Her mother sent her to a mosque to learn Islam.
When she had questions, the teacher said, “Shut up! Do not ask. This is in the Quran, follow it.” This is Irshad Manji as a small child. It was normal for her as a child to ask those questions. The teacher messed her up.
The teacher could not answer the questions. What happened? She developed the attitude of rebellion against the faith. If people, if the Muslim parents, continue to do these things, then they will lose their children.
Their children will lose Islam. We should let them get the answers. If they do not want to do it today, then let them be as they are, God willing, once they understand, they will come back.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Imam Soharwardy.
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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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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/19
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We have been colleagues and friends for a decent amount of time now. I wanted to explore some of the irreligious youth community in Tanzania. What is the general picture for irreligious Tanzanian youth, i.e., the statistics and demography?
Nsajigwa: While the general statistics for chief religions in Tanzania (based on The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2009), they are:
· 35% Traditionalists
· 35% Muslims
· 30% Christians
It is understood (based on projections of 1960s) that a small percentage between 0.5 to 1 of the general population of adults above 18 years of any African nation are irreligious.
It gets complicated because many of that minority percentage are in the closet. Each (lonesome) one thinking s/he is alone, and has never met the like-minded! Two challenges emerge from this:
· One, there is a need to do research to comes out with current data.
· Two, the need to “unearth” these individuals and connect them.
Jacobsen: How much less religious are they than their parents and grandparents?
Nsajigwa: Hard to tell for now, specific statistics are needed; however, the forces of secularization, modern education, exposure/globalization, dialectic dynamics, and accompanying existentialist realities of constant transitions of modern life have been quite impactful, 50+ years since Uhuru, independence, of which the entrance of the internet (2000) has been a phenomenal game-changer.
Based on that, we could conjecture that irreligion has risen for this generation compared with those of the past, though research on that would be needed to confirm.
Jacobsen: How can Tanzania society move from the superstitions into the scientific worldview, and so modern education, rights, and technological movement?
Nsajigwa: The coming into being of Jichojipya Think Anew as an entity is the answer to that very question!
Thus, objects of Jichojipya includes to instil, inspire, and nurture book reading as a habit into a culture, the love of studying (rather than have phobia for) philosophy qua philosophy independent of theology, to nurture and develop Socratic elenchus — that is sceptic, inquisitive habit that question phenomenon — nature and man-made.
Also, To “Think Anew” in a rational empirical-based manner. To fight against abject poverty that makes people gullible when given hope to escape from it, encouragement of STEM — that is, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — from the grassroots.
Jichojipya is working hard to establish itself as an institution working for (and in defense of) the rise of rationalism, secularism, and humanism as an outlook (replacing superstition) in Tanzania. Man “is the centre”, measure of everything, as the dictum from Protagoras of ancient times stated; all the way to Renaissance age to our own Founding Father of the Nation popularly known as “Mwalimu”, a sage, teacher, who taught likewise. It is an ideal of the nation worth while for the youth to pursue.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time
Nsajigwa: Thanks back to you, you are welcome, Karibu.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/14
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Noura Hussein Hammad is a new case of a woman with the death penalty. What is her brief story?
Helie Lucas: She has been given in marriage by her tutor (wali) (in this case, her father — as this is legal in Sudan) at age 16, against her expressed will. She even fled her father’s house and lived for three years at her aunt’s, hundreds of kilometers away to make it clear she was not accepting this marriage… This actually means that her father signed a marriage contract with the husband to be, eventually out of the presence of the bride to be. The consummation of the marriage may take place at a different time during another ceremony.
After three years, the father sent a message asking her to come back home, stating that he abandoned the idea of marrying her off against her will. He lied about it. When she arrived, she found out that everything was ready for the 2nd stage of the ceremony. She was then forced to go to her husband’s house, where she steadily refused to allow for the consummation of the marriage, for several days. The husband then requested several male family members to hold her down and he raped her in their presence. The day after, he tried to rape her again, but she ran to the kitchen and defended herself with a knife. He died.
She then went back to her father’s place, but he disowned her and took her to the police. She admitted the facts.
She has been judged and sentenced to death by hanging, for murder.
This is a case of child marriage, forced marriage, gang rape, and killing in self-defense. Sudanese law as well as international law both criminalize forced marriage of underage girls. Rights defenders are calling for an annulment of the judgment and a due process, taking into account all the mitigating circumstances that surround the husband death, including human rights abuse, rape, forced marriage, child marriage. They also ask that the state of terror and mental instability in which she must have fallen after the gang rape be considered.
Jacobsen: How can people help her in particular and others in similar situations in general with advancing their ability to fight theocratic laws and violations of human rights?
Helie Lucas: Sudan is a signatory of several international treaties and conventions regarding human rights. It must be held accountable vis a vis international law. It seems that this is the best avenue at the moment to save Noura’s life. On the ground, Sudanese rights groups are creating a climate of awareness for women’s rights and children rights. There is also a growing mobilization in Muslim countries in support of Noura, which denounce a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam as well as contradictions inherent to the discrepancies between the constitution and some institutions like that of wali (tutor), which deprived women of a number of rights otherwise guaranteed under the Constitution. Internationally AI is demanding a revision of the judgment and due process taking into account the specific circumstances of the husband’s murder and the various forms of violence and human rights abuses suffered by Noura.
It is absolutely crucial for supporters outside Sudan to understand that they should first and foremost support the efforts for justice from within. Women’s and rights groups in Sudan know how to best fight for Noura’s life and for women’s and children’s rights. They should keep the lead in this struggle. The mere existence of such progressive forces need to be given visibility, their courage in fighting for justice and human rights in such dire circumstances should be given a well-deserved appreciation, and their expertise fully acknowledged. We should also publicly acknowledge Noura’s courage, for resisting all pressures and for, in the end, not turning to self-destruction but to self-defense. In similar circumstances, many young women commit suicide or fall into mental illness. She is one of these rare cases, publicly fighting for her freedom and that of other women and girls till the end.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marieme.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/12
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find HAPI?
Jean Karla M. Tapao: HAPI was introduced to me by Ms. Marissa T. Langseth, the founder of HAPI (Humanist Alliance Philippines, International). I have known her for years because of my brother, who is an atheist and activist.
Was there a family upbringing within a religious framework?
Tapao:Yes. I was born as Catholic but I was raised an agnostic. My parents are both Catholics. We usually go to church every Sunday, I read biblical books and I do pray etc… but I was raised as an agnostic maybe because I love science since I was in grade school and my Science teacher was really good in Science and I was surrounded by people who have different views and beliefs about life. I have a catholic sister but she converted herself to Muslim religion, I have two catholic brothers, who are faithful but not really religious, and the person who introduced to me the world of science, my atheist brother. So, because of that, I have learned a lot of things not only about religions, politics and science but also to be a humanist. My siblings and I were living in one roof since birth so even though we have different views and beliefs we make sure our limitations to maintain the harmony and strong bond in the family.
How did you come to formally claim yourself a humanist if at all?
Tapao: Since I was young, my family and I are already helping the needy but it’s not only about helping and it will never end there. Everyone could become a humanist but the consistency of being a humanist is a life time action. I am a humanist in mind and heart and that’s the most powerful key that I have right now. I want to open the hearts of every one to humanism because being a humanist could change the world.
What seems like the summary statement on a good humanist or humanist ideals?
Tapao: A good humanist for me could help the people in short period of time but humanist ideals is for a lifetime. To inspire everyone and to continue what we have started could make a lot of changes. We, as humanists of HAPI can do good without divine interference.
How does science provide a more robust and reliable framework and epistemology for understanding the world than religion?
Tapao: To be available to compare both sides, we should have a great knowledge about science and religion. Science is based on reality and it was undergo through process with facts and evidences. If we only engaged in one side, it is really hard for a person to defend his or her side to particular matter, it’s just like you are closing your life in one box, but once you go beyond, you gain more knowledge and better understanding to your questions and it became clearer and clearer and that’s the time that you can tell which is reliable or not.
How does religion influence politics in the Philippines?
Tapao: People are molding their lives according the way they wanted to be. What I am trying to say is, if we go back to the history of religion and politics in the Philippines, you can see the changes. We all know that most of the population in the Philippines are Catholics. To be able to have what you wanted in life, you must have the courage to fight for it because of the surrounded obstacles, and that courage will lead you to build your own power, the power to create new ideas, environment and people. Once you get that power it will spread into different angles, it could be good or not. The current situations we are facing right in the Philippines were brought by our own history.
Could the government ‘crack down’ on irreligious activists and humanists?
Tapao: Yes, if they wanted too. Government has the most powerful weapon in the world but without its people it will be useless.
What are your hopes for the coming years of the irreligious movement in general and the humanist movement in particular?
Tapao: As a humanist, we know what is wrong and what is right, we know how respect other’s views and beliefs, and even though we are different from one another we should know our own boundaries. If I can live with harmony in one roof with my Muslim sister, Catholic brothers and Atheist brother so why can’t do it in our own country?
We cannot have the changes we are aiming right now but I am hoping that today’s little steps could make everyone happy in the future. 🙂
I am Ms. Jean Karla M. Tapao, a Teacher, a Girl Scout master and a HUMANIST.
Tapao: Thank you Scott. 🙂
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/12
Robert Bwambale is the founder of the Kasese United Humanist Association (KUHA) with “the goal of promoting Freethought in Uganda.” The association is affiliated with the extremely active Uganda Humanist Association (UHA). In March, the UHA held a conference in Kampala whose theme was Humanism For a Free and Prosperous Africa. The Kasese United Humanist Association is a member organization in the IHEYO Africa Working Group, and has participated in humanist conferences. He is also the director of a few primary schools set up to encourage a humanistic method of learning.
Jacobsen: How does a humanist education work for young pupils?
Robert Bwambale: Humanist education empowers young people with critical thinking skills which allows them to think, ask and analyze questions and answers among themselves.
Jacobsen: What are the core mandates of humanist educational institutions?
Bwambale:
· Welcome children of all beliefs.
· We do not indoctrinate our learners to anything whether humanism, atheism or to any particular belief.
· We tolerate people’s beliefs after all what brings us together is to offer knowledge to the pupils.
· We are not a place of worship but a center for knowledge.
· There is deep respect of people’s human right freedoms, no to corporal punishments, homophobia.
· We observe secular holidays and stipulated national holidays.
· There is no discrimination of any nature whether on race, color, sex, religion or tribe.
· We teach the national curriculum as stipulated by the Uganda government but spice it with humanism to enlighten the masses on who we are.
Jacobsen: How are religion and science taught in those classroom environments?
Bwambale: Religion education as per our curriculum is taught basing on Christianity or Islam, so our students are required to take one side to study and normally the majority learn Christianity. Here our teachers cover all the course units as specified.
On a different note we inform our pupils that these two are not the only religions under the sun, so we expose to them other religions as well. What we need in this is that we want them to know that there exists scores of religions both foreign and indigenous ones.
We dig deeper in religions and sometimes we do have debates or seminars on beliefs and why we think people believe.
Jacobsen: What makes a good humanist educator?
Bwambale: Must be honest, committed, tolerant, transparent, determined, passionate and ready to serve in educating the people.
A good educator should mind a lot about the needs and welfare of his staffs.
A good educator should be able to help over-burdened parents, needy or vulnerable children.
Jacobsen: For young people who want to enter into the humanist education, what should they bear in mind in terms of their post-secondary education oriented towards the teaching professions?
Bwambale: I think it would be a great experience to those who would want to attain more knowledge about humanist education to study in some of the humanist schools we have in Uganda. This will expose them to the alternate mind which they can copy to equip them with ideas about appreciating the goodness of human potential and effort in making this world a better place.
Young people should first of all accept to learn, question, act, and serve.
Young people should accept that we are in a changing world and that science advancement and technology can enlighten us more about the known and unknown.
Young people should know about the dangers posed by religious bigotry and how it manipulates and instill fear, hate and division among humanity.
Young people should try as much as they can to take deeper interest in learning more about humanist values and how best they can incorporate them in what they learnt in colleges.
Jacobsen: How can people get in touch with you?
Bwambale: I am available on facebook https://www.facebook.com/bwambale.robert
My cell phone: +256700468020
Email: kasesehumanistschool@hotmail.com
Mailing address: Kasese Humanist School , P.O.Box 58 Kasese — Uganda.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Robert.
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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/10
Sodfa Daaji is the Chairwoman of the Gender Equality Committee and the North Africa Coordinator for the Afrika Youth Movement. Here we talk about Noura Hussein Hammad’s urgent case. The hashtag: #JusticeForNoura. Daaji’s email if you would like to sign: daajisodfa.pr@gmail.com.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Hammad is a young woman. We are young humanists. What are some things we can learn from this current urgent, crisis of Hammad?
Sodfa Daaji: I think that there are mainly two things that we can learn from Noura’s case. The first one is that injustice is prevalent, exists, and we can find cases of injustice even around the corner. We do not have to go on the other side of the world, and we must pay more attention about what happens every day. The second lesson, the most powerful to me, is the power of people. On the last hours we are mobilizing from different countries, and everyone is trying to give its own contribution. If we gather together, we can do remarkable things, and the power of solidarity will give for sure impressive results.
Jacobsen: Is this common for young women in many countries around the world?
Daaji: Unfortunately, yes. UN is advocating with organizations, activists, and governments to achieve the SDGs on 2030, but the truth is that in some countries forced marriage, marital rape, gender-based violence are something normal, and all these forms of violence are justified with tradition, culture, and religion.
Today Noura has been condemned to death, but two days ago a woman has been killed in Sudan by al-Shabab fighters. According to the journalists, the fighters are applying a strict interpretation of Sharia, but my question is: why those kinds of interpretations are always affecting just women?
It is time for us, academics, advocates, organizations, member of civil society to have a clear distinction between religion, culture, tradition and how they are used — especially by men — to dominate women and to have power on their bodies.
Jacobsen: How do the government and religion restrict the movement, equality, and consent of women in various aspects of their such as marriage, sex, children, and the legality around those same issues?
Daaji: Sudan has a bad record of accomplishment on human rights and having Sharia Law does not help when it comes to freedom. Death penalty is applied also to atheists, apostasy, or for changing religion and belief.
The fact that we have heard lately about Noura’s case show how Sudan is restricting freedom of speech and religion. Nahid, the woman who is following Noura personally, director of SEEMA, has been jailed multiple times, and one of Afrika youth movement’s volunteers.
To overcome this, youth need to change the narrative and reverse what is perceived as traditional and normal. Luckily Sudanese youth are aware and have a deep knowledge about their rights, and they are not afraid to fight to get and build a better future.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sadfa.
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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/06
“During an era of rebels and revolutionaries, Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta(1948–1985) was a singular figure carving her own path, fearlessly speaking truth to power about subjects like campus rape and domestic violence at a time when these conversations were still taboo.
Hailing from a prominent political family in Havana, Mendieta and her older sister Raquelin were sent to America in 1961 after Fidel Castro came to power. At just 12 and 14 years old, the sisters were on their own until their mother and younger brother arrived in the US five years later. Their father, who was jailed for 18 years in the wake of the Bay of Pigs revolt, was finally reunited with his family in 1979.
Through her art, Mendieta transformed fear, pain, and rage into powerful and provocative meditations on gender, identity, assault, death, place, and belonging. Using her body as a vessel of flesh, bone, and blood, she immersed herself in performance art, body art, and land art to create raw, visceral work that channeled the rituals of her native land and questioned society’s treatment of women.”
Source: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/gym79y/ana-mendieta-fought-for-womens-rights-and-paid-with-blood.
“Advancing women’s rights is one of the biggest and most critical challenges in efforts to end poverty in all its form everywhere. Women are disproportionately impacted by poverty and are often restricted in accessing the economic resources, education and training, and land and property rights that could help them break the cycle of poverty.
In many places, women’s rights continue to be curtailed by gender-based discrimination, and women face higher rates of violence and risk of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Globally, millions of young girls each year still undergo the harmful practice of female genital mutilation and thousands of woman die every day due to lack of adequate health care and as a result of pregnancy and childbirth.
The benefits of investing in and empowering women are huge: When more women work, economies grow. They invest their household incomes in ways that benefit children. Child mortality rates decrease when women have more education, and involving women in peace processes leads to more stable and secure societies.”
Source: https://www.devex.com/news/top-organizations-working-on-women-s-rights-and-issues-a-primer-92304.
““Years ago, this was taboo. If I had even said ‘Here I am trying to interpret the Quran,’ people would have come after me with swords.”
These were the words of Zeba Khair, standing counsel for Delhi High Court and counsel at Jamia Millia Islamia-Central University in New Delhi. On Thursday, the UW Women’s Center hosted Khair on campus.
Khair sought to shed light on the legal challenges Muslim women face in India today, and she spoke about the complex social structures in her country that, when left unaddressed, tend to place women at the bottom of a social hierarchy.
The talk was the third of a speaker series organized by the UW Women’s Center, titled “Breaking the Silence” hosted in collaboration with the Seattle Human Services Department.”
Source: http://www.dailyuw.com/news/article_421b0c48-508c-11e8-9357-2b2585439ab2.html.
“ ISLAMABAD —
When a Pakistani celebrity singer used the hashtag #MeToo last month to accuse a male colleague of sexual harassment, it shook the country’s entertainment industry.
“Sharing this because I believe that by speaking out about my own experience of sexual harassment, I will break the culture of silence that permeates through our society,” Meesha Shafi wrote on her Twitter feed.
Shafi was not the first woman in Pakistan to use the hashtag or share her story. The #MeToo movement that started in the United States about 10 years ago and gathered steam after powerful women in Hollywood picked it up in 2017, had touched Pakistan already, but mostly on social media and primarily with women sharing their experiences without naming names.”
“OTTAWA — Rachael Harder took it as a personal insult.
“Women and girls from across this country had a prime minister stand up and say, ‘As the prime minister of Canada, it is up to me to dictate whether or not you hold the right beliefs,” said the Conservative MP for Lethbridge, Alta.
“What prevents him from saying that to any one of the women in this room?”
She was speaking to a crowd of Ottawa-area Conservatives gathered at a pub overlooking the Rideau River one weeknight last month, refering to the time last fall when Liberal MPs on the House of Commons status of women committee decided to block her nomination as chair over her views on abortion.”
“ This year marks the centenary of Canadian women (though not all) receiving the right to vote in federal elections — but this is not the 100 years referenced in One Hundred Years of Struggle. Instead, Joan Sangster’s thorough, critical history looks at women’s suffrage in Canada from the 1850s — when black newspaper editor Mary Ann Shadd Cary published editorials advocating women’s rights — to Canada granting enfranchisement to status Indians in 1960. There are two challenges to writing this story. During this period, Canadian suffrage movements were highly regionalized. Then as now, Canadian feminists came to the cause from differing backgrounds of race, class, religion and political ideology. It made for strange allies. Sangster tells these divergent stories without losing the larger plot, with particular attention to class and race dimensions. This is the first book in a series from UBC Press on women’s suffrage and the vote in Canada. Later books will each take on a particular focus — on Indigenous women’s rights, for example.”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/06
“One of the significant shifts of our time is towards social liberalism and humanism. Liberalism is premised on the principle of unregulated individual discretion, so long as there is consent and no threat of harm to anyone else. Humanism is the primacy attached to the human agency; the belief that humans can, in and of themselves, establish normative laws, codes of ethics, and value systems without recourse to divine authority. Both these trends are products of the enlightenment period that extolled human intellect and scientific empiricism as necessary instruments to raise the quality of the human condition.
The fruits from this reason-driven enlightened view of the world are undeniable. It lifted Europe, hitherto sunk in ancient feuds of antiquity, out of the dark ages, while the rest of the planet staggered from the ball and chain of medieval thinking. Over time, the ‘Western’ way of life became the grand template against which all else was compared. Today, people in developing countries stretch their inherited identities as far as the laws of physics and biology allow, simply to pass off as Western.
Without a doubt, the deliverances of a system that elevates the virtues of human rights, liberties, and rational thought are tempting. The US declaration of independence captures this as much: ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. Surprising then, despite such heady declarations, the US is nowhere in sight among the world’s happiest countries. A single glance at this ‘city on a hill’ reveals a range of pathologies: school shootings, angry white cops doing target practice on blacks, deaths by medication overdose, deaths by suicide, high rates of depression, hyper-anxiety, and a chilling endemic of loneliness.”
Source: https://dailytimes.com.pk/235992/truth-and-modernism/.
“Scottish TV presenter Carol Smillie has been confirmed as a new Humanist Society Scotland celebrant.
The 56-year-old former Changing Rooms and Postcode Challenge host is one of seven new celebrants to join the society to provide Humanist funerals and naming ceremonies.
She will join a network of over 125 celebrants across Scotland as part the national Humanist charity.
Carol, who led her first funeral on Wednesday, is delighted to be part of the team.
She said: “I am delighted to be part of the Humanist Society Scotland celebrant team.
“I have already found the experience of delivering the first funeral a real privilege in supporting the family involved.”
Source: https://stv.tv/news/entertainment/1414109-carol-smillie-to-perform-funerals-as-humanist-celebrant/.
“Members of the House of Representatives and organizations promoting atheism, agnosticism and humanism announced the creation this week of the Congressional Freethought Caucus.
The new caucus comes as the religious “nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation — jumped from 16 percent of the U.S. population in 2007 to nearly 23 percent in 2014, according to the latest Pew data
“Our democracy is impoverished, and the quality of our political candidates is diminished, if a quarter of the population is effectively banned from the electoral arena,” said Ron Millar, political and PAC coordinator at the Center for Freethought Equality.
“This caucus will help end discrimination against nontheist candidates and elected officials, allow candidates and elected officials to be authentic about their religious beliefs” — and encourage atheists, agnostics and humanists to consider runs for political office, he said.”
Source: https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Humanists-caucus-on-the-Hill-12889291.php.
“ Sir: A case for the promotion of humanist values in Jos cannot be overemphasized because, for over a decade, the value of humanity in this central Nigerian city and its neighbourhoods has been under vicious assault.
This assault has scared the social conscience and greatly undermined the idea of a common humanity.
A case for a re-discovery or better a restoration of humanity has become so compelling. Unfortunately, religious extremists and ethnic bigots, blinded by their dark and destructive visions have been on the offensive.”
Source: http://guardian.ng/opinion/a-humanist-case-for-peace-and-tolerance-in-jos/.
“Big Tech is sorry. After decades of rarely apologising for anything, Silicon Valley suddenly seems to be apologising for everything. They are sorry about the trolls. They are sorry about the bots. They are sorry about the fake news and the Russians, and the cartoons that are terrifying your kids on YouTube. But they are especially sorry about our brains.
Sean Parker, the former president of Facebook — who was played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network — has publicly lamented the “unintended consequences” of the platform he helped create: “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.” Justin Rosenstein, an engineer who helped build Facebook’s “like” button and Gchat, regrets having contributed to technology that he now considers psychologically damaging, too. “Everyone is distracted,” Rosenstein says. “All of the time.”
Ever since the internet became widely used by the public in the 1990s, users have heard warnings that it is bad for us. In the early years, many commentators described cyberspace as a parallel universe that could swallow enthusiasts whole. The media fretted about kids talking to strangers and finding porn. A prominent 1998 study from Carnegie Mellon University claimed that spending time online made you lonely, depressed and antisocial.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/03/why-silicon-valley-cant-fix-itself-tech-humanism.
“My other books have generated interest — The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Blank Slate — but nothing like this.’ Steven Pinker is in the middle of an afternoon of back-to-back interviews. Again. It is fair to say his new book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress has touched a cultural nerve. Some, such as Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates who declared it ‘my new favourite book of all time’, have been inspired, while others have been piqued. One prominent Guardian columnist even went so far as to declare it ‘contrary to reason’.
It is not hard to see why it has proved so polarising. Pinker, a cognitive psychologist and linguist by training, and a public intellectual by inclination, has mounted a defence of what he identifies as the key Enlightenment principles of reason, science and humanism — and he has done so on practical and evidential as much as philosophical ground. They are important, he argues, because they have worked to our collective betterment. Thanks to our adherence to ideas first formulated during the Enlightenment, our lives over the past 250 years have improved by every conceivable measure — we are wealthier, healthier; we are more equal, more knowledgeable; we enjoy greater peace, greater security. We are therefore in the midst of and enjoying clear, quantifiable progress. To those loyal to reason, humanism and indeed liberalism Enlightenment Now reads like a vindication. To adherents of environmentalism and identity-obsessed particularism, it reads like a reprimand.
Look beyond the polemics, however, and you will find Enlightenment Now to be an edifying, quietly impassioned book. And, while it contains an element of uplift, its impetus is principally critical — critical of the resurgent counter-Enlightenment, of those who would sacrifice the pursuit of truth at the altar of politics, of the anti-science sentiments now gaining ground. To discuss some of these elements of Enlightenment Now, we spoke to the man himself.”
Source: http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/the-critical-optimist/21357#.Wu82CIgvxPY.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/05
The International Humanist and Ethical Union is counting down World Humanist Day.
It is on June 21. IHEYO is counting down with them. This year, IHEU launched Humanists At Risk as a crowdfunding campaign. this will help raise awareness and support for humanist concerns.
They helped raised, in a similar campaign before, about £10,000.00 “to help defend, protect and support humanists at risk around the world,” as noted in an email.
This is currently an annual crowdfunding campaign to ask for financial support. This financial support will go to helping raise awareness and to hopefully, eventually, support humanists who are at risk.
You can download the supporter pack here:
“We’re in!” — Download the supporter pack
IHEU continues to be a beacon, and umbrella, for humanist activities. The goal is to advocate for human rights, help at-risk humanists. Also, to help document discrimination, this can help catalogue the issues for humanists around the world.
World Humanist Day, in this view, becomes a great means and mechanism to support humanism and humanists around the world.
That’s why World Humanist Day is the perfect moment to harness solidarity within the global humanist community and get behind the vital work of the IHEU.
Ths supporter pack “includes graphics, a poster for events, news story copy for your website or press release, and template messages for social media.”
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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/05
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find out about HAPI?
Angelique Anne Villa: I found out about HAPI through J-rik, he introduced me to other HAPI members: Rayd, Alvin, and Zenki.
Jacobsen: What made the humanist message initially appealing?
Villa: The book released by HAPI made a lot of sense, “From Superstition To Reason”.
Jacobsen: Who has been a guide for you, as an exemplar of humanism living by example?
Villa: I’m new to humanism, but I lost faith since I was 13. I’m still trying to know more about the people involved and how they established it.
Jacobsen: What do you see as the differential treatment for nonbelievers in the Philippines?
Villa: A big yes, even my mom was like “what happened to you?” but she didn’t make any violent reactions though. I can feel how other family members look at me with disgust when I talk about not believing in their god. It’s been just hi-and-hello between me and them since 2010.
Jacobsen: Also on the sex and gender front, how are women treated by the major faiths?
Villa: I haven’t experienced any discrimination yet, to be honest, but I feel bad for a friend back in high school that her mom wouldn’t let her join the volleyball team because they’re Christians and she was advised that it’s better for my friend to sing in their church.
Jacobsen: Does humanism provide a more modern and respectful message?
Villa: For me, yes it does. I know a lot of Pinoys would find it disrespectful if it contradicts their beliefs they’re most likely going to hate it.
Jacobsen: Does religion seem to be more or less compatible with human rights, women’s rights and reproductive rights, and so on?
Villa: Religion is less compatible in terms of reproductive rights, with the LGBT community, and more. Although I haven’t personally experienced this, I see it on the news and it’s so off. The irony between the “love thy neighbours and respect thy neighbours” and ousted gays, lesbians, trans, and the rest is simply not making sense.
Jacobsen: What are you hoping to see as a change in the nature of the public image of humanism in the next few years?
Villa: I don’t expect to see much in the Philippines, I’m not under estimating Pinoys but the fight to push humanism in the country is going to be hard when every family’s foundation is religion. I just hope to see they’d be more reasonable in the future so politicians can stop using religion as their back-up if they feel like losing the elections.
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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/01
Ghada Ibrahim is a Former Muslim and Saudi Activist. In particular, an activist for the rights of women in Islam and talking about her former faith. Here we talk about growing up in a Saudi Muslim family, family life, aspects of Islam, well-being of women and men in Islam, and the net analysis of Islam in Saudi Arabia and the MENA region.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was the moment, or were the moments, of deconversion from Islam for you?
Ghada Ibrahim: The first moment came when I was in high school. I wanted to be more religious and understand my religion more, so one Ramadan I decided to read the Quran for understanding, rather than just skimming through it the same way we did every year just to get through it. I took my time until I reached the infamous 4:34: Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance — [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.
After reading that verse, I began my research. The traditional and most accepted interpretation was that men had the authority to discipline their wives if they feared disobedience from them. But what really bothered me was the start of the verse: “men are in charge of women” or in Arabic “Alrejal qawamoon ‘ala alnisa” The translation isn’t exactly “in charge of”. That is what many like to think it means. That the word “qawama” in Arabic only refers to who pays the money in the house, but that is not true. The sentence right after it says “By what Allah has given one over the other AND what they spend from their wealth”. So it isn’t just spending. This translation also doesn’t mention that word used was “Faddala” which means “preferred” and not “given”. In the most traditional and mainstream accepted interpretations, in both Sunni and Shia Islam, this verse is interpreted as “Men are in charge with women because they have been given preference by Allah with physical and mental strength AND because they are charged with spending”. Western or liberal Muslims like to think that this is only the extremist or Wahhabi interpretation, but it is not. THIS is the mainstream and most accepted interpretation for the verse. It was also the interpretation taught to many Muslims ALL OVER the world.
I’ve read other interpretations by so-called “modernists” and “Muslim feminists” and they completely gloss over the fact that Allah gave men authority to discipline their wives. They concentrate more on how the word “beat” doesn’t really mean “to hit” and how this verse is taken completely out of context. They gloss over the verse that describes what women do with their disobedient husbands, a few verses after 4:34 in 4:128: And if a woman fears from her husband contempt or evasion, there is no sin upon them if they make terms of settlement between them — and settlement is best. And present in [human] souls is stinginess. But if you do good and fear Allah — then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.
As you can see, there is a huge difference in how women treat their disobedient husband (A civil settlement) and how a man treats his disobedient wife (discipline). This got me to reject the divinity of the Quran, which was the first step into deconversion. Right afterwards, I began to question the validity of the hijab and why I had to wear it in a scorching heat while my brothers walked around in baggy shorts and T-Shirts, and I took off the hijab. Slowly, little by little, I began to reject other parts of the religion. I began dating and touching the opposite sex instead of avoiding any kind of physical contact with them. I had a sip of alcohol. Then one day, I realized, that I did not believe in any of it. I woke up one morning and as I was getting ready to perform a prayer, I stopped and thought to myself, “I don’t even believe in any of this. Why am I praying?” And I never looked back afterwards. That was about 7 years ago.
Jacobsen: What is the status of women’s rights in most of the Muslim-majority countries?
Ibrahim: Depending on where you are, it varies from extremely bad (Saudi Arabia and Iran) to moderately bad (Rest of the GCC, some parts of North Africa), to not too bad (Turkey, Tunisia). The worst part about women’s rights in Muslim-majority countries is Family law. Marriage needs a father’s permission if it is a first-time marriage, divorce needs the husband’s permission, custody of children automatically goes to the husband after they reach the age of 7, inheritance is unfair, etc. In countries with forced modesty like Saudi Arabia and Iran, dress codes are imposed on the women. In Iran, it’s mandatory Hijab. In Saudi Arabia, it’s mandatory “modest” clothing in the form of plain colors, baggy long-sleeves, and no display of affection.
Jacobsen: How do you, or others, work with the change in a fundamental belief structure? I would assume the combined feelings of exhilaration, disorientation, anxiety, and fear at once.
Ibrahim: When I first admitted to myself that I no longer believed in Islam or a god for that matter, it was one of the scariest things I’ve felt. It wasn’t because I thought that now I was going to hell like many Muslims like to believe, but because I no longer had a structure or purpose for my life. I had all of this free time now that wasn’t invaded by prayers. I had newfound freedoms that are up for exploring. The fear I felt was of the unknown. I fell into a deep depression in the beginning and went through a sort of existential crisis.
Jacobsen: Leaving a faith, reconciling with the change of belief structure, then not only negating the beliefs but also finding a new life in newly affirmed principles — paving your own path in the world, this is no small task or set thereof. How did you do it?
Ibrahim: I filled the void, in the beginning, with reading classical literature. I saw that even in books written in the 18th and 19th centuries, there were characters that had doubts about their religious beliefs or questioned the existence of a god. They were still able to build something out of their lives in a world that still executed people for blasphemy (a lot like my own world back in Saudi). It was during that time that I realized that my “purpose” was whatever I wanted it to be. I also found someone who was like me. Though he did not grow up in a fundamentalist household, he still lived in Saudi and was still an atheist in a Muslim-majority country. Having someone to talk to about it helped.
Jacobsen: When in a very conservative culture and then leave it, “I do not have the tools. I can make my own mistakes. I could not make them before.” You leave it and can make your own path.
Sometimes, you use the wrong material, take the wrong path and fall, and some get discouraged and some continue going. How do you build yourself back up, keep going, and maintain the new self and sense of empowerment?
Ibrahim: For me, it was the reminder that this life is the only chance we got. I remember how I felt after making several mistakes, one after the other, a few years back. I lay in bed and thought to myself that all I wanted was to die to make the pain go away, to make the thoughts of failure stop. Then I remembered that if I die, that would be it. There is no “second chance” for me. If I died, I would have died without being able to achieve what I wanted to achieve, and for me, it was just to be able to live a normal life. I was stuck in a country that crippled my freedom in every way. I couldn’t let that be the only life I led. Sure, it hurt to fail. It really sucks when you think you’ve made the right choice, only to find out how horribly wrong you were. It is discouraging, but that is just how life is. It’s a roll of a dice. Sometimes you get the number you wanted and sometimes you roll the wrong number. It might be different for others, but accepting that everything that happens in this world is random and that the only way to go forward is to attempt life as many times as you can was how I was able to do it. I’ve accepted that I had no power at all on what life threw at me, but I do have power over how I react to what it throws at me.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Ibrahim: Leaving a fundamentalist religion is a lot like finding yourself free of a cult after years (in my case, close to two decades) of indoctrination. It is difficult to build your individual self after living in a collective mentality. There is no life hack that’ll make life easier afterwards and there is no one-size fits-all fix for it. It really depends on the person and how they react to different stimuli. For me, it required a lot of reading and a lot of cognitive-behavioral therapy to change the way I react to different stimuli. But worked for me, may not work for everyone. Don’t be afraid to try. Making mistakes is not the worst that can happen.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Ghada.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/29
“A new article in the journal Science urges researchers to connect with local Indigenous communities when designing studies on genetic material from ancient human remains.
The science of paleogenomics — studying the DNA of ancient life — has grown in leaps and bounds over the past few decades but researchers are still grappling with some of the ethical dilemmas it raises.
Dr. Jessica Bardill, an assistant professor at Concordia University in Montreal and one of the article’s seven co-authors, said involving Indigenous communities in research is a win-win situation.”
“One of biology’s great mysteries is how a single fertilized egg gives rise to the multitude of cell types, tissues, and organs that fit together to make a body. Now, a combination of single-cell sequencing technologies and computational tools is providing the most detailed picture yet of this process. In three papers online in Science this week, researchers report taking multiple snapshots of gene activity in most of the cells in developing zebrafish or frog embryos. They then assembled those data, taken at intervals of just minutes to hours, into coherent, cell-by-cell histories of how those embryos take shape.
“My first reaction was, ‘Wow!’” says developmental biologist Robert Zinzen of the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology. Just last week, two other papers online in Science traced cell-by-cell gene activity in planaria, simple flatworms, as they regenerated after being cut into pieces. In vertebrates, “the complexity is much higher,” Zinzen notes.
Yet the researchers managed to track the emerging identities of thousands of cells and their progeny. “I think the future of development will be to routinely single-cell sequence embryos,” says Detlev Arendt, an evolutionary developmental biologist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.”
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/how-one-cell-gives-rise-entire-body.
“The economic landscape is changing rapidly across our province, our country, and the world — work environments are now characterized by exponential innovation, much of it in the application and use of technology.
As organizations manage this shift, people who can interpret, analyze, and apply the findings are becoming essential to nearly every industry. The challenge is now to ensure that people are able to develop and update the right skills and knowledge throughout their careers in order to succeed.
The University of Calgary is meeting the challenges of our data-driven world by launching two new short-term graduate-level programs that will prepare students — many of them mid-career professionals — to succeed in the fast-growing areas of data science and business analytics. In the future, there may be the opportunity to apply these credentials towards completion of a master’s level program.”
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/29
“Earlier this year, in mid-February, Amazon fired Emmy Award-winning actor, Jeffrey Tambor, from the show Transparent, after a speedy, three-month internal inquiry into sexual harassment claims, brought against him by two of his transwomen colleagues. Needless to say, while Tambor was unhappy with the treatment meted out to him based on “false accusations”, Amazon held its ground in an effort to prove its commitment to ensuring that their “workplace respects the safety and dignity of every individual”, as Jill Soloway, creator of the show, stated.
This wasn’t the first time that Amazon found itself in the midst of a sexual harassment controversy. Only a month earlier, the then-head of Amazon Studios, Roy Price, had found himself in the eye of the Harvey Weinstein storm. He had allegedly done nothing, despite being repeatedly informed of Weinstein’s reprehensible behaviour towards female colleagues. The situation was further exacerbated by sexual harassment claims made by Isa Hackett, a producer on the TV series The Man in the High Castle, against Price himself. The retail giant was quick to suspend Price (who subsequently resigned) and send out a memo to its employees, reassuring them of its zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment and abuse.”
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/amazon-cares-women-rights-west-india-180427104952368.html.
“The most important fact to come out of this week’s “Timeless” episode: NOTHING HAPPENED, THEY JUST TALKED, OKAY?
Of course I’m referring to Lucy disappearing into Flynn’s room at the end of “King of the Delta Blues” and emerging the next morning with rumpled hair. Wyatt sees this and spends basically the whole episode being jealous and possessive. He knows, just as well as all of you do, that there’s only one bed in that room.
Wyatt’s possessiveness is of course totally on-brand with the themes of this week’s episode, which takes us to 1919 and the height of the women’s suffrage movement. . As we see in the opening teaser, the date is March 4, 1919: Prominent suffragist Alice Paul and 200 other women march for their rights in front of New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House, where President Woodrow Wilson is scheduled to speak about the League of Nations. New York’s finest begin attacking the protesters as Wilson and Senator James Wolcott Wadsworth, Jr., walk up the opera house steps,, but amid the chaos, Paul pleads directly with Wilson to support suffrage. His heart is touched, both by the speech and by the brutal treatment of the women, and he nods his head in agreement. (The 19th Amendment is passed by the Senate just three months later.)”
“The bronze statue of a blindfolded Filipino woman, erected in December, was removed from Roxas Boulevard in Manila.
A recently erected memorial dedicated to Philippines “comfort women” was taken down from a thoroughfare in Manila, Philippines Friday after facing significant criticism from Japan.
The bronze statue of a blindfolded Filipino woman, erected in December, was removed from Roxas Boulevard in Manila. The term “comfort women” refers to the women and girls, who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels before and during World War II, and is commonly seen as a genteelism for describing sex slaves.
Per the Japanese Embassy in Manila, the Philippine government notified it before removing the statue. Japanese officials have expressed concern over the controversial subject of “comfort women” as many such statues have sprung up in South Korea, and the United States, to remember a historic aspect of Japan that it is not proud of.”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/29
A comfort woman statue was erected in the Philippines. The statue was built in honor of comfort women who lived through WWII.
Comfort women worked in brothels to ‘comfort’ the military men. The statue was moved from a seaside promenade in Manila. Women’s groups in the Philippines are not happy with this development.
The Manila City Hall, in a statement, declared that the bronze statue will come back once drainage work is complete. The bronze statue represents a blindfolded Filipina, which points to comfort women in WWII.
No time frame was claimed for the project. This armed activists. However, the Japanese government put pressure on the Philippines government to remove the monument.
The co-founded president of a Chinese Filipino group, Teresita Ang See, said, “What happened is that we kneeled down to the Japanese. … That’s why it’s shameful, so shameful.”
Professor Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua called for the public to fight for the return the symbol. The statues represents an important point of the Philippine national narrative based on this call for activism.
Seiko Noda, the Japanese minister for internal affairs and communications, regretted the construction of the monument in January of 2018. Kyodo News reported on the Japanese Embassy in Manila.
The Philippine government informed the embassy of the intent to move the statue. The topic of comfort women remains a dilemma for both governments, Japan and the Philippines.
Filipinas suffered from 1942 to 1945 as comfort women due to Japanese occupation. Chinese-Filipinos donated for the construction of the bronze statue of the blindfolded Filipina.
20,000 to 200,000 women in Asia — many Koreans — got forced into sex with the front-line soldiers from Japan. Many Japanese nationalists argue the comfort women were voluntary prostitutes and not forced into sex.
Japanese gave $18,000 (2,000,000 yen) to 280 women in the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan. South Korean and Filipina women demand full apology by the government of Japan along with compensation.
References
ABS-CBN News. (2018, April 29). Let’s not insult Japan: Duterte backs removal of ‘comfort woman’ statue. Retrieved from http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/29/18/lets-not-insult-japan-duterte-backs-removal-of-comfort-woman-statue.
Coconuts Manila. (2018, April 29). Like a thief in the night, PH gov’t removes Manila’s ‘comfort woman statue’ to make way for drainage system. Retrieved from https://coconuts.co/manila/news/like-thief-night-ph-govt-removes-manilas-comfort-woman-statue-make-way-drainage-system/.
Nikkei: Asian Review. (2018, April 28). ‘Comfort women’ memorial removed from Manila baywalk. Retrieved from https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Comfort-women-memorial-removed-from-Manila-baywalk.
The Japan Times. (2018, April 28). New ‘comfort women’ memorial removed from thoroughfare in Manila under pressure from Japanese Embassy. Retrieved from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/28/national/politics-diplomacy/new-comfort-women-memorial-removed-thoroughfare-manila-pressure-japanese-embassy/#.WuYZ2YgvyM8.
telesur. (2018, April 29). Philippines: Women’s Rights Groups Protest Removal of ‘Comfort Woman’ Memorial. Retrieved from https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Philippines-Womens-Rights-Groups-Protest-Removal-of-Comfort-Woman-Memorial-20180429-0007.htm.
Xinhua. (2018, April 29). Removal of Manila “comfort woman” statue condemned in Philippines. Retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/29/c_137144974.htm.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/28
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What’s your background regarding religion?
Bryan Valentino: I was raised as a Catholic and I got introduced to other religions as well so I’m familiar with how most religions work and what they teach here in the Philippines.
Jacobsen: What was your first introduction to HAPI?
Valentino: I was invited to the group by its first lead convener Mark Janeo. I was a bit familiar to the organization already and I like it because aside from it being a discussion group, there are also some humanist events that people can participate in.
Jacobsen: If you could make one on the spot, what’s the better argument for humanism?
Valentino: My understanding of humanism is that it’s a better approach to a better world because it puts “faith” in or requires human action rather than waiting for a miracle to happen.
Jacobsen: What is the community of Humanists like for you?
Valentino: So far it has been fun because there are a lot of people who share the some of the ideals that I have. Also, most of the humanists that I know are people who you can have an intelligent conversation with so it makes me understand the world a little bit more.
Jacobsen: How does religion influence political and public life generally in the Philippines?
Valentino: Religion in the Philippines greatly affected legislation before but I believe Filipinos are slowly becoming more secular in the way they see things. For example, it was unimaginable before for a same sex marriage bill to be filed in congress but I think it was early in Duterte’s term last year that someone proposed the bill. Unfortunately it was turned down both by congress and Duterte but nevertheless it’s still implies that the people’s opinions are gradually changing for the better.
Jacobsen: What is a major reform Filipino law could undertake to have more equality for the irreligious?
Valentino: I think it would be nice to have the separation of church and state in the constitution clearly defined so that we can demand secularism from schools and not be required to attend or participate in religious assemblys or subjects.
Jacobsen: Does the current government pose a threat to the free practice of humanism in the Philippines?
Valentino: Well, hindrances or challenges have always been there even before the current government came to be such as the lack of laws to enforce secularism and discrimination against the irreligious but with the power of social media and the fact that the technology here in the Philippines is improving, I think we will be able to make more people understand what humanism is faster.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/27
Argentina continues in internal struggle (and strife, as they say,) for women’s rights. Two women head federal government ministries. 20 exist in total. A ratio of 9:1, men to women.
That amounts to a significant disparity. Argentina has been Roman Catholic Christian. It continues to be Roman Catholic Christian. One longstanding controversy exists around abortion.
If a woman got pregnant, and so became a mother, and if the new mother’s health was at risk, abortion became allowable. Also, this would come in the conversation if the pregnancy was the result of rape.
President Mauricio Macri had a Congress that debated a bill for women’s rights. A woman’s right to have a terminated or aborted pregnancy in the first 14 weeks.
Furthermore, the termination would be free and within the Argentinian universal health system. Argentina has a universal basic health system.
In the World Economic Forum gender equality index. Argentina ranks 34th out of 144. Not bad, no one compares to Iceland, often.
March 8 was a historic leap for Argentinean’s 200,000 women marched for International Women’s Day. Many made an open call for legal abortions. Illegal abortions poses to women throughout the world.
Not because illegal alone but because of derivative effects. Women still get abortions but in unsafe conditions instead of safe ones. Important to note: most abortions in Argentina amount to illegal now.
Women become criminals while risking health and life to get an abortion. That is even in the case of a rape-based abortion. Think about that.
Within reading this article and grabbing a coffee, an adolescent girl became a mother. Argentina has this problem. This becomes poor mothers, children, and families.
This can create generations of poverty. The lack of female leadership may prevent compassion on this issue. Compassion, not generally but, based in experience.
Biological females differ from males in extraordinarily subtle and overt ways. Pregnancy is one. Women and mothers in leadership may bridge the gap.
The bridge strong enough to be able to say, “No.” A strong negation to the strong-arming by allies of a traditionalist government. A government, too, beholden to pressures of the Roman Catholic Christian Church.
References
Beaudoux, V.G. (2018, April 24). Argentina’s abortion legalization debate ignites soul searching on women’s rights. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/argentinas-abortion-legalization-debate-ignites-soul-searching-on-womens-rights-95357.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/27
Bulgaria in-progress violation of European treaty devoted to prevention of violence against women. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), a human rights group, described it.
The Bulgarian authorities withdrew from the Istanbul Convention. The convention is an important part of the movements to prevent violence against women.
In particular, the first legally-binding document was the Istanbul convention. For the ruling GERB to back away from the ratification of it, it indicates a path.
A path the country may be heading down in a deliberate way. It was not ratified because of opposition from the allies and religious organizations.
These include the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. A BHC coordinator, Dilyana Angelova, said, “The Convention guarantees the highest standards for the prevention of violence against women and its rejection is a serious regression in the field of women’s rights.”
This amounted to a “total disregard for the serious and systematic attacks on women.” Angelova said.
Prime Minister Boyko Borissov described Bulgaria as progressive and open-minded. Especially with its time as chair of the EU, EU Council meetings to be chaired until June 30.
Borissov referenced lack of political party support, such as the junior coalition partner. The junior coalition partner called United Patriots. It is a nationalist party.
The BHC continued in its critique. It referenced the hard tactics of media freedom suppression and prevention of dissent. Tactics extended to monitoring of critics, online harassment, and the sowing of mistrust.
All facilitated via propaganda. As BHC’s Yana Buhrer Tanvanier noted, “Last year we witnessed a drastic deterioration in freedom of expression, media censorship and unprecedented political pressure.”
Journalists have been personally threatened or attacked. Also, the government allocation of EU funding showed a lack of transparency.
Bulgaria, in Reports Without Borders, dropped to 111th out of 180th place. That is the placement on the world press freedom index.
References
Channel NewsAsia. (2018, April 25). Rights group criticises Bulgaria for regression in women’s rights. Retrieved from https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/rights-group-criticises-bulgaria-for-regression-in-women-s-rights-10175630.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/26
The state of Arkansas in the United States of America erected a monument of the Ten Commandments. Some have deemed this illegal and discrimination, for example The Satanic Temple.
Arkansas, about a year ago, erected a Ten Commandments monument, which was controversial and taken down by a self-professed born again Christian. A replacement monument is in the process of being or has been installed on Little Rock Capitol Grounds.
The Satanic Temple will be suing the state of Arkansas over a rejection of the placement of a satanic monument. The Satanic Temple founder, Lucien Greaves, stated, “As soon as other invested parties file their lawsuits disputing the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument, we will file an ‘intervenor,’ essentially merging the cases.”
The placement of the Abrahamic monument, of the Ten Commandments, comes from the efforts of Stanley “Jason” Rapert. Rapert passed a bill favoring the monument in 2015. Greaves considers the display a violation of constitutional principles.
That is, also, the monument abuses the public office of Rapert.
“Rapert is obviously a mindless tool for theocratic interests originating outside of Arkansas, as his bill utilized the exact language used in failed efforts to maintain a Ten Commandments monument at the capitol in Oklahoma, “Greaves continued, “legal language that the simple senator was unable to comprehend.”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/24
Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped the Palestinian Authority after torture and imprisonment in Palestine to Jordan and then France. He is an ex-Muslim and an atheist, and a friend. We have published interviews in Canadian Atheist (here, here, here, and here), The Good Men Project (here), and Conatus News (here, here, and here). Here we talk about support and sanctuary for ex-Muslims in France.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How can the international youth humanist community help provide a minimum online community and sanctuary for the ex-Muslim community?
Waleed Al-Husseini: If you mean just online, to open for our voice and show the suffering of ex-Muslims in their countries, for more on these issue, people can support our freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
I don’t think it’s hate speech because it’s our right to criticize Islam as a set of ideas and beliefs. They can support us or make our voice heard more and more, protecting us from having the removal of our accounts.
Because for many of us, using fake accounts are a solution to be ourselves, some of us can’t be real online because all the dangers and threats take us out of all political issues. We are just ex-Muslims.
Jacobsen: How are the humanist and non-religious communities failing the ex-Muslim community?
Al-Husseini: Most of them in the name of humanism call ex-Muslims Islamophobic just because ex-Muslims criticize Islam. They avoid us too because they don’t want to offend their Muslim friends.
I don’t generalize, but most of them are like this. I am fed up with many of them who call themselves humanist and then close their eyes of the killings/murders and arrests of the ex-Muslims just because he doesn’t want to offend his Muslim friends.
Jacobsen: Is it hard for ex-Muslims to find asylum in other countries?
Al-Husseini: Yes, for sure, we have a lot of stories about that, but life is going. We never give up.
Jacobsen: Once an ex-Muslim finds an escape into another country away from the traditionalist and conservative society, community, and home, how hard is the transition into typically Western, secular life?
Al-Husseini: It’s not hard at all because he escaped to live these values. These values are inside himself, so when he comes to these countries. He breaths the freedom. He can feel that he was born-again, because in that other society he always feels as if he died.
I’m speaking through my experience too.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Waleed.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/23
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: There are a lot of terms that float around with regards to formal non-religion. Those who are often termed “the Nones” or “the religiously unaffiliated.” They can be “Brights.” They can be “atheists.” They can be “agnostics.” They can be “humanists” and so on.
Within a humanist context, so as a particular example today, what does atheism tend to mean to you?
Mandisa Thomas: Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any gods, spirits, or supernatural beings. That is the simplest definition. It comes from the rejection of such gods dependent on your upbringing. Or it just means that you don’t believe in them.
Jacobsen: That provides a one-time blanket denial. In other words, what people do not believe, how does humanism healthily build on that foundation — because most humanists are atheists — to provide certain affirmations about what people feel are appropriate values in their lives?
Thomas: Let me say, that they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Because one is an atheist doesn’t mean one is a humanist, even as you said most humanists tend to be atheists. Humanism, in the context of coming to terms with identity as an atheist, means looking for ways to still do good as a human being.
That incorporates atheism and their humanism, how they are able to do good without the ideas of divine intervention as well as applying religious tenets to it.
As an atheist, I am able to give up a lot of stigma and indoctrination. My atheism has allowed me to care more about human beings regardless of who they are. It has allowed me to become less stigmatizing of the LGBT community.
It has allowed me to look at things differently. I have found that I can do more to help others simply based on myself as a person. Once people come to terms with their atheism, they are still looking for ways to help improve either on societal issues or community-building. So, we should be able to do good without that stigma or fear.
Also, there is this idea that the religious hold the monopoly on community and caring.
Jacobsen: There is a general ethos for an ethic for humanists, and atheists for that matter too. But there are different emphases based on concerns or issues they may have in their community, or individually.
If you look at the American context, or your local context of Atlanta, even as specific as a state, what are the general concerns that American humanism tends to take on?
If you look at the younger humanist generations, how do they tend to orient themselves and their ethics?
Thomas: In a way, that is starting to shift. A lot of humanists take on a lot of church-state separation issues. But now, the younger and people of color are getting involved in more Black Lives Matters issues, LGBT issues, reproductive rights issues, and so on.
Also, there is, recently, in the United States the issue of gun control and safety in schools.
Jacobsen: There are some important voices that are within the black non-believing community in the United States, such as Anthony Pinn, Sikivu Hutchinson, or Sincere Kirabo. Who seem like some leading lights to you?
Thomas: I would say Sikivu Hutchinson. Also, Alix Jules who runs our Dallas affiliate. Also, Bridgett Crutchfield who is our Detroit affiliate and is on our board for Black Nonbelievers. Those are the main ones that come to mind.
Jacobsen: Your experience with building community and being in hospitality industry. These are skills crucial for any set of communities- or theme-based movements. So, how can people build and organize for particular humanist or nonbelieving activist activities in their locale?
Thomas: I hope to be working on this in the future, e.g., developing workshops for engagement and communication. If individuals are working, if they have jobs that incorporate customer service, these help engaging with more people.
There is a period of self-reflection needed by people. Our sense of identity as people does not have to preclude not thinking of others. There is a way for us to become comfortable with ourselves all while being mindful of how we engage others.
I think that is something in the community that we do not encourage. There have certainly been codes of conduct implemented at larger events and at some of the local events too. That is a good place to start. I think there are plenty of online classes that people can take as far as people engagement.
We can build upon this area for people to come together and develop those skills. We can look at the model of the church too: How welcoming they are but without the manipulation, guilt, and fear.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mandisa.
Thomas: No problem!
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/22
“A Montreal couple who were each fined $444 for making too much noise while walking along one of the city’s iconic bar strips at 10 a.m. says they are preparing a human-rights complaint, convinced they were targeted because one of them is black.
Tayana Jacques, a 34-year-old software developer at Ubisoft of Haitian descent, and her white boyfriend, Brian Mann, the 31-year-old executive director at Concordia University’s non-profit television station CUTV, say they were on their way to have breakfast on April 7 and were having a laugh about the waddling gait of the corgi dog breed when police intercepted them saying they were being too loud.
As Mr. Mann spoke with the police, Ms. Jacques said she tried to keep moving along St. Laurent Blvd. when she was grabbed, thrown against a car, searched and handcuffed without explanation. While Mr. Mann watched, other officers arrived on the scene, he said and, without warning, wrestled him to the ground and pepper sprayed him.”
“Turkey on Sunday criticized the U.S. State Department Human Right Report for privileging the views of terrorist-linked sources and ignoring the facts.
Turkey is “deeply disappointed” by the report, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on the annual report, released on Friday.
“The present report is based on a distant understanding of responsibility by presenting the allegations and accusations of terrorist-related circles as real,” it added.
The report “is filled with allegations and claims in the section relevant to our country that cannot be accepted,” said the ministry.”
Source: https://www.albawaba.com/news/turkey-deeply-disappointed-us-report-human-rights-1120436.
“Newcomers are being discriminated against on P.E.I. and they are not going to the Human Rights Commission for help, Liberal backbencher Kathleen Casey suggested in the P.E.I. Legislature Tuesday.
Casey raised the issue to Justice Minister Jordan Brown during question period.
“Many Islanders, including Indigenous Islanders and newcomers, suffer discrimination but for various reasons do not use the services of the Human Rights Commission,” said Casey.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-human-rights-commission-newcomers-1.4624435.
“Human rights groups blasted the State Department’s annual human rights report, released on Friday, which removed the term “reproductive rights” and softened language on human rights violations in a number of countries, including Yemen and the Dominican Republic.
The report also dropped the phrase “Israel and the occupied territories,” replacing it with “Israel, Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza” in a break from years past, made more controversial by the recent violent flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Human rights groups say the changes undermine the integrity of the report, which is used by the U.S. government, lawmakers, and researchers around the world as a global benchmark for how each country treats human rights.”
Source: http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/21/human-rights-groups-bristling-at-state-human-rights-report/.
“Britain’s planning rules are fueling a housing “crisis” for the elderly and disabled which is forcing the frail to live in dangerous conditions, a leaked report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission seen by the Telegraph has found.
The Commission’s report, due to be released next month, found a “severe shortage of accessible and adaptable housing” with only seven per cent of homes in England offering minimal accessibility features.
It warns that local councils are failing to build enough accessible homes to meet demand and were not taking action against developers who failed to comply with regulations.”
“B.C.’s premier has been apprised of the deteriorating human-rights situation in India by a harsh critic of the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Mumbai-born author and human rights activist Teesta Setalvad met John Horgan at his office in the B.C. legislature on April 18 on a trip to Canada.
Setalvad has been spearheading a campaign for justice for the victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim massacre in the western Indian state of Gujarat.”
“An international human rights group late Saturday called on the UN to have a “permanent” presence in the “Great March of Return” protests along the Gaza-Israel borders, which this year have seen at least 39 Palestinians martyred by Israeli forces.
According to a statement, the Swiss-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory Human Rights Monitor sent a letter to the UN’s Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, the special rapporteur on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association.
The letter urged a UN mission to monitor the protests along Gaza’s eastern border “to document the Israeli practices against protesters”.
Stressing that the demonstrations were “peaceful,” the statement accused Israeli soldiers of using “lethal force against unarmed protesters”.”
Source: https://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/human-rights-group-urges-permanent-un-presence-in-gaza/1125059.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/22
“Washington (CNN)The US State Department’s human rights report for 2017, released Friday, appeared to reflect the Trump administration’s worldview by scaling back on the reporting of women’s issues and choosing not to identify the West Bank or Gaza Strip as territories “occupied” by Israel.
The report did criticize US adversaries including Russia and Iran, but pulled punches when it came to key US allies such as Saudi Arabia.
The report’s introduction singled out political adversaries and pointed to four particular countries: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. The report itself also singled out Russia, emphasizing once again the disconnect between an administration willing to criticize Moscow and President Donald Trump’s reluctance to do so. Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan said the governments of the four countries “violate the human rights of those within their borders on a daily basis and are forces of instability as a result.””
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/20/politics/state-human-rights-report-2017/index.html.
“The State Department’s annual human rights report released Friday drops references to reproductive rights for women and stops using the phrase “Occupied Territories” to describe Israel’s presence in Gaza and the West Bank.
The report, which covers 2017, focuses less on societal attitudes and discrimination than in previous years and more on governmental actions that encourage or reward violence and bigotry. It is the first human rights report to reflect the Trump administration’s views and priorities.
In what is likely to be the most controversial change, the report strips a section labeled “reproductive rights” that outlined access to contraception and abortion, as well as maternal mortality rates, for every country. In its place is a section for each country called “coercion in population control,” documenting involuntary or “unethical” sterilization.”
“One would think that a woman going public with accusations of sexual harassment against a man and then facing a severe backlash would not be so common in 2018. But in Pakistan, it keeps happening.
On April 19, Meesha Shafi, a Pakistani pop-star, put up a thoughtful Twitter statement accusing Ali Zafar, Pakistani star actor-singer, of sexually harassing her.
“Today, I speak up because my conscience does not allow me to be silent anymore,” she wrote in the statement.
Her tweet was retweeted more than 5,400 times, got a little over 10,000 likes and garnered some 3,000 responses, many of them attacking her. The backlash Shafi is facing is quite abusive and much of it is rejecting the existence of sexual harassment or shaming her for making this public.”
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/pakistan-long-metoo-moment-180422151525450.html.
“(CNN)Outgoing Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards is slamming the Trump administration, dubbing it “the worst for women that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
Richards’ comments came during an interview with CNN’s Van Jones on his show Saturday, as she recalled a “disappointing” January 2017 meeting at the White House with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
“I wouldn’t say I had high expectations for the meeting going in,” Richards told Jones, “but certainly my position is that anywhere I can go to talk about the incredible work that Planned Parenthood does, particularly to provide affordable healthcare for millions of folks every year, then I’ll do it.”
Richards, who is planning on stepping down as president next month, told Jones that the meeting centered on what felt like a “bribe” offered by Kushner — if Planned Parenthood would stop providing abortions, the organization would be eligible for more federal funding.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/22/politics/cecile-richards-women-administration-cnntv/index.html.
“To celebrate Women’s History Month in March, alcohol giant Diageo has given the world Jane Walker: a female version of its Johnnie Walker whisky brand. “In recognition of women who lead the way,” the company says on its website, “We are unveiling Jane Walker, the first-ever female iteration of the brand’s iconic Striding Man logo.”
There has been much debate about Jane. While some have lauded the Jane campaign as progressive and supporting gender equality, others have criticized it for appropriating the women’s rights movement to boost sales. An op-ed in the New York Times highlighted a deep irony of the timing of the campaign: The liquor industry was one of the most powerful opponents of votes for women, through the financing of political campaigns and even “the promise of a free beer in exchange for a no vote on a suffrage referendum.”
An equally ironic story can be told from a public health perspective. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that more than 3 million deaths each year are a result of the harmful use of alcohol, and for those between 20 and 39 years old, approximately 25 percent of all deaths can be attributed to alcohol.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/22
“The Sault Ste. Marie Science Festival — the only festival of its kind in the area — kicks off Monday April 23 and will continue through to Saturday, April 28, 2018.
The Sault Ste. Marie Science Festival shines the spotlight on science among children, teens and adults by offering an opportunity to celebrate science in a fun, interactive and welcoming setting for all ages.
The Sault Ste. Marie Science Festival group of partners includes Algoma University, Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, Entomica, Invasive Species Centre, Natural Resources Canada — Canadian Forest Service, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Sault College, Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre, Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and Science North as the managing partner.”
Source: https://www.sootoday.com/local-news/fourth-annual-science-festival-set-to-begin-900091.
“Here’s a view of science you might recognise as common, or at least see promoted:
Science is a purely objective pursuit. Words like “fact”, “proof”, “evidence” and “natural law” are the marks of the scientific method. This approach has no place for emotion, or any subjective aspects. Save it for the arts!
Let’s call this the “Mr Spock view” — since it is framed around the idea of a scientist as a dispassionate, hyper-rational observer of nature. (Mr Spock is a Star Trek character who famously prioritised logic above emotion.)
Almost every part of that view is wrong.
Straight off, the Mr Spock view is wildly out of step with the past 30 or so years of research in cognitive neuroscience, which has uncovered a very tight connection between reason and emotion.”
“Firmly entrenched in its utilization phase, the International Space Station is in excellent science shape, providing a stable and beneficial platform for microgravity research in Low Earth Orbit. The Station’s overall status continues to greatly outpace expectations as NASA looks to continue utilizing ISS as a science testbed for its Orion and deep space exploration objectives while continuing to foster the commercial space industry with the CRS2 cargo resupply contracts, wherein all three providers continue to make excellent strides toward the commencement of that contract next year.
Station status:
To say that science activities aboard the International Space Station are thriving would actually be an understatement. In the first three months of 2018, two major milestones were reached: number of nations participating in experiments aboard the Low Earth Orbit laboratory as well as a record amount of hours for scientific experimentation performed within a single week.
As briefed to the NASA Advisory Council by Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Bill Gerstenmaier, as of March 2018, 101 countries out of the 202 recognized countries by the United Nationshave now participated in research and education aboard the ISS.”
Source: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/04/station-science-commercial-cargo-2-contracts-strides/.
“EPA coordinated with Republicans in U.S. House of Representatives about their plans to restrict the science used in crafting regulations, newly released emails show.
In early January, EPA chief Scott Pruitt met with Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, to discuss one of Smith’s pet projects — overhauling how EPA uses science. Smith hasn’t been able to get legislation to do so through Congress, so he pitched Pruitt to do so internally, according to emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The emails were obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and shared with E&E News.
In March, Pruitt announced that he would follow through. He said EPA plans to require that data and methodology from studies used to craft regulations be made public (Climatewire, March 16). The topic has long been contentious. Smith and others describe the effort as a way to ensure science used to craft regulations can be properly scrutinized. Critics have said it is an effort to limit air pollution research and other studies that have been cited as reasons for regulations.”
“Sixteen years.
That’s how long it will take before the number of women on scientific papers is equal to the number of men.
Luke Holman from the University of Melbourne got that estimate by working out the number of female and male authors on almost 10 million academic papers, published over the last 15 years. With help from Melbourne colleagues Cindy Hauser and Devi Stuart-Fox, he then used the data to estimate the size of the well-documented gender gap in science, and more importantly, how long it might take to close.
At the current rate of change, women will catch up to men in 16 years — but that overall estimate masks a huge amount of variation. For example, out of the 115 disciplines represented in the data, women authors outnumber men in just a handful (including nursing and midwifery) and publish at the same rate in just 23 (including psychology, nutrition, and public health).”
“BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Western New Yorkers are marking Earth Day in a variety of ways. At the Buffalo Museum of Science, the Earth Day celebrations included the debut of an exhibit of creative student art aimed at curbing pollution in our area.
The “I Am the Solution To Plastic Pollution” display features the winning art pieces submitted by students across Erie County, who were invited to create videos, decorative and functional rain barrels, or artwork out of single-use plastic shopping bags.
“I was really excited to do the project because, first of all, we got to talk really about recycling, all the really great things we got to do with it,” said Kara Gurgol, an Iroquois High School junior who’s artwork was chosen for the display.
“And the fact that I won was really cool,” she added.”
“WASHINGTON — Cities and nations are looking at banning plastic straws and stirrers in hopes of addressing the world’s plastic pollution problem. The problem is so large, though, that scientists say that’s not nearly enough.
Australian scientists Denise Hardesty and Chris Wilcox estimate, using trash collected on U.S. coastlines during clean ups over five years, that there are nearly 7.5 million plastic straws lying around America’s shorelines. They figure that means 437 million to 8.3 billion plastic straws are on the entire world’s coastlines.
But that huge number suddenly seems small when you look at all the plastic trash bobbing around oceans. University of Georgia environmental engineering professor Jenna Jambeck calculates that nearly 9 million tons (8 million metric tons) end up in the world’s oceans and coastlines each year, as of 2010, according to her 2015 study in the journal Science.”
Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/science-says-amount-of-straws-plastic-pollution-is-huge-1.3895167.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/22
“ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Some argue that a “humanist” chaplain can effectively counsel a God-fearing Christian soldier. I would beg to differ “(Navy rejects ‘non-theist’ for chaplain corps; lawmakers warn against changing core mission,” Web, March 27). A humanist believes that what humankind thinks is more important than what God wants us to do. This is the antithesis of Christianity. Christians attach prime importance to Christ, not man.
A Christian is first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ — one who knows He is the Son of God, sent to Earth to die for man’s sins, who rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. Christ preached that only he was the way to salvation, that man is by nature a sinner, lives in a temporal world and has limited understanding.
Christ taught us many things, such as kindness toward our fellow man. Most importantly, though, he taught us to reject the ways of man’s world and live a life of repentance of sin. One sin is placing primary importance on man, or being focused on the “self.” In fact, to think like a humanist is a sin in the Christian view. Thus there is nothing the humanist can offer a Christian, because to listen to this way of thinking is to stray from the truth of Jesus Christ.”
Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/22/letters-to-the-editor-humanism-christ-incompatible/.
“British scientist, author and broadcaster, Jim Al-Khalili OBE, will be heading to the Isle of Wight next month.
The Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey (where he also holds a chair in the Public Engagement in Science), has been invited to speak at an event hosted by the Isle of Wight Humanists.
Free Will and Determinism
Jim will be exploring the topics of Free Will and Determinism from a scientific perspective, and talking about his personal journey into Humanism.
The event takes place at Ryde Castle on Wednesday 9th May between 6.30 for 7pm start.”
Source: https://onthewight.com/isle-of-wight-humanists-present-jim-al-khalili-on-free-will-and-determinism/.
“LONDON — Steven Pinker can’t help but offend a few people every time he publishes a new book.
This might be partly because in a world seemingly full of negativity and perpetual anxiety, the best selling popular science author and evolutionary psychologist is a rare specimen — an eternal optimist.
“I don’t like to call myself an optimist, but a possibilist,” the 64 year old clarifies from his home in Boston, Massachusetts. “I believe it is possible to deal with global challenges — that solutions exist, that we can find better ones, and implement the ones that we will [soon] discover.””
“One of America’s favorite hymns was written by a Swedish pastor, Carl Gustaf Boberg, after witnessing an awesome thunder storm in 1886. We know that hymn, O Store Gud (O, Mighty God) as How Great Thou Art. Ninety years ago, in the late 1920’s, when the Swedish State Lutheran Church had begun losing its spiritual and moral influence because of advancing theological liberalism within, the “evangelical free churches” in Sweden were both numerically strong and influential. The evangelical free churches were vibrant, growing, and having a political and social impact as well as moral and spiritual influence. In the late 1920’s approximately 23 percent of the members of the Riksdag (Swedish National Parliament) were members of these evangelical free churches. Usually, the members of the evangelical free churches retained nominal membership in the Swedish State Lutheran Church. The modern and increasingly liberal Church of Sweden (Svenska Kyrkan), although no longer a state church, remains an important social and political force in Sweden.
There were weaknesses in the evangelical free churches, however, that would soon cause their numbers and influence to be swept away like a house of cards before a strong wind. One of the characteristics of the Swedish evangelical churches was that in reaction to the formalism of the Swedish State Lutheran Church, they tended to avoid doctrinal confessions and theological precision, preferring a more experiential Christianity. They also had a tendency to devalue the intellectual side of Christianity and their own culture in favor of their more emotion-oriented, experiential brand of faith.”
“Humanism, and Progress after he had heard him speak on a podcast about his 10th bestseller in 53 years of life as a public intellectual and Harvard professor of cognitive psychology. The gift is part of an ongoing effort to expand my boomer horizons, and expose me to contemporary critical analysis and thought.
Some of this much-appreciated effort stems from a growing millennial frustration with the perceived baby boomer legacy: staying way too long at the employment party (as in septuagenarian tenured professors refusing to retire); the preposterous final gift of Trumpism (with its attendant denial of climate change and any need for environmental regulation); and the vast swaths of economic disruption (with the concomitant gig economy, algorithmically determined values and surreptitious Facebook data mining).
Authoritarian populists like Steve Bannon, Michael Anton and President Donald Trump himself daily feed this fear and growing frenzy. And it gets the assistance of professors such as the University of Toronto’s Jordan Peterson and the members of the Claremont Institute, the academic home of Trumpism.
All this begs the question: Is the world going to hell?”
Source: https://troymedia.com/2018/04/22/pinker-authoritarian-populists-enlightenment/.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/18
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you come to find the humanist movement in the Philippines?
Alain Sayson Presillas: I only found out about humanism online. By joining atheist groups and eventually leading me to the humanist movement.
Jacobsen: What have been some of the major obstacles in personal and professional life as a humanist in the Philippines?
Presillas: For me, I cannot just go around telling everyone that I am an atheist but somewhat comfortable telling people of being a humanist. My job as a teacher somewhat keeps me at bay because most of my colleagues are very religious and closed to the idea of being an atheist or humanist. Even our department of education has a motto of “maka diyos” which means for god. Our values and decisions in the department are fashioned of being that of the biblical principles. And anything that is bible based is considered not good.
Jacobsen: What have noticed in terms of the law that discriminates against humanists there?
Presillas: Not really discrimination, but from documents and everything else, being religious and religion plays a role or a requirement, which in I find it unfair and self serving only those who are religious.
One thing to be considered is, I cannot write humanist in my birth certificate because it is not a religion.
Jacobsen: What about discrimination in culture and social life as general rules of thumb?
Presillas: Individuals who are not religious are considered evil or has no morals for the most part. If your family ties and culture are engrained in religious principles it is difficult to make a decision that is not religious based, the parents has a say, religion has a say and community has a say to decisions that you make in your own personal life.
Traditional and religious people tend to discriminate on you because you are viewed as somewhat free spirited and cannot be controlled by those who are older than you are.
Most good and quality schools are run by religious order, which is the curriculum is driven by religious dogma, even though you have an option not to take such subjects.
In every social event, that I attend, prayer is always a starting point before anything else
Jacobsen: How does religion have social privileges in society, especially Christianity?
Presillas: Majority of Filipinos are Christian, holidays, documents, etc. favors only one religion. It makes only the rest of the religion as a second choice and those that belong to that religion they’re not considered part of bigger privileges. It widens more the gap of Christians and not Christians.
Jacobsen: How can Christians be prejudiced against non-believers?
Presillas: My experience is mostly in treating non-Christians, I am referring to Muslims and other religions. For the atheists, they are considered evil and wayward individuals because they lack the morals and the Christian values.
Jacobsen: What is the relationship between religion and the state there?
Presillas: Very closely related, the constitution says it and part of it. Leaders are somewhat guided by the fact that their religion plays a role in important political decisions.
Jacobsen: How did you find HAPI? How does it provide a refuge for you from the mainstream religion and life?
Presillas: I found out about HAPI thru online. I was able to prove to myself and to others that we can help each other without religion, that we don’t need religion to be good and of service to humanity.
Jacobsen: What are your activist hopes for humanism in the coming few years?
Presillas: I am hopeful that humanism will flourish in the Philippines for the coming years as more of the Filipinos do have access to information and more advocacies in HAPI that others will actually value what do and somehow do get influenced by us.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/13
Professor Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc, FRCP, OC is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and Medicine at McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
The British Medical Journal or BMJ had a list of 117 nominees in 2010 for the Lifetime Achievement Award. Guyatt was short-listed and came in second-place in the end. He earned the title of an Officer of the Order of Canada based on contributions from evidence-based medicine and its teaching.
Here we talk about national healthcare, I intend this as a gratitude piece as a young person who has been served well by the public healthcare system.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to having national healthcare coverage in Canada, when did it start? How did it develop? What would it be like if young people did not have national healthcare?
Professor Gordon Guyatt: There was a national hospital insurance program. That started in the late 1950s. The subsequent big change was bringing in physician services under a national program. That we now call Medicare. Tommy Douglas, when Premier of Saskatchewan in the early 1960s, brought in a provincial program to cover physician services.
The physicians were very unhappy. There was a physician strike. They had to bring in people from England to fill in the gaps, but, eventually, the physicians lost that battle. There was a Medicare program for physicians’ services in Saskatchewan.
It is for this reason that some people see Douglas as the father of Canadian Medicare. A few years later, the Pearson government passed legislation that enabled the national Medicare program that we have. Now, medicine, medical services, in Canada are a provincial responsibility, so that the federal government could not bring in their own program.
They had to persuade the provinces to bring in the program that met federal standards. The way they did that was to say, “If you bring in a program that meets our standards, then we will pay 50% of the cost.” That was a carrot that was very enticing to the provinces.
Legislation was passed in the late 60s. By 1971 or 1972, all of the provinces have bought in. Now, we have effectively national public insurance for physicians as well as hospital services. Canadians have been the beneficiaries.
It is perhaps less important to young people than to older people because young folks are healthier. But, periodically, even young folks, they develop serious illnesses: sometimes catastrophic and sometimes accidents.
If you want a picture of the difference, you would only have to look south of the border. You come from a high-income family. Your parents in the States have probably purchased insurance from you, or can pay if you have problems. If you are low income or middle income, and not fully insured, which would be the case for a lot of young people who say, “Okay, I am low-risk. Why should I pay these very high insurance costs?”
You are in big trouble. That is a worry and a burden that you are free of in Canada. It makes a big difference to our quality of life. The feeling, “If I fall into problems, then I have a system there. That will deal with me. That I will not be constrained from it because of cost.”
Jacobsen: Would younger Canadians who did not have our national healthcare program be feeling a more precarious sense of their security of health?
Guyatt: I think inevitably. If you had been in the United States, you would either have one of two choices. You pay insurance. There are varying levels of insurance. You pay the basic insurance. That you might be able to afford, but that means if you get sick then you have additional payments that you can’t afford.
Or, you say, “I am going to risk it. Then if you get sick, then you will be in real trouble.” In terms of underinsurance, the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States in health cost, associated with getting sick. Most people who go bankrupt have some insurance.
But they are underinsured. There is a whole level of insurance, where to be well-insured costs a lot of money. So, the choices facing young people in the United States who are not from very affluent families is not a cheerful one.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Professor Guyatt.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/11
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find the humanist community within the Philippines?
Ralph Alvin Ace Rapadas: I found HAPI because I was a member of Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society (PATAS) where a lot of HAPI’s members were originally from. I found out about PATAS in Facebook the summer before I started my 1st year in college way back in 2011. I actually became really active and revived/founded a freethinker/humanist organization in my University. Things have slowed down with my involvement in these organizations but I still keep in touch with the people I met.
Jacobsen: What was your early experience with religion in life?
Rapadas: I’ve been raised a Roman Catholic. When I was still residing in the New Jersey, I attended after school church programs. During my 6th grade in elementary school, I was certain I wanted to become a priest. I enrolled in the University of Santo Tomas High School, the Catholic University of the Philippines. Ironically in my 2nd year, I became an atheist after learning about biology and the incompatibility of science and religion.
Jacobsen: Do you think that religion is a net benefit or not negative?
Rapadas: I strongly respect and support an individual’s rights to have a religion. There is no doubt that religion has helped many people overcome their hardships in life however, I believe that religion is unnecessary especially in the advancement of society. I view religion as outdated and preferably obsolete in terms of how we understand the world through science and the societal norms encompassing morality.
Jacobsen: How does religion influence politics in the Philippines?
Rapadas: For a secular country, religion plays a major part in influencing politics in the Philippines. The Catholic Church once campaigned for and against certain candidates depending on their stance on the then Reproductive Health Bill which is now a law. Another example would be the bloc voting practiced by members of the Iglesia ni Kristo (INC) wherein leaders of their church would dictate who their members should vote for in elections.
Jacobsen: What is the nature of religious faith to you? What is its core aspect?
Rapadas: For me, religious faith deals with the human need for emotional support and it also conveniently provides “answers” to life’s questions. Why are we here? What is my purpose? It also addresses the human fear of mortality by selling the idea of an everlasting life. In a nutshell, religious faith for me can work in a manner similar to a placebo but is ultimately unnecessary.
Jacobsen: If you could advise youths about humanism, what would you advise?
Rapadas: Try to develop a strong understanding of philosophy and ethics. Be proactive in seeking out new information. Do you think that there is an ultimate meaning to life or that we make her own meaning of life? I think that we make our own meaning out of life. For myself, I am currently leaning on the epicurean/hedonistic philosophy.
Jacobsen: What books do you recommend about humanism from Filipino authors? Who is the Filipino hero for you?
Rapadas: I currently don’t know any humanism books from Filipino authors.
Jacobsen: If you could reference one quote or statement that best represents humanism, what would it be?
Rapadas: An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated. -Madalyn Murray O’Hair This quote is for atheists but mostly applies for humanism.
Jacobsen: Do you think ordinary humanists or the stars of humanism are the best people to speak on it?
Rapadas: In other words, those who talk about it in a high level or those who live it day to day. I think both have a right and authority to speak on it. The stars may have a bigger following but it doesn’t necessarily relate to expertise in humanist philosophy.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/09
There is a GoFundMe for Dr. Leo Igwe. It is for the getting some finances in order for the his methods to be taught to students.
Igwe has a Critical Thinking method, which this will help fund for students in Ghana and Nigeria. Igwe will receive 5% of the funds for the GoFundMe. His critical thinking method is considered valuable by participants.
The GoFundMe campaign is here:
https://www.gofundme.com/critical-thinking-nigeria-amp-ghana
The campaign is open ended and intended to help spread critical thinking in Ghana and Nigeria. Please help spread the word.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/07
The lovely and funny Hannah Timson, President of Humanist Students (associated with the also eternally optimistic Hari Parekh, President Emeritus, and the absolutely philosophical Angelos Sofocleous, President-Elect), put out a call for building the humanist community for students.
There is the Humanist Students — Building Our Community. Humanist Students have confirmed the Dr. Julian Baggini for the keynote speech. Baggini is a patron of the growing and prominent humanist organization Humanists UK.
Baggini has written on atheism, ethics, and humanism. The celebratory theme will be the building of humanist community, which is becoming a more viable lifestance for so many young people, especially students, around Europe.
There will be a bunch of people involved in this event including “the Chief Executive of Humanists UK Andrew Copson, Co-founder of Faith to Faithless Imtiaz Shams, Audrey Simmons of London Black Atheists and Rabia Mirza from British Muslims For Secular Democracy.”
The event is “Humanist Students-Building out community at Lift Islington, 45 White Lion Street, London, N1 9PW on April 14th 2018, 09:45–April 15th, 16:00. You can book here for the free event.
The event is intended for Humanist UK’s student members alone.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/04
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was your background in religion growing up?
Rholdee Dela Mance Lagumbay: Well, I was born a Roman Catholic family. My Grandfather is a hardcore RC. Every Sunday we go to church. But when we go home, I feel empty. When I grew up, I started seeking. I found other Christian Churches and attended their services. Still I find something is lacking. You see, Christian Churches always say that “Salvation” is only through Jesus Christ. But how about others who did not know Jesus in their lifetime? This idea deeply troubled me as I was growing. This is the “emptiness” I felt. If God was so wise, why can’t he understand the fact that there are some who will never know him in this lifetime?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find Catholicism?
Lagumbay: Catholicism, Roman Catholicism (to be very specific) for me is not more of a Spiritual institution, but a Political one. It was created by Constantine the Great to expand his influence over Rome. He used the teachings of a Great Spiritual Master, wrapped it with Myths and Legends — viola! Mar Yeshua Ha Messiach became Lord Jesus the Christ. The Bible was compiled to support this Claim. He who says something against their “Canon” ia then a Heretic. Excommunication was the most painful thing to happen. If you’re not killed, you’ll be put into exile.
The word Catholic means Universal. This should’ve been the focus of this Religion. Everyone is Part of the “Body of Christ” so to speak. Christian or not, Theist or Atheist, we are all part of the whole Universe, therefore Kathulikus (Greek word for Universal). This has been wrongly used by the Roman Catholics.
The Catholic Universalist Church is part of the Growing Liberal Catholic Movement. We are the type of Catholics who do not believe in the Authority of Rome, but we believe in the Divinity and Dignity of every man. We are the Heretics, the Gnostics, and the Mystics.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is mysticism within the Catholic tradition?
Lagumbay: Mysticism, is acknowledging that life in itself is ‘Mystical’. Man is the temple of “God”. Now, when I say God, I do not mean an old man in the Sky, but the One Ultimate Reality. It’s the all pervading Energy Consciousness that surrounds everything and everyone. The whole Universe, including “us” is made up of this Energy Consciousness. If you like, this is somewhat to what Star Wars called, “The Force”.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is Mysticism within the Church?
Lagumbay: It is actually the belief that God is within everything and everyone, yet beyond everything and everyone. This “God” that I speak of is both immanent and transcendent. We are all “Mystically Connected” to everything and everyone in the whole Universe. As per Albert Einstein, “Everything is Energy”. We are made up of the same substances. Our bodies are the real Temple of God. When we Pray or Meditate, the real “communion” with God happens internally, not in a church building. Now, this is the greatest mystery. Man is the meeting place of Both the Divine (Spirit/God/Higher Self) and Mundane (Physical/Lower self). His body is the Temple of the living God!
As Catholicism evolved, it acquired so many rituals that helps Man attune to his higher self (e.g. Ringing of bells, incense, kneeling, raising of the Chalice, singing, etc.), so we retain these practices up until this time, since we believe this is vital to our Psycho-spiritual evolution.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do you practice the teachings of Jesus Christ in your universalist church?
Lagumbay: The Catholic Universalist Church has no doctrines or Dogma. We consider ourselves ‘pre-Nicene’ Catholics. Meaning, we do not adhare to all the councils. We do not even use the Nicene or Apostles creed.
We believed that the core teaching of Jesus was Love. It is giving highest respect to everyone.
We believe that the best way to serve “God” was to serve our Fellow man. We were given orders by our Master Jesus to Love, not to Judge our fellow man.
We welcome everyone to the Church and worship with us regardless of Gender, Race, Religion, Political Beliefs, etc. The Sacrament is also open for everyone. We do not believe in ‘conversion’, since religion is not important. Connecting with God is a peraonal thing to do. You can do that without having a religion. The only advantage if you are in CUC is that, you are free to whatever you want to believe. The Church will not condemn you for that. We will encourage you to pursue your Path (e.g. BUDHHISM, HINDUISM, ISLAM, ETC.) as we believe every man has different paths that is neccesary for Spiritual Growth.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As a Catholic priest in the Catholic Universalist Church, is this a title different or a content difference being in the universalist church as opposed to the common title of “Roman Catholic Church”?
Lagumbay: For the Catholic Universalist Church, priesthood is Servant Leadership. It is a Vocation, not a profession. We as ministers do not accept “payments” for sacraments.
We prefer to be called as “brothers”, but in the PH people call us “Father”. It sounds weird for me being called ‘father’ by people 60 to 70 years of age, but eventually I got used to it.
Priesthood, for us is a facilitator of the Sacraments. We lead the Worship Services. However, we do not see ourselves Higher than anyone in the congregation. In the Mass, we “worship” with everyone. We are all equally important. Again, you do not need a Priest to connect with God. We are just here to aid you with the rituals you need. Nothing more.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do you view the teachings of Jesus Christ?
Lagumbay: Jesus Christ, or Yeshua Ben Yosef was a radical Jewish Rabbi who knew the Higher Spiritual truths (abou God/the Force) and is far more advance than any other ‘teachers’ of his time. He calls God “Abba”. This does not mean Father, but is actually ‘Heavenly Father/Mother who is the Source of Everything’. Jesus had female disciples which shows equality. He often speaks of the “Kingdom of God is Within!”, meaning, we co-create heaven here on earth by ‘following his teaching’, not by believing that ‘he is God’. Jesus, for us is more of an Enlightened Master just like the “Buddha” of Buddhism. He embodies the ‘Wisdom of the Cosmos’, which he showed to us through words an actions. Jesus knew that every man has this Divine potential to become like him. The goal of Christianity is not to believe that Jesus was God, or the Only Son of God, but an active transformation of oneès life through Love and Compassion. Master Jesus showed the way we need to follow. Mistranslations made Jesus the “Son of Man” (Bar Nasha in Aramaic). But it’s wrong. The word in Aramaic is Bar Enash, which means, “Son of Mankind”. So, Jesus was preaching not about his “Second Coming”, but he was preaching this grand awakening or Enlightenment of the Masses. It is when us, Humans will finally awaken to our true potential and evolve into a higher being (which was embodied by Jesus 2000 years ago).
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What trends among the youth trouble you?
Lagumbay: What troubles me about the youth today is having “unprotected” and “uneducated” sexual practices. I am not pro or anti pre-marital sex. However, these acts have great consequences if done in wrongly (e.g. STD’s, teenage pregnancy, etc.) Education must be the youths number one weapon. They should be properly informed about this.
I guess movies and social media has a great impact on youth today. I also believe that this platform can help educate the Youth.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What trends among the elderly trouble you?
Lagumbay: What troubles me about the elderly is that, most of them has closed minds and hearts. For them, they have already reached the “pinnacle” of wisdom, so they stop learning. There are no more room for new Ideas and innovation.
They are the hardest people to deal with.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Robust societies have rich ties between generations. How can we regain that in the digital era?
Lagumbay: For me, genuine love and compassion creates a very solid tie between people, regardless of race, gender, nationality, age, etc.
If the Youth and the Elderly could both educate each other using the language of “Love and compassion”, then I guess both generations can learn from each other.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do you practice the teachings of Jesus Christ in your universalist church?
Lagumbay: God is love. Jesus showed this through his life and teachings. He did not preached about the “end of the world”, but he preached about the future of Humanity. He preached about the evolution of the Soul, perfected through the purifying flames of ‘Hell’.
For us, hell is Real but temporary. A God of love will not punish his Children for Eternity. Going back to “the Force” concept, we are all part of God. God can never punish a ‘part’ of Himself forever. You cannot say, “finger I do not need you because you are sinful.” Instead, you redeem your finger. Same is true with God. The purpose of punishment is for us to be corrected, and become better individuals. Why do you think God will punish ‘for eternity’ a person that only lived a short and temporary life here on earth? That is totally nonesense. The belief of eternal hell is for control, and for money-making as well.
It is far more logical to believe in karma and re-incarnation (which was originally one of the earliest teachings in Christianity).
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As a Christian Gnostic, how does this overlap with humanism, especially through HAPI?
Lagumbay: Spirituality and Humanism is “inseparable”. Why?
Because, “God is our Highest Self. It is the ‘Spark of the Divine’ that makes us truly Human.”
I am a Spiritual Humanist. I also believed that Jesus was a Spiritual Humanist. He puts more weight on Human Dignity than following rigid rules and dogmas. He understood that “Laws were made because man do not understand Love. Love is the Fulfilment of the Law.”
That is why I am still here on HAPI, despite of those Radical Atheists bashers.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find HAPI?
Lagumbay: I found HAPI Before I became a Priest. I was so lost that time. I had been through a series of paradigm shifts. It was a journey of “Spiritual Awakening”.
I bumped into HAPI through Facebook. I met a lot if likeminded people, surprisingly most of them are Atheists and Agnostics. It was through HAPI that I met Gino Paradela, whom introduced me to Catholic Universalist Church which I am now a minister.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the history Christian Gnosticism in the Philippines?
Lagumbay: Before us, I have not known of any authentic ‘Christian Gnostics’ in the Philippines. Most of the groups I know are ‘imitations’, or simply “false gurus” promising Enlightenment using the teachings of Master Jesus.
However, in it’s simplest form, everyone can become a Gnostic. Gnosis is a Greek word for “Knowing” or “Wisdom”. It is knowledge not based on books or external teachings, but an ‘internal revelation’ of the Divine (God/Spirit). Gnosis is attained through meditation, contemplation, and action. We value the Bible, in the sense that it does not hold an absolute truth. It’s not a rulebook, but a compass. Read the scripture, contemplate, forget it’s meaning, meditate, and read it again. You will view the scripture in a different light.
And of course, you take action afterwards.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If you could take one principle in the Bible for humanists, what would it be?
Lagumbay: Love. That is the core principle of the Teachings of Master Jesus. If we have Love, then we don’t need complicated Laws. Love is the fulfillment of the Law. The Laws are made because of Love. Love is the force that binds everything and everyone. God is Love! When we say, “do not do unto others what you don’t want them do unto you”, that doesn’t mean you are being kind because of a Reward of Heaven, or you are afraid of Hell’s punishment. You do ‘Good’ because the moment you look at into the eye of your fellow man, you see the Soul of God in him, which is also the same Soul in you. You do not hurt them because hurting others would also mean hurting God; and to love others is to love yourself More.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If you could take one lesson from the Bible, what would it be for humanists?
Lagumbay: When Jesus was accused by the Priests of Blasphemy, he answered back, “Is it not written in your law? ‘I said you are gods’?”
Jesus was actually refering to Psalm 82:9 that says, “I said, you are gods, and all of you are Children of the Most High.”
Being that said in the Old Testament, and hearing that from the mouth of Master Jesus, we can conclude that Ancient Masters knew this One Ultimate Truth — that we all made up of the Same cosmic Substance, and we carry the DNA of God (e.g. The Force). We are the co-creators of our own reality. We can make our earth a Heaven or Hell depending on how we live our lives. Worship means to serve God, and we do that best when we serve our fellow men.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If you could re-interpret a mainstream interpretation of Christianity for the general public to have a change of heart and mind about The Gospel, what would it be?
Lagumbay: “Nobody is coming. GOD has already SENT YOU.”
Let us not wait for a Messiah that would save us from damnation. Only we can save and uplift ourselves from the Hell thaf we are into right now. Only us can change our bad behaviour. Only us can change our attitude. Only us can overcome our addiction. Changing ourselves, we are also uplifting our consciousness. By doing that, we are also others. Thus, we are contributing to the Grand Awakening of Humanity.
Do not wait for Master Jesus to be re-incarnated on the World. We all poses the ‘Christ Consciousness’ within us. We need to awaken that ‘Divine Spark’ in us. We are born in this world to heal it. We are the ‘Messiah’ in training.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are your hopes for Christian Gnosticism and humanism in the Philippines?
Lagumbay: Well, I hope that Christians will be more open minded in the future. Gnosticism is a way of life. You can keep your religion, however you can choose to ‘tap’ the ‘Spirit’ within you, than following rigid rules and church doctrines. If your church rules contribute to spreading Genuine Love, then Go practice it. If not, don’t support it. If many of these rules contribute on hate, division, elitism and discrimination, then maybe you need to find a new Church.
I hope that Humanism will not be demonized by mainstream Christian Churches. I am looking forward to a future of Atheists, Theists and everyone in between will work together for the betterment of Mankind, rather than arguing who is right, when that act does not change anything at all.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts?
Lagumbay: Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts, words and ideals about Humanism. I hope and I pray with all my Heart that One day, there shall be no walls dividing Mankind. I hope that mankind will finally be free from the enslavement of Religion.
You see, instead of us accessing God within and unleashing our true potential as Divine Beings, religion trapped us into believing that we are damned, and that we are hopeless if we do not submit into their authorities.
Let us take back our Powers. We are the Temple of God. Our Hearts is the Altar of Sacrifice. We best serve. God by serving our Fellow man.
When I look into your eyes, I see the Soul of God. It is my Soul. To hurt you, is to hurt my self.
And to love you, is to love myself more.
Namaste.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Rholdee.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/04/02
The Roman Catholic Church with the assistance of the federal government of Canada oppressed in several ways the Indigenous populations of this country and the First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities, at a bare minimum, deserve an apology from the “Vicar of Christ of Earth” or the leader of the Roman Catholic hierarchs for the residential school system (The Canadian Press, 2018).
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau express disappointment in the decision to nullify the opportunity for an apology based on the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system.
Many, many students and families were traumatized and damaged due to the residential schools.
Trudeau said, “Reconciliation is not just between government and Indigenous peoples, it’s between non-Indigenous Canadians and Indigenous peoples as well. We will keep working with communities, keep working with individuals on the path to reconciliation because we know taking responsibility for past mistakes and asking forgiveness is something that is core to our values as Canadians.”
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission contained 94 recommendations with one being a papal apology. It would be similar to the request for an apology to Irish sexual abuse victims of 2010 and the Indigenous Bolivians in 2015.
Former head of the TRC, Se. Murray Sinclair, stated that the lack of apology can reduce the potential for healing.
“I think there’s always been a bit of a schism between those Indigenous communities that have members of the Catholic church,” Sinclair said, “versus those who are not members of the Catholic church within their communities and I think this is going to add to that tension.”
Perry Bellegarde, the Assembly of First Nations National Chief, said an apology would help with the “healing and reconciliation.”
About 2/3rds of the 130 residential schools were Roman Catholic run and Indigenous children were disallowed from speaking their language, practicing their culture, and forced to assimilate to non-Indigenous culture. Carolyn Bennett, the Indigenous Relations Minister, said the federal government will continue to work for an apology from the Pope.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who is Roman Catholic, said any group involved in the residential school system should apologize, but did not mention the Roman Catholic Church by name or the Pope — even though the majority of the residential schools were run by the Catholic faith.
Scheer said, “I think that any group or institution that had a significant role in the residential school system should help move past and help get though this period of reconciliation by apologizing for the role they might have played.”
The abusive residential school system ran for more than a century. Robert-Falcon Ouellette, of Cree and Métis heritage, said, “If one man could simply snap his fingers, things would have been done a long time ago, but unfortunately that doesn’t happen in large institutions” (CBC News, 2018). He thinks the apology will eventually come.
One can hope. In the meantime, for Indigenous Canadians, especially those who believe in and follow the Roman Catholic Church now, this may feel disappointing, like a slap in the face, and cause for concern that maybe the talk of reconciliation from the government and the religious authorities that oppressed the Indigenous populations for well over a century, at least, are simply talking and not intending to act on the rhetoric.
References
CBC News. (2018, March 28). Pope’s decision to not issue apology ‘a slap in the face,’ residential school survivor says. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/pope-residential-school-apology-reaction-1.4598264.
The Canadian Press. (2018, March 28). Trudeau disappointed by Pope’s decision not to apologize for residential schools. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pope-no-apology-residential-school-1.4596439?platform=hootsuite.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/30
Dr. Leo Igwe is a prominent and respected humanist in Nigeria and around the world. He has given a TED talk, which has garnered tens of thousands of views.
As a humanist, Leo Igwe doesn’t believe in divine intervention — but he does believe in the power of human beings to alleviate suffering, cure disease, preserve the planet and turn situations of poverty into prosperity. In this bold talk, Igwe shares how humanism can free Africans from damaging superstitions and give them the power to rebuild the continent.
Please find the link here and enjoy this fascinating and captivating talk by Dr. Igwe:
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/29
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are Burundian, but have fled, recently. Why?
Clovis Munezero: I am Burundian, but recently I have fled my country.
When I saw that my life was in danger, my friends were killed; my companions jailed, some of my family disappeared and others imprisoned; I have reason to flee my country. I have left my country because it was going through a political crisis and trouble that took a lot of human lives and property damage.
Everything starts on 26 April 2015 when the current president of the Republic of Burundi declares for the 3rd Term, which is unconstitutional. We revolted by demonstrating in streets to defend the Constitution. Some three weeks during demonstrations, a military group attempted a coup that eventually failed.
We had already lost several human lives during the demonstration, which lasted some two months was followed by persecution of any person who demonstrated against the will of this illegal term. Several people have left the country for fear of being killed and others have been imprisoned, others killed.
My turn came on 17 November 2015 when people without uniforms came for me at home after having kidnapped the day before my uncle with whom we lived together. That day I left home and it took me almost two weeks to cross the border of Rwanda-Burundi. I had to change from house to house of friends.
On 28 November, our family member took me in his car up to the border of Rwanda and I crossed. There I stayed with my friend for three days who fled before. Then, I took the road to Nairobi. I reached there after two days on 2 December 2015. I started all over again. A refugee’s life begins.
Jacobsen: What is your own family religious background?
Munezero: My family religious background is Christianity. I was grown up in that family but my parents did not attend the same churches and it was almost never discussed matters of faith. They taught us the 10 commandments of the bible and some verses of the bible based on the good and the bad. What makes us grow with this experience of diversity?
We’re 4 siblings and none does not share the same church with each other and never did us any harm to the family.
Jacobsen: How did you lose faith?
Munezero: How did I lose my Faith; I grew up in the scout family movement with a lot of diversity. Leaders taught us that it is a lay movement: we had nonbelievers, Muslims, and Christians. Growing up in that diversity pushed me in to do some research to find out the event that shaped the world.
I started reading some stories, especially about the Second World War, Vietnam War, Genocide in Rwanda, and what happened in the region as well as colonialism and that the people of the church were involved.
Faith is lost in this way. I replaced it by reason. The belief, I replaced it with science.
Jacobsen: What was the treatment by the community based on your loss of religious faith?
Munezero: The treatment by the community based on my loss of religious faith.
When people noticed that I was no longer part of their belief, above all the people close to the family judged me as part of Satanism, dangerous, but they saw how I was living my life with love, tolerance. I always had a position to defend. I started being tolerated as much as I can so long that I am proud of my orientation.
I to have always influenced the community, I always let my life to talk about me and be up of on my choice. I never had fear of the community for my choice because my family was not against me nor agree with my choice .and I did choose reason and science. Those are my “faith.”
Jacobsen: What is your advice for those who have lost faith and who may experience mistreatment for it?
Munezero: My advice for those who have lost their faith and can be abused.
Every person has the right to choose which way to follow and he/she has to have a reason for every choice. For those people must know well and defend this reason which pushed him/her to make such a decision of “losing faith”:
- Knowing the entourage for not putting you in danger as a “suspect person.”
- Knowing if there are people who understand you and who share with you the way of living.
- Finding people with whom you share your especially daily information and orientation of thinking.
- Seeking to build links with other people by your lifestyle and do not seek to explain everything to everyone.
- When it is threatened and unable to defend yourself, leave the place.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Munezero: My thoughts or feelings is that; people that already part of the humanistic community, let us act on the responsibility of making our prosperous societies, charitable and trying to make peace on this land and make it a home to all.
Let us live peacefully through our daily lives, teach and influence the world with love and humanism. We are humans, try to be humanists. Thank you, sir, have a good time.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Clovis.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/29
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are 23. How did you come to be a freethinker in a religious family, in a familial setting of 6?
Abiodun Sanusi: Yes, I became a freethinker through rigorous vigorous reading and thinking. Although I was very active in the Anglican church I attended with my family. Up to the stage that, I became an altar boy (an acolyte) and everyone in the hood including my family was happily expecting me to get into the seminary immediately.
I got out of the high school or the university when they discovered I chose to go to the university after high school, in fact, the Anglican church we attended sponsored my tertiary education by providing 70% of my school fee.
Jacobsen: As you became an atheist in your first year of high school, how did you go about making the transition from religious to non-religious?
Sanusi: Like I said earlier, I became an atheist through thinking, reading, debating, and doing a lot of research. I only made my transition known to friends and family through logical explanations and scientific and philosophical methods, which I always implore during conversations and debates and in my everyday activities by rejecting dogmas both local and foreign and by asking for proofs for everything including the Bible and Quran and even African religious creeds.
Jacobsen: You live in Lagos and study in Ogun state. Why did you pick geography and regional planning for tertiary education studies?
Sanusi: Yes. I picked geography and regional planning for so many reasons:
1. I wanted to become an astronaut and visit space to know if all NASA says about space and the universe was true.
2. I wanted to be the first African or black to visit space (I still look up to that though).
3. I opted for geography because I cannot afford the fee to study astronomy and there is no institution in Nigeria where I could study astronomy even if I could afford it except in the US or Russia and I cannot afford that.
4. I want to develop my environment through environmental science as I look forward to venturing into mainstream politics after school.
Jacobsen: As you are against oppression in any form, how do you fight this some activist work in Nigeria?
Sanusi: The first time I stood individually against oppression was during my final year in high school when I stood up to a teacher who was a notorious bully and I came out victorious although with a little price of cutting the grass.
But I was glad I saved the whole 12 (SS3) classes from being flogged severely with the cain and going through severe punishment for days or a week.
Now in the university, I have always stood against oppression since my first year and I sometimes pay for it with my grades (score reductions). Even now, we’re standing up to the school over the issue of stop and search at the school gate, which involves only the students who board the public shuttle.
As those who go in with their cars are never stopped nor searched at the gate, including the staff, a comrade was illegally arrested by the police 2 days ago, but was released yesterday after students went to the police station to plead as we were threatened with expulsion if we ever dare stand up to the school management against oppression.
There is so much I cannot say her,e but I am yet to be affiliated to any human rights organization as I’m yet to find a vibrant one (I’ll be glad if I could, especially an internationally recognized one).
Jacobsen: How can the international community support the atheist community in Nigeria?
Sanusi: The international community can help atheists and the atheist community in Nigeria by helping to sponsor human rights and atheistic campaigns and providing legal backings for freedom of thoughts, sex, gender, and every other thing, which should be personal and doesn’t affect anyone in any sane manner.
The homosexuals especially should be helped by helping activists worldwide including local ones to stand up for gay rights in Nigeria and Africa, and to sponsor and support youths as most of us can’t come out as an atheist because of rejection, especially financially and death threats in places like northern Nigeria.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Sanusi: I would be very glad if the international community could help promote atheism and human right through media campaigns like billboards and television programmes and radio programmes.
I will voluntarily gladly volunteer to host television programmes in favor of atheism and human rights including gay rights.
Thanks.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Abiodun.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/28
Galaxy NGC1052 confuses astronomers. The galaxy floats about 65 million light years, 6.5*10⁷ light years, away from the Milky Way Galaxy.
The reason for the perplexation comes from the missing matter, the unaccounted for mass purported to come from dark matter, which, according to modern theories coming from standard Big Bang cosmology, should account for the missing mass in the universe.
The matter that comprises us only makes for a fraction of the total mass of the universe or the contents of the cosmos. Our known matter makes less than 5% of the universe. Dark matter accounts for about 27% of the universe with dark energy for approximately 68% of it.
An international team of astronomers found NGC1052 lacked dark matter, which in the standard cosmological theories of the formation of galaxies remains integral to their creation and maintenance.
In other words, to miss a crucial ingredient suggested as necessary to its formation, it baffles the experts. By analogy, you may think about a full-grown human organism without mitochondria in its cells, “How did this form into an adult organism at all?”
Similarly with the lack of dark matter, given current cosmological Big Bang models, “How did this galaxy form without dark matter present in it?”
The lead author for the paper published in Nature, Pieter van Dokkum, said, “When galaxies begin to form, the first thing that forms — we think — is a little object of dark matter… Dark matter is the scaffolding on which galaxies are built.”
The University of Toronto’s Dragonfly Telescope Array helped the astronomical researchers find ultra diffuse galaxies. Those taking large volumes of space, larger than average, while lacking much mass, much density compared to others, hence “diffuse.”
The galaxy was renamed NGC1052-DF2. With larger telescopes such as the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, there were subsequent observations.
Robert Abraham, Professor at the University of Toronto Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, asked, “How would you get stars to form in this organized way over such a large part of space, unless there’s enough gravity to pull all that stuff together?… The answer is, I have no idea. There must be more than one way to form galaxies.”
“You see something like this, and you do sort of scratch your head and you think there’s something fundamentally wrong in our picture,” Abraham said. “But for now, I think the evidence for dark matter greatly outweighs the evidence against it. But you do need to keep an open mind,” Abraham continued.
References
Boyle, R. (2018, March 28). Astronomers Boggle at Distant Galaxy Devoid of Dark Matter. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/astronomers-boggle-at-distant-galaxy-devoid-of-dark-matter/.
Chen, S. (2018, March 28). The Case of the Missing Dark Matter. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/the-case-of-the-missing-dark-matter/.
Conover, E. (2018, March 28). Dark matter is MIA in this strange galaxy. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dark-matter-mia-strange-galaxy.
Letzter, R. (2018, March 28). Astrophysicists Claim They Found a ‘Galaxy Without Dark Matter’. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/62151-galaxy-dark-matter-physics.html.
Mandelbaum, R.F. (2018, March 28). SPACE Holy Crap, This Galaxy Has No Dark Matter . Retrieved from https://gizmodo.com/holy-crap-this-galaxy-has-no-dark-matter-1824145359.
Mortillaro, N. (2018, March 28). Astronomers perplexed to find that distant galaxy has no dark matte. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/galaxy-no-dark-matter-1.4595345.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/27
I doubt this is comprehensive, nor is it representative of the positives of the church either; it is reportage on the reports from the news. I didn’t see a compendium, so decided to write one. Part 1, 2, and 3.
The continued child sex abuse cases emerge from the Eastern Orthodox Church (Velissaris, 2013). Archbishop Stylianos talked about the Greek Orthodox Church and its child sexual abuse.
This is only a week after the Church fronting the Victorian parliamentary inquiry with the denial of its culpability there. Stylianos opines that no religious organization is immune.
Stylianos said, “Religious organisations, which consist of human beings, even as clergymen, can never be regarded in advance as immune of such criminal acts.”
The Bishop Iakovos of Miletoupolis denied child sexual abuse by Greek Orthodox Church clergyman in Victoria. However, further reportage found the opposite and worse, the child sexual abuse was happening and Iakovos attempted to cover the child sexual abuse up.
The Greek Orthodox Church involved in child sexual abuse by its clergyman and then caught in lies attempting to cover the abuse. One priest was found guilty of indecently assaulting a teenage girl in 2002.
In the inquiry, Iakovos said the Greek Orthodox Church is on good terms with the Victoria police.
Stylianos explained the protocol, “If a complaint is made, the local Bishop immediately convenes to the Code of Conduct Council, and investigates the complaint… The respondent is notified, the complainant is offered counselling/support services. If a mutual resolution cannot be reached, the matter is then referred to the Archbishop who may refer the matter to a canonical court for final determination. Finally, if criminal conduct is established, the church must refer the matter to the police authorities. The archbishop will then take disciplinary action based on the severity of the complaint.”
Two cases of priests being defrocked with one involving taking marriage license fees. While this inquiry was ongoing at the time, the Catholic Church was being similarly taken to task for its staff sexual abusing children.
Stylianos, at the time, argued that if priests could marry then the sex scandals may be avoided.
The Associated Press in 2014 reported on dozens of Greek police being involved in an operation to clear a hostel, which is being used as a rebel monastery.
The hostel was for monks claimed as “schismatic” by the Greek Orthodox Church. One monk and five supporters were in the apartment. It is located at central Thessaloniki.
The court ruled for an eviction. “Monks from the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou monastery, in the self-governed Mount Athos monastic community near Thessaloniki in northern Greece,” the Associated Press reported, “are in a bitter dispute with the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.”
The monks make the allegations that the Ecumenical Patriarch is treasonous because he wants better relationships with the Catholic Church.
The 125 monks did not want to cede the monastery. That means the building on Mount Athos (where “women are banned”) and the Thessaloniki hostel.
No women allowed and crushing of dissent.
References
Associated Press. (2014, October 31). Greek police evict rebel monks from monastery headquarters. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/greek-police-evict-rebel-monks-headquarters.
Velissaris, H. (2013, April 29). Church not immune to abuse cases. Retrieved from http://neoskosmos.com/news/en/church-not-immune-to-abuse-cases.
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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: How did you find the humanist movement in Nigeria?
Nandip Andrew: The humanist movement in Nigeria for now, is moving at a snail’s pace, compared when the founder Dr Leo Igwe was in Nigeria, there was always meetings or conference been organized. but now, nothing like that, we only have one conference organized by one of our humanist chapter, the Humanist Assembly of Lagos. and most recently the African Humanist Youth Day AFHD 2017, host again by Humanist Assembly of Lagos. we have also some humanist group in Nigeria, like the Humanist Society of Nigeria etc, the chapter also have their meetings in Abuja the Nigerian Capital. i was invited last year, because of a very tie schedule i could not attend. people are really coming out to identify with humanism, but the humanist organization at the national level is very weak. I wish to encourage the various chapters to keep propagating humanism, freethought and critical thinking.
Jacobsen: What seem like the bigger threat to the practice of humanism freely in Nigeria?
Andrew: The biggest threat to the practice of humanism in Nigeria is fear… in fact fear causes members not to show themselves physically, but on the social media, members at the comfort of their homes, in their rooms express their disbelief, but call up a meeting or conference only few would attend. another aspect again is discriminations, when the community or society a humanist member is leaving, people tend to look at the member as dangerous or some kind of an immoral person, sometimes led to physical attack.
Jacobsen: Who is a personal hero for you there? Have they written any books? If not, who is a Nigerian who writes on religion your books that you like?
Andrew: My personal hero is Dr Tunde Arogundade, is my former part time lecturer, he helped me out in the late 2009 into the light of humanism from the darkness of dogma, provide books from his private library, books on atheism/humanism, the other person is Dr Leo Igwe, his commitment in the propagation of humanism in Nigeria and Africa as at large. yes, Dr Tunde is writing a book about the religion crisis between Christians and Muslims, Boko Haram, (Boko Haram are Islamic terrorists in northern Nigeria, that bomb and kill thousands of innocent children, women and men and adopted hundreds in the name of propagating islam) and the Nigerian politics. The Nigerian that writes on religion the book i like is Mr Adebowale Ojowuro, the tittle of the book is The Crisis Of Religion.
Jacobsen: Does your professional life impact your activist life?
Andrew: Yes, may professional life impact on my activist life. in my office i am identify as an atheist, in my home life i am call an atheist, in my local community i am call an atheist, my wife was nickname “MATA BA ALLAH” in Hausa language, (meaning MATA is wife, BA no, ALLAH god. a wife of a person that don’t believe in God). I feel very comfortable to identify as an atheist.
Jacobsen: What makes a good humanist?
Andrew: A good humanist, is one that does not discriminate based on religion or race, a good humanist is a peace loving person, a good humanist tries to make the world better and safer place for us to leave and our children, because this is the only place we got
Jacobsen: What are some positives of religion in your perspective?
Andrew: Some positives aspect of religion is allowing me to know the truth, through the reading of the bible and it led to my freedom. is very good that every humanist should study or read others religious books.
Jacobsen: How do you hope humanism develops in Nigeria for the next 10 years, at a minimum?
Andrew: There hope for the growth of humanism in Nigeria for the next 10 years, if only the majority of youths in Nigeria who are humanist should remove fear and replace it with courage. we have started seeing that happening, if it continues Nigeria will leave Uganda and Ghana far behind in 10 years to come, but i know they too will make sure they are not left behind.
Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts?
Andrew: My final feeling is being unhappy that others like me in the Nigerian Humanist Movement have not made any impacts for the past few years. Hopefully, we will make sure we try our best.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Nandip.
Andrew: Thank you for the interview Scott Jacobsen.
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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.
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The United Nations Refugee Agency reported on Columbian women and their work to combat against sexual abuse. Michelle Begue stated that the women in Columbia are working through the court system to find justice in sexual abuse and rape cases.
One narrative is reported of Leonor Galeano and her daughter, an adolescent, who had to flee their homes when left-wing rebels and the Columbian government were fighting. It was to get away from the gunfire.
Galeano’s daughter is 12-years-old, when they settled into a new house in Southern Columbia she became the friend of a kid of a local official. With Galeano’s guard down and not knowing, the local official raped the 12-year-old several times.
The daughter of Galeano became pregnant from the rape. Leonor stated, “Because we are displaced, people believe that we are worthless, that we don’t have the same rights.”
The armed conflict in Columbia has stories like these. It has been ongoing for over 5 decades. 7.4 million people have been extirpated from the borders of their country. Mothers and daughters, like Leonor and her 12-year-old daughter, comprise the more than half of the displaced population.
Women and children are particularly vulnerable in these war circumstances. People are concerned about the daily needs of survival. They lack social and familial support networks. This makes those on-the-move due to conflict, especially women and children, vulnerable to the exploitation sexually.
A community-based protection assistant at the United Nations Refugee Agency Adri Villa, said, “There is a deep relation between sexual violence and displacement… But sexual violence isn’t just a cause for displacement. It sometimes occurs during and after displacement, once they have settled in their new home.”
No specific collated information exist on the total number of children and women victims of sexual violence in the 50+ year conflict in Columbia, but this is linked to a deeper problem of no official registry.
Many lack basic skills, knowledge of their rights so as to enforce them, and lack the resources and connections to do anything about it. So, collectives have been forming independently.
One is in Putumayo province in the Southern areas of Columbia. It is an umbrella of 66 groups, currently, which are advocating and enforcing the rights of women in these difficult circumstances with “tens of thousands of displaced women among nearly 146,000 victims of the armed conflict in the region bordering Ecuador.”
Muriel Fatima, the President of the Life Weavers Women’s Alliance, said, “The problem of sexual violence… is most prevalent among families who have been forcibly displaced, because they are in a state of greater vulnerability.”
Life Weavers Women’s Alliance has been considered a pilot project for peace in Columbia. The organization gives empowerment workshops and counseling to women affected by sexual violence and abuse in the region.
More importantly, as the Life Weavers Women’s Alliance has been allying with the United Nations Refugee Agency, there has been an increased chance for the women survivors of rape and sexual violence to be able to fight for justice in a court system.
The Life Weavers Women’s Alliance has been crucially getting financial resources from the United Nations Refugee Agency in order to combat the rampant sexual violence and abuse ongoing throughout the country.
The UNHCR has been keeping its commitments and promises by doing so. In 2016, there was a peace agreement reached between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia or FARC and the government of Columbia. This has, temporarily, ended the hostilities between the two warring groups.
“I am thankful because with the help of the alliance and UNHCR I have survived,” Leonor Galeano said, “I consider myself a survivor, because I have moved forward.”
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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.
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Dr. Leo Igwe is on the move once more. As per usual, he is someone to watch as he is working to help the public with community services devoted to critical thinking.
As a Nigerian activist and journalist, Igwe created a 5-Step Critical Thinking or CT workshop entitled “iDOUBT” in order to appeal to modern sensibilities in title one can safely assume.
He wants to reduce and eliminate the superstitions plaguing the tribal groups in the Philippines and throughout Subsaharan Africa. He earned a doctoral degree from the University of Bayreuth with a specialty in Witchcraft inside of Ghana.
The workshop has been presented 12 times at the time of this writing. Igwe is a prominent and widely celebrated humanist in Nigeria and increasingly around the world for his humanist, secular, and critical thinking work.
He is a busy man and a good person in general (from personal experience at-a-distance).
iDOUBT workshops have five steps for students to be able to examine their belief systems and possibly rid themselves of their superstitions from their youths. Most of the superstitions are inculcated at a young age.
If you would like to access iDOUBT, contact brighterbrainsinstitute@gmail.com.
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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.
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The Mothership, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, is on the move.
Elizabeth O’Casey, Director of Advocacy for the International Humanist and Ethical Union, was telling the truth and takin’ names, recently. As she reported in the IHEU news, the first statement to the 37th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council was a response by IHEU to the claims made by the Vatican delegation about freedom from religion not being a human right.
O’Casey corrected the Vatican delegation. The Vatican delegation representative named Ivan Jurkovic, on an earlier Friday, said, “Of the utmost concern, the use of the term freedom from religion, which is not contemplated in the international instruments, reveals a patronising idea of religion, going beyond the mandate of the special rapporteur.”
In the international forum where O’Casey correct the Vatican delegation representative, the term for the Vatican is the Holy See. She listed the established rights for freedom from religion in order to accentuate the need for freedom from religion for those without a formal religious faith in their lives.
“…freedom from coercion to adopt a religion is protected by law; freedom to have no religion is protected by law,” O’Casey explained, “freedom to leave a religion is protected by law; and freedom to criticise a religion is protected by law.”
Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of Religion or Belief, corrected the Holy See representative as well. The freedom of religion and belief protects freedom from religion.
Shaheed pointed to those non-believing bloggers whose lives are at risk throughout the world. That is, the freedom to the religion or belief is for people, not for the religion or the belief; hence, the ability of individual members of the international community to be free from religion is a matter of freedom of belief or religion, as Shaheed and O’Casey astutely pointed out, respectfully, to Jurkovic.
O’Casey cautioned that the statements of Jurkovic on behalf of the Holy See were dangerous as well as objectionable. She noted the cases of punitive socio-cultural contexts and hate from the state for those who lack a religious belief or faith.
As Dr. O’Casey is a highly informed commentator on world affairs and the arena of the faithless, she described the 85 nations in the world that “severely discriminate against non-religious individuals” with 7 countries being highly active in their discrimination against the religious in 2017.
O’Casey made a closing statement, “…so long as the rest of the international community stay silent, the rights of the invisible minority of non-believers across the world will continue to be trampled upon, including by members of this Council.”
References
IHEU Admin+. (2017, December 4). Humanists “actively persecuted” in seven countries in 2017, finds IHEU report. Retrieved from http://iheu.org/humanists-actively-persecuted-seven-countries-2017-finds-iheu-report/.
O’Casey, E. (2018, March 9). Actually, ‘freedom from religion’ is a human right, IHEU tells Vatican at the UN. Retrieved from http://iheu.org/actually-freedom-religion-human-right-iheu-tells-vatican-un/?platform=hootsuite.
United Nations (Web TV). (2018, March 2). ID: SR on Religion — 13th Meeting, 37th Regular Session Human Rights Council. Retrieved from http://webtv.un.org/search/id-sr-on-religion-13th-meeting-37th-regular-session-human-rights-council/5742256093001/?term=&lan=english&page=2.
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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.
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There is an increase in the quality of outcomes based on reportage about Afghanistan. For the last 15 years, Afghanistan has made progress in the health outcomes for its citizenry.
This is “especially for women and children,” even in spite of the insecurity well-known in the country. The basis for the improvements are from large-scale partnership models with non-governmental organizations as the deliverers of service.
One report, “Progress in the Face of Insecurity: Improving Health Outcomes in Afghanistan,” (2018) talked about the health gains undergirded through the expansion of the healthcare system and health services for the population.
ReliefWeb reported that the growth has been strong and sustained since 2003. As the World Bank described, “These improvements were in fact larger than in more secure provinces in the country. However, rising insecurity since 2010 has slowed some of these gains.”
Public Finance International reports that there is a long path ahead for the parity of Afghani health outcomes with the world in general.
The World Bank County Director of Afghanistan explained, “Long-term focus and investment by the government of Afghanistan and many partners has moved the country forward on health, despite many challenges… Afghanistan still has a long way to go to ensure quality health services for all, and we look forward to be a being a partner in that effort.”
The more insecure the areas in Afghanistan then the more the maternal health rate of improvement has slowed. The World Bank made a recommendation for the local health service delivery methods to become autonomous in order to improve outcomes.
More investment in monitoring and information is said to help improve the outcomes too. Fewer children are dying before the age of 5. It dropped 34% from 2003 to 2015. Women seeing a qualified health professional increase at a rate of 3.5% per year in addition to the use and contraceptives and births assisted by those skilled professionals.
“Afghanistan’s health gains despite continuing insecurity is a story from which the world has much to learn,” the World Bank Group Senior Director of Health, Nutrition and Population, Tim Evans, explained, “Rather than retreating and unravelling in adverse conditions, the health system is driving forward to secure the health of all citizens — especially mothers and children — drawing on deep reservoirs of local ingenuity.”
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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.
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Sunday Express reported on the possibility for research in standard Big Bang cosmology into areas before not empirically researched. That point being before the singularity at the moment of creation or the Big Bang as it is sometimes called.
It has been notoriously thought as something outside of the realm of empirical physics and only left to theoretical physicists to speculate and compare with moments of the universe after T=0, when time began — literally came into existence.
One international team of researchers is proposing a different picture of a before of creation, of a time before the Big Bang. Apparently, the singularity of black holes is akin to the Big Bang because the laws of physics appear to break down.
With some complex math and quantum strangeness, the international team of researchers claim the origins of the universe and the center of a black hole can be explained, comprehended, and not seen as a sort of known unknown.
Professor Mir Faizal at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada and the University of British Columbia, Okanagan in British Columbia, Canada explained, “It is known that general relativity predicts that the universe started with a big bang singularity and the laws are physics cannot be meaningfully applied to a singularity.”
Faizal co-authored the paper with Salwa Alsaleh, Lina Alasfar, and Ahmed Farag Ali. Faizal said that the current theories show the singularities, in black holes and at the Big Bang, are built into the interpretations of the math to make the theories. They follow from the math.
However, if they include quantum effects to remove the singularities, then the standard theories based on work by Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and Stephen Hawking, Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, can be modified.
Those changes to remove the singularities imply new models. Those old models without the quantum effects to the remove the singularities relied on specific models with problems. One model includes string theory, which, as noted, has its own problems.
Only “very general considerations” rather than a specific model is needed to ‘prove’ the proposal in the paper by Faizal and others. The paper concludes that the centers of black holes do not amount to singularities, but, rather, to empirically testable areas of future research.
“The absence of singularity means the absence of inconsistency in the laws of nature describing our universe, that shows a particular importance in studying black holes and cosmology,” the paper said.
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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.
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Women marched in London, United Kingdom. The March4Women marked the 100th anniversary of women earning the right to vote in the United Kingdom as well, which was a historic event and makes this a historic anniversary protest march.
Khan said, “It is an honour to walk in the footsteps of the women and men who fought for women’s suffrage, retracing their protest route from Parliament to Trafalgar Square.”
Celebrities took part in the march including “Bianca Jagger, Anne-Marie Duff, Natalie Imbruglia, Biffy Clyro and Michael Sheen joined London’s mayor Sadiq Khan on the march.”
One protestor was the famed actor Michael Sheen, who said that he would take a pay cut to make a point about equal pay. The protestors were calling for an end to violence in the workplace and gender discrimination.
“I think it’s absolutely imperative that no matter what the industry, no matter what the profession, that people should be paid the same for doing the same work. That’s just a given,” Sheen stated.
The Gulf News stated that the thousands were present at the protest, even upwards of 10,000 according to Refinery29. This is seen by some as an uptick in the intensity of the demands for various kinds of equality.
“I think we are living in a world where there are some dinosaurs that are trying to take us back. And there are those that are moving together, trying to say ‘that’s not the way we want this world to look’,” Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, said, “and moving us forward, and looking at issues around inequality and naming prejudice and all sorts of forms of entitlement, that just shouldn’t be part of the scene of the 21st century.”
MalayMail Online stated that the march started in Millbank’s Old Palace Yard and finished in Trafalgar Square with important speeches on women’s right to vote in history, where women’s rights campaigners spoke in the same place leading up to the Representation of the People Act of 1918.
Women who owned property, through the act, were able to vote if over the age of 30, which was the first for women. This paved the way for universal women’s suffrage as a movement with some tactics including “arson and bomb attacks.”
This was the sixth annual march of Care International. Many protestors had sashes bearing the words “deeds not words.” Theresa May supported the protestors.
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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.
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Astronomers have been in the process of acquiring important data on early signals from the universe shortly after the Big Bang in search of the earliest formation of large-scale structures in the cosmos, e.g., stars, galaxies, quasars, and so on.
In only 180 million years after the Big Bang, apparently, astronomers from Arizona State University (ASU), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Colorado at Boulder discovered important objects through the EDGES experiment or the Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature project.
They made the discovery with funding by the National Science Foundation. Thank you much, NSF, this is barely possible without you. The astronomers discovered a small window into the early universe at only T=180 million years, where they could see stars forming.
Arizona State University Astronomer Judd Bowman said, “Finding this miniscule signal has opened a new window on the early universe… Telescopes cannot see far enough to directly image such ancient stars, but we’ve seen when they turned on in radio waves arriving from space.”
The accepted models of the early Big Bang universe depict stars that were “massive, blue and short-live.” The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation or CMB is a radiation permeating the entire universe, which is the remnants of the Big Bang throughout the universe. It can be picked up as radio signals, like the static on those old televisions in movies.
Peter Kurczynski, the National Science Foundation Program Director, explained, “There is a great technical challenge to making this detection… Sources of noise can be 10,000 times brighter than the signal — it’s like being in the middle of a hurricane and trying to hear the flap of a hummingbird’s wing.”
The detection of the early universe in any clarity is hard. It is as if having really bad distance vision and trying to shoot a bird in flight. You will have some problems. Apparently, the early universe stars emitted lots of ultraviolet light, which gives a clue.
Free-floating hydrogen atoms absorbed the CMB photons or light particles in the early universe. MIT Haystack Observatory Astronomer Alan Rogers said, “You start seeing the hydrogen gas in silhouette at particular radio frequencies… This is the first real signal that stars are starting to form, and starting to affect the medium around them.”
In the data, there is a clear signal from the early universe. The CMB intensity dropped, ultraviolet light ripped free-floating hydrogen atoms into parts, and the electrons floating away. This is called ionization.
As the early stars died, other large-scale astronomical objects kept the ionization in-process while heating the free hydrogen and getting rid of the signal. That happened at T=250 million years.
Kurczynski said, “This discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of how the world we see came into being… Indirectly, they have seen farther than even the Hubble Space Telescope to find evidence of the earliest stars.”
References
Discover Magazine. (2017, February 21). Revealing the Invisible Universe. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/2017/february/radio-astronomy.
National Science Foundation. (2018, February 28). Astronomers detect ancient signal from first stars in universe. Retrieved from https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=244599&org=NSF&from=news.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/11
“Today we continue our annual look at what makes this season special, a time when nature is doing much more than just hitting the Pause button for three months. Welcome to the Science of Late Winter.
Plants have been busy through the deep freeze, even though winter keeps them very still and we can’t see any activity. They are silently and invisibly preparing for the approaching spring.
Recharging batteries is “a good analogy,” says plant biologist Jessica Forrest of the University of Ottawa.
“Basically there is some genetic reprogramming that happens, that basically re-starts the clock in a sense and lets organisms spring back to life in the spring.”
“Recently, we had a look at a global survey of the state of science, which tracked the efforts different countries are putting into training scientists and pursuing research. That set of “science indicators” included a bit of information on how the public viewed science, even though that wasn’t the primary purpose of the report.
So we were happy to find out that someone had done a thorough job of looking into the global attitudes toward science. 3M, a company that views itself as research-driven, commissioned surveys in 14 different countries with a mix of developed and developing economies, and the results are pretty encouraging. Despite the many cultural differences, people consistently feel that science has an overall positive impact on global society, and they’re excited by what we learn.
But buried in the positives are a few areas of concern. Most people don’t recognize the impact that science has had on their daily lives and view it as something that their kids might be involved with. Yet younger people are more likely to view themselves as skeptical of science and not trusting of what scientists have discovered.”
“A big and hopeful thing happened at the end of last week in the area of fake news. That is, there was an article published in Science magazine on Friday, March 9, 2018, in which scientists call for:
… interdisciplinary research to reduce the spread of fake news and to address the underlying pathologies it has revealed.
These future studies will be an important first step in understanding fake news, and in helping people to learn to recognize it, and, perhaps most importantly, in helping to reduce the spread and impact of fake news on the internet and social media platforms. David M. J. Lazer in Boston is lead author on the article, which is co-authored by an additional 15 social scientists and legal scholars. Lazer is a professor of political science and computer and information science and co-director of the Northeastern University’s NULab. He and his colleagues write that:
Internet platforms have become the most important enablers and primary conduits of fake news. It is inexpensive to create a website that has the trappings of a professional news organization. It has also been easy to monetize content through online ads and social media dissemination. The internet not only provides a medium for publishing fake news but offers tools to actively promote dissemination.”
Source: http://earthsky.org/human-world/fake-news-mar-2018-article-science-calling-for-studies.
“A Saturday night shooting on Coronation Avenue in Kelowna has left behind numerous bullet holes and a shattered glass door.
RCMP police vehicles were stationed outside the home in the downtown core, but no information has been provided to media.
One bullet went straight through the white picket fence in front of the home, another bullet can be seen going into the house on the side.
Yellow police caution tape is strung in the back of the house and glass is shattered on the floor where a front door used to be.”
Source: https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-220792-1-.htm.
“RINCE GEORGE — The Central Interior Science Exhibition was held Saturday afternoon at the University of Northern BC.
Prince George, Quesnel and the Nechako Lakes School district participated.
99 projects and 132 students competed at the science fair. Grade seven student, Prabhnoor Kaur Sidhu, looked at how to build buildings that could potentially withstand natural disasters.
Two of the winners were Carsen Wenger and David Hoy with their project “Temperature Effects on Salt and Sugar Crystal Growth”. They won the Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Sciences category. The results of their experiment showed that both salt and sugar crystals grew best at room temperature.”
Source: http://ckpgtoday.ca/article/520254/99-projects-compete-science-fair.
“On the hormonal roller coaster of life, the ups and downs of childbirth are the Tower of Power. For nine long months, a woman’s body and brain absorb a slow upwelling of hormones, notably progesterone and estrogen. The ovaries and placenta produce these two chemicals in a gradual but relentless rise to support the developing fetus.
With the birth of a baby, and the immediate expulsion of the placenta, hormone levels plummet. No other physiological change comes close to this kind of free fall in both speed and intensity. For most women, the brain and body make a smooth landing, but more than 1 in 10 women in the United States may have trouble coping with the sudden crash. Those new mothers are left feeling depressed, isolated or anxious at a time society expects them to be deliriously happy.”
Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/postpartum-depression-scientific-research-mothers.
“Dr. Molly Shoichet is Ontario’s first chief scientist, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2017. You can reach her on Twitter @MollyShoichet or by email at ChiefScientist@Ontario.ca.
Children are curious about the natural and physical world; they’re inherently fascinated with how it works and why things function the way they do. But this innate scientific curiosity diminishes as they grow up. In fact, when most adults think of science, they remember the smell of formaldehyde in a biology lab or having to memorize the periodic table. If I’m at a cocktail party and tell people that I teach chemistry at the University of Toronto, they usually walk away.
I often wonder what it is about science that provokes both awe and yawn in people. Are they too intimidated by their perceived lack of knowledge to learn more, or are they just bored by science? Is it because scientists are seen as elitist and our work too complicated to understand? Have we as a society placed science on a pedestal so high that it has virtually disappeared from the public eye?”
Source: http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/how-to-build-a-culture-of-science/.
“In 2002 the biologist John Sulston, who has died of stomach cancer aged 75, shared a Nobel prize for physiology. He won it for elucidating the entire sequence in which the daughters of a single cell divide and sometimes disappear as an embryo grows into an adult in the tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. However, he is much better known for leading the British team that sequenced a third of the human genome, and for the fierce integrity with which he successfully argued that all genomic data should be openly accessible to the scientific community without commercial involvement.
Previously content to pursue his work out of the public eye, in 1998 Sulston found himself catapulted on to the front pages as the publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP) faced competition from a rival, private genome-sequencing project launched by the American geneticist Craig Venter’s Celera Genomics. Sulston took every opportunity to challenge, on both ethical and scientific grounds, a model in which access to the data would be controlled by commercial licence agreements.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/11/sir-john-sulston-obituary.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/16
The Governor General of Canada, Julie Payette, spoke to a room of scientists on November 1, regarding climate change, evolution, horoscopes, and bad science in general (Moscrop, 2017). She was the keynote speaker at the ninth annual Canadian Science Policy Convention in Ottawa (CSPC, 2017).
Payette targeted evolution, climate change, horoscopes, and alternative medicine in the speech. Some quotes, on climate change from human activity:
Can you believe that still today in learned society, in houses of government, unfortunately, we’re still debating and still questioning whether humans have a role in the Earth warming up or whether even the Earth is warming up, period? (Persian Mirror, 2017)
On evolution by natural selection, unguided:
And we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process. (Ibid.)
On alternative medicines:
And so many people — I’m sure you know many of them — still believe, want to believe, that maybe taking a sugar pill will cure cancer, if you will it! (Ibid.)
On horoscopes:
And every single one of the people here’s personalities can be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations. (Ibid.)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported the remarks by Payette. (The Canadian Press, 2017).
I read prominent commentators, even nationally so, on Payette’s speech. I feel concern about these public intellectuals, journalists, and writers now.
I feel as though each took the same script, and then played their role as they were cued to come stage right and read their lines to the public and exit stage left. In short, I am disconcerted and annoyed at the uniformity of the media in misrepresentation.
Payette broke the mold of the culture around governor generals, as this was seen to “rankle” via the “tone” of the speech (Moscrop, 2017). Moscrop argued, and ‘can understand,’ the position of those citizens’ feeling that the Governor General, as a role, should be non-partisan.
But I find this misses the point, as the Governor General listed scientific truisms: well-substantiated theories backed by facts, or rejection of ones lacking those characteristics. Science is non-partisan.
Does evolution amount to a Libertarian or a Socialist perspective? Do horoscopes remain Conservative or Liberal? Does the Green Party hold sole ownership of climate change?
Apparently, Moscrop is concerned about the effects of Payette speaking scientific truisms, e.g., the questionable persistence of the human species if action is not taken regarding climate change. It is a concern around faux feelings of insult about a joke around denialists because these points of science are “accepted as fact.” He states:
As for the substance of Payette’s message — that climate change and evolution are real, and that sugar pills are bunk — she might as well have been acknowledging, as political scientist Emmett Macfarlane pointed out, “the existence of gravity.” Indeed. But the controversy seems to be less about Payette’s recognition that climate change, evolution, and the value of mainstream medicine are accepted as fact, and more about her pointing out that, in the 21st century, there are Canadians who doubt that. (Ibid.)
I can understand Macfarlane’s and Moscrop’s positions, as some say. I can understand that they are articulate, educated, and wrong. As written by CBC News (2016), the scientific literacy of Canadians exists as a concern.
They note this about a survey by the Ontario Science Centre (CBC News, 2016). 2/5 Canadians think the science on climate change is unclear (Ontario Science Centre, 2016). 1/5 Canadians trust intuition over science regarding genetically modified organisms (Ibid.).
1/5 think there’s a link between vaccines and autism (Ibid.). On those points, the general Canadian public — at least 2/5, then 1/5, followed by 1/5 Canadians, respectively, based on the prior survey results — hold empirically false beliefs. Payette spoke her mind. The Ontario Science Centre states:
Climate change is a highly charged topic hotly debated by politicians and industry. But in the scientific community, there is a substantial consensus on the factors that contribute to this global issue. (Ibid.)
Moscrop continues:
Still, while stating facts is one thing, criticizing those who don’t believe in those facts is another. Those are different sorts of utterances and therefore different sorts of acts. The question is whether and when the governor general ought to cross that line. To the former, I say “yes.” To the latter, I say “sometimes.” That’s the wisdom of good governance: knowing when to speak, how to speak, and what to say. (2017).
Payette — for the when, how, and what — can speak this way when in the company of scientists as a keynote speaker at a science policy convention (when), so able to speak directly and with humor about scientific matters including science literacy (how), and speaking about concerns such as denial of scientific truths or acceptance of pseudoscientific falsehoods (what).
She did nothing wrong and made a joke. The next was Postmedia News.
Postmedia News published an editorial (2017). They say, “Canadians hold a diversity of views on religion and climate change and the GG, who on behalf of the Queen represents all Canadians, has effectively suggested those who disagree with her views are ignorant.”
Nope: she relayed the views of the science. Science provides explanatory frameworks of the natural world. It’s great. You can know which beliefs are more probable or improbable, or simply wrong. Many of the diverse views on climate change in the public are wrong, not by necessity brought about by ignorance. Canadians have a variety of wrong beliefs about climate change, evolution, and horoscopes. Variety relates little to truth.
Postmedia News continued, “The world’s full of nitwits with Twitter accounts who think they have licence to lecture those they disagree with. Our Governor General shouldn’t be one of them.” Duly note, she was the invited keynote, who spoke to a room of scientists at a science policy convention. Not exactly Twitter, a lecture, or lay people, or an informed editorial for that matter.
Following them came Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who, in the prominent and highly respected media forum of Facebook, said:
It is extremely disappointing that the prime minister will not support Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Christians and other faith groups who believe there is truth in their religion…Respect for diversity includes respect for the diversity of religious beliefs, and Justin Trudeau has offended millions of Canadians with his comments. (Wherry, 2017)
Insofar as I know, believing something to be true, regardless of tenet or premise of a religion, faith, or way of life, doesn’t make it true, but showing something empirically to be true, repeatedly, does increase its probability of being so, Payette’s speech comes from science.
Scheer’s comments are as cynical as they are insulting. Cynical through twisting meaning, then insulting because the turn of meaning is directing the majority resentment and prejudice of many religious — already extant — against the large minority, the formal irreligious or formerly religious, for the points in the intangible economy of politics.
The joke was not at religion at large. It was at the notion that can be in some religions — often asserted, unproven, and a matter of faith — of divine guidance for humanity, whether young or old Earth creationism, or purported directed evolution.
The scientific consensus is unguided evolution. That is, no divine guidance in the birth, maturation, decay, and death of organisms, or in the reproduction, perpetuation, and speciation of species. Besides, why should empirically false beliefs deserve respect? They are beliefs, like 2+2=5 or squares are circles, or the Sun orbits the Earth.
The people holding them is another matter. Scheer did not say irreligious people can hold wrong beliefs about climate change and horoscopes, too, not simply “Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Christians and other faith groups.” Did he even see the full speech or think about it, or did he simply observe a political opportunity?
Therein lies the cross-points, the crucifix, of the notion or narrative throughout the news coverage, ‘Payette targets religion, especially religious individuals’; whereas, the truth is the targeting of empirically false beliefs with a joke while in the community of professional scientists.
Of course, the media misrepresentation seems like a politically convenient maneuver, so Scheer used the opportunity to score political points by bravely targeting, not Payette directly but, Trudeau. Easy, expedient political currency, if cynical enough, why not? Next was the long-time Canadian commentator Rex Murphy.
Murphy made note about religion and science not being in conflict: how cliché and delightfully vague. What is meant by religion?
It depends on the contents of the religion to an individual. Some see “the good” in religion as a motivation for protests outside abortion clinics, killing abortion doctors, holding signs saying, “God hates fags,” killing homosexuals, criminalizing atheism with the death penalty, even suppressing women and denying rights, and so on. Others see the same good in religion through self-sacrifice for fellow human beings in disaster areas, or for the donation of their income to those in most need.
Payette’s statements point to empirical claims about the natural world without evidence, not religion. Unless, the religion’s specific tenets or beliefs contain empirical claims in conflict with scientific evidence, to the individual religious person, but this remains different than religion at large.
If the religious tenet or belief remains in conflict with the evidence about the natural world from the science, and if the religious tenet or belief asserts an empirical foundation, then the religious claim is dust, nothing, or simply wrong.
Murphy queried the reader, “In this wonderfully diverse Canada that Ms. Payette now represents, was it her intent to ridicule the religious beliefs of so very many faiths whose cosmologies include a divine creation, some as myth, some as a fact of faith — as opposed to a fact of science?” Nope.
The fulcrum for Murphy’s teeter-totter is Payette claiming umpire status, tacitly in his opinion at least, on faith and religion. Here’s a question: Who made Murphy umpire on the interpretation of the meaning of the Governor General’s words?
Payette iterated a series of the strongest theories backed by the empirical evidence discovered by science, e.g., climate change or global warming is real, human activity is a major contributor to global warming, horoscopes are bogus (sorry, Georgia Nicols), and humans arose via the principles of unguided evolution, and so on.
Murphy noted the “truths” of religion without a statement, again conveniently, of what exactly, I wonder. If moral codes, these amount to heuristics for behaviour, evolved (without divine intervention, to Payette’s point).
Then came the epithets, I was waiting for one: “Scientism.” A dishonourable history of what I consider “terms to defame to dismiss.” Use a word, give it bad implications, apply against an enemy, you don’t need to address the claims anymore. It’s perfect.
Then there’s also only implication of terms to defame to dismiss, where some conceptions behind terms are well-instantiated in the society without need for direct reference, e.g., elitism. Payette, by the insinuation of Murphy, is elitist talking down to the general public, especially non-college education and non-science types.
Case in Murphy wrongness, she spoke against elitism, saying, “We will be able to claim as a people, as a nation, as humanity. That we are a science literate species. By science literacy, I don’t mean we should all have a math degree” (Persian Mirror, 2017). The point isn’t higher education. The point is science literacy.
Also, speaking of condescension, Murphy quipped, “A backhand dismissal of religion is a sophomoric indulgence.” I feel under the stronger impression that belief without evidence and backhand dismissal of fundamental empirical truthsis such an indulgence.
Following Mr. Murphy was Mr. Levant, Ezra Levant, of Rebel Media fame, dove into the public discussion as well. In a video entitled “Ezra Levant: Governor General equates religion with superstition,” he decided to be ambitious by being wrong from the start, from the title (Rebel Media, 2017).
His opening salvo starts with a mediocre jab with the common tactic of misquotation of a great individual in history, in this case the little-known historical figure and scientist named Albert Einstein.
Levant quotes Einstein, “Science can only ascertain what is and not what should be” (Ibid.) Of course, Einstein also said:
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Einstein, 1989).
As well as:
The word God for me is nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can [for me] change this. (Jones, 2015)
It is a fun game, and easy too. Levant moves next into the purported equating of God and superstition by Payette. Only if your definition of a God somehow implies horoscopes, anti-evolutionism, and global warming denialism, which seems like the problem to me.
The definition of God, in the context of the Levant video, amounts to a God defined by a metric of rubber inches. Somehow, by any means, this God will be fit into the appropriate category to imply Payette being a) anti-religion and b) anti-religious people.
For quotation of Payette, the research team at Rebel Media didn’t selectively quote as much, as in the case of Einstein, which is nice. They quote Payette on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life or SETI.
Background: Frank Drake, who is alive, created the Drake Equation to estimate the probabilities of extraterrestrial life. If life arose by nature here, what odds elsewhere? The equation, depending on the values given to the parameters in the equation, calculates the estimate.
As a former astronaut, I am certain Payette knows about the equation, incorporates this into her worldview, and likely answers questions about extraterrestrials, or aliens if you will, in that context.
The difference between the superstitions and the aliens is the evidence. Life exists here, on Earth. It arose, naturally. Then you can ask, “What parameters need to be taken into account to calculate those probabilities?”
The superstitions or false beliefs lack evidence, or are overwhelmed by the vast majority, the preponderance, of evidence. That points to the — ahem — point of Payette’s statements and joke about divinely guided evolution, horoscopes, and climate change denial.
Levant moves into a complete non-sequitur about God creating the universe, extraterrestrial intelligence, and then insinuating Payette said that you’re a kook if you believe the former but not the latter. Of course, Payette never said anything of the sort.
Another individual in the media personalities with concerning popularity playing the cynical, if purposeful, or ignorant, if accidental, game “Missing the Point” is Chris Selley. He noted 53% of Canadian citizens believe God is active in this world. What’s their evidence?
Argumentum ad numerum is the Hail Mary, or argument by the majority. The response: the majority can hold false beliefs. Quantity, in people, does not determine veracity. Again, this was not a jab at religion, so Selley was playing in another baseball field: with other Canadian media personalities while Payette was absent.
Mia Rabson of Global News did a good job. She represented the speech with honest intent to relay what Payette said, and meant, to the audience at the Canadian Science Policy Convention (Rabson, 2017).
The argument remains imaginary, though, as with the insinuation of the narrative throughout the prominent media, generally. Payette didn’t jab religion. She jabbed empirically false claims or assertions without evidence. That is not anti-religious; it is pro-empirical truths. So Moscrop and Emmett, Postmedia News, Scheer, Murphy, Levant, and Selley (and I assume others) miss the point, then run on steam or tirade oil.
References
CBC News. (2016, September 22). Q&A Survey reveals ‘significant gaps’ in Canadians’ understanding of science. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/survey-reveals-significant-gaps-in-canadians-understanding-of-science-1.3772707.
CSPC. (2017). Canadian Science Policy Convention. Retrieved from http://cspc2017.ca.
Estate of Albert Einstein. (1989). Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives. Retrieved from https://books.google.ca/books?id=T5R7JsRRtoIC&pg=PA43&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Moscrop, D. (2017, November 2). Julie Payette takes on junk science — and tests the limits of her job title. Retrieved from http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/julie-payette-takes-on-junk-science-and-tests-the-limits-of-her-job-title/?platform=hootsuite.
Murphy, R. (2017, November 2). Rex Murphy: Governor General appoints herself umpire of questions of faith and science. Retrieved from http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-governor-general-places-herself-as-umpire-of-questions-of-faith-science.
Ontario Science Centre. (2017). Ontario Science Centre survey reveals gap in public understanding of critical scientific issues. Retrieved from http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/Media/Details/432/.
Persian Mirror. (2017, November 3). Governor General Julie Payette speech at CSPC2017. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbvRPazFsts.
Postmedia News. (2017, November 3). EDITORIAL: Julie Payette speech oversteps her role. Retrieved from http://torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-julie-payette-speech-oversteps-her-role.
Rabson, M. (2017, November 2). Julie Payette takes on climate change deniers, divine intervention and horoscopes. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/3839305/julie-payette-takes-on-climate-change-deniers-divine-intervention-and-horoscopes/.
Rebel Media [Rebel Media]. (2017, November 4). Ezra Levant: Governor General equates religion with superstition. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axe7YrikDkw.
Selley, C. (2017, November 3). Chris Selley: With her dig at religion, Julie Payette plays a dangerous game for Liberals. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/amp/nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-with-her-dig-at-religion-julie-payette-plays-a-dangerous-game-for-liberals/amp.
The Canadian Press. (2017, November 2). Trudeau applauds Payette for standing up for science in convention speech. Retrieved from http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-applauds-payette-for-standing-up-for-science-in-convention-speech-1.3661058.
Wherry, A. (2017, November 3). Scheer blasts Trudeau for supporting Governor General after ‘divine intervention’ comment. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/amp/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4385895.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/12
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was irreligion part of family life growing up?
Violine Namyalo: No, irreligion was not part of my family life growing up. As a child, I grew up with my Grandmother. My Grandmother was a staunch Catholic who even wanted me to be a catholic sister. When I started growing up, I started leaving with my mother, unlike my Grandmother, my mother was a Born-again Christian and I started attending church with her. When she died, I was taken to a Christian orphanage where I stayed for several years. This shows clearly that irreligion was not part of my family life growing up.
Jacobsen: When were you fully aware of humanistic values? When did you become an explicit?
Namyalo: I got to know about humanistic values as a student at Grace Fellowship High School in 2010 through the debates that HALEA always conducted at our school on a weekly basis. These debates had topics that triggered my mind to start reasoning critically about issues I had taken as absolutely true without questioning. I become an explicit humanist in 2012 after reading more about humanism and also getting involved in public debates that HAELA always conducted.
Jacobsen: Who is a humanist hero to you?
Namyalo: My humanist hero is Kato Mukasa. This is because he was the founding chair of the Humanist Association for Leadership, Equity and Accountability (HALEA), a humanist organization that introduced humanism to our school and eventually enabled me to know the meaning of Humanism and I decided to be a humanist. He has been involved in several empowerment projects that have supported especially the girl child and young mothers and through such activities I always see humanism in practice. Currently I am attending a course for Humanist celebrants which is the first of its kind in Africa and it has participants from six African countries. This course is an initiative of Kato Mukasa, Pearl Vocational Training College with support of Humanist celebrants trainers from Scotland, UK and USA.
Jacobsen: What are your favorite books?
Namyalo: Wow, my favorite books include Humanism by Barbra Smoker , Paul Frierre’s Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, A short Course on Humanism by the British Humanist Association and The Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose to mention but a few. These books greatly shaped my thinking, they confirmed to me that one can be good without a god, and most importantly they clearly explained to me the meaning of humanism and the need to respect people’s rights.
Jacobsen: When you look at the situation in Uganda, what is the state of irreligious compared to religious people?
Namyalo: The exact number is hard to tell partly because irreligious people have never been counted here. However, my general observation shows that the sreligious people take the lion’s share in Uganda’s population and if I estimate, people who claim to be religious are 90% of Uganda’s population.
Jacobsen: What are some major wins for the irreligious in America?
Namyalo: Humanist movements have been able to register their organizations with the government of Uganda and the projects are going on well. We have several humanists schools and active secular movements.
Jacobsen: Where does the history of religion, both modern and ancient, in Uganda stem?
Namyalo: Because Uganda is a multi tribal country, every tribe has got its own culture and every culture has got its own belief system or religion. These belief systems are derived from the social, economic and political organization of each culture. For example the Baganda people of Central Uganda derived their ancient religion from their cultural practices like Farming, Fishing and Hunting. They have a god of the sea, rain and hunting. This shows how the ancient religion was derived from the cultural practices.
The modern religion came with the Christian missionaries in the 1870s and the Arab traders. The Christian missionaries introduced Christianity and the Arab traders introduced Islam.
Jacobsen: Why is religion such a powerful socio-cultural and political force there?
Namyalo: The main reasons as to why religion is a powerful socio-cultural in Uganda are largely because of Illiteracy and Ignorance. This is because Uganda has got a number of illiterate and ignorant people about the science facts together with people without interest in researching on other existing knowledge that debunk the creation stories and miracle stories which have no basis in science.
In addition, the high level of indoctrination is another reason why religion is so powerful in Uganda and throughout the world. In Uganda religion is introduced to people at a tender age, they find it hard to challenge it even when they grow up. This is one of the reasons why some educated people also remain religious. They find it hard to challenge an idea they have been considering true since their childhood.
Finally, we live in a country where poverty and diseases are everywhere without immediate solutions. Too many people find solace and consolation through religion, it at least gives hope however false it can be , religion appears to be providing solutions to several problems afflicting our people and so people seek refugee in churches as a stepping stone to solving their many problems.
Jacobsen: As a Membership Director of HALEA and UHASSO, what are the organizations? What are your tasks and responsibilities?
Namyalo: HALEA and UHASSO are humanists organizations based in Uganda. These organization are charity organizations and they are registered with the government of Uganda and are members of IHEU. I volunteer as a membership director to both UHASSO and HALEA and my job is to see that new members join the humanist movement in Uganda, collect membership fee from members and also to see that members are in good terms with others.
Jacobsen: As the secretary of IHEYO, what are the topics of concern to African humanist youth that come up through IHEYO African Working Group?
Namyalo: The need to put more effort in promoting free thinking.
The need to be a reflection of what a true humanist must be in order to show the world that humanism is a good way of life and that someone can be good without a god.
Jacobsen: What are some hopes for the humanist movement in particular and irreligious movements in general in Uganda?
Namyalo: I see humanism with a great future. Religion is a powerful socio-culture because Ugandans are only ignorant that the church, shrines and mosques are only making money out of them. Once the existing projects (Humanist schools, Humanist Ceremonies and many others) become more successful, Ugandans will be free from the enslavement of religion and become freethinkers, and indeed humanists.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/11
“Women’s History Month is the “honorary observance of the month of March, as designated in 1987 by the U.S. Congress, in recognition of women’s many accomplishments throughout history. A variety of agencies, schools, and organizations observe the month by focusing on the ‘consistently overlooked and undervalued’ role of American women in history. Libraries and communities promote special events that emphasize the achievements of women.” As an American Ahmadi Muslim, celebrating women’s achievements, I feel proud that my religion has given me all my rights, privileges, dignity, and respect-as my birthright, 1,400 years ago.
In America, the right to own property was given to women in 1839. The Married Women’s Property Act allows such women to own and control their property themselves, and makes it their own right. Before the advent of Islam, a woman was not allowed to own property. She didn’t even have the right to inherit from her own father! When she was married, she became her husband’s property, and it was against the law to be separated or divorced from him. When God chose the Prophet Muhammad ( peace and blessings be upon him) to be the messenger for all of mankind he improved the status of Muslim women.”
“On Feb. 28, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled in favour of the Ryerson Student Union (RSU), who were the defendants in a case brought to court by the Ryerson Men’s Issues Awareness Society (MIAS).
They filed the lawsuit because the RSU had not granted the MIAS club status through the student union, which the MIAS felt was unfair. The lawsuit was led by them along with two anti-abortion groups, who also claimed their rights were violated.
The MIAS had accused the RSU of breaking its own bylaws and violating members’ freedom of expression when the RSU, led by then-president Andrea Bartlett, rejected the MIAS’s application for student club status in 2015.”
Source: http://charlatan.ca/2018/03/letter-struggle-for-womens-rights-cant-be-compared-to-mens/.
“When you ask anyone who is a great Canadian, Manitoba’s Nellie McClung often makes that list.
McClung was an outspoken women, writer, and later, a politician. As a suffragist, she made it her mission to join the fight for women’s rights more than a hundred years ago.
But what would Nellie McClung think of women’s lives today?
“Farm wives at the time…that was a hard, hard, hard, hard life. Many of them were isolated. They wouldn’t have a lot of contact with other women,” said Doris Moulton, chair of the Nellie McClung Foundation.”
“Academia remains a bastion of patriarchal power — its structures mean certain men always get to the top of the hierarchy. Universities like to put on prominent display the tiny minority of women who have managed to break through the glass ceiling — but the presence of women in senior management is no consolation when researchers and lecturers face poverty, sexual harassment and the expectation of labour performed for free and out of an instinctive feminine desire to “care”.
In the UK, women aged 18 are 36% more likely than men to go to university. Young women are currently holding up the higher education sector in this country by taking out personal loans, buying into a field that offers them little in return for the burden of debt they are forced to take on.
What they have to look forward to, if they stay in academia, is low pay and precarious and short-term work, pensions under threat and an enduring gender pay gap. Casual contracts are widespread in academia, with about 50% of academic staff in the UK on insecure contracts.”
“For International Women’s Day on Thursday, The Local takes a look at how Germany stacks up when it comes to women’s rights.
Germany has a female Chancellor, and overall it has a good record on sexual equality. In the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap report for 2017 Germany placed 12th overall in a comparison of 144 countries for economic participation, educational attainment, health and political empowerment.
But there are also some areas where the country could step up its game in the name of women’s rights.
1. Abortion rights
While abortions may be performed legally in Germany, the procedure is actually technically defined as “illegal” under the criminal code, and the circumstances under which it can be performed are labelled as “exceptions”.”
Source: https://www.thelocal.de/20180308/what-you-need-to-know-about-womens-rights-in-germany.
“ There’s an advertisement making the rounds on Twitter that features a GIF of a woman’s purse that has spilled onto a table. The splayed contents include dark sunglasses, red lipstick and a bottle of perfume — and then, a key fob for a luxury car slides into the frame, seemingly completing the picture.
The ad, which is a subtle overture to Saudi women, would have been unheard of a year ago. It represents huge change and opportunity in a country that has been extremely repressive toward women.
Car companies such as Jaguar, Ford and Nissan are looking to capitalize on a potential new market of women drivers after Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, announced that starting in June, women in the kingdom would be allowed to drive.
The 32-year-old prince wants to show his country is liberal, modern and open for business beyond the oil sector. Saudi Arabian women have embraced the move on driving, but hope it brings other, more substantial changes, too.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/saudi-women-international-womens-day-1.4565776.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/11
“At the last survey of new photography at the Museum of Modern Art two years ago, the atmosphere was so self-referential and hermetic that a visitor panted for oxygen. Often, the photos were images of images, taken off a computer screen or digitally created in the studio. It seemed as if photography, which continued to engage with the world after modernist painting and literature turned inward, had finally crumpled into solipsism.
A lot can change in two years. In response to the last exhibition and to the intervening political upheavals, the show “Being: New Photography 2018,”which opens on March 18, offers a broader and more stimulating range of work. The rubric of “Being,” which is defined as “notions of personhood and identity,” proves capacious enough to include portraiture, reportage, fashion, and pretty much everything you can turn a camera on. (The museum decided in 2016 to present exhibitions with a theme rather than simply highlighting promising photographers.) The show includes the work of 17 artists — two of whom collaborate as a team — all under 45.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/arts/design/museum-of-modern-art-being-new-photography.html.
“Civil unrest. War. Terrorism. Epidemics. Inequality. Environmental degradation. Famine and poverty. When you read the news, it looks like the world is falling apart, but is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? Harvard Psychology Professor and New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases, and instead, follow the data.
In his new book, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason, science, and humanism can enhance human flourishing. The title of Pinker’s new book is “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.””
Source: http://wamc.org/post/steven-pinker-makes-case-reason-science-humanism-and-progress.
“Buddhist humanism addresses the most basic questions of human existence. Is happiness possible in difficult times?
Can we truly move in the direction of our dreams?
Can we face our problems wisely and courageously? Can we live life with an ever deepening gratitude, appreciation and hope?
Buddhist humanism believes we have the power to take charge of our own destiny and become a source of positive change in our family, local community and the entire world.
The practice of Buddhist humanism provides a path for each individual to become absolutely happy and achieve their highest potential. The law of cause and effect (karma) ensures that individual happiness will spread throughout our families, societies and ultimately the world.”
“Despite our miraculous advances in science and technology, humanism and compassion are necessary for all forms of human relationships. My Aunt and Uncle, Drs. Sandra and Arnold P. Gold, understood the healing power of humanistic medical care. They created the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to keep healthcare “human.” In other words, medical care works best when collaborative relationships occur between doctor, nurses, and patients. My Uncle (Dr. Arnold P. Gold)’s recent passing leads me to celebrate his life’s work in humanism in medicine.
Could there ever be humanism in the practice of law? Is kindness always weakness? The answer depends upon the person. However, I would challenge the cast of characters in the drama of legal practice to embrace compassion. Recently, in a job interview, I was asked to recite the elements of negligence. The practice of law is so much more than the sum of these parts.
For me, the power of law is in its potential to heal relationships. This holds true for commercial clients, parties seeking a divorce, as well as a defendant in municipal court with a speeding ticket. The beauty of law flows from human connections.”
Source: http://www.empirestatenews.net/2018/03/06/humanism/.
“It is not my intention to turn this column into a book review, but I’m at it again for the third straight week — and I have promised another for Palm Sunday. There is no shortage of ongoing activity that merits our close attention, from the never-ending turmoil in Washington to some interesting issues here at home; it’s just that Steven Pinker is at it again.
Ten years after the horrific attacks of 9/11, Pinker published “The Better Angels Of Our Nature,” arguing that, contrary to our fears, the world has become progressively less violent through time, especially since the advent of The Enlightenment.
He did not confine his argument to the West, but used statistics to demonstrate that human life has become more valued around the world and that, on every scale, there has been a decrease in all forms of violence.”
“Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: Global Secular Humanist Movement has been undergoing multiple evolutions. During the Arab Spring in the middle of 2009 and then 2010, I saw potential for a movement that would unite secularists globally. I wanted to share the message of activists within the Arab world, a message I felt deserved a larger audience, to the world.
Initially, I thought I was the only one who thought that way. Then the page grew to 350,000 people. Often, when there is a significant terrorist attack, we hear the question, “Who are the secularists in the region?”
The goal for 2018 is to highlight the incredibly important work of people who are on the frontline fighting extremism in the region. Also, we want to expand beyond Islamic extremism.”
Source: https://conatusnews.com/global-secular-humanist-movement/.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/10
The Brighter Brains Institute (BBI) is making a call for fundraising through GoFundMe. This particular initiative can use a boost. What is it? The Nyakiyumbu Widows Association is hoping to raise money for a Peanut Farm in order to provide tuition money for orphans and teachers’ salaries.
The GoFundMe can be seen here:
https://www.gofundme.com/nyakiyumbu-widow-peanut-farm
Nyakiyumbu is farming village close to the border of the Congo and has a huge number of widows and orphans because of rebel militias, M23 and the ADF.
There are many deaths to AIDS, hepatitis, and Malaria. Also, the community is comprised of many hunters, who are killed for poaching in the close by Queen Elizabeth Park.
The Bakonzo tribe of Nyakiyumbu has a traditional dish there, peanut sauce. The profits from the Peanut Farm will help with the Nyakiyumbu Widows Orphanage Humanist School.
Any and all donations would be greatly appreciated to a humanist community, and a community generally, in need.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/09
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What has been an emotionally trying experience as a humanist in Ghana?
Michael Osei-Assibey: There certainly has been and will be many experiences that will be emotionally trying for humanists in Ghana but personally, it’s been the times that bigotry cut close to home. We can not choose the families we are born into and one can only hope that the people you love will share the same empathy you have for humanity. However, it is that same level of empathy that helped me through those times, with the realisation that we are a product of our environment. It spurred me on to talk about issues of sexual orientation, tribalism, religious intolerance and critical thinking with members of my family, no matter how uncomfortable it got.
Jacobsen: What are the ongoing educational initiatives of the Humanist Association of Ghana?
Osei-Assibey: HAG started a book drive, I believe in December of last year. One of our member, Helen List, Owner of the Afia Beach Hotel, organized a Christmas book drive to make a Christmas Tree out of books which she donated a majority of to the HAG efforts. The working plan is to encourage reading in the public schools in our communities. HAG has been in talks with the Kotobabi Cluster of Schools to listen to their problems and discuss whatever solutions they propose and how we could be of help. Although their problems seemed overwhelming as with all other public schools, HAG is committed to helping out however that we can. The First step is the donation of books and stationery to the primary schools as well as working with Learning Support Solution to provide learning support to the students. We also intend to create relationships between the private schools with access to educational psychologists and teachers with specializations to create an avenue for sharing ideas. HAG is also in talks with the Accra Planetarium to find a way to get the students in these schools interested in Science and experience the universe in the planetarium.
HAG already has a relationship with the Young Adults Support Services of OAfrica, a non-profit working to empowers children and young adults in need of care and protection because of institutionalization, abandonment, neglect, disability or abuse to become productive members of the community. We have had a presentation with the young adults under their care on social issues and hope to continue along the same lines of bringing the discussions to them and giving them the tools of critical thinking to be able to discuss these ideas.
Members of HAG also run the HAGtivist podcast which is in its third season. On there, we discuss social, political and cultural issues through a humanist perspective.
Finally, we hope to start debate programs in at least one university before the first quarter of next year. Universities are supposed to be breeding grounds for free thinking but that is not currently the case. We hope that these debate programs will change that.
Jacobsen: What are the current social and political activist projects of the Humanist Association of Ghana?
Osei-Assibey: As much as HAG tries not to be reactionary, it is difficult given the climate we find ourselves. Our online activities targets LGBTQ rights in Ghana with our most recent one being an open letter to the speaker of parliament (insert link) on his homophobic stance. Our monthly meetings invite the general public to discussions on activism, inequality, climate change, political and economic thought, etc. Currently, we are having conversations on the marriage between economics and humanism in order to better understand the inequalities in our society and how to tackle them.
HAG also affiliates itself with pro-environment groups such as Environment 360, and we will be participating in this year’s Float Your Boat competition (an initiative to raise funds to educate kids about being environmentally aware) of which we were last years winners. We designed and constructed a raft using recycled plastic bottles, and raced with it.
Our current focus online is starting conversations on critical thinking with a series of articles planned to discuss the issue of pseudo-science in our healthcare system. The rise of homeopathic clinics and alternative medicine centres is worrying and we need to help with the sensitisation/education of the public of the potential damage they can cause.
Jacobsen: What are the likely trajectories of the humanist movement in Ghana for the next 5 years?
Osei-Assibey: One of the few things that fills me with hope is the increasing number of people asking questions and showing signs of scepticism. A few years ago, social media was flooded with religion, pseudoscience and people falling for all sorts of scams. However, more people seem to be asking questions now and being more sceptical about information that they receive. This trend give me hope because it is out of scepticism that humanism is birthed. There are also a lot more openly irreligious people and a lot more people openly criticizing religion with some movements even arising within churches themselves, questioning the historicity and morality of the bible and the activities of the church and religious leaders. What do I see this culminating to in 5 years? The last poll in 2010 placed nones at a little over 5%. By 2022, nones should be over 10% of the population with humanists, atheists and agnostics making a chunk of that number.
Jacobsen: Who are the perennial threats to the freedom to be irreligious in Ghana?
Osei-Assibey: The biggest threats are those who will be most affected by an irreligious, secular society. Religious leaders have been increasingly whipping up the hate against people who do not believe or finding subtle ways to reaffirm the faiths of their flock by pitting them against logic and reasoning. There are many times that religious leaders have been called out for their actions but seem unfazed, bouncing back with more rhetoric about how the ways of their deity is mysterious or how the “anointed” can not be touched. Sometimes, it feels like they are grasping at straws and the backlash they receive from other people of faith give me hope that their power and influence on society is waning. In our organization, we have come to realize that economic independence is also a major factor in presenting non-belief or coming out as irreligious especially to the youth who are mostly still dependent on their parents or family. I have sometimes had to advise friends not to reveal their non-belief to family yet in order not to face the most likely harsh results of being disowned.
Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts?
Osei-Assibey: Becoming a humanist was a tough decision because it meant I will be going against the grain with respect to family and society at large. What has made it easier is the relationships that have been cultivated into one that I can call family. I found the love of my life, a feminist and a humanist, who shares my passion for fighting inequality wherever we find it and we will be getting married in December. I also found friends who add meaning to my life and share in the crazy notion that we can effect positive change in our own small way, and in our own small circles that may resonate and ripple across the entire country and continent.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Michael.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/08
A special type of ice crystal within gems is pointing in the direction of water being as much as 800 kilometers below the Earth’s surface. As Gramling (2018) notes in Science News, “Researchers discovered ice-VII entombed within a diamond. This cubic form of ice (crystal structure shown) is found only at very high pressures such as those deep in Earth’s interior.”
As things appear to be the case, with the high-pressured formed ice-VII, the high-density ice embedded in diamond offers some clues as to the nature of the Earth between 610 and 800 kilometres beneath its surface.
This crystal does not exist on the Earth’s surface, which the researchers deduce means that the there is abundant water 610 to 800 kilometres deep within the mantle of the Earth.
Its presence in diamonds suggests that there is water-rich fluid in the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle, and even into the top of the lower mantle,” Gramling stated.
A Mantle Petrologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explained that this was the first time researchers have found the water at these depths into the Earth.
One fact is when the Earth’s crust moves deep into the Earth over long periods of time that it drags water in with it. This leads to many questions. How much water? How deep? And so on.
We do not know how deep the crust slabs move into the Earth. “Researchers have suspected that abundant aqueous fluid exists in the deep mantle,” Gramling stated, “Ferried there by slabs bearing water-rich minerals that shed their water when they reach the transition zone.”
The new evidence of water provides some new information and sheds light on the possibilities of the happenings that deep into the Earth’s surface. The diamonds were key because as they formed they created internal-to-themselves pockets where miniscule amounts of fluid or rock from their surroundings can enter, and stay — for researchers to pick up.
A Mineralogist, Oliver Tschauner, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and others were not looking for ice when they found it using variety of techniques including X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray fluorescence.
The contents of the diamonds used in the research had a variety of fluids with salts, and carbon-rich fluids as well. These water-rich fluids may help with the circulation of tectonic plates and volcanic eruptions.
The water deep below the surface may help rocks melt, where the water helps with the redistribution of the heat in the mantle of the Earth. The water, apparently, reduces the melting point for the hot rock under pressure.
Potassium, thorium, and uranium are large and heat-producing elements, which do not fit well in the crystalline and rigid structure of the minerals. The melted rock can help.
One researcher said, “You just need a little bit of fluid, and they are moving into the melt.”
But there was one interesting final note by Gramling, “The study also raised another mystery. Fluid inclusions within diamonds originating at shallower depths, perhaps 150 to 200 kilometers below the surface, contain a mélange of water, salt and carbonates. But Tschauner and his colleagues found that in their deep diamonds, the inclusions are sequestered individually: ice in one inclusion, carbonates in another, salts in yet a third.” ‘We were surprised that they were all separate rather than occurring together,’ Tschauner says.”
References
Gramling, C. (2018, March 8). Diamonds reveal sign of the deepest water known inside Earth. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/diamonds-reveal-sign-deepest-water-known-inside-earth.
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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/08
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you start off a humanist? What’s your story into irreligion in general and humanism in particular?
Michael Osei-Assibey: I will like to believe so, but honestly I doubt that is possible in the settings I found myself. I have always enjoyed myths and fairy-tales. I grew up in a very religious household but my mother encouraged my love for reading. I will spend hours with my face in a story — chasing endings. It also helped that I was moved around a lot as a kid and each household I found myself in practised their faith differently. So, from age 6 to about 13, I went through about 6 different denominations of Christianity and, courtesy of my grandmother (a Muslim), practised Islam for a few months.
I was intrigued by the traditions and practices of all these beliefs but I always held them in the same regard as Greek mythology or the Legends told to me in my Akan and Ga traditional folk-tales. However, in moments of crisis or when overcome by fear, I will always have a strong urge to believe and hoped that I could say a few words and all will be well.
In senior high school, I started performing some thought experiments and had, for instance, one of my shoes as my god for a while to see how belief affects my life. I was surprised when I found out I seemed to be happier and had more luck in general. I realized having a belief may give one a positive outlook on life but it had no consequence on reality or the facts of life. This I will say was the pivotal moment in my journey to irreligion. I disassociated myself from organized religion right after senior high, preferring to apply reason and logic to everything.
Studying engineering in the university also helped to hone my analytical skills and made me want to perform a root cause analysis on any subject. I believe in trying to find the solution to living an ethical faithless life is how I stumbled on humanism. I may have been a humanist a long while before I even put a name to it but doing that 8 years ago was able to help me focus more on what I wanted from this journey.
Jacobsen: What kind of work did you do before the humanist positions?
Osei-Assibey: I am a building service engineer with a speciality in mechanical and plumbing systems. It is what I do to put food on the table so I can concentrate on humanism. Being a part of the built environment industry and running my own design firm affords me the time to do the things I am also passionate about.
Jacobsen: What is your formal position title now? What tasks as responsibilities come with it?
Osei-Assibey: I am currently the elected President of the Humanist Association of Ghana (HAG). I was the Organizing Secretary of the same organization in the previous cycle. I am also a board member of the Humanist Service Corps. I remember in thanking my colleagues and friends for giving me the opportunity to serve them as president, I told them my position will be in name only. To me “president” sounds too ominous so I prefer to see myself as a project manager and group cheerleader. My main job is to keep the association together and our projects running smoothly, together with my executive committee. In order to get all the members involved in as many of the activities as possible, we try to break activities into teams with every team member being a stakeholder in ensuring the success of that activity. One of the most difficult tasks that comes with the job is being the face and voice of the association. I plan however, to make my presidency about showcasing the outstanding individuals in the organization.
Jacobsen: Who inspires you?
Osei-Assibey: Remarkably, I am most inspired by the stories of the individuals in my organization, and the many humanists, feminists and freethinking youth I have met in person and online. Given how religious and antagonistic our society is towards new ideas, it takes intrepidity to be a freethinker and to be open about it. Even more so, whenever I hear the passion with which ideas and solutions are discussed and the depths of intellectualism involved, as well as the zeal to go out there and get things done, it gives me hope for Ghana and Africa.
Jacobsen: What book continually enlightens you — worth the re-reads?
Osei-Assibey: This is a good question. It’s not going to be any of the usual suspects, I promise. I spent my teenage years performing so many thought experiments about the human condition, reading on the subject feels like being in an echo chamber. One book however that I can read over and over again is Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It doesn’t read like your normal sci-fi and you can start reading from any chapter and somehow, it makes sense! Within are so many commentaries on the human condition but they are presented in a humorous and subtle manner that makes for an excellent read. Most importantly, there are no endings to chase. For those who like to over analyse everything, it’s the perfect book to write numerous thesis on. To those who just want to relax, it will have you smiling and shaking your head at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/05
Out of the long history of the rejection of the traditional religious moral frameworks, practices, rituals, and beliefs about the fundamental constituents of the world, humanism bubbled to the surface in pockets in the world’s history, whether schools associated with Charvaka or Lokayata materialist school in India and Mengzi or Mencius in China, or thinkers of the Greco-Roman orientation (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica; Stefon et al, 2016; Humanists UK, 2018).
Even with these formations in various parts of the world with different histories and peoples, humanism arises as a tendency in human thought across time more than a formal school of thought, with exceptions to some uncommon instances in the ancient world.
Of course, these “tendencies of thought” arose as rich and accepted, and flourishing, formal schools of thought in the Rennaissance Era, with approximations of their modern form, during the 13th and 14th centuries in Northern Italy with a geographic transition into England and continental Europe (Grudin, 2017).
Given its assertions about the nature of the world — an emphasis on empirical investigation for imprecise, but ever-improving, reels of the material world, the focus on the natural world discovered by natural means or naturalism, reason and compassion allied with scientific investigation for decision-making with relevance to human beings and their happiness, and so on and so forth, these tend towards opposition with the dominant schools of thought seen in mainstream faiths across the world because of perpendicular, in content and purpose, assertions about the universe (Papineau, 2016; American Humanist Association, 2003; Harvard Divinity School, 2018).
The emphasis on, though not exclusionary utilization of, faith or “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” the discovery and comprehension of the world through revelation in order to prepare for the hereafter in some form, and care, compassion, and often good works (if not by grace) geared to the wellbeing of immaterial souls (The Bible, 2018; The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2017).
Granted, Encyclopedia Britannica orients humanism within the religion palette, as a formal religious view counted in some censuses, but with an addendum about its own emphasis on human community and the natural world and not on the sacred and a potential afterlife.
In short, another form of religious belief focused on the here-and-now rather than the unforeseen and hoped-for there-and-then (The Bible, 2018). Formal religious practices tend to require assiduous effort, especially if of the self-flagellate kinds.
Given current trends within Canada, and by these standards, most Canadians with religious traditions, heritage, and practice do not meet this criteria for formal religious practitioners: religious by title (Press, 2013; Clark, 2003; Slater et al, 2015).
However, if the belief and epistemology, in its standard representation of trust in a higher power than oneself, then it amounts to hazy-lazy as a life trail.
To investigate, to prod and probe, to question, to doubt about everything, this takes time, effort, and another path in life less fuzzy and with fewer lazy moments than its traditional and dominant counterpart.
To construct a community in this manner brings about the common wisdom, which contain some modicum of truth values in its fundamental presuppositions, the unbelievers and infidel types, to play on the conceptual maps of the formal religious, in the construction efforts towards a communal environment of some form can feel as if “herding cats.”
How almost completely true, how pitiable, yet how hopeful and triumphal, the assumption amounts to at least two or more people trying in spite of the common pessimism and tiresome intellectual meanderings around the creation of said community.
That community of human beings in search of meaning, relationships, a common language and culture, music and art, and some place to build a foundational sense of family and sense of mutual respect and individual dignity in the pursuit of one’s livelihood: humanists.
In a Christian country, in Canada, via interpretation of the numbers throughout its history right into the present, many of the individuals with rejection of God with a formal atheism, often in the Abrahamic tradition, will move into the religiously unaffiliated categorization, but this amounts to a rejection of God or gods and the affirmation of their non-existence as well, in general (Press, 2013; Clark, 2003; Slater et al, 2015).
One of these groups of people equate to the humanists. Not only the standard denial found in atheism or the standard position of unknowing known as agnosticism; not only those related but distinct positions, humanism provides an affirmation of life values with an implied axiological status or set of values about life, epistemology or means through which to know the world, ontology or considerations about the foundational nature of being, ethic or how we should behave in accordance with and to one another, even a young aesthetic with the slow development of an art and culture with some writings and music and visual presentations meant to evoke emotions or strike thoughts.
Many in Canada grow without a faith or transition into none, the Nones, and then find a secular religion in its benign interpretation in humanism. It may seem like a big switch, but probably does not amount to much for many. In other words, to get a new lease on life, all you need to do is change your point of view a bit; and we are never too old for that. Plus, it comes with a community, but it remain acknowledged as a hard road to earn it.
References
American Humanist Association. (2003). Humanism and Its Aspirations: Humanist Manifesto III, a Successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933. Retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto3/.
Clark, W. (2003). Pockets of Belief: Religious attendance patterns in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2002004/article/6493-eng.pdf?contentType=application%2Fpdf.
Grudin, R. (2017, November 22). Humanism. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanism.
Harvard Divinity School. (2018). Humanist Manifestos. Retrieved from https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/humanism/humanist-manifestos.
Humanists UK. (2018). The Ancient World. Retrieved from https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/the-humanist-tradition/the-ancient-world/.
Papineau, D. (2016). Naturalism. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/naturalism/.
Press, J. (2013, May 8). Religion in Canada, a breakdown. Retrieved from http://www.canada.com/life/Religion+Canada+breakdown/8354112/story.html.
Slater, P., Coward, H., Chagnon, R., & Baird, D. (2015, March 5). Religion. Retrieved from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/religion/.
Statistics Canada. (2008, November 21). Canadians attend weekly religious services less than 20 years ago. Retrieved from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-630-x/2008001/article/10650-eng.htm.
Stefon, M., et al. (2016, July 6). Mencius. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mencius-Chinese-philosopher.
The Bible (NIV). (2018). Hebrews 11:1. Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11%3A1&version=NIV.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, June 16). Charvaka. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Charvaka.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, April 28). Religion. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/religion.
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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.
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The star Proxima Centauri, on March, 2017, produced a massive solar flare. The evidence comes from new analysis of observations of it. That big flare is an issue for its orbiting satellites, planets and so on.
One of closest planets, Proxima b, did not likely have a good go of it, if thinking in terms of potential life on the planet. The star brightened by 10³ times in only 10 seconds with a rapid dimming again. Quite remarkable.
Proxima b, compared to the Earth, is far, far closer to its own solar system’s star. It receives about 4*10³ more radiation than the Earth from its own solar flares, from the Sun.
It simply doesn’t compare in scale, really. MacGregor, one of the researchers in the paper, said, “If there are flares like this at all frequently, then [the exoplanet] is likely not in the best shape.”
That planet is one of the places hoped-for to have life on it. It is only 4 light years away and a potential candidate to find our cosmic cousins. Its own mass is comparable to Earth’s and has temperature likely suitable for water.
The star is a M dwarf or a star class prone to notorious flares that can rip the atmosphere right from the surface of the planet, including Proxima b.
It took analysis and later re-analysis by two separate teams, respectively, to see that the solar flare was in fact a solar flare and not another solar system occurrence. Hopefully, Proximarians (of the b type) didn’t have to move planet.
References
Anglada, G. et al. (2017, November 15). ALMA Discovery of Dust Belts around Proxima Centauri. Retrieved from http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aa978b/meta.
Grossman, L. (2018, March 5). Massive stellar flare may have fried Earth’s nearest exoplanet. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/proxima-centauri-flare-may-have-fried-earths-nearest-exoplanet.
MacGregor, M. et al. (2018, February 26). Detection of a Millimeter Flare from Proxima Centauri. Retrieved from http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aaad6b.
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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.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become a humanist?
Michael Madriaga: I was raised in a Roman Catholic household, the eldest among three boys. I spent my early and formative years in a Catholic school as well. I was surrounded by religiosity in almost every facet of my life, but it didn’t stop me from asking questions about the beliefs and traditions that were being taught to me.
“Why do we do the Block Rosary?” “Did we all really come from just two people?” To sate my hunger for knowledge (and perhaps to escape my random existential musings), my parents supplied me with books — volumes of them. I took interest in topics revolving around astronomy and biology.
I also loved to read about beliefs held by various religions outside of Roman Catholicism. I started to compare them with one another. For some reason, however, I could not believe in any of them. I was looking for something tangible to hold on to, something that I could test or examine and prove to be true or false.
I guess this way of thinking eventually led me towards non-belief in general. In the course of this journey, I started to consider that every person is responsible for his or her own actions and that ascribing events or circumstances, whether good or bad, to a supernatural agent is intellectually dishonest.
I saw people as complex individuals who, given the right amount of motivation and opportunity, can excel and be the best that they can be.
Jacobsen: How did you find HAPI?
Madriaga: I found HAPI through Marissa Torres-Langseth a couple of years back. We know each other even before its inception as I was also a member of PATAS (Philippine Atheists and Agnostics Society) and it was there that I first learned about secular humanism and its values.
Jacobsen: Why is humanism the right worldview and ethical life stance for you?
Madriaga: Humanism allows us to view various aspects of life outside the rigors of traditions or religious dogma. It espouses value in evidence-based decision making and scientific inquiry. It serves as a bridge, a common ground, where people of various creeds and affiliations can unite and work together for a goal that can be beneficial to everyone.
Jacobsen: What is the best argument for humanism to you?
Madriaga: We progress farther together as a species when we learn to look beyond our individual predispositions and work together to create a better world for our children.
Jacobsen: What was your most moving experience as a humanist?
Madriaga: It was after the Typhoon Haiyan struck Tacloban in November 2013. We lost contact with pretty much everyone in our coastal town in Capoocan, Leyte after the storm knocked out the power and communication lines. I went there in person shortly after the typhoon struck to check on the community and find relatives who we’ve lost contact with.
It was good to know there were zero casualties that time in our area, thanks to the technical information that we’ve been receiving about the incoming storm from friends and relatives who’ve been tracking it as it traversed the Pacific before impact. The concern by the time I arrived was that the relief goods from Tacloban were scarce and took a lot of time to get there.
We managed to organize a small relief effort to provide food and water to the locals with the help of the barangay officials and provide information to their worried kin outside the island that they are safe. The people of that community belong to different faiths and, in the face of adversity, they managed to set aside their differences and looked out for each other.
Jacobsen: What are your hopes for the next few years for humanism within the Philippines?
Madriaga: It may seem like an uphill climb, given the current conditions in this country. Filipinos consider their faiths and political affiliations as part of their identity. Antagonizing them for what they believe in simply won’t work.
To be able to change hearts and minds and for another to consider one’s own proposition, we have to be able to find something that we all can work with. HAPI’s programs such as HAPI SHADE and HAPI Trees are great avenues to reach out to people and inspire them to participate in activities that would enrich the lives of our citizens and of future generations.
Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts?
Madriaga: We can agree to disagree on a lot of topics and concerns, but what matters is how we deal with each other at the end of the day. Let us practice what we preach and put our deeds before our creed. Cheers!
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Michael.
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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.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As a formal topic in postsecondary institutions in Canada, there have been issues around prevention of free speech in arguably the most important area in Canada, i.e., the academic system. What seems like the set of motivators behind these obstructions?
John Carpay: There is a growing cultural trend, especially among millennials, that assumes people have a right to be free from hurt feelings, discomfort and offence. In doing so, the fundamental right to free expression, as well as academic freedom in the scholarly context, is necessarily compromised. Some words and ideas will be offensive to someone, thus the two cannot co-exist. Either we have a right to free speech, or a right to be free from offense, but we cannot enjoy both.
Jacobsen: For those younger and in the international community, what should they bear in mind as to the importance of the ability to speak one’s mind in a public, and especially an academic, forum?
Carpay: History often favour the activists and agitators. The great social movements that have resulted in things we consider normal today, like the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, gay rights, etc. would not have been possible without free expression. Each of these movements, at their time and place, were deeply offensive to the majority. These ideas violated the “Safe Space” policies of their time. But that didn’t make them wrong. Calls for censorship are made by people who see their own beliefs and opinions as infallible. But truth can withstand vigorous challenges and criticisms without crumbling.
Jacobsen: Cultures adhere to multiple, mutually contingent principles and values. Some conflict more than others. In Canada, what principles and values, in the culture at large, seem to conflict with freedom of speech the most? How does the law or attempts at instantiations in law restrict — or potentially limit — freedom of speech?
Carpay: Political correctness is growing in Canada, and threatens our fundamental right to freedom of expression. In some provinces, human rights legislation conflicts with the Charter right to free expression, as in the recent case of BC school trustee facing a Human Rights complaint for speaking out against the province’s curriculum guidelines on transgenderism.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, John.
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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.
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“Inspired by the struggles of working class women and led by the early socialist movement, a strategy formed to hold an annual day to demand equal rights, suffrage, an end to sexual discrimination and for a new social order — and given the anti-capitalist spirit, most often socialist. The first International Women’s Day was observed on March 19, 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. More than one million women and men showed their support of women by participating in public events.
In 1977 following the long-standing movements for women to participate equally in society, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed a day for women’s rights and international peace. Following the United Nations’ lead, Canada chose March 8 as International Women’s Day. IWD has grown to become a global day of recognition and celebration. In many countries it is an official holiday. In Canada, more than 40 events will be held this year.”
Source: https://socialistproject.ca/leftstreamed-video/international-womens-day-2018-iwd2018/.
“Women’s rights watchdog Medica Afghanistan on Sunday reported that at least 40 Afghan women were forced to endure humiliating gynecological examinations in Kabul, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif during the course of 2017.
The organization said these tests had been traumatic and in violation of women’s rights.
According to Medica Afghanistan, those who “failed these examinations” were then kicked out of their homes and left destitute.
“Our government has confirmed that these examinations are a cultural practice with no foundation in the law. With this public acknowledgment and the recent enactment of the Prohibition of Torture Law, our intent is to ensure that we bring justice to our clients who have survived these examinations. Over the last few months, we have counselled clients, engaged with judges and prosecutors and filed various petitions and official letters to put an end to this unlawful practice. We are preparing ourselves to find a way to remedy (the situation for) our clients and ensure they are adequately compensated,” Medica Afghanistan said in a press release.”
“Thousands of people joined a march in central London calling for gender equality and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote.
The event, organised by the charity Care, was the sixth annual #March4Women, which is held each year on or near International Women’s Day on 8 March.
Organisers promised an “uplifting and inspiring” march, which aimed to shine a spotlight on the inequality women and girls face worldwide.
Politicians from different parties, as well as groups representing all religions stood shoulder to shoulder as they marched on the same historic route taken by the suffragettes last century.”
“ANKARA — Turkish police on Sunday fired tear gas to break up a women’s rights march in Ankara with some 15 protesters reportedly detained.
The protesters, mainly from the Ankara Women’s Platform, an NGO promoting women’s rights, had gathered in the Turkish capital for the march called ahead of International Women’s Day on Thursday.
“We are getting stronger in solidarity,” read one banner as riot police moved in and fired tear gas after the group ignored calls to disperse, AFP photographers at the scene said.
Fifteen women were detained by police, the private Dogan News Agency reported.”
“WARSAW, POLAND (AP) — Some 2,000 women with colorful banners have walked through Poland’s capital city for an annual Women’s Day march in defense of women’s rights, including unrestricted right to abortion.
The 19th Warsaw “Manifa” march on Sunday focused on Poland’s strict anti-abortion law. It was enacted 25 years ago and allows pregnancies to be terminated for three reasons: when a woman’s life or health is threatened, the fetus is incurably sick or irreversibly damaged or a pregnancy results from a criminal act.
Poland’s right-wing ruling party wants to ban the possibility of abortion of sick fetuses, a plan that has drawn vehement protests from women’s organizations.”
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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.
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“ Psychology professor Steven A. Pinker received the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at a ceremony administered by the Humanist Hub and the Harvard Community of Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics Sunday afternoon.
Over 100 people gathered in the Science Center for the ceremony, which recognized Pinker for his scholarly research and publications around themes of humanism.
Pinker, who recently released a book titled “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress,” has worked with HCHAA and the Humanist Hub for years.”
Source: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/3/5/0-pinker-humanist-award/.
“The recent volley of letters addressing the gun issue reminded me of the old Hindu parable about the blind men and the elephant. In this tale, six blind men encounter an elephant, and each draws his impression of the beast based on what they can feel. The person who clutches one of the elephant’s tusks has a dramatically different impression than his friend who wraps his arms around one of the animal’s thick legs or another man who strokes its curly trunk. In their own way, each is correct, but each lacks the range of information needed to really understand what the elephant is.
Some will read this and conclude that I, like all the others, can’t see the whole elephant. They may be correct. But, as a journalist, I try to be guided by facts, however elusive.
One writer, who invoked the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, suggesting that his brainwashing techniques are evident in our society, asked “How about recognizing and taking responsibility for decades of liberal, permissive, coddling, entitled society that brought us to this?” Another, along the same lines, stated that “secular humanism,” not easy access to arms, is behind the scourge of gun-related carnage. Other writers, including the managing editor, surmised that our plague of gun violence is due to the country turning its back on God and not obeying the Ten Commandments. Even abortions were suggested by one writer as a pretext for violent acts.”
Source: http://www.dailyinterlake.com/letters_to_the_editor/20180304/making_sense_of_gun_violence.
“In recent months, residents and elected officials in Tompkins County have focused much attention on criminal justice reform. We could become the leader in social justice if we stops criminalizing social problems and rethinks our approach to drug use, mental health, poverty, and homelessness.
The Tompkins County Legislature has taken some encouraging steps in this direction — but we need to go further. After careful study, including an outside review from the Center on Government Research (CGR), the legislature voted against the expansion of the local jail. Now, the county must determine how to reduce the existing jail population and avoid the future cost of “boarding out” detainees to other facilities.
As part of this effort, the County Legislature recently transferred funds and personnel from the Mental Health Department to the Sheriff’s Office. Soon, there will be a psychiatric physician and a mental-health counselor in order to provide mental health evaluations, and treatment in the county jail. Unfortunately, these decisions exemplifies the troubling trend that James Kilgore, author of Understanding Mass Incarceration, calls “carceral humanism,” or the recasting of jails as social service providers. In other words, in broadening the responsibilities of the Sheriff’s Office to include psychological services, the County Legislature criminalized mental illness, making a public health issue a matter for the cops, courts, and county jail.”
“UN, March 1. /TASS/. Russia’s permanent representative at the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, on Wednesday told Western countries not to “lecture Russia on humanism” over the situation in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta district.
Speaking to members of the UN Security Council, the Russian diplomat said it was “hard even to imagine” how intense the anti-Russian campaign in the Western media would have become, if Moscow did not support the resolution on ceasefire in Syria during the February 24 vote.
“Even now, after the resolution had been adopted, our Western partners claim that all of its provisions apply solely to Damascus and Russia, and that the successful implementation of the resolution depends on our country almost completely, while pretending to be champions in love for humanity, who, for some reason, believe that they have an exclusive right to lecture us on humanism,” Nebenzya said.”
Source: http://tass.com/politics/992073.
“After a federal judge said Humanism doesn’t count as a “religion” when it comes to a non-religious federal prisoner who just wanted the same perks and privileges offered to his religious colleagues, the American Humanist Association is filing an appeal. And they have support from two other major groups promoting church/state separation.
This case was originally filed in October of 2016. Benjamin Espinosa, an inmate at Northern Nevada Correctional Center, said he just wanted to start a Humanist study group, much like Christian inmates who get together to study the Bible. But he wasn’t able to do that — or a lot of other things religious inmates could do — because the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDoC) said he wasn’t part of a recognized faith group.”
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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.
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Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a talk show entitled Star Talk. It is in the final parts of its fourth season. Filmed in the American Museum of Natural History, the famous astrophysicist will be interviewing a renowned astrophysicist.
If you did not know, there are not that many astrophysicists around, and to see two of the bigger names in one place as interviewer and interviewee is a treat, especially with good production quality.
Tyson asked questions such as: “what was around before the big bang? In other words, what happened before the moment the universe began?” Hawking’s response, in a way, sidestepped the classic question in order to reframe it.
He explained that the earlier into the universe’s timeline you get, close and closer to the Big Bang, then the more time smooths out while never getting into a starting, singular point.
Like one of those curves that gets infinitely close to the x or y axis but never quite makes it, I have read another example, which I believe was from Hawking again.
It talked about the North pole being the northernmost point on the Earth; same with the South pole. So to ask the question, “What is South of the South pole or North of the North pole?”, does not make sense because nothing is more South than the South pole or North than the North pole on the Earth.
It is almost the same, but not quite, example through the reframing of the entire question for an insightful response on Big Bang cosmology.
Some variations on the big bang go down a little smoother than the original. In the simplest version, the beginning of time is a sharp point, where everything we currently observe was mashed into a ball of energy smaller than an atom — then burst outward, duh. But what came before? Physicists such as Stephen Hawking tried to restore a kind of timelessness by getting rid of that starting point, imagining a universe with no clear “bang.” You can wind back the clock to the edges of those first moments of existence, but asking what came before would be like asking why you can keep walking north when you get to the North Pole. Time, as we define it, loses its meaning as the universe shrinks down.
It never quite narrows to a single point. But no one has proved physics works like that — yet.
References
Feltman, R. (2018, March 2). Stephen Hawking thinks he knows what happened before the beginning of time. Retrieved from https://www.popsci.com/stephen-hawking-neil-degrasse-tyson-big-bang.
Feltman, R. & Francis, M.R. (2017, October 4). Wait a second: What came before the big bang?. Retrieved from https://www.popsci.com/what-came-before-big-bang.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/04
“While parts of the world have all but banished measles, Europe is still getting hit with large outbreaks where some people don’t get vaccinated.
Measles is still a bigger problem across parts of Africa and Asia, where outbreaks can be particularly devastating in malnourished children or those with other illnesses like tuberculosis or AIDS. Most of the 89,000 measles deaths in the world each year are in developing countries.
In Europe, there were more than 21,000 cases of measles and 35 deaths last year, a fourfold increase in cases compared to the previous year. With more than 5,000 cases each, Romania and Italy had the biggest epidemics — and the drive to vaccinate children against measles has even become a leading issue in Italy’s general election on Sunday.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/measles-europe-1.4559432.
“Last week, I profiled the rapper Dessa ahead of the release of her new album, Chime. Chime, I wrote, is inspired by science but not music “about” science; there are no songs explaining electrodes or brain waves.
So, where is all the music about science that uses science data or teaches some facts? Fear not, there are plenty of examples (in no particular order).
Every song on They Might Be Giants’ Here Comes Science
Okay, so the album is technically for children, but it’s groovy enough that you might not have guessed it if I hadn’t just told you.”
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/3/17067288/songs-science-education-learning-music.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a proud science fiction fan, but his government’s third budget is much more focused on uncovering new scientific facts.
The 2018 fiscal blueprint sets aside $3.2 billion over five years to fund everything from the beakers to the brains behind scientific research as part of a Liberal effort to fire up new engines of economic growth.
The money supports the spirit of innovation to help build the new industries and jobs Canada will rely on in future years, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said.
“Budget 2018 represents the single largest investment in investigator-led fundamental research in Canadian history,” Morneau said Tuesday in his budget speech in the House of Commons.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/science-budget-1.4555653.
“The whys and wherefores of SciSci
The science of science (SciSci) is based on a transdisciplinary approach that uses large data sets to study the mechanisms underlying the doing of science — from the choice of a research problem to career trajectories and progress within a field. In a Review, Fortunato et al. explain that the underlying rationale is that with a deeper understanding of the precursors of impactful science, it will be possible to develop systems and policies that improve each scientist’s ability to succeed and enhance the prospects of science as a whole.”
Source: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6379/eaao0185.
“It promises to be another hair-raising, fire-balling week of science in Fort St. John next week.
Science World returns to town March 5 to 10 with its bag of science experiments and experiences in hand for students and the public to marvel at, and learn more about how the world around us works.
“We are thrilled to be participating in the Community Science Celebration in Fort St. John,” said Jo-Ann Coggan, director of community outreach for Science World, said in an announcement.
“It is a showcase of the community for the community and will profile local businesses, organizations and innovators. Science World will provide fun, dynamic science experiences for the whole family as part of this event.””
“The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is unapologetic in its decision to deny Fisheries Minister Gerry Byrne a seat at the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat meeting on Atlantic salmon.
This follows Byrne’s public condemnation of the decision earlier this week.
In an emailed response to questions, a communications adviser from DFO told The Telegram the science advisory meeting is specifically meant to bring together technical experts and finalize scientifically based advice on a particular stock.”
Source: https://www.ganderbeacon.ca/news/science-advisory-meetings-are-for-scientists-dfo-190238/.
“The National Science Foundation (NSF) hopes that its new policy on sexual harassment will spur universities to deal more aggressively with the pervasive problem. But the additional reporting requirements, which will be officially published Monday in the Federal Register, are far from a definitive statement about how NSF plans to deal with this complex and sensitive subject.
The carefully worded notice, for example, doesn’t address whether a scientist found guilty of sexual harassment should automatically be removed from a grant. And it would not require universities to tell NSF when they launch an investigation into allegations of harassment.
The 8-page Federal Register notice is designed to flesh out, and seek public comment on, an “important notice” that NSF issued on 8 February. It proposes adding two new components to the “terms and conditions” that universities and other institutions agree to follow when they accept an NSF award. (Grants are awarded to institutions, not individuals, although scientists invariably refer to “my grant.”)”
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/03
The General Assembly for the Humanist Alliance Philippines International is upcoming at a select venue in order to convene humanists within the Philippines in one place. In spite of the scattered nature of the island distribution of the Philippines, this will be an event to bring them together in one place in order to work for humanism and humanist ideals within the Philippines, which is predominantly religion in general and Roman Catholic Christian in particular.
The discussions at the HAPI General Assembly will be on the short-term and the long-term goals on the organizations in addition to the future activities and events that can improve the livelihood of HAPI and its membership in the Philippines.
It will occur in Bacolod City, Philippines coinciding with the Masskara Festival in October, 2018. The slogan is “The Road Ahead,” which is the HAPI orientation of building the future of humanism in the Philippines.
The speakers will include important members of the humanist community with the Philippines including Alvin John Ballares the Executive Director of HAPI, Dwengster Bulalac the Chief Financial Officer for HAPI, Michael Sherman the Assistant Chairperson, Andy Uyboco a guest speaker, Alain Presillas a member of the BOT of HAPI, and Jan Erik Villa who is on the BOT of HAPI and is the Project Director.
The host of the event will be the HAPI Bacolod Chapter, which is “one of the most active and balanced chapters in the Philippine.” The venue will be L’Fisher, Bacolod City, Philippines. It is along Lacson Street and has been “Tourism Strip of Bacolod City, L’ Fisher Hotel prides itself as the only first-class accommodation in the locale. Right in the heart of the city’s business and commercial center…”
The event is officially scheduled for October 19–21, 2018.
For more detailed information, please see here:
https://hapihumanist.org/the-road-ahead/#about
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/03
There have been new simulations about the early formation of the Solar System. Some of them have been done around the relationship between the Earth and the Moon. There was a time when the Earth could’ve been part of a big squishy doughnut of rock in the early Solar System.
This was about 4.5 billion years ago when an object hit the Earth and the Moon appeared shortly thereafter. One new simulation, as reported by Science News, suggests that the moon formed when the hot cloud of rotating rock vapor in the early Solar System with large planetary objects, or something like them, smashed into each other at incredible velocities.
The radiation in this cloud mixed with planet matter can send huge tumbling rocks hurtling. The moon, apparently, “grew from fragments in this hot, high-pressure environment, with a bit of iron solidifying into the lunar core.”
Within only a few hundred years, which is less than a blink of an eye in cosmic time such as the formation of the Solar System, an almost completely formed moon came out of the cloud and condensed.
The Moon apparently spent sufficient time in the cloudy mixed up material of the doughnut to acquire similar ingredients, to create similar ingredients, as the Earth.
The simulation, and note importantly that this is only a simulation but still an important contribution to the theoretical underpinnings and comprehension of the formation of parts of the early Solar System, contrasts with the current explanation, which is that a protoplanet about the size of Mars, called Theia, collided with Earth and that the Moon formed from the distant pieces of it out of the collision.
The contents of the Earth, in the current explanation, would mean that the Earth should have a different set of constituent elements in it than the Moon, but do not, which contrasts with the main explanation of a Theia and proto-Earth collision in the early Solar System.
The Earth’s and the Moon’s constituent elements are highly similar, which supports the notion that they come from the mix of various elements in the gaseous, radiative, rocky, donut cloud of the early Solar System.
References
Thompson, H. (2018, March 2). How a vaporized Earth might have cooked up the moon. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earth-moon-formation-space-doughnut.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/03/02
A TV host and a patron for Humanists UK is the front for an online course in humanist content. Humanists UK describes the course as “designed to meet growing demand from the vast segment of the population who are not religious but who are nonetheless hungry for answers to questions.”
Sandy Toksvig described her delight that she is able to present the course. In addition, she does have a personal fascination with the big questions, which has continued throughout her life in addition to being pleased with the opportunity to be able to provide some answers in the educational context.
She views humanism as an approach to life and worldview to make informed decisions about life. She knows that increasing number of people do not hold a formal religious opinion. However, people still want to have an ethical, meaningful, and fulfilling a life.
In other words, she asks questions such as “How should I live?’, ‘How can I know what is true?’, ‘How should I treat others?’, and ‘What kind of world do I want?’”
She explained that you’ll be able to find the tensions and dilemmas within the humanist worldview in addition to arguments against it tied to humanist responses to those arguments.
It sounds like a fair presentation from course through the material. She notes that there will be contributions from “academics, humanist campaigners, celebrants, pastoral carers, and members of the public to help widen your awareness.”
The chief executive a few of us to the UK, Andrew Copson, stated, “Today a majority of people in the UK declare themselves to be non-religious, but we’re no less curious about life, about one other, or about the big questions.
The point of providing these bigger questions is in order to have a course that can stimulate social learning and debate and conversation from the subject matter.
Reference
Duffy, N. (2018, February 26). Humanist Sandi Toksvig speaks openly about her non-religious beliefs. Retrieved from https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/02/27/qi-host-sandi-toksvig-opens-up-about-humanist-beliefs/.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/28
In London, United Kingdom, the first ground breaking museum will show the history of queer culture or sexual minority culture. Joseph Galliano is the man behind the museum and will use this to tell the untold stories of the queer community to be preserved within the museum.
The scale and scope of the initiative will be something that other museums will contrast to in sheer scale and scope. This Museum will have a collection of artistic, cultural, historical, and political artifacts.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is giving the museum his own backing for it. Many big businesses have a mandate for corporate social responsibility. The Museum representatives are reaching out to corporations in relation to the corporate social responsibility finances in order to find a donation. Big things cost big money.
The goal of the immense size of the museum is also to give room to reflect all genders, orientations, and races within the larger LGBT umbrella. Many historical periods and moments and people may have been forgotten.
Time in the museum can be a time to reflect and remember those potentially lost stories.
“The history [of LGBT people] has been recorded in a very piecemeal way and if you just take men, the most visible part of the community, the pre-1960s generation is aging, we’re losing those stories and a lot was already hidden,” Galliano said.
“If you think about BAME [black, Asian, and other ethnic minority] people, women, and trans people’s stories, which were prioritised even less than the men’s stories, than that’s a wealth of untold material.”
There is meant to be a 3D experiential aspect and interactive part of the museum. This is supposed to help build empathy with the narratives and stories being presented at Museum. The original idea came from the 50th anniversary of the “partial decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain last year.”
The 1967 decriminalization marked a large transition in the history of the United Kingdom for the civil rights and feminist movements, especially, and specifically, regarding changes in the social, legal, and cultural landscape of the country.
In fact, the 19th century saw homosexuality as an area of illegality, as something criminal. It came with social oppression. It came with being something against the law. Throughout the history of the United Kingdom, in terms of the civil rights and feminist movements, the LGBT community experienced setbacks and victories.
But the overarching trajectory has been a win for the sexual minority community and the queer community in general; the museum provides a window into these triumphs and tribulations of the queer community in the United Kingdom through time.
This can be highly useful for those not knowing such as the young, especially in the presentation of the struggles, abuses, losses, and sacrifices of those who are dead.
This is something that the younger generation with the current rights and privileges of the modern sexual minority communities may not realize a time when it was far less accepted in the social scene and within the legal frameworks of the United Kingdom at the time.
Galliano said, “We’ve had so much change happens so quickly — it’s been amazing; I never thought I’d be wearing a wedding ring — the trouble is that in difficult political times those can be rolled back very quickly.”
References
Strudwick, P. (2018, February 27). This Man Is Planning To Open the World’s Largest LGBT Museum. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/this-man-is-planning-to-open-the-worlds-largest-lgbt-museum?utm_term=.pooyVEpRp&ref=mobile_share#.gcxDGEOkO.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/27
There is an upcoming series of events going by the title Café Humaniste. The series are by the International Humanist and Ethical Union. The focus of the overall series will be discussions on local issues and humanity.
The big and the small, IHEU is an international umbrella organization of which IHEYO is a part and the youth branch devoted to the 18-to-35–year-old cohort.
In addition to IHEU, it will be collaborating in the hosting of the event with various local organizations around the globe; hence, the framing of IHEU as an umbrella organization or the mothership.
Café Humaniste will be supported with media and marketing as well as financially by IHEU. The local chapter will manage the event as well as cover the logistics too.
The purpose for IHEU and he local organizations with Café Humaniste is for the enabling of humanists around the globe to be able to support and promote humanist values and rational thinking in a format that is both informal and friendly or casual and colloquial.
The Humanist Alliance Philippines International is going to be bringing Café Humaniste to Bacolod City, Philippines. The event will occur on March 10 and 24, and April 7 at Tippys Bistro with a total of five speakers.
These speakers will be Nikko Dy Guaso, Arthuro Alvarez, Jan Erik Villa, Hermogenes Gacho and Alvin John Ballares. Aside from the humanist talks, HAPI will also present the very first book HAPI published, From Superstition to Reason.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/27
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you have any family background in religion?
Espeja: I grew up in a religious environment. Two of my uncles are priest and an aunt which is a nun. My grandmother used to gather us every 6:00 PM to have our novena while every Sunday she would drag us to church and receive the Holy Communion. I used to be an active member of the Legion of Mary and later became the Youth Leader of our sect which is the “Rosa Mystica” The Mystical Rose.
Jacobsen: How did you find humanism?
Espeja: It started as a spiritual venture which allows me to enter various religious sects when I was younger. My eagerness to find some answers leads me to what I believe right now which is Humanism.
Jacobsen: How do others in the culture seem to leave religion?
Espeja: There are some corners in religion that will definitely leave you confuse and thirsty for answer. Those people who opted to leave are actually the people who fully understood the religion itself rather than those who questions without knowing. It is like, when light is casted the brightest, the shadow lies is in its darkest.
Jacobsen: What makes for the proper definition of humanism?
Espeja: Humanism is when you completely trust and respect your fellow and build confidant out of them.
Jacobsen: What is the main prejudice from the dominant faith against the faithless?
Espeja: Faithless are empty vessel. They are lost and never truly seen the mighty work of the creator. I often laugh it out whenever I encounter such prejudices from my acquaintances, friends and even my family. We can never change them thought about us if we counter them with words just to defend our belief, instead I would let them see it through the works I committed with.
Jacobsen: How can people with ties to family and culture through religion leave it without backlash? Is this even a mild possibility?
Espeja: My country is dominantly religious and I cannot imagine how other faithless people able to get away with it. Perhaps, if only we are open with our belief and able to let them understand how being faithless makes us a better version of ourselves. What I mean is that, we should act on it instead of indoctrinating them.
Jacobsen: Why do people seem to leave faith and embrace humanism? How can we expedite that process as a movement?
Espeja: Religious Faith oftentimes rough especially towards our LGBTQIA+ fellow. Some freethinkers, enlightened people embraces Humanism and stand otherwise with what faithful are believing in. Making ourselves visible might encourage other to step in and join the cause. As human, our main reason to live is to look after with one another.
Jacobsen: What is the general treatment of women in religion in the Philippines?
Espeja: Women in religion are treated as a second class citizen. Yes, they are free to practice the religion, but they still need to submit themselves with a male superior.
Jacobsen: How did you find and become involved with HAPI?
Espeja: We used to be part of a freethinking group in Facebook and we are fond of flaunting our ideas, bragging things we had done just to prove that we are part of the country’s thinking class. Later on, we got bored and found ourselves completely useless since we never initiate putting all our ideas in actions. So then, Marissa Torres Langseth came. She is one of the annoying people you’ll ever meet on web, but I must say this annoying lady knows her job so well. She told us to establish the local chapter of HAPI here in Bacolod City and like a wild fire all the ideas we have manifested into projects.
Jacobsen: What is the best reason for hope in the irreligious movements?
Espeja: Being in an irreligious movement allow you to become more selfless, and that is the main core of being a Humanist.
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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/25
““The global gender gap which is published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is the index that gets Iceland in the first place, is based on 4 pillars: economy, education, politics and health. It’s the political area that gets Iceland to the first place. The situation in Iceland can be explained by many things. One of them is the long tradition of women in paid work in Iceland. We’ve had a high proportion of women in the labour force for a very long time. Another part is the very strong women’s movement, from the beginning of the 20th century.
And the third thing is the composition of the pillar, the WEF index. Iceland scores higher in politics, it’s number one in politics and mainly because of the way the pillar is constructed. It’s composed of 4 sub indexes and one of them is the number of years, the last 50 years that the country has had a female head of State. And in that respect, the presidential period of of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, from 1980 to 1996; and also we had a female prime minister from 2009 to 2013, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. This contributes heavily to Iceland’s top seat on the list.
But in the elections in october 2017, the proportion of women dropped dramatically from 48 to 38. and it remains to be seen how that affects Iceland’s and if it affects position on the list and how much.””
Source: http://www.euronews.com/2018/02/23/thorgerdur-einarsdottir-the-long-fight-for-women-s-rights.
““Denial of abortion and criminalisation of abortion amounts to discrimination against women because it is a denial of a service that only women need. And it puts women in horrific situations,” the committee’s vice-chairwoman, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, said in a statement.
“The situation in Northern Ireland constitutes violence against women that may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” she said.
In a response to the report, the United Kingdom government said it did not accept women in Northern Ireland had been subject to grave and systematic violations of their rights.”
“ The US State Department will cut sections dealing with women’s reproductive rights and some types of discrimination, such as against LGBT people, in its annual human rights report, a department spokesperson said today.
This action unsurprisingly reflects the Trump administration’s approach to women’s rights — to health, bodily integrity, and to control when they have children — as being disposable. It already signed the expanded and harmful “global gag rule,” which prohibits US funding of nongovernmental organizations providing access to family planning if they provide or refer people for abortions and has made it more difficult for women and girls to access contraception in the US.
But the Trump administration cannot rewrite international law. Women’s reproductive rights are recognized human rights. The experiences of women and girls who have been denied these rights are egregious and often heartbreaking. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has found denial of a woman’s reproductive rights as tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Access to contraception and safe abortion are critical to help prevent the estimated 800 maternal deaths that occur each day globally.”
Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/22/us-state-department-backtracks-womens-rights.
“The head of a leading women’s rights movement has called for an independent investigation into what she calls pervasive bullying and sexism within a UN agency, alleging that she was harassed and sexually assaulted while working for the organisation.
Malayah Harper, now general secretary of the World YWCA, one of the world’s oldest women’s rights organisations, said the agency UNAids must urgently review how sexual harassment allegations are handled.
Her call for an inquiry is supported by testimonies from six current or former UNAids employees. The women, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described a culture where senior male staff offer career progression in exchange for sexual relationships, and harass women with seeming impunity. “It’s a boys’ club environment,” said one employee. “They just see it as almost part of their due.””
“The most knee-jerk, crowd-pleasing way is to profess shock at another country’s cultural customs, and malign them as disrespectful to women.
This is the tack we’ve seen taken this week, after a diplomatic fumble was highlighted by Labour MP Kieran McAnulty and seized upon by National Party leadership hopeful Judith Collins.
Earlier this week, Labour MP Jo Luxton was given advice not to shake hands with men in an Iranian delegation.”
“MILAN — Laura Boldrini didn’t worry much about the death threats until she received a bullet in the mail.
Boldrini, who is the speaker of the Italian Parliament and the country’s highest-ranking woman politician, gets a level of harassment that even her critics say is extreme — and even by Italian standards. Many of them are sexist and threatening comments on Facebook, but they’ve been so relentless since she took office in 2013 that she began posting the names of her harassers on her own page. “Death to Boldrini” has been scrawled on city walls across Italy, and she is closely guarded by a heavy security detail.
Boldrini lives in Rome but is now campaigning ahead of the elections on March 4 for a parliamentary seat in Milan, where she stays in a nondescript house on a graffiti-lined street; its exact location is a carefully guarded secret. This election has been one of the most tumultuous in recent history: A group of immigrants was shot at by a white nationalist, there have been attacks on fascist parties and left-wing groups, and anti-fascist protesters have clashed with police in violent demonstrations.”
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/italian-elections-racism-sexism?utm_term=.ie3OJgM3M#.usRRQbrpr.
“PETALING JAYA — The lack of political will is to blame for the country’s 12-year lag in women’s rights progress, said a coalition of 37 civil societies after what it deemed a dismal showing by Putrajaya in a review in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday (Feb 20).
The coalition had congratulated the government for facing the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) committee, but were disappointed over the delegation’s vague answers on many key human rights issues.
“Malaysia’s twelve-year delay in submitting its report to the Cedaw Committee reflects a lack of political will, which remains the great stumbling block in advancing gender equality in the country,” it said in a statement.”
“The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is meeting in Geneva from this week until 9 March to conduct the review
Other countries being reviewed are Malaysia, Chile, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Suriname, and Luxembourg.
The countries have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and are reviewed regularly by the Committee on how they are implementing the Convention.
The Committee, which is composed of 23 international independent experts on women’s rights, will hold dialogues with delegations from the respective governments and will also be briefed by NGOs and national human rights institutions.”
“State Department officials have been ordered to pare back passages in a soon-to-be-released annual report on global human rights that traditionally discuss women’s reproductive rights and discrimination, according to five former and current department officials.
The directive calls for stripping passages that describe societal views on family planning, including how much access women have to contraceptives and abortion.
A broader section that chronicles racial, ethnic and sexual discrimination has also been ordered pared down, the current and former officials said.”
Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/21/department-women-rights-abortion-420361.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/25
“It is commonly said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. In 1633, Galileo was tried and convicted for his support of the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. This theory, which Galileo came to support as a result of his scientific observation of the movements of the planets and moons in our solar system, contradicted the doctrine of the day, which said that humanity, and by extension the Earth, stood at the centre of the universe. After being found guilty, Galileo was placed under house arrest until his death in 1642.
Thankfully, our attitudes towards science and scientists are a little bit more enlightened in 2018. Just as we stopped burning witches, sacrificing animals and killing heretics, so too did we stop persecuting scientists for reporting facts about the natural world. Indeed, most people nowadays believe science is a force for good, which makes many aspects of our lives easier and more pleasant. However, we would be wise to learn the lessons from how science was misused in the past, lest we inadvertently end up repeating them.
Policymakers in particular should be careful to heed these lessons. Too often, scientific evidence is ignored or distorted by politicians for electoral purposes, and a lack of transparency allows lawmakers to use unscientific methods to bring about a politically favoured result. In the EU, this problem is epitomised by the Comitology process. Comitology is the mechanism for passing secondary EU legislation, an outdated and opaque procedure that has been badly abused by unscientific lawmakers in the past year, and, if left unchecked, will seriously undermine the status of science in the EU for years to come.”
Source: https://www.neweurope.eu/article/is-this-the-end-of-the-era-of-science/.
“It’s the bane of workplace productivity: interruptions.
Sophie Leroy thinks we can get better at managing interruptions. She’s an assistant professor at the University of Washington Bothell, School of Business, where she studies attention.
Sophie Leroy is an assistant professor at the University of Washington (Courtesy of Sophie Leroy)
Interruptions affect productivity because of something called “attention residue.” When we’re interrupted in the middle of a task, we don’t immediately shift our full focus. Part of our attention is still on the task we left behind. “Sometimes we don’t even realize that we’re checking out,” Leroy said.
Deadline pressure makes attention residue worse. “That feeling of time compression is going to make it more difficult to let go.””
“There’s public science in every single new drug. That was the surprising answer to a U.S. senator’s question about how government-funded research is benefitting citizens. But it took a year to come up with the numbers.
It all started last June when Bentley University professor Fred Ledley and his colleagues in Massachusetts were watching a senate budget hearing that was considering cutting the budget of the National Institutes of Health, the major medical science funding agency in the U.S.
When NIH director Francis Collins was asked how publicly-funded science was leading to new drugs, he couldn’t give a detailed answer. That’s when Ledley realized there was a data gap. Ledley also knew that with modern data mining tools his team could finally answer that question.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/drugs-government-funded-science-1.4547640.
“It’s the end of an era at the European Commission’s research department: The most powerful civil servant in Brussels’s science policy circles, Director-General for Research and Innovation Robert-Jan Smits, is leaving his post. Smits has been named an adviser at the European Political Strategy Centre, the commission’s in-house think tank (where his exact mission is “still to be determined”); he will be succeeded by France’s Jean-Eric Paquet, now deputy secretary-general of the commission, on 1 April.
Smits will be remembered as an advocate for larger science budgets and as one of the architects of Horizon 2020 — the European Union’s 7-year, €80 billion funding program for research and innovation, which started in 2014. He was also a staunch supporter of the European Research Council (ERC), the European Union’s beloved funding agency for basic research, which started giving out grants in 2007 and had a €1.8 billion budget last year. Smits has both a genuine interest in science and a deep knowledge of the commission’s workings, says former ERC President Helga Nowotny. He “knew how to put both at the service of European research and the scientific community,” and “will be missed,” she adds.
Directors-general are civil servants who run the departments that carry out EU policies and are less visible than the 28 commissioners — one per member state and per policy area. But Smits, a charismatic, well-liked bureaucrat with a steely handshake and a knack for networking, became an influential player of his own.”
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/one-most-powerful-science-policy-jobs-brussels-changes-hands.
“Policymakers in the United States are pushing to give the public more power to influence what educators teach students. Last week, Florida’s legislature started considering two related bills that, if enacted, would let residents recommend which instructional materials teachers in their school district use in their classrooms.
The bills build on a law enacted in June 2017, which enables any Florida resident to challenge the textbooks and other educational tools used in their district as being biased or inaccurate. In the five months after the state’s governor approved the law, residents filed at least seven complaints, including two that challenge the teaching of evolution and human-driven climate change, according to the Associated Press.
But the bills approved this month by the education committees in the state’s Senate and House of Representatives go a step further, because they would allow the public to review educational materials used in class and to suggest alternatives. “They would make it easier for creationists, climate-change deniers and — who knows — flat-Earthers to pester their local school boards about their hobbyhorses,” says Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California. The final decision on whether to follow the recommendations still rests with the school boards.”
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02434-y.
“With the second phase of Brexit negotiations approaching, scientists in the United Kingdom are urging their government to clarify its position on funding agreements and migration of research talent after the country separates from the European Union in March 2019. At a “Brexit Summit”held today by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, researchers said uncertainty about post-Brexit access to EU grants and immigration opportunities are already causing problems. “A cliff edge is happening now,” said Alastair Buchan, the head of Brexit strategy at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “We are at the risk of sudden loss of talent.”
Meanwhile, the Wellcome Trust in London released a report yesterday calling for the United Kingdom to pay to participate in future Framework Programs, the main source of competitive grants from the European Union, as an “associated country,” like Norway and Switzerland; in return, the country should also retain a voice in setting framework strategies even after it leaves the European Union. “If the U.K. were to accept this report, it would be a reasonable place to start negotiations,” says Peter Tindemans, secretary-general of EuroScience, a research advocacy organization in Strasbourg, France.
One of researchers’ top fears about Brexit — that it will diminish their country’s historic allure for researchers from abroad — is already coming true. Michael Arthur, president of University College London (UCL), told the committee today that in the past, 30% of the applicants for a UCL research fellowship were usually from other EU countries; this year none was, “something that really quite shocked me,” Arthur said. As for academic positions at UCL, the proportion of EU applicants from outside the United Kingdom fell from 25% in 2015–16 to 20% in 2016–17.”
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/uk-scientists-increasingly-anxious-about-brexit-confusion.
“The technology that drives science forward is forever accelerating, but the same can’t be said for science communication. The basic process still holds many vestiges from its early days — that is the 17th century.
Some scientists are pressing to change that critical part of the scientific enterprise.
Here’s what they’re confronting: When researchers studying the biology of disease make a discovery, it typically takes nine months for them to get their results published in a journal.
One reason for that delay is it goes through a process of peer review that is both necessary and antiquated. The fate of that paper rests on just two or three scientists who have been asked to review it and decide whether it’s worthy of being published.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/25
“Manifestos are meant to be short and punchy. The first edition of The Communist Manifesto ran to just 23 pages. Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses were thin enough to be nailed to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. So Steven Pinker is stretching the genre with his 450-page doorstopper Enlightenment Now: A Manifesto for Science, Reason, Humanism and Progress.
A respected linguist and cognitive scientist, Pinker has emerged in recent years as prominent defender of the West and allied scientific values, blending rhetoric and data like Christopher Hitchens with a PhD. His 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature is a bible of the New Optimists movement, a loose coalition of academics and tech-heads who think the public is far too negative about current affairs.
The first half of Englightenment Now develops that theme further. A barrage of statistics, graphs and listicles shows how life is improving under numerous headings. There are fewer wars, improved living standards and more freedoms. What’s more, a lot of the problems we complain about are symptoms of progress, eg life expectancy has risen by about 10 years in half a century (so, the implication is, stop whining about the pensions “time bomb”).”
“Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Tell us a little about your family and personal background. Where did you grow up? What was the environment like with respect to values and/or religious beliefs?
Daniela Wakonigg: I am Austrian and I grew up in Germany, where I still live today. I was an extremely curious child and still am an extremely curious adult. I’m interested in natural and human sciences, arts, and politics. It’s actually hard to find a topic I’m not interested in!
I was raised as a Roman Catholic but started to doubt and to think about the big questions of life–Is there a god? What will happen after death?–when I was still in primary school. As I couldn’t find answers I decided to study Philosophy and Catholic Theology (and also German Language and Literature, as it appealed to the artistic side in me). I left university with a Master of Arts and as an atheist, after a very lengthy and intense, but unsuccessful, search for convincing reasons to believe in the existence of divine powers.”
Source: https://conatusnews.com/humanism-unity-accountability/.
“Caroline Winterer is a historian at Stanford University and the author of “American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason.”
If 2017 was a rough year for you, look no further than Steven Pinker’s engaging new book, “Enlightenment Now,” to cheer you up. Conceived before Donald Trump even announced his candidacy, it could not have been better timed to clarify — and, for some, refute — the habits of mind that brought Trump and the GOP to power.
Pinker hopes to revive the values of the Enlightenment by making a case for reason, science, progress and fact-based argument. He musters an army of numbers to vanquish a host of enemies: religion, conservatism, nationalism, tribalism, Marxism, authoritarian populism, postmodern theorists, Nietzsche and many more.
Pinker’s launching pad is the Enlightenment, when many things started improving for homo sapiens. The age that used reason to crush superstition culminates in the cheerful graphs that adorn this book. Going up are life expectancy, calories consumed, gross world product and incomes. Going down are infant and maternal mortality, death from famine, starvation, extreme poverty, social spending, and even the loneliness of U.S. college students.”
“COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV) — In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it’s illegal to make people say they believe in God to get government jobs. Justice Hugo Black, writing the majority opinion, added a footnote in that decision calling Secular Humanism a religion.
Based on that footnote, several South Carolina lawmakers in a newly filed billargue the federal government has illegally established a national favored religion by recognizing same-sex and other so-called “parody” marriages.
The bill is called the Marriage and Constitution Restoration Act. It holds that the federal government has violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, because it forces states to recognize Secular Humanism as a national religion by recognizing same-sex marriages.”
“It is unbelievable but it did happen the other day. On a very cold wintry night a young man got grievously injured in a road accident. He lay on the ground traumatised. Lot of blood was oozing out of his multiple injuries. Someone rang up the police flying squad which did come, not flying but virtually crawling.
“Yes, what’s the matter?’’ asked the dozy cop nonchalantly sitting in the front, his tone indicating that he had been disturbed.
“Sir, this person is seriously injured; he needs to be rushed to the hospital,’’ said someone from the small crowd that had gathered. With that, he, along with the help of another person started lifting the unconscious victim to put him inside the police jeep.”
Source: http://gulfnews.com/opinion/off-cuff/where-humanism-cries-for-succour-1.2176069.
“The question of God’s existence is not new — German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche first said “God is dead” in 1882. But the University of Miami made national headlines by tapping Anjan Chakravartty as the first atheism, humanism and secular ethics chair. This is the first chair of its kind in the nation.
Chakravartty will begin his tenure on July 1. He currently serves as a philosophy professor and director of the John J. Reilly Center for science, technology and values at the University of Notre Dame.
“Well, you have to admit that the optics of it are kind of funny on the surface,” Chakravartty said. “Coming from a renowned Catholic university into a chair that has ‘atheism, humanism and secular ethics’ in the title.””
“To think of this book as any kind of scholarly exercise is a category mistake. The purpose of Pinker’s laborious work is to reassure liberals that they are on “the right side of history”.
“Opposing reason is, by definition, unreasonable.” Steven Pinker is fond of definitions. Early on in this monumental apologia for a currently fashionable version of Enlightenment thinking, he writes: “To take something on faith means to believe it without good reason, so by definition a faith in the existence of supernatural entities clashes with reason.” Well, it’s good to have that settled once and for all. There is no need to trouble yourself with the arguments of historians, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists, who treat religion as a highly complex phenomenon, serving a variety of human needs. All you need do is consult a dictionary, and you will find that religion is — by definition — irrational.”
“World peace activist and founder of international organisation World Without Wars, Rafael de la Rubia has created niche for himself by advocating peace talks in conflict zones of world. The objective of his movement is to create non-violent consciousness and has attracted attention of everyone. ‘The Hitavada’ spoke to him over myriad issues and he replied in candid manner. Here are some excerpts of the interview:
Q: Can you briefly describe about yourself and the experience you had as world peace activist?
A: As a world peace activist I have worked in more than 60 countries throughout America, Europe and Asia. As a founder of the international organisation ‘World Without Wars’ and the creator and spokesperson for the World March for Peace and Non-violence actively working in the field of non-violence for more than 35 years.
Also serving as a President of the Humanist Forum of Educators, which seeks to develop methodologies of non-violence in education, and as Co-ordinator of the ‘Forum for Nuclear Disarmament of the Mediterranean.’ Were involved in international seminars to deepen the understanding, development and practice of new humanism which focuses on disarmament. Journey so far has been great involving lots of challenges. I have also written books including ‘Introduction to a Universal Humanism’ and ‘Reconciliation for a World Without War’.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/23
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Growing up in Syracuse, New York area, what was the family life regarding religion? You worked a number of jobs including construction, restaurants, sawmill, and also water treatment. Did personal atheism affect work experiences at all?
Brenda Germain: Our family life did not include attending religious services at all. Those jobs I listed were here in NC. I kept my atheism hidden for years from everyone in this small yet very religious area out of concerns that I would be unable to find work.
The first time I actually let it be known that I was an atheist was in 1991 when I applied to return to Moore Regional Hospital after George HW Bush was reported to make the comment that atheists weren’t patriotic and that he didn’t think we should be citizens.
Jacobsen: Why did you attend Western Carolina University for undergraduate education in Clinical Laboratory Science? How did post-graduation transition into 10 years in a hospital lab?
Germain: I attended WCU Sept 1990 — Aug 1991. I began at Sandhills Community College earning an AAS in Medical Laboratory Technology in 1989 and continued there for another year picking up transfer classes while working at Moore Regional.
I returned to Moore Regional post-graduation. I stayed there until 2001 when my body could no longer tolerate the rigors of that job.
Jacobsen: You earned an AAS in Internet Technologies from Sandhill Community College and worked for 10 years as a web designer and programmer. Why select this path in professional life?
Germain: Practical considerations; I needed a job where I could sit down most of the time since my legs were giving out and I had already taught myself html and wanted to go to the next level educationally.
Not all that removed from laboratory science, just another field of science where logically thinking is helpful. I’m nearly 60 and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up! But over the years, I found that I gravitated towards sciences of all kinds.
Jacobsen: Now, you are the president of MASH Ft. Bragg. How did you earn this position? What are some of the activities within the group? What are the tasks and responsibilities of the president?
Germain: I’m not sure earned is the right turn of phrase. I was one of the last remaining members of the original group that worked on Rock Beyond Belief and the group’s treasurer. No one else wanted the responsibility, so I assumed the position to keep the group alive.
In an area such as this, it is vitally important to me to let other atheists know they are not alone and that like minded people are all around. I was astounded early in the process of working on Rock Beyond Belief to discover another atheist living less than 2 miles away.
Our activities fluctuate with our membership. Currently we do a monthly Secular Supper where we get together at various local restaurants to foster a sense of community and many of us wear our MASH t-shirts to public acknowledge that we exist.
On Memorial Day we have a cookout at our house for the members and a Solstice Dinner each December at our house. Our Solstice Dinner includes a Tree of Knowledge with science quote ornaments and forbidden fruit to be picked.
Every year we apply for a table at the local Dogwood Festival as an outreach to other area atheists, letting them know there is a community where they are welcomed.
We do two charitable events each year; School Supplies Drive each summer for a Fayetteville STEM school and our Solstice Food Drive for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC.
In the past we have had Critical Drinking (get together at local bars), Healthy Heathen Walks (nature walks), astronomy get togethers, speakers and attending secular events such as Reason Rally as a group. I always encourage our members to take on events that are of interest to them.
Right now, I’m kind of a one person show. My responsibilities are administrative, filing paperwork for our Dogwood table each year, keeping our website up and running, organizing and posting Secular Supper.
Fiduciary responsibilities include safeguarding the group’s money, writing checks as needed, collecting donations for our charity events and seeing to it the money is properly spent. I also design and develop graphics for our t-shirts, Facebook and website.
While I would love to do more activities, I am limited by lupus. No sunlight, no staying out in the heat and I get tired very easily. As we rebuild the group from the latest membership contraction, there will be more activities based on our new members interests, time and efforts.
Our ongoing challenge is stable membership as military members retire or are stationed elsewhere. This is part of why we welcome all secular people in the group, active duty, retired and civilians. Our community is too small to exclude anyone. We are building an interNOfaith community!
Jacobsen: How can people become involved in or support MASHH Ft. Bragg or other similar secular organizations?
Germain: Short answer, to become involved, become a member! People can join our group through Facebook or through our Events Calendar on our website mashfortbragg.org. People can support us by donating to our charitable events or to the other reputable secular organizations. For the non-secular folks out there, please stop vilifying us. We are your neighbors, your family and the people in your life who stand ready to help you without imposing our beliefs upon you.
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.
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Author(s): Phoebe Davies-Owen and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/23
Dr. Heather Brunskell-Evans, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London and member of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP), has been called transphobic over recent comments. Her research has focused on the gendering of the body in medicine and sexuality.
In addition to the claim of being transphobic, Brunskell-Evans has been sacked as “an official spokeswoman after complaints about her views on transgender people,” according to Pink News.
She has been a critic of parents embracing their trans children, calling it “abusive” of the parents.
In a conversation with Moral Maze of Radio 4, she said, “What actually happens is that a small child is told there is something not quite right with its body, and it’s got the brain of another gender. I think we’re imposing… I think it’s abusive, actually. We’re imposing restrictions on children.”
Josiah Mortimer, in the Left Foot Forward, reported that Brunskell-Evans said that parents should not encourage children as feeling as if in the wrong body. In a debate with two trans activists, Brunskell-Evans stated:
If a child decides that it’s an astronaut, one can play along with this. One doesn’t have to moralise about it but quite clearly the child is not an astronaut. In fact it’s incumbent upon adults who are responsible for the welfare, psychological and social and medical, of children not to go along with this story.
Currently, according to The Christian Institute, an adult diagnosed as gender dysphoric and living as an individual of the opposite sex for two years can submit an application for a recognition of gender.
In a statement issued on her website, Brunskell-Evans wrote that “A substantive number of medical professionals are extremely worried about this practice,” referring to the use of hormone blockers.
She continued, “…but daren’t speak out for fear of accusations of transphobia.” She states that hormone blockers have serious health consequences, including the probability of infertility.
She refutes that she has promoted prejudice against trans individuals and instead has called “for transparent public debate, without fear of reprisal, of the social, psychological and physical consequences of the narrative that children can be born in ‘the wrong body.’”
The reactions to opinions like Brunskell-Evans’ are becoming more outraged, as the issue of Transgenderism becomes more contentious.
Only a few months ago in Bath University, an investigation was started into claims that an application for research on gender reassignment was declined because it was “potentially politically correct.”
James Caspian went back with preliminary findings that suggested growing numbers of young people, particularly women, were regretting gender reassignment, and when he re-submitted his proposal to an ethics committee, it was rejected.
Both Brunskell-Evans and Caspian’s views were barred from having a presence at universities, institutions where diversity of ideas, research, and academic claims should be encouraged and debated.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/22
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How can the young become involved in the issues around reproductive rights?
Professor Colleen MacQuarrie: If you are thinking nationally, I would say that if you are interested in social justice issues. You look to people acting locally if you can. Sometimes, there are organizations connected to more broad-based national and even global networks.
It is important to think of all of those levels of the structure and how you might fit in, how your skills might fit into action on one of those fronts. For example, I know every province would have different organizations.
They would go by different names. Often, you will find these organizations hooked up with the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. There is the National Abortion Federation that spans both the United States and Canada.
It is always important to be linked to these bigger national bodies, to have an idea of how your local issues link up to the larger systemic issues. In rural and Northern communities, you will have an incredibly similar situation as to what we have had in PEI.
It is harder to get access. Activism in terms of Physicians for Choice if you are a medical student or if you are a lawyer — making sure that you understand the laws around that and can be in your own sphere of influence. In terms of partnering for access, there will be people already working to help you. They have the toll-free lines.
In PEI, if you are beyond 12 weeks and 5 days, they do not have the equipment here to perform the abortion you need, so you need to go to another place. There has to be support in place in order to be able to do that.
Our local abortion rights network has now been affiliated with the women’s health centre. They work with us to help support women if they need a drive from one place to another. It is a matter of knowing what your local situation is and plugging into that and imagining how the local situation plugs into the larger picture.
I think there is a regrouping of the anti-abortionists in Canada. They are trying to come up with some re-branding of some old ideas. They are trying to claim that abortion harms women. At first, when we started our work here the antis were chanting that “abortion is murder.”
Once our preliminary findings came out and that unsafe abortions harm women’s health, we kept our messaging really clear and tight to the evidence that we had. Suddenly, the anti-abortion message came out: “Abortion harms women’s health.” It seems like the anti-abortionists take what you say from your research and turn it around.
One thing based on some of my research is that women who were constrained to get abortions had to go through hurdles and achieved a certain level of self efficacy that they had never known in their lives. I want to frame the search for an abortion that is safe as something that allows you to hold your dignity, leaving situations of violence to obtain an abortion as something fostering self-actualization — quite the opposite of what has been termed the abortion syndrome, which has been, through a number of research studies, debunked.
There are all kinds of things that the anti-abortionists and organizers talk about to try to say that abortion harms women which have been soundly debunked such as, abortion is connected to breast cancer. No research supports these anti-abortion statements.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
MacQaurrie: I didn’t do the specific research, but there is research that no abortion is not harming women. The antis claim it is harming women’s mental health. No, abortion in itself does not harm women’s health. Often, the conditions women are living in harm women’s health.
There has always been a reframing. The branding they are trying to put across is that the new generation is above abortion. I think that is making them superior beings.
Jacobsen: I want to clarify on one point. If a jurisdiction or a bounded geography — some area — makes abortion illegal, does the research state that this decreased the rate of abortions?
MacQuarrie: Never, the research evidence is overwhelming, e.g. in Canada, in the US, certainly on the continent of Africa. Unsafe abortions are on the rise any time that you restrict abortion access then you have an increase in unsafe abortions.
All you do when you restrict abortion access is create the conditions for harm.
Jacobsen: How does this damage a woman’s reproductive organs potentially if in an unsafe circumstance? How does this potentially put a woman’s life at risk if done in an unsafe circumstance?
MacQuarrie: I think that we also have to put the whole thing in context. Pregnancy is actually more risky than a safe abortion, which is really interesting. We don’t often talk about the whole complexity of reproductive lives.
A pregnancy is actually a riskier thing than a safe abortion in safe conditions. So, depending on how an abortion is performed, if it is unsafe, then it is not performed by appropriate measures. Of course, the woman can die.
I think that the National Abortion Federation has some clear statistics as does the international organization, World Health Organization, that the rates of the number of women who die from unsafe abortions every year, especially in sub-Saharan Africa are shocking.
Our study showed that even in places that appear to be developed, restricting abortion access — making women travel farther, for example, the rate of harm goes up. Locally, when you have abortion restriction, what you see will be a rise in the women being later in their pregnancy getting, the abortion; so, the later you are in your pregnancy then this increases some of the risks in terms of the difficulties in performing the abortion, but also the holistic toll on a woman’s well being.
Even when they thought there were no abortions in PEI, there were abortions in PEI. The province’s own health records showed unsafe abortions were happening. Also, around the time of when we were trying to get our findings out, there was a newborn that was left in a paper bag beside one of the churches. Shocking. We have to remember that infanticide also comes with abortion access restrictions. Apparently the authorities were concerned about the health of the mother too — so, we don’t even know who would have placed the baby there — whether it was another person, perhaps a violent partner or controlling parent who put the baby there. We have to face up to some issues here.
Who has the interest in blocking women’s access to abortion? What society are we in if we are to deny the bodily autonomy of half of our population? I think there are physical repercussions and mental repercussions that are deeply concerning if you are telling people that they are walking wombs.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/20
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How was HAPI incorporated into your life?
Christopher Villadelgado Barredo: Chance, if I remember rightly. I was highly active in online debate groups before and the HAPI founder, Ms.M, chanced upon me, I think.
It’s a little vague now, but being a part of HAPI was a very fulfilling experience for me as it allowed me to help through writing and publicizing projects.
Jacobsen: What made humanism such a compelling life perspective for you as a comprehensive practical philosophy?
Barredo: I have a wonderful family I guess. I also had awesome fictional parents like Capt. Picard in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Next Generation.
I was a humanist long before I knew about the term itself. Wanting to help make the world a better place, the adherence to the scientific method and the good values instilled by my parents were already an integral part of my character and personality growing-up.
I loved the arts in all shapes and forms, and when you internalize the lessons in literature, like books, comics/manga, movies and TV series — especially anime/cartoons, you end up with a very nice goal for the world no different from that espoused by modern day superheroes — humanism.
When people truly wish the best for everyone else and are concerned about the next generation, like the hero characters in the Japanese anime, Naruto, or the BBC’s Doctor Who, the world becomes a happier and kinder place.
Kindness I think is one of the best values the human species inately has and it has served humanity in its survival. I believe more of it is necessary if we want to spread amongst the stars. Kindness begets more kindness and true concern creates bonds of unity and cooperation.
Humanism as a comprehensive practical philosophy allows us to keep the best parts of our society and humanity without any of the harmful and useless baggage present within religions.
This I think is the best thing about it. Anywhere on the planet that you travel to, kindness, empathy, sound logic and family are always gamechangers in a world of strife, marginalization, prejudice and madness.
I would even dare to compare it to the best thing about science — physics is the same anywhere and everywhere and so is humanism. That’s something religions don’t have. Humanism is a true and unifying natural world view and the good thing is that it’s not subject to superstition.
Jacobsen: What is your best coda statement on humanism?
Barredo: Humanism unites us, one and all, through the best values humanity has to offer.
Jacobsen: How does religion influence politics?
Barredo: In all the wrong ways, and I say that unapologetically. Religion is a wolf in sheeps clothing, it maintains its benevolence in words and does promote good action every now and then, but it will always come at a cost as it also, like a computer virus, implants marginalization, demonization, dehumanization and passes judgment upon people through a belief system based on superstition rather than evidence and actions.
Statistically, where religion is strong; poverty, violence, anti-science, miseducation, closed-mindedness and enmity are most powerful. Imagine the voting and lobbying power of that.
Scripture provides reasons to be good, but also good justification to be hateful and spiteful. The sad thing is that, rather than openly declare that these harmful parts should be discarded, the pious would be violent and antagonistic against those who criticize.
What kinds of laws and culture would such ideas develop? Definitely not a kind and open one. Religion may teach people to be kind to those who are of their house, but at the end of the day, there’s always a fiery judgment for any who do not share its faith.
The historical trends never change where religion is involved. Religion causes severe delays in scientific, cultural and economic development to such an extent that it can be named as one of, if not THE biggest, hindrance to planetary cooperation outside of run-away capitalism in a resource limited world.
Jacobsen: Does this make religion more of a political movement?
Barredo: Yes of course. Imagine all those laws and lobbying that create more problems than solutions. Religion declares how things should be done, usually in very specific terms. Like how much a woman is worth if a father chooses to sell her.
Let me give a few examples of problems that are largely caused by religion in politics; anti-climate change, the flat Earth movement, terrorism, anti-vaccination, alternative medicine and a myriad of other anti-scientific nonsense. These are all caused by indoctrination into faith-based thinking.
Religion rejects the scientific method, a method which relies on evidence, peer-review and fact checking, in such a way that it kills intellectual development. Why else would they be highly interested in our children?
Children are the easiest to manipulate and brainwash due to their developing brains. Superstition, where once it helped people work together is unravelling society and keeping us from making highly needed progressive change. As they say, never underestimate large groups of uneducated crowds.
Jacobsen: Does religion tend to treat women as inferior and as untrustworthy?
Barredo: It depends on which religion we’re talking about. For the 3 great monotheisms, I would say yes! It doesn’t matter what kind of excuse the apologists and cafeteria religious say, if we want the gist of the underlying cultural view, one needs only read and study what the Torah, Bible and Qur’an say.
Jacobsen: What social activist initiatives are you working towards now?
Barredo: I am currently working with other like-minded humanists, wonderful people, on a project. However, it’s still hush hush at the moment until we get our matters settled. But watch out for it. I never considered myself a big name, but I am highly vocal both on and offline, and attend social functions where I can meet diverse kinds of like-minded folk. In small ways, I try to make a difference in the human rights, environmentalist and humanist movements through various organizations. If those small functions end up being big things that influence people to be more humane and scientific, then it is of worth to me.
Jacobsen: How do you find the humanist movement in the Philippines as a whole?
Barredo: It needs more publicity, honestly and frankly. Most people are humanistic without realizing it and that is a good thing, but I think we need more publicity as there is power and strength in knowing. The common thing you hear when you mention humanism is. “what’s that?”. That needs to change.
Jacobsen: What targeted objectives are the most important for the development of humanist values within Filipino society?
Barredo: A higher education standard both at home and in institutions. Good education has always been the greatest support of humanism in any society. As of right now, humanism is communicated in English mostly since it’s the international medium. However, for the common folk, this gets lost due to the weakening standards within our education system. For me, the target is always the empowerment and development of the next generation.
Publicity allows awarness and we can have more of that through grassroots projects, media publicity, discussions and conferences. An educated folk will have more lobbying and voting standards and that is the best way to translate the global movement’s mission and vision into practice.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Christopher.
Barredo: Thank you for the opportunity to say something!
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/19
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What has been both the single honest biggest failure of the SSA and its single biggest success as far as you’re aware?
Kevin Bolling: I would have to think on the failure one. I am not sure what that is at the moment. Not that there isn’t one, that has not been a big focus of mine. For successes, the beginning of the Obama years, the post-Bush years.
At the end of that, SSA height and membership, over 400 chapters and organizations across the United States is clearly numerically a success. So, that is definitely something to be celebrated. There is going to be a resurgence in a need for students. So, we will definitely see the numbers for SSA continue to increase in similar political and societal situations. I
I also think one of the big successes more recently for the organization has been growing a lot under August’s leadership with more intersectionality in looking at what we all have in common and how we all can work together striving for greater equality.
SSA, if you look at the recent conference in 2017, all the diversity and inclusion and different messages that we had available to students who also want those messages and they’re much on that same page.
So, we are meeting students where they are and hopefully continue to challenge them. That is continually, vitally important for the secular movement as a whole. We will continue to see those messages and values continue.
So, hopefully, we are on the forefront of that. Hopefully, we will continue to push those boundaries. I am sure there is one. I do not have a greater failure at this time.
Jacobsen: Looking ahead, what are some goals, targeted objectives of the SSA?
Bolling: So, we started a listening tour. For me to get to talk with a lot of the secular leaders, the stakeholders of our organization. Then last Fall, we launched a tour of some of the schools in different areas of the country: being able to see the students at work on what they’re doing, being able to talk with them specifically and directly, hear what their concerns are, and what their needs are.
So, we can make sure that with the internal structure of the organization that we are doing that. That is one of the big goals currently in doing that. A big push for the organization is a little bit longer term. A lot of our primary focus has been on the students in the student organizations.
So, we are going to be looking at working with the advisor of the organization and what services that we provided them because they can offer a tremendous amount of stability and continuity to the student organizations and helping the student leaders.
So, that is going to be a big focus of ours. Another big focus of ours, a multipronged approach if you will, is looking at the issue, the personnel of student life and student affairs on campuses, and religious life on campuses.
Working with them, so, they understand that almost a quarter of their students on campus do not get into that primarily religious traditional mold that they’re used to. My guess is that most of them do not recognize that, making sure that they have some language and understand some of the concerns of secular students.
They can change some of their behaviors and the services they’re offering so that secular students feel much more included in the campus community. It is a much more welcoming community for them. I want to see that, especially on college campuses.
That something that continues to translate once we start affecting the college community. But being the unreligious is giving the same validity and same open welcome options as any religion that someone would choose.
That is a tall order, but us working at the college level is a great place to start that and begin this conversation. Once we are able to address some of these issues with higher ed., we clearly can see the interest.
With that interest, we can see what they’re only starting to do, interested in doing to help make sure that secular students and those conversations are being included and welcomed on our campuses. So, we think that is good.
We will have some additional goals coming later out in talking about the chapters on our schools and those sorts of things. Our big priority for the Summer of 2017 was working with the staff. One is our scholarship program.
SSA offers a variety of scholarships. We have one specifically targeted towards historically black colleges and universities. We help facilitate several scholarships for high school and college students for several other organizations that affect the community.
So, that kicked off in August. Then September was our huge push for being in the academic year. Right now, that is a huge focus for our staff. We are going to be asking a lot of the other secular organizations to assist us in increasing that awareness this upcoming year, reaching out to the people involved in their organizations.
“Hey, if you have a student who’s in high school or college. One, let them know that there is SSA, we’d love for them to get involved. They’d probably enjoy that. Two, if there is not one, please consider starting one.”
So, we have already had some additional conversations with some of the people in the secular movement and they’re excited in helping us out and doing that. So, that is going to be a big push in increasing the numbers and involvement across the country.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/19
In a discussion around science and faith, the Humanist Association of Ghana executive was interviewed on a local, to Ghana, radio station. Starr FM is a weekly radio program trying to talk more about science. It was being run by the Ghana Science Association in conjunction with Starr FM for this particular interview.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/18
“(CNN)American department store Macy’s sparked a fierce debate on Thursday, when it launched a line of “modest clothing” that featured hijabs.
The Verona Collection was founded by fashion photographer Lisa Vogl, after she converted to Islam in 2011, and struggled to find modest, fashionable clothing. The brand stands for “women’s empowerment and taking pride in one’s Muslim identity,” according to its website.
Macy’s decision to stock Vogl’s line came after US retailer Nike released a “Pro Hijab” for Muslim athletes, and fashion brand American Eagle’s limited-edition denim hijab, which sold out.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/17/middleeast/macys-hijab-debate/index.html.
“Rather than promoting issues regarding women and girl empowerment through the use of the internet, most women promote issues that are of little or no relevance to women empowerment, a study by the Media Foundation for West Africa [MFWA] has revealed.
At a workshop organized for representatives of women’s rights advocacy groups and journalists by the foundation, participants received training on techniques they can adopt to advocate the use the internet to their advantage of women nationwide.
According to facilitators of the workshop, “the under representation of women online by public and women themselves is appalling” thus the need to empower them because “no one tells stories better than women themselves.””
“(CNN)Women’s March organizers are encouraging students, teachers and their allies to walk out of schools on March 14 to protest gun violence.
They’re demanding that Congress take legislative action on gun control in the wake of last week’s deadly school shooting in Florida instead of merely tweeting their thoughts and prayers.
“Students and staff have the right to teach and learn in an environment free from the worry of being gunned down in their classrooms or on their way home from school,” reads the group’s statement. “Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day.””
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/18/us/national-student-walkout-womens-march-trnd/index.html.
“DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — Like many longtime gender advocates, Katja Iversen has spent the past five months having conversations she never expected to have with ordinary people, about topics she’s spent a lifetime working on.
“One of the most powerful things in the #MeToo movement is that everybody realized that everybody has a story, big or small, many or few,” she says.
“I’m sitting on airplanes with people I’ve never spoken to and hearing their stories.”
“It’s destigmatizing: This is something you can work on for centuries or decades, but this is happening monthly now.””
““How can there even be a question about whether we should protect women from violence? Why is there still the need to debate it?” German Green MEP Ska Keller asked Croatia’s Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, recently.
She encountered only a deafening silence.
Like other European countries, Croatia is still debating this issue. The Council of Europe’s Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, also known as the “Istanbul Convention”, stands signed but un-ratified in Croatia and in a number of other EU countries, including the UK.
Another EU member state where the ratification has become a major bone of contention is the current EU presidency holder, Bulgaria.”
Source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/why-won-t-croatia-s-leaders-defend-women-s-rights–02-15-2018.
“ In her new book Dr Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of the leader of the British suffragette movement, examines the battle for women’s rights. Yvette Huddleston reports. This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, passed on February 6, 1918, which for the first time gave some women in the UK the right to vote. It was a significant step in a long-fought, sometimes bloody, campaign by the suffragettes — and if there is one name that is most associated with that fearless, committed group of women, it is Pankhurst.
To commemorate the centenary Helen Pankhurst, granddaughter of Sylvia and great-granddaughter of Emmeline, has written a book, Deeds Not Words: The Story of Women’s Rights Then and Now, published last week, that reflects on the legacy of her famous forebears and charts how women’s lives have changed over the last hundred years. As a notable women’s rights activist and senior advisor to CARE International — a charity which fights poverty and injustice around the world and supports women and girls to overcome inequality and fulfil their potential — Pankhurst has continued the work of her pioneering ancestors.
“COLUMBUS — Ohio’s abortion clinics are challenging a state law that would ban abortions after a fetal diagnosis of Down syndrome.
The law, signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich in December, would penalize doctors who perform abortions based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome. The law is set to take effect March 23, but advocates for access to abortions want to stop what they say is an unconstitutional restriction.
Physicians who perform these prohibited abortions would face a fourth-degree felony, punishable by up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine. They also would lose their license to practice medicine and could face lawsuits if a woman is injured or dies because of the prohibited abortion.
Just two other states have similar laws. The legislation was found unconstitutional in Indiana, and North Dakota’s 2013 ban is not enforced because the state’s sole abortion clinic does not perform the procedure after 16 weeks gestation.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/18
“I first met Xiaogang Peng in the summer of 1992 at Jilin University in Changchun, in the remote north-east of China, where he was a postgraduate student in the department of chemistry. He told me that his dream was to get a place at a top American lab. Now, Xiaogang was evidently smart and hard-working — but so, as far as I could see, were most Chinese science students. I wished him well, but couldn’t help thinking he’d set himself a massive challenge.
Fast forward four years to when, as an editor at Nature, I publish a paper on nanotechnology from world-leading chemists at the University of California at Berkeley. Among them was Xiaogang. That 1996 paper now appears in a 10-volume compendium of the all-time best of Nature papers being published in translation in China.
I watched Xiaogang go on to forge a solid career in the US, as in 2005 he became a tenured professor at the University of Arkansas. But when I recently had reason to get in touch with Xiaogang again, I discovered that he had moved back to China and is now at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou — one of the country’s foremost academic institutions.”
“NEW YORK — For families who have searched years for missing loved ones, donating a sample of their DNA is often a last, desperate act to confirm their worst fears.
New York City’s medical examiner is leading a nationwide effort to collect genetic material and match it with unidentified human remains. It’s a way to finally give family members some answers and maybe some solace.
“People will not rest without answers, at least some answers,” said Dr. Barbara Sampson, the city’s chief medical examiner.
Over the last decade, thousands of DNA samples have been donated to the city’s medical examiner’s office. Most include swabs of saliva from close relatives, but also DNA taken from items used by the missing persons themselves, including toothbrushes, combs, razor blades and, once, even a sanitary napkin.”
Source: http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/medical-examiner-taps-dna-science-to-find-missing-persons.
“Almost five billion kilometres from Earth is a powerful storm that once was so large it could stretch across the North Atlantic Ocean. Now, it has almost disappeared.
The storm has been raging on Neptune, the eighth planet in our solar system. Just as we get hurricanes here on Earth, storms have been seen on other planets, such as our largest, Jupiter. Its storm, known as the “Great Red Spot,” has been around for at least 350 years.
As if an enormous hurricane big enough to stretch across the Atlantic wasn’t bad enough, astronomers also believe the storm on Neptune had been pulling up material from deep inside the planet, possibly hydrogen sulphide. That’s right: it smelled like rotten eggs.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/neptune-storm-disappearing-1.4539220.
“Three Western University students have traded in their lab coats for cameras for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s annual Science, Action! initiative.
Christian Riel, director of communications at NSERC says the annual research video contest, which offers a grand prize of $3,500, aims to highlight Canadian post-secondary students’ research and innovation. As part of the contest, students submit 60-second video entries on a research topic of their choice. The public will vote for their favourite video out of 75 candidates, and the 25 most viewed videos will be submitted to a judging panel on March 2.
“There is so much great research that goes unnoticed on campuses, and we wanted to bring these stories to Canadians in a way that is fun and accessible. Science, Action! challenges students to find new ways of explaining complex research so that anyone from kids to grandparents can understand,” said Riel.”
“ AUSTIN — Strokes are common in old age, but these devastating events also strike babies. That’s likely because birth is stressful and particularly hard on the body’s blood vessels and circulation. But unlike adults, babies who suffer a stroke in the area of the brain that deals with language retain the ability to communicate. In new work presented here yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which publishes Science, researchers found that as teenagers, individuals who experienced strokes around the time of birth are able to understand language as well as their healthy siblings. To find out how adults who had strokes as infants compensated for such severe brain damage, the team imaged their brains while they listened to sentences read forward and backward. In healthy adults, the test causes language processing areas on the left side of the brain to light up with activity (pictured above on the left). In the stroke survivors, who had lost brain tissue in this region, the activity had shifted to an area in the right hemisphere that’s the mirror image of the normal language region (above, right).”
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/babies-get-strokes-too-here-s-how-their-brains-recover.
“For years now the gold standard for R&D in Alzheimer’s disease has focused on generating convincing evidence that any new therapy being studied could slow the cognitive decline of patients and help preserve their ability to perform the kind of daily functions that can keep a patient independent for a longer period of time.
That’s a hurdle no one has managed to clear for well over a decade. So now, with late-stage clinical failures piling up, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set off down a path to adapt those standards as researchers are pushed inexorably into earlier and earlier forms of the disease, ahead of the brain damage inflicted by Alzheimer’s.
In a set of draft guidances, the agency essentially proposed to offer an approval pathway for new drugs that could prevent the onset of the devastating symptoms of Alzheimer’s if drug developers could hit acceptable biomarkers that indicate the drug is working. And they’re likely going to continue with a new gold standard that will focus on long-term cognition alone, lowering the bar for drugs for an enormous and growing market.”
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/fda-floats-new-rules-testing-alzheimers-drugs.
“When 1980s TV star Mr. T revealed his love of curling on Twitter this week and told his followers, “It’s not as easy as it looks,” he likely didn’t know how right he was. Because as it turns out, the physics of how curling works has still not been settled — although a pair of Canadian scientists believe they may finally have an answer.
The paper, titled, “First principles pivot-slide model of the motion of a curling rock,” proposes an algebraic formula to explain the relationship between the curling rock and the pebbled ice on which it is thrown to explain how it curls down the ice.
“It’s magnificent to have an equation like this, it’s unbelievable,” one of the paper’s authors, University of Northern British Columbia physicist Mark Shegelski told CBC Daybreak North host Carolina de Ryk.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/curling-science-2018-1.4537448.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/15
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: A more personal question: you were the director of philanthropy at the Gay Men’s Chorus of LA. It is a major LGBTQ arts organization. Did you take part in the choir as well?
Kevin Bolling: I will say for the pleasure of everyone. I did not. No. No one wants to hear me sing. I volunteered with the chorus before I started working there. I volunteered probably at least a decade. So, I always have been volunteering with something.
I started working at their concerts, helping them fundraise money, and took over most of those responsibilities about coordinating all their volunteers for their concerts and their programs and events. Then I started working on doing different fundraising events for them.
I started working on all their social media. So, it became more and more involved. It is an organization which we love. So, I worked for the organization for two years. But a lot of people know gay and lesbian choruses in their cities, there are 140 of them around the country.
I love being involved in what they were doing to change the younger generation of our country. Again, there are some strong similarities there between what we’re doing with GMCLA, with youth, and what SSA does where primarily with college students but also high school students.
So for GMCLA to have their live music project, which has been going on for a decade now, they go to middle schools and high schools and do LGBT education, anti-bullying work. So, that is outreach of 60,000 students with that.
There is a tour that goes around for a week residency in small towns all across the United States. They go into high schools and colleges; they work with politicians and leaders. It all ends with a stage performance with stories, which talk about their inclusion and diversity and anti-bullying and, of course, LGBT issues as well.
So, that is 50,000 students. 50,000 people touched with that, then one of the last things I did when I was there was integral. It was the new outreach into the youth correctional system in LA County, so literally going into youth prisons and working with the youth there on self-esteem and anti-bullying and awareness of LGBT issues.
It was and is extremely important. There is no LGBT group that we know of that is doing that work. That is the part I am proud of all the things that the course does and having impact on not only the LA community but across the United States.
Jacobsen: Also, you have been building on the work of August Brunsman, the previous executive director and the co-founder of Secular Student Alliance. What was the best advice August gave you?
Bolling: August has been fantastic in helping me on board into the organization. He’s candid and honest with the history of the movement, individual politics, and how that all plays out. So for someone coming in, you want that background in how it relates directly to the organization, who the players are, and all that stuff.
He’s candid and has a tremendous background in all of this, has been involved so long with it. So to me, that is invaluable. He clearly has a passion for the organization, what the organization does.
So, him sharing some of his personal insights and those sorts of things has been great. He understands that the organization continues to grow and will grow anew in different directions. He’s excited about that as well.
The first thing that came to mind when you said that. He always says, “Do not be good, be awesome.” That is a great little motto that I will always keep with me from August, to guide the organization into where it is going next.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/16
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In your research into the nonreligious community, what were some of the bigger findings for you? How do you go about studying irreligiosity?
Dr. Steven Tomlins: Initially I did a discourse analysis of the books on religion by the New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris), looking for similarities and differences of opinion. The media was treating them as a united entity, so I wanted to explore opinions they shared and where they disagreed. On science and secularism they were pretty much on the same page; on morality and spirituality they had quite a few differences. Whereas Dawkins sees science as being able to “at least” match the beauty or usefulness of religion as a subject matter, for example, Harris argues that religion does something that science cannot do: religion can fulfill spiritual needs, and he goes on to explain how spirituality can be facilitated without myth. Dennett’s work was notably more scholarly in tone than the others, but overall my thesis captured a synthesis of their arguments pro-science and anti-religion, which is a snapshot of their writings in response to 9/11.
For my PhD thesis I went local: I did participant-observation with a university atheist community, interviewed the twenty most active members, and compared their answers to atheists I met around Ottawa who had no interest in joining an atheist community. I expected those who belonged to the atheist club to have had more religious upbringings (that the club would replace church) or felt discriminated against because of their atheism. While some had experiences in which they felt that atheists had a poor reputation (a co-worker saying, “I can’t believe you’re an atheist; you’re so nice!” for example), no one felt alienated from a religious society in Canada, and the religious backgrounds of most was pretty average (secular or went to church once a week as a kid). So the backgrounds matched that of the atheists I interviewed who did not belong to an atheist community. The biggest difference seemed to be that those who joined had more of an interest in reading books by atheists, talking about the plight of American atheists, and diverse religious friends. The last point is quite interesting. Having diverse religious friends, many didn’t want to ruin their friendships by being overly critical of, or even discussing, religion with them. In the atheist community they found like-minded people with whom they could discuss religion freely without fear of offending anyone. That was a unique finding I hadn’t come across in studies on American atheist communities, and the aversion to controversy and offence in polite conversation seemed quintessentially Canadian, at least how Canadians see themselves.
Jacobsen: There has been researching into attitudes about the non-religious community by Will Gervais, Ara Norenzayan, and others. The biases seem strong against the non-religious community, throughout the world. Have you looked into this research. Why is this the global trend in implicit anti-atheist biases extant — and robust?
Tomlins: I have looked into it, but mostly through the lens of comparison with Canada. In Canada it’s less surprising to ‘discover’ someone is an atheist than it is in many other countries, yet studies do show that atheists are less trusted than other groups, and the media has tended to characterize atheists as loud and obnoxious on occasion. Two headlines come to mind:
· “Dear atheists: most of us don’t care what you think”(Charles Lewis, National Post, 2010)
· “Could atheists please stop complaining?” (Michael Enright Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2013)
Yet in Canada it’s politically incorrect to wear your religious disposition on your sleeve. After Barack Obama was elected President of the US, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper tested the waters by saying “God bless Canada,” and the media mocked him. He quickly laid that idea to rest. From what I gather Scandinavia is similarly secular, so I’d be hesitant to claim either Canada or Scandinavia as having a strong bias against those who are non-religious (I also hesitate to call the non-religious a community, since it’s so varied). But globally, most countries certainly fit that description, and many have the death penalty for blasphemy or apostasy. I wouldn’t call this a trend though, because it has a long history! But it is disturbing, and it is of serious concern for those who face bias, and even risk death, for expressing their thoughts or being themselves.
One reason for this bias is that some religious people can’t fathom someone not believing in their God. To not believe in their God is to insult their God. I’ve heard it said that when someone critiques someone else’s religion it feels to the religious person like someone is calling their partner ugly. From that perspective, the nonreligious are calling your God ugly, and some cultures don’t take insult lightly. Of course, from the nonreligious perspective, they are critiquing an ideology, but from the perspective of someone who is really religious they don’t differentiate between their personhood and their religion. Those who see God as the giver of morality may see those who don’t believe in God as morally deficient, or as denying morality. I think that’s the case in the US, where there’s a sense that it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in, as long as you believe in a religion.
In ancient Greece exposing atheistic or agnostic thoughts could get you ostracized, as the community needed the gods on their side to survive war and the constant threat of war. I still think nationalism plays that role. If a nation is under God, and that God is of one religion, than those who profess differently are acting against the state. Perhaps the more multicultural a country gets the less the nation is built around a singular religion and the less threatening the nonreligious become in the eyes of the citizenry?
Jacobsen: What does your own research, or others whom you respect, say about the young non-believing community, especially in Westernized nations?
Tomlins: Speaking for Canada, I think it speaks to a sense of demanding inclusion. Communities organize debates on the existence of God with representatives from different religions. They want to have the same right to advertise their positions as do religious groups (on buses, billboards). They author articles for mainstream media outlets. Humanists provide services for life-transition ceremonies like weddings and funerals. They want a religiously neutral state. I think it’s much the same in other western countries, although they certainly receive more pushback due to a myriad of reasons. In post-communist countries atheism is associated with communism, for example. So in those countries the quest for equality comes with a greater risk of societal push-back.
Jacobsen: Western nations seem more irreligious, soft, and scientifically literate. Why are Western nations more often lacking in religion?
Tomlins: I think when the west allowed biblical criticism it opened up a door to doubt. Darwin’s theory of evolution gave doubters an intellectual argument based on science that offered a viable explanation for the origins of all species. The Scientific Revolution showed how useful science was, so even if science occasionally pushed God into the gaps it was still well worth pursuing. When the lightning rod was invented some churches refused to utilize them, as God would protect them from lightning strikes. Following lightning strikes they eventually put lightning rods on their steeples. Plus, perhaps after centuries of religious wars and Reformation and Counter Reformation the will to fight for one’s faith shifted into print rather than action. These are just some musings, but it definitely has its roots in history, the invention of the printing press, biblical criticism, stimulating scientific findings, and the use of science to prolong life. Why other nations seem more religious is the flip side of that question, although even the most religious countries have accepted science (the Vatican is certainly well read, and developing nukes, which has happened and continues to happen in the east, takes a good understanding of the scientific method!).
Jacobsen: How can your own research into the non-religious communities bolster activist efforts and community-coalition political work into the future?
Tomlins: Well, it may demystify atheism for those who have erroneous perceptions of atheists. I find explaining my research to religious people tends to do that. In fact, I was once on a cave tour in Collingwood Ontario and, while waiting to enter a cave, got into a discussion with two older Mennonite women who were touring the caves with about a dozen girls, all of whom were wearing old-fashioned dresses and the best in name-brand trail sneakers money could buy. With their embrace of digital cameras they didn’t fit the common perception of Mennonites as completely technology-adverse. When the conversation led to my thesis, they seemed really interested, and wanted to Google it later, since they previously thought of atheists in a more negative light, and now seemed more curious and open to understanding. I think part of their openness came from my recognition that they, the digital camera wielding Mennonites, are often misunderstood. So when I explained that atheists are often misunderstood, they could suddenly relate.
Other than that I’m not sure it will. Lessons can be gleaned about sticking to agenda, perhaps, but my intention was to document a period in time rather than to bolster activist efforts.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Tomlins: Thanks for the interview!
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Steven.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/17
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What does Larry Decker mean to you, from the Secular Coalition of America?
Kevin Bolling: Larry, I had a chance to meet him, at the lobby days of the Secular Student Alliance. He has been a great resource for me as well. Anyone that can wrangle all these organizations and get them going in the same direction and on the same page will always get my hat off.
Larry and I have had several conversations and we, of course, will definitely be working a lot together. Cher has also been amazing. She was at our student leadership conference and did a great presentation, talking about some of the political things coming up and ways that students can get involved.
So, we will be definitely working with SCA in easy ways to get our student organization involved in political issues that concern them, making them more aware of the political issues that are affecting the secular community and also developing easy ways for them to facilitate with that on their campus.
To create awareness for what those political issues are, two, to make sure that the students are more informed and provide them with easy ways for them to start practicing their political prowess; so, that they, in the hopes, continue with that in the future.
Again, building secular leaders and secular advocates is important to us all for this movement.
Jacobsen: What do you consider the core perennial countervailing force or wind to the secular movement, in America?
Bolling: Oh… is there one? That is a good one. I think that depends — my guess is that different organizations are going to have different answers to that. So for SSA, some of what our core is, is making sure that we are an inclusive umbrella organization for students however they identify themselves religiously or not.
So that we, yes, are in an inclusive place for them. To be able to have those conversations and to live their values, we also, for the secular community, are making sure that we are doing a good job at educating them and helping them determine what their values are and how to activate those.
So, that they can be future leaders for the movement as the nation. In this, we are in a unique time again, politically, in a society where the religious rights and the political rights are having a profound impact on the separation of church and state and religion in politics; then also how that affects various subsections within the society.
So, clearly, Muslim students, the Muslim population right now, with the whole immigration issue, the Latino community, a lot of the women’s health issues right now. Again, that we have a job to make sure that we are looking at social justice equality issues.
That we are being responsible in collaborating with those individuals and recognizing that the games that we have in those areas are games for all of us and the loss that we have in those areas are losses for all of us. We clearly want to work with people and to have those be games for everybody.
Jacobsen: What is one way the secular movement at large shoots itself in the foot?
Bolling: Shoots itself in the foot. In any movement, when we have internal strife or we argue as if a family, even with all of it in love, it is still arguing. That takes away the focus of the bigger picture of where we are going.
Part of my message coming in is “I will collaborate and work with anyone who shares our values and is moving in a forward direction. It can be a win-win for that organization and our organization” and so on.
The secular movement is, in my understanding, much, much better at that collaboration. That is a great thing to always concentrate on, how we are collaborating, how we are moving forward.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/18
“Steven Pinker’s new book is not an easy read, and that is regrettable because he is vastly well informed on subjects that affect us all. The problem is largely one of presentation. He does not have the gift of brevity, and repeats what is essentially the same argument in chapter after chapter, assuring us with dismaying frequency that he will return to the topic under discussion more expansively later on.
In his previous book, The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011), he demonstrated that violence and the conditions that promote it have decreased over the course of history. Enlightenment Now catalogues other aspects of life that have improved.”
“Why should anyone wish to learn about religion? Religion is, in the phrase of the sociologist Linda Woodhead, “a toxic brand”. In the public imagination the word summons up images of violence, patriarchy and irrationalism. The facile confidence of the “New Atheist” movement in the early years of this century was pushing at an open door. Religious studies nevertheless remains a surprisingly popular A-level subject, although this may owe something to its reputation as an easy one. A recent YouGov poll found that the British public thinks that RE is a subject scarcely more important than Latin, which the public, wrongly, does not care about at all. The National Association of Teachers of Religious Education has just launched an appeal for more teachers.
The association is quite right: religious education matters a great deal. At the very least it can function as a kind of ethnography, teaching people about the customs and beliefs of different religious cultures — something that is obviously desirable in a multicultural society. To know that Muslims and Jews won’t eat pork, or that Hindus regard cows as sacred, is really just a part of civics. There is nothing specifically religious about such teaching, even if it is by convention part of religious education. It could just as well be taught under geography or history, subjects profoundly influenced by the beliefs and actions of religious people. The real task of RE is much more ambitious.”
“Humanists are being denied a voice on the teaching of religious education in schools in Wales, it has been claimed.
Wales Humanists has called for full membership on Standing Advisory Councils on RE (SACREs), which oversee the subject in schools.
The Wales Association of SACREs said the problem lies with a governing document which states only religious denominations can be full members.
The Welsh Government said it was looking into the issue.
Humanists either do not believe in or are sceptical about the existence of gods and aim to make ethical decisions based on reason and empathy.”
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-43050204.
“Somewhere in between inventing new machines, techniques and medicines to make us feel better, medical professionals forgot that not only are their patients human beings with human needs, so too are the doctors.
That is the basic contention of members of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, an international organization of individuals and medical school chapters formed in 2002. Its mission is “dedicated to foster, recognize and support the values of humanism and professionalism in medicine.”
One of the ways that health-care professionals have tried to reintroduce compassionate care into healing is through pet therapy. At Erlanger, where the local chapter of the GHHS is based, specially trained dogs make regular visits to not only lift the spirits of the patients but the caregivers as well.”
“Bishop John Keenan of Paisley has agreed to meet a representative of the Humanist Society Scotland (HSS) in a letter criticising the group for its “lazy and gratuitous attacks on Catholics”.
According to the Scottish Catholic Observer, the bishop’s letter urges the society to embrace a “fairer and more positive appraisal of the contribution of faith communities”. He said he was “routinely in the position of having to defend our Church, frankly, from what I would say are lazy and quite gratuitous attacks on Catholics in Scotland and their beliefs from members of the HSS”.
He said that the society seemed to feel “some kind of need to ‘take a pop’ at religion”. Catholics, he added, “conclude that you are as exercised to do away with the place of religion in Scottish civic society as you are to advance the cause of authentic humanism”.”
“Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now builds on his 2011 The Better Angels of Our Nature (Viking) in offering another engaging, compelling set of reasons to be cheerful. In this new combined survey, analysis and manifesto, he convincingly demonstrates that when it comes to health and life expectancy, poverty reduction and income, education, human rights, peace and security, the global data provide solid grounds for optimism. But the book’s premise lies in the past: the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth century when, Pinker argues, reason, science, humanism and progress became the centre of intellectual endeavour in Europe and North America. That legacy, he asserts, is ripe for resurrection at a time of political upheaval, the rise of demagoguery, climate scepticism and ‘fake news’.
The Enlightenment undoubtedly saw major advances in constitutional government. The separation of church and state in some nations allowed new models of society to flourish. But using the era as a premise is problematic. Many of the breakthroughs that Pinker attributes to the Enlightenment actually pre-date it. As Chris Kutarna and I showed in Age of Discovery (Bloomsbury, 2017), the Renaissance was a period of even more dramatic progress in science and the humanities, sparked by luminaries such as the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and the humanist Erasmus (see P. Ball Nature 452, 816–818; 2008). Before that were extraordinarily innovative epochs in Asia and other regions, such as China’s Tang dynasty (ad 618–907) and the Islamic Golden Age (750–1260).”
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02148-1.
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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.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/02
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You have an association with SMART recovery. What is it? What is your relationship with it as an entity?
Neil Bera: It stands for self-management and recovery training. It allows building coping mechanisms with cognitive behavioral therapy. We can dig into our innermost roots of our feelings and thinking, and thoughts, and instinctive behavior and reactions to things. It is to have the ability to control our behaviors as a result of our thinking, whether that be gambling or sex or drug addiction or alcohol. it doesn’t matter.
I think the dynamic of having that in our meetings makes it more effective than alternative programs such as the 12-step program.
Jacobsen: What do you think are some of the weaknesses of the 12-step programs?
Bera: Dependency is the issue that you start off with, in my opinion at least, though I go to AA meetings and practice 12-steps, I notice its flaws. The dependence is on a higher power or a group of A members or a sponsor for example. It is as if you are not in a position to make a decision on your own. It is almost as if your empowerment is taken away from you.
I think its singular purpose is beneficial for so many people such as alcoholics or drug addictions. I still find the singleness in purpose takes away from the purpose of trying to become a better person. While that may help the person that needs one thing, I find most people who are addicts tend to have another underlying behavioral problem that needs to be addressed. That may be mental illness.
For example, I am bipolar. If I was only doing the 12-step program instead of being able to be open at SMART meetings about my bipolar, I wouldn’t get the feedback because that’s not their focus.
Jacobsen: Why is SMART important as an organization in general?
Bera: Knowing what they are and where they came from, they are a small community in comparison obviously to AA and other programs. I think the hierarchy that they have developed that makes a lot of sense in terms of creating facilitators. They have meeting facilitators. They are pretty much being of service in the sense that someone in AA is being asked to service because they are helping other addicts with their problems.
In doing so, they are feeling great about it themselves and in the process spreading the program. I have only been going to one meeting a week, but the same meeting for the last 21 months. That is how long I have been sober. That is not just from AA.
That started with SMART. I wanted to be sober. I thought about both, went to both, but going to the meetings and seeing Steve (my facilitator) helps us out. He doesn’t run the meeting. It is almost like a machine in itself. I think the cross-talk in the community within each meeting really makes it special. It almost feels like a place to feel better.
I have never left a SMART meeting on a bad note. Let’s put it that way.
Jacobsen: What is your main initiative in personal and professional life?
Bera: Currently, I am practicing as an architect. I wasn’t because of alcoholism and drug addiction. It was difficult to get my feet on the ground again. The last three or four years or so. I have been able to get back on my feet and get some sobriety under my belt, get the confidence that I need to succeed again, where I left my path.
My addiction took over. That work is really important in terms of my routine. I think the main thing now is to continue to maintain. What I mean by that is that in AA, it doesn’t feel like it is a maintenance program; it feels like you’re going to have to keep doing it forever, and ever, and ever. It feels constrictive in a sense. With SMART, I almost want to check in every week to make sure I left everything on the table.
It is almost as if because of the tools of the program have changed my way of thinking. I think that is the name of the game at the end of the day.
Jacobsen: Last question, do you have any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Bera: I think being persistent has been key to my recovery. In a sense that I have been doing this for 7 years now, when I got my first DUI, it only got worse. I didn’t find a solution in a lot of things. I just kept getting a little ibt, like 30 or 60 days at a time. I coudn’t change the way I was thinking.
Cognitive behavioural therapy, it is a way of changing the way we see things. If not for SMART, it wouldn’t have stuck with me that I can take charge of my life and take care of myself as long as I work on a few things on myself better. The clear goals are obvious.
We can decide on what problems need attention and what ones don’t because of one singular program, and I think this is more effective that I have utilized in the past. The good thing for me is that it allowed me to become the person that I was on my way to becoming before this.
I am very grateful to SMART.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Neil.
Bera: No problem.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/14
“Ad hominem arguments — attacking a person to disprove his or her claims — is considered a logical fallacy. But a new study published in PLOS One suggests that some ad hominem attacks can effectively erode people’s trust in scientific claims.
The research found that attacking the motives of scientists undermines the belief in a scientific claim just as much as attacking the science itself.
“Some people think ‘big pharma’ is responsible for a lot of pills that do nothing. Others think that major pharmaceutical companies produce a lot of safe and effective medicines. Some people distrust vaccines, while others place a great deal of trust in them. Some people accept human forced global warming, and others think it is a hoax,” said study author Ralph Barnes, an assistant professor of psychology at Montana State University.”
“It was 1997 and Dr. Steffanie Strathdee had just won a young investigators award for her research on Vancouver’s needle exchange program. The program was supposed to help reduce disease.
But Strathdee’s study found that HIV had instead become more prevalent in Vancouver since the introduction of the program. Her research team concluded their “results don’t argue against the overall effectiveness of needle exchange programs,” rather such programs can’t operate in a vacuum. Other resources, like accessible housing and addiction treatment, must also be accessible to keep HIV prevalence low.
But a lot of the media (specifically in the United States, according to Strathdee) got it all wrong. Stories about the uselessness of needle exchange programs flooded the papers. In 1999, the U.S. Congress even cited her study as a reason to keep a ban on needle exchanges in place.”
Source: http://nationalpost.com/news/world/fake-science-whos-to-blame-when-the-media-gets-research-wrong.
“Obviously travelling at warp speed isn’t a natural state of existence for most terrestrial organisms, but we never knew just how harmful the effects of maximum warp velocities could be on human beings — until now.
A new study published — yes, published — in an ‘American’ science journal (and accepted by three others) details how an experimental attempt to cross the transwarp barrier and achieve Warp 10 can have devastating and unforeseen consequences on human physiology. Wait… what?
Okay, if you’ve gotten the sense that something might be amiss with this purported science experiment, congratulations: you’re already doing better than the editors of the American Research Journal of Biosciences.”
“The Liberal government will release its federal budget on Feb. 27, with the major themes expected to be gender equality and science.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the date in Question Period on Tuesday, saying his government has made improvements to the lives of middle-class Canadians, “but there is more work to do.”
The budget is expected to include funding for pay-equity legislation for employees in the federal government and federally regulated sectors, as well as measures to encourage the participation of women in the workforce, in leadership roles and in science, a government source told The Globe and Mail.”
“Confusion reigned on 12 February, as US President Donald Trump released his budget request for the 2019 fiscal year.
Just four days earlier, the Congress had lifted mandatory caps on government spending, sending the Trump administration scrambling at the last minute to revise its budget proposal. The White House abandoned its original plan to seek a 27% funding cut for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a 29% decrease for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a 22% reduction for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, holding their funding steady. But the details of Trump’s vision for many agencies remain fuzzy, frustrating science advocates.
“The big headline is that at the eleventh hour, [the White House] backed away from their intention of dramatically scaling back on basic research,” says Matt Hourihan, director of the research and development budget and policy programme at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC. But science agencies aren’t out of the woods yet, he warns. Even in a budget that seems to support basic science, “they’re still going after programmes, like environmental programmes, that they believe fall outside the purview of government”, Hourihan says.”
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01985-4.
“An all-female freshwater fish species called the Amazon molly that inhabits rivers and creeks along the Texas-Mexico border is living proof that sexual reproduction may be vastly over-rated.
Scientists have said they deciphered the genome of the Amazon molly, one of the few vertebrate species to rely upon asexual reproduction, and discovered that it had none of the genetic flaws, such as an accumulation of harmful mutations or a lack of genetic diversity, they had expected.
They found that the Amazon molly, named after the fierce female warriors of ancient Greek mythology, boasts a hardy genetic makeup that makes it equally fit, or even more so, than fish using sexual reproduction in which both maternal and paternal genes are passed along to offspring.”
“In the “Star Trek” universe, the fantastic speed of warp 10 has remained annoyingly out of reach. However, a recent paper in an open-access journal describes an experiment that attempted to break that boundary.
The fact that the “experiment” described in the paper wasn’t conducted in a real-world laboratory, but in an episode of the sci-fi TV series “Star Trek: Voyager,” reveals just how easy it is to publish fake science in some so-called “predatory journals.”
The paper’s author, a biologist for 30 years and a fan of “Star Trek,” wrote up a research paper based on the “Voyager” episode. He submitted it to 10 open-access journals known or suspected of charging authors publication fees without providing the editorial services associated with legitimate journals, such as careful peer review and vetting of the paper’s claims. Four accepted it, though only one, the American Research Journal of Biosciences, published the paper.”
Source: https://www.space.com/39672-fake-star-trek-science-paper-published.html.
“Science is in Canberra this week, and yet we have no minister for science.
No science minister, on a background of Australia’s complex recent history of affiliating the science portfolio with a range of other ministries.
One interpretation is that successive federal governments struggle to see where science fits in our nations’s operations and future. Perhaps it remains unclear for politicians to see how best to link science with other activities, how to fund it, and how to successfully harness science for economic and other benefits.”
“There’s a planet just next door that could explain the origins of life in the universe. It was probably once covered in oceans (SN Online: 8/1/17). It may have been habitable for billions of years (SN Online: 8/26/16). Astronomers are desperate to land spacecraft there.
No, not Mars. That tantalizing planet is Venus. But despite all its appeal, Venus is one of the hardest places in the solar system to get to know. That’s partly because modern Venus is famously hellish, with temperatures hot enough to melt lead and choking clouds of sulfuric acid.
“If you wanted sinners to fry in their own juice, Venus would be the place to send them,” V. S. Avduevsky, deputy director of the Soviet Union’s spaceflight control center, said in 1976 after his country’s Venera 9 and 10 landers returned their dismal view of the planet’s landscape (SN: 6/19/76, p. 388).”
Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/what-will-it-take-go-venus.
“Climate change denial has been led by industry disinformation, which, according to Merriam-Webster, is “false information deliberately and often covertly spread in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.”
A crime against humanity is, according to the Oxford Dictionary, “a deliberate act, typically as part of a systematic campaign that causes human suffering or death on a large scale.”
A brief look at the origins of denialism
In 2010, a landmark book, Merchants of Doubt, showed how a small group of prominent scientists with connections to politics and industry led disinformation campaigns denying established scientific knowledge about smoking, acid rain, DDT, the ozone layer and global warming.”
Source: http://commonground.ca/science-betrayed-crime-denial/.
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.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/14
“The European Parliament’s Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) committee will spend two days in Hungary. The three-member delegation will consult with women’s rights NGOs and members of the government about what progress Hungary has made in the field in the past couple of years, zoom.hu reports.
The delegation consists of delegation leader Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats MEP Maria Noichl from Germany, Greens-European Free Alliance MEP Terry Reintke also from Germany, and Austrian Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party MEP Angelika Mlinar. According to zoom.hu’s information, Tuesday evening the delegation will dine with Fidesz vice-president and undersecretary for family and youth Katalin Novák and undersecretary with the Ministry of Justice Pál Völner, whom the delegation will ask why Hungary still has not ratified the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.”
Source: https://budapestbeacon.com/ep-committee-on-womens-rights-delegation-to-visit-hungary/.
“International Women’s Day is a worldwide event that celebrates women’s achievements — from the political to the social — while calling for gender equality.
It has been observed since the early 1900s and is now recognised each year on March 8. Is is not affiliated with any one group, but brings together governments, women’s organisations, corporations and charities.
The day is marked around the world with arts performances, talks, rallies, networking events, conferences and marches.”
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/international-womens-day-did-start-important/.
“KARACHI: Special Assistant to Sindh Chief Minister Irum Khalid has said that human rights activist and lawyer late Asma Jahangir gave confidence to women in Pakistan and made tireless efforts to highlight and protect their rights.
She was speaking at a seminar organised at the Arts Council on Monday. Asma Jahangir, a renowned pro-women rights personality, died in Lahore on Sunday due to a heart attack.
The seminar was organised by Women Development Department, government of Sindh, to commemorate the International Women’s Rights Day and to raise voice for the rights of women and create awareness among the women about their rights and their role in national development.”
Source: https://dailytimes.com.pk/201553/asma-jahangir-womens-rights-crusader-cm-aide/.
“If you’ve heard of Bitcoin — the first decentralized digital currency that functions without a central bank or other third-party intermediary — you may have also heard of the transformative technology behind the cryptocurrency: blockchain. Put simply, blockchain is an immutable ledger — a series of data points strung into time-stamped blocks that cannot be modified and that are distributed across a global network of computers.
Blockchain, however, can do far more than power cryptocurrencies. From securing personal records to contracts to payments, it may also drive the next frontier of women’s economic empowerment.”
Source: http://fortune.com/2018/02/13/blockchain-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-womens-rights/.
““When you fight for women’s rights, and when you advocate for women’s rights, you necessarily, immediately, advocate for democracy,” says FEMEN activist Inna Shevchenko.
Democracy, she argues, “is not only about counting silent hands” — it is about pluralism, and allowing the confrontation of different opinions. “It’s about hearing many, many voices and, of course, necessarily, hearing women’s voices.”
Shevchenko spoke to us on the sidelines of last year’s World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg. The theme for the November 2017 event was: ‘‘Is Populism a Problem?” The prominent feminist from Ukraine had a clear answer: populists are “one of the main obstacles for progress of women’s rights.””
Source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/moana-genevey/divisive-populists-obstacle-womens-rights.
“The Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF) hopes to continue the national conversation surrounding women’s rights and workplace equality in the 2018 legislative session.
CWEALF, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to empowering women and girls in Connecticut, is primarily focusing its 2018 efforts on implementing paid family and medical leave and combating the gender wage gap, said CWEALF Policy Manager Maddie Granato.
“The year 2018 has been pegged “The Year Of The Woman” because of all the women running for office, but 2018 being the year of the woman doesn’t have to start on the ballot in November,” Granato said. “It can start now, in February.””
“Saudi women need not wear the abaya — the loose-fitting, full-length robes symbolic of religious faith — a senior member of the top Muslim clerical body said, another indication of the Kingdom’s efforts towards modernisation.
On his radio program, Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, said Muslim women should dress modestly, but this did not necessitate wearing the abaya.
“More than 90 per cent of pious Muslim women in the Muslim world do not wear abayas,” Sheikh Mutlaq said on Friday. “So we should not force people to wear abayas.””
“CAIRO — Women and human rights organizations in Egypt marked the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Feb. 6 by announcing an “Anti-FGM Action Plan” to create new policies and mechanisms to reduce these practices against women and young girls in Egypt.
According to the most recent gender-based violence survey conducted by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics in 2015, 9 out of 10 women in Egypt have undergone FGM. In 2014, that figure was about 92% of married women aged between 15 and 49, with 78.4% of the operations performed by doctors and nurses.”
“(CNN)Planned Parenthood will announce on Tuesday a new campaign to help expand access to reproductive health care state-by-state, CNN has learned.
The nonprofit is working alongside state lawmakers, advocates for reproductive rights and partners — such as the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, Latino Memphis in Tennessee and the Michigan Progressive Women’s Caucus — to push reproductive rights policies in more than a dozen states and DC this week. The organization, its partners, policymakers and activists plan to advance initiatives in all 50 states by the end of the year.
“This really is growing out of an unprecedented grass-roots movement across the country,” Danielle Wells, Planned Parenthood’s assistant director of state policy media, told CNN. “People are mobilizing, organizing and fighting back on behalf of their health and rights. We are channeling that energy into action, and really going on the offense. Now is time for us to unite together and expand reproductive health care.””
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/14
“Activists of color come together to address social change at the Secular Social Justice 2018 Conference in Washington DC.
The American Humanist Association is hosting the Secular Social Justice conference in Washington DC on April 7, 2018. The conference is “an all-day event that will center the sociopolitical insight, leadership, and strategies of secular, humanist, and atheist activists of color who believe social change will only come through human intervention.”
Conference organizer Sincere Kirabo describes the meeting of social justice advocates as
“an all-day event that will center the sociopolitical insight, leadership, and strategies of secular, humanist, and atheist activists of color who believe social change will only come through human intervention.””
“Earlier this week, a story floating on the fringes of the news cycle caught my attention.
A man from Pakistan who arrived in the UK in 2011 — and renounced his Muslim faith, declaring that he was now a humanist — applied last year for asylum in Britain, on the grounds that his life was in danger if he returned home. But after being interviewed, Hamza bin Walayat’s application for asylum was rejected by the authorities, and he is now facing deportation back to Pakistan.
Bizarrely, it seems that the clincher was that bin Walayat failed to correctly answer questions about ancient Greek philosophers. According to the Home Office — the UK government department that deals with immigration — he was unable to identify Plato and Aristotle as humanist philosophers, which, they said, demonstrated that his knowledge of humanism was “rudimentary at best,” and that his application for asylum was spurious.”
Source: https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/02/09/humanism-is-proof-of-the-divine/.
“Somewhere in between inventing new machines, techniques and medicines to make us feel better, medical professionals forgot that not only are their patients human beings with human needs, so too are the doctors.
That is the basic contention of members of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, an international organization of individuals and medical school chapters formed in 2002. Its mission is “dedicated to foster, recognize and support the values of humanism and professionalism in medicine.””
“Loveless is the title of Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s drama of a 12-year-old boy’s disappearance, and the word might as well be etched into the screen, hovering in chalk-colored skies over denuded trees on the outskirts of Moscow — home of a soon-to-be-divorced woman and man who really, really, really, really hate each other (“I’ve fucking had it with you”; “Scumbag”) and have no use for their son, either. Loveless is about a state of mind, a lament, an indictment of crimes against the human spirit.
This is clear before humans even make their first appearance. Zvyagintsev opens with a winterscape of dead trees. Shots two through nine offer variations thereof. Two ducks drift by in shots ten and 11. The next shot is a large building with an empty lot, over which a Russian flag flutters grimly. The faceless structure is a school that belches out children ahead of young Alyosha (Matvey Novikov), who trudges home alone to find his mother, Zhenya (Maryana Spivak), showing the family apartment to prospective buyers, a man and his pregnant wife. Mute with anger and grief, Alyosha refuses to make eye contact. Soon, we learn that the boy’s father, Boris (Aleksey Rozin), doesn’t want custody of him, and neither does Zhenya, who says, “I’m moving on, too.” To a woman doing her hair, she complains that her son is beginning to smell like her husband. She didn’t want the child, she tells her lover, Anton (Andris Keiss), a successful older man, adding, “I wasn’t even producing milk.””
Source: http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/loveless-movie-review.html.
“Ignoring the Bible has U.S. on the path to destruction
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach. Where does America stand? Never have we been such a divided nation.
Abortion has killed 60 million innocent babies (since Roe v. Wade). God hates the shedding of innocent blood. Our public schools have done away with the Bible, the Ten Commandments and prayer.
Our schools have been hijacked by humanism. Now man determines what is good or evil. There is a great breakdown of the family. In some communities, as many as 70 percent of children have no father and in some cases no mother.”
“Darwin Day will be celebrated today in many parts of the world. In this country it is barely mentioned if not completely ignored. A good question is why?
Why is such a pillar of science, father of the theory of evolution, so treated in one of the most advanced societies in the world? The answer is the word “evolution,” still considered taboo in influential circles of our U.S. community. Too many are still uncomfortable even mentioning, let alone discussing, it in polite society.
Nowadays people can participate in exchanges on racial, cultural diversity, same sex marriage, cloning or even “designer” babies thanks to modern genetics without too much fuss.”
Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-op-darwin-day-evolution-debate-20180211-story.html.
“The Bishop of Paisley has agreed to meet the humanist society’s campaigns and communications manager Fraser Sutherland.
In a letter agreeing the meeting, the bishop said he feels ‘routinely in the position of having to defend our Church frankly from what I would say are lazy and quite gratuitous attacks on Catholics in Scotland and their beliefs from members of the HSS.’
“The context of all of this is the general experience of Catholics fairly broadly that the HSS feels some kind of need to ‘take a pop’ at religion in many of its outputs,” he said. “In that sense we naturally conclude that you are as exercised to do away with the place of religion in Scottish civic society as you are to advance the cause of authentic humanism. I, more than anyone, would be very encouraged if the HSS were considering a fairer and more positive appraisal of the contribution of faith communities to Scottish civic society and so open up a new chapter of their due respect for religions in Scotland.””
Source: http://www.sconews.co.uk/news/54844/bishop-to-meet-humanists-after-anti-religious-society-criticism/.
“Anjan Chakravartty has been named to the University of Miami’s — and the nation’s — first endowed academic chair in the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics.
Chakravartty serves as a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame and director of the university’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values. He will begin his new position at UM July 1.
The university announced its intention to create the chair, which was endowed by a $2.2 million donation from retired businessman Louis Appignani, in May 2016. Since then, the search for the perfect candidate has been an extensive and hush-hush process.”
“Given the ink spilled over two-tier health care, it feels odd more Canadians aren’t overtly distressed by the growing inequity in publicly funded school systems.
According to a Globe and Mail analysis, English-language Catholic elementary schools in Ontario have seen a steady rise in enrolment by non-Catholic pupils. The data were compiled by the Catholic school boards because the province, incredibly, does not keep track.
The story repeats itself across the country. Catholic school systems have become a destination for parents of other religions who are keen to send their children to institutions where the curriculum is at least partly rooted in faith-based moral dogma, even if it’s not their own. In doing so, they are bailing on public systems.”
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.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/14
“Activists of color come together to address social change at the Secular Social Justice 2018 Conference in Washington DC.
The American Humanist Association is hosting the Secular Social Justice conference in Washington DC on April 7, 2018. The conference is “an all-day event that will center the sociopolitical insight, leadership, and strategies of secular, humanist, and atheist activists of color who believe social change will only come through human intervention.”
Conference organizer Sincere Kirabo describes the meeting of social justice advocates as
“an all-day event that will center the sociopolitical insight, leadership, and strategies of secular, humanist, and atheist activists of color who believe social change will only come through human intervention.””
“Earlier this week, a story floating on the fringes of the news cycle caught my attention.
A man from Pakistan who arrived in the UK in 2011 — and renounced his Muslim faith, declaring that he was now a humanist — applied last year for asylum in Britain, on the grounds that his life was in danger if he returned home. But after being interviewed, Hamza bin Walayat’s application for asylum was rejected by the authorities, and he is now facing deportation back to Pakistan.
Bizarrely, it seems that the clincher was that bin Walayat failed to correctly answer questions about ancient Greek philosophers. According to the Home Office — the UK government department that deals with immigration — he was unable to identify Plato and Aristotle as humanist philosophers, which, they said, demonstrated that his knowledge of humanism was “rudimentary at best,” and that his application for asylum was spurious.”
Source: https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/02/09/humanism-is-proof-of-the-divine/.
“Somewhere in between inventing new machines, techniques and medicines to make us feel better, medical professionals forgot that not only are their patients human beings with human needs, so too are the doctors.
That is the basic contention of members of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, an international organization of individuals and medical school chapters formed in 2002. Its mission is “dedicated to foster, recognize and support the values of humanism and professionalism in medicine.””
“Loveless is the title of Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s drama of a 12-year-old boy’s disappearance, and the word might as well be etched into the screen, hovering in chalk-colored skies over denuded trees on the outskirts of Moscow — home of a soon-to-be-divorced woman and man who really, really, really, really hate each other (“I’ve fucking had it with you”; “Scumbag”) and have no use for their son, either. Loveless is about a state of mind, a lament, an indictment of crimes against the human spirit.
This is clear before humans even make their first appearance. Zvyagintsev opens with a winterscape of dead trees. Shots two through nine offer variations thereof. Two ducks drift by in shots ten and 11. The next shot is a large building with an empty lot, over which a Russian flag flutters grimly. The faceless structure is a school that belches out children ahead of young Alyosha (Matvey Novikov), who trudges home alone to find his mother, Zhenya (Maryana Spivak), showing the family apartment to prospective buyers, a man and his pregnant wife. Mute with anger and grief, Alyosha refuses to make eye contact. Soon, we learn that the boy’s father, Boris (Aleksey Rozin), doesn’t want custody of him, and neither does Zhenya, who says, “I’m moving on, too.” To a woman doing her hair, she complains that her son is beginning to smell like her husband. She didn’t want the child, she tells her lover, Anton (Andris Keiss), a successful older man, adding, “I wasn’t even producing milk.””
Source: http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/loveless-movie-review.html.
“Ignoring the Bible has U.S. on the path to destruction
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach. Where does America stand? Never have we been such a divided nation.
Abortion has killed 60 million innocent babies (since Roe v. Wade). God hates the shedding of innocent blood. Our public schools have done away with the Bible, the Ten Commandments and prayer.
Our schools have been hijacked by humanism. Now man determines what is good or evil. There is a great breakdown of the family. In some communities, as many as 70 percent of children have no father and in some cases no mother.”
“Darwin Day will be celebrated today in many parts of the world. In this country it is barely mentioned if not completely ignored. A good question is why?
Why is such a pillar of science, father of the theory of evolution, so treated in one of the most advanced societies in the world? The answer is the word “evolution,” still considered taboo in influential circles of our U.S. community. Too many are still uncomfortable even mentioning, let alone discussing, it in polite society.
Nowadays people can participate in exchanges on racial, cultural diversity, same sex marriage, cloning or even “designer” babies thanks to modern genetics without too much fuss.”
Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-op-darwin-day-evolution-debate-20180211-story.html.
“The Bishop of Paisley has agreed to meet the humanist society’s campaigns and communications manager Fraser Sutherland.
In a letter agreeing the meeting, the bishop said he feels ‘routinely in the position of having to defend our Church frankly from what I would say are lazy and quite gratuitous attacks on Catholics in Scotland and their beliefs from members of the HSS.’
“The context of all of this is the general experience of Catholics fairly broadly that the HSS feels some kind of need to ‘take a pop’ at religion in many of its outputs,” he said. “In that sense we naturally conclude that you are as exercised to do away with the place of religion in Scottish civic society as you are to advance the cause of authentic humanism. I, more than anyone, would be very encouraged if the HSS were considering a fairer and more positive appraisal of the contribution of faith communities to Scottish civic society and so open up a new chapter of their due respect for religions in Scotland.””
Source: http://www.sconews.co.uk/news/54844/bishop-to-meet-humanists-after-anti-religious-society-criticism/.
“Anjan Chakravartty has been named to the University of Miami’s — and the nation’s — first endowed academic chair in the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics.
Chakravartty serves as a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame and director of the university’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values. He will begin his new position at UM July 1.
The university announced its intention to create the chair, which was endowed by a $2.2 million donation from retired businessman Louis Appignani, in May 2016. Since then, the search for the perfect candidate has been an extensive and hush-hush process.”
“Given the ink spilled over two-tier health care, it feels odd more Canadians aren’t overtly distressed by the growing inequity in publicly funded school systems.
According to a Globe and Mail analysis, English-language Catholic elementary schools in Ontario have seen a steady rise in enrolment by non-Catholic pupils. The data were compiled by the Catholic school boards because the province, incredibly, does not keep track.
The story repeats itself across the country. Catholic school systems have become a destination for parents of other religions who are keen to send their children to institutions where the curriculum is at least partly rooted in faith-based moral dogma, even if it’s not their own. In doing so, they are bailing on public systems.”
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.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/13
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you grow up? Was religion part of the household? How was this a part of life? How did you leave it?
Feng Chin Wen: My parents are Baptists. It is a very conservative and Chinese-oriented sect in Taiwan, so it has huge effect on my belief and ideology. However, I believe in evolution since I was 9 years old; at that time, I started to think why Christianity can’t accept evolution, a seed of skepticism had been planted.
I left Christianity when I was 17. I debated with my high school classmate who is an atheist on theology several times, and I finally agreed there is no solid evidence showing that Jesus is an ultimate truth. Meanwhile, I failed to pick up a church girl after praying hard. I totally lost my faith.
Then, all things started getting better: I became more progressive and Taiwan-oriented in my college life, and started to love people without religious sense (I consider that is fake).
Jacobsen: How do you view the world now? What seems best to explain the world in theory and practice? What ethic, for action in the world with others, seems to make the most sense to you?
Feng: As a Pastafarian, I believe that the world was created by FSM. It was drinking beer and fell on the ground to make the big bang. That’s why the world is not perfect. Ethics are principles for us to maintain our livelihood and keep it in order. We should depend on the situations we humans face to determinate what rules we should follow.
Jacobsen: What is your current involvement with the international or simply local non-religious community? What do you get out of it?
Feng: I’m the chairperson of Asian working group in IHEYO and executive director of Humanistic Pastafarianism in Taiwan. Since 2015 I have started a humanist blog and college club to promote humanism locally. Then I held 2016 Asian Humanist Conference and constructed an initial community.
On the basis of that, we decided to establish the official organization of Pastafarianism in 2017. Last year we participated in the issue of LGBT rights and attended a local fair of World Human Rights Day. I dreamed that there would have an activist humanistic organization in my country and these involvements make it come true.
Jacobsen: If you could take any piece of advice or quote from people living or dead in the non-religious community, what would be that advice or quote?
Feng: “Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.” Sun Tzu said in Art of War.
Therefore, we should “shape its course according to the nature of the ground”. Instead of against religious privileges, we become a religion then we can compete with them on an equal basis.
Jacobsen: How do you hope the non-religious community comes together and forms just that, a community, of like-minded people founded in sympathy and decency of conduct?
Feng: Never try to educate religious people but educate “nones” and empower ourselves. We shall take people’s ignorance with sense of humor and tolerance; the world is so amazing that it allows the disorder to exist, and we shouldn’t be more intolerant than the world. With these attitudes and goals, we can generate more energy to be a group, and focus on defending nones’ basic rights. It is a waste to lose the energy in changing others. We allow their ignorance but not their invasion.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Feng: Common humanism only loves human’s virtues, but mine is to love human’s vices, and to think in depth about how to use these vices to make the world better. I respect our weaknesses since it’s part of us. Does hating them count for loving humanity, or should we say it only loves ideal humanity? I’ve had enough because it’s too religious.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Feng.
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.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/13
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why did you become involved in a secular group on campus?
Alex Zharichenko: This came from after watching the Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate my freshman year. I have in previous years declared myself as an atheist but never thought too much of it then I just don’t believe. After watching that debate I found other videos discussing the silly ideas of creationism and from there spark me to become more involved into atheism. I was a bit radical at first wanting to debate everyone,
but I eventually formed my values and mellowed out. Eventually, I wanted to actually start a secular student alliance at my school which led me to discover there was already other students trying to do this, so I joined them and got involved.
Jacobsen: What makes these particularly important student groups to form on campuses for activism and community?
Zharichenko: Driven people that want to make a community. The environment that was made by Stephen Hoover was a wonderful one where various students can be very open. For some reason being an atheist, agnostic, secularist, etc. we use that as a point of similarity between each other and from there we all share other common interests the go beyond just religion. Like the community that this club cultivates is incredible, we all are getting along and discussing many various topics. Because of this club me and the original leader, Stephen Hoover, have become really close friends discussing topics about psychology, behavior, and many other things. I think these clubs form on campuses because there were some driven people that really want to bring people together in a wonderful community.
Jacobsen: How can students become more involved earlier on to improve their student experience?
Zharichenko: By either starting clubs like the SSA in their own school or searching for clubs, conference, meetups, or local groups in their area. I know in my state of Pennsylvania we have an annual atheist conference, which I attend one year and it was fantastic. Lots of great information that I got from that conference. SSA clubs are becoming more prevalent in schools and campuses so they are becoming much easier to find. And if all else students can get involved with local groups in their area. I know in PA we have multiple of theses groups such as Pennsylvania Nonbelievers, The Free Thought Society, Center for Inquiry Pittsburgh, and many others.
Jacobsen: What is the ratio of irreligious to religious student groups on campus, at least at the time?
Zharichenko: The ratio was around one to four. Now as to my knowledge there are just two religious clubs that still stand at CV(Cumberland Valley) both being for Christians.
Jacobsen: How did you found Cumberland Valley High School’s Secular Student Alliance?
Zharichenko: I discovered the CV Secular Student Alliance from looking at the SSA’s website. Then had a link to a Facebook page and from there I slowly became part of the club. The only reason why I went out of the way to look up if a club exists at my school was that I wanted to start a secular student alliance at CV. But thankfully there were people like Stephen Hoover who were already at it and that found a teacher to advise the club.
Jacobsen: What tasks and responsibilities came with being the president?
Zharichenko: Unfortunately being president of the club didn’t last long. The teacher we had as the adviser the previous year picked up two clubs and didn’t have time for the CV SSA. I didn’t want to go through the headache of finding a new adviser so I just dropped the club. I already had two other clubs to managed with the CV Computer Science Education Club being the club I focused mainly on. I’m kind of sad I didn’t continue the CV SSA because it was such a wonderful club and great environment to be in. It was also great to gain a perspective that I didn’t have, I never was religious in my life to hearing people how they got out of religion was fascinating to hear.
Jacobsen: What are your next steps in activism and secularism and organizing for that secular future?
Zharichenko: As of now I just entered the University of Pittsburgh as a Computer Science Major, and during my orientation week, there was a student activity fair. Right off the bat, I found my university’s secular student alliance which is how I will be involved with secularism and activism for the rest of college. For the future, I might join a local group, but for now, my focus is on my studies and computer science.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/13
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As the Organizing Secretary, Humanist Association of Ghana, what is involved in your work with them? How did you find them?
Agomo Atambire: I had found these interesting people online when I was searching for irreligious groups in Ghana. I saw the Freethought Ghana Facebook page and liked it. Later I was contacted by Graham night asking me where I was, whether I was irreligious or not. I told him I was in Tamale, irreligious and in school and that I’d be in Accra during recess. He was eager to meet and the feeling was mutual on my end. I was excited when I attended the first meeting. For the first time in my life, I was in the company of people who shared my world view and I didn’t feel Isolated anymore. We become friends and have been till date. We met regularly every month where we had great discussions on varied topics, from social issues to the political, scientific matters and philosophy. On one such meeting, Graham Knight brought up the possibility of forming a Humanist group in Ghana since our worldview was without doubt humanist in nature. We went along with it, agreed and the Humanist Association was founded.
Jacobsen: Why did you become a humanist?
Atambire: Humanist principles have guided my life for as long as I can remember though I hadn’t put a label on it. Irreligiosity in itself was not enough of a foundation to live one’s life, for that something in addition was needed. This prior thinking ensured that when the suggestion came that we form a Humanist Association, there was no reason to object, this is what I already felt but now I had a label; Humanism.
Jacobsen: What is its more appealing set of values?
Atambire: To pick what would be its most appealing value to me is frankly hard to do but I would attempt to mention a few if pushed to single them out. The need for empathy is very important to me. It is so because using critical thinking without empathy to keep rational thought in check can be dangerous. I say this because of my scientific background. As a scientist, that keeps me check in whatever I do. Reason or rational and critical enquiry might make us things like Nuclear weapons but it takes empathy to make sure we don’t go over the edge with such knowledge.
Jacobsen: What is the state of religion in Ghana at the moment?
Atambire: Religion literally is the Life of Ghanaians. You cannot describe Ghanaian society without religion and one cannot understand Ghanaians without understand religion. Christianity being the dominant religion followed by Islam and Traditional African Religion. It is not uncommon to have a blend between Christianity and Traditional religions and same goes for Islam. It is taken for granted how religious fluidity is In Ghana. An individual who professes to be Christian might be at a Traditional African Religion shrine on Saturday and on Sunday be in Church too. This fluidity has created an atmosphere where Religious tolerance in Ghana is quite high and this has helped to foster peace between the various faiths. However, this tolerance is not extended towards those who don’t profess any religion. A family would tolerate a child converting from Christianity to Islam but if that child professes irreligion, he/she could be cut off from the family, psychologically and socially. This tolerance for other faiths is not without problems though. Given the pervasiveness of religion, even problems that can be explained materially are given spiritual connotations. If there’s erratic rainfall, people are asked to pray for rain. If the economy is doing poorly, it is blamed on mystical dwarfs. The critical thinking minds of children are stunted in school by teachers who prefer to teach superstitious answers over scientific ones. The churches are very powerful and they use that power to influence policy decisions and social attitudes.
Jacobsen: How do you work as a team to move the humanist movement forward?
Atambire: The structure of the Humanist group is very interesting, we do have elected leaders alright but in practice it is a non-hierarchical organization. Decisions are taken by the whole group and acted upon by all. Since we are a volunteer organization, we depend entirely on our members volunteering their time, energy and resources to get our activities going.
Jacobsen: Who have been the better allies in working for irreligion in Ghana?
Atambire: Our situation here has ensured that we tackle irreligion in a strategic manner. We have affiliated groups like Common sense Ghana who actively deal with irreligion but ironically, some of our partners have been quasi-religious bodies. We do promote critical thinking and the need for ethical living, knowing that their acceptance and application would ultimately loosen the grip of religion on people. Our activism on human rights issues for minorities like the LGBTIQ communities tackles religious dogma indirectly. We tackle religion directly a few times but much of our work circumvent the antagonism that come with challenging religion publicly by using subtle measures.
Jacobsen: Who are the major threats to the free practice of and belief in humanism in Ghana?
Atambire: The biggest stumbling block to the practice of Humanism in Ghana is clearly organized religion. One loses opportunities if they make known their irreligious position. Humanists face contempt at workplace, at school and in the home with their families. The constitution does allow for freedom of association but professing a different worldview yields and strong and serious backlash such that many wouldn’t dare make their position public.
Jacobsen: What do you consider the best means by which to move humanism forward? In fact, what are some more subtle, but long-term, ways to do so too?
Atambire: Engaging the public less antagonistically by virtue of our critical thinking programs. If we open people’s minds to others ways of living and demonstrate it in our lives as humanists that one can live a happy ethical life without the need to appeal to superstition or a deity then others would learn from us and become humanists. By actively engaging with religious people to carry out social programs and activism, we are showing that Humanism is positive life stance.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Atambire: I wish everyone were a Humanist but that seems too much a dream to be realized in my lifetime but I do believe there’s a possibility that the future might offer this. Until such a day comes, by nice, be kind and be empathetic.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Agomo.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/12
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why is the Secular Student Alliance important for the advancement of secular values in campus life?
Kevin Bolling: I do think it is definitely important. August Brunsman was executive director for the last 16 years. The staff has done a great job in building the organization to where it is, so that it has that dominance and precedence. So with chapters across the country, for the secular movement, it is interesting.
The students that are coming in: one, it is finding a place for them to get involved in the secular movement. For a good number of people, this may be the first place where they had that direct involvement.
Hopefully, they’re developing leadership skills to be able to continue on with the movement. For being involved, my first event as the executive director, where the SSA was the Secular Coalition of America in their lobby days.
It was a real chance for me to meet many different people in the other organizations within the secular movement. Clearly, the SSA was the only student organization there. But with almost every organization I met, there was an SSA alum who was currently working in one of those organizations.
So for the rest of the organizations in the secular movement, we are providing some of those future leaders, but I also think we’re the second movement as a whole. We’re providing an experience where those students can develop leadership skills, where they become, my term, “activists” within the secular movement.
Then they can move on and become the future leaders of the secular movement and the future leaders of the country. If we can help instill some of those values and skills to help that be as successful as possible, that’s a great place for us to be.
Jacobsen: Taking one step back, you were the executive director for the California Thoroughbred Horseman’s Foundation. What was it? How did it help, looking back, with your current position?
Bolling: The California Thoroughbred Horseman’s Foundation, it is niche; it is a nonprofit in the thoroughbred horse racing industry. There are multiple nonprofits in that industry. So, it looks specifically at riding primarily medical and dental — so healthcare, some social services.
But for the backstretch workers, the individuals who were training and taking care of the horses; throughout there was thoroughbred racing in the state of California. So in California there are two, there is a northern and southern cycle, which run concurrently with each other.
So in northern and southern California, we were operating all year around depending on what race tracks or county fairs or training centers were in operation at the time. So first, there is the practical experience of working with a nonprofit and being an executive director, for 10 years.
It was a changing landscape because of the changes within the racing industry. So it is looking at what service we’re providing, how we provide the services, and the provider of those services. Then it is matching those with the needs of the community that we’re serving as the budgeting concerns of the organization.
So, lots of practical experience of running a nonprofit in California, which will clearly be important in this position with a large social mission. So, we were providing health care, which I know is extremely important.
You can call it a right, if you will, within our society. For largely low socioeconomic and largely immigrant Latino population, for many of the people who were our clients, this was one of the only ways that they were going to be able to get affordable healthcare, even in the state of California which is fairly progressive on its views on healthcare.
Also, we were saving the state a tremendous amount of money because we were doing a lot of preventative healthcare in commute. We were keeping people. There was 5,000 licensed workers as other family members were taken care of on an annual basis.
We were treating them as far as their primary care, such as preventative care, and also keeping them out of emergency rooms. Those are things which are one of the most expensive ways for the state and the taxpayers to pick up the bill.
We were also, of course, at that time at the racing industry, which is a tremendous moneymaker for the state. So, while that’s a monetary focus, there is a real reality there as what we were doing to save the taxpayer’s money too.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/10
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find the Secular Student Alliance?
Kevin Bolling: I was called by a recruiter. So one, I had worked with them before. Joe called me or sent me an email and said, “Hey, I have a job you might be interested in. Take a look at it.” That started it off.
So, I worked in college. I was involved in student activities. I was on the program board. I was an orientation leader for summers. I was an RA in housing. So I did a lot. I did a lot of student activities, student affairs stuff in college.
Then when I realized that I could do this as a job. I thought that it was fun. So, I went to grad school at the University of South Carolina. My masters desgree is in education in student personnel services; so, specifically to work in colleges and universities where student activities, student organizations, student leadership, I worked in higher education for 15 years. I absolutely loved it.
College is a pivotal time where human developments take place during that time for students, working with students is fantastic. Part of that is a gift. The chance to be able to work with college students again was clearly an interest of mine.
Going back to one of my passions, something that I truly enjoy. Then a mission of the organization is to provide an open and welcoming place for secular students to be able to be themselves, find a community, and then put their values into action to make the world a better place, especially nowadays looking at our political situation.
What I call the “blurred line” between religion and politics, that strong, white, far-right influence into our society right now. For many students, it is a great place for them to have a conversation about religion and to figure out where they may be if they’re having questions about that.
So, our conversation could be that they decide religion is enjoyable and right for them while others may decide that it is not. I believe that SSA has provided that ground, where people can have that dialogue and other areas, may not be safe places to do that.
Jacobsen: Now, you are the executive director of the Secular Student Alliance. Arguably, it is one of the biggest if not the biggest secular student organization. So, what tasks and responsibilities come with the position?
Bolling: You’re asking big questions. Yes, I have been the executive director in nonprofit management for about 20 years. So, I have had a lot of experience with nonprofits. Being in a nonprofit world has always been important to me, it is important to me that what I do and what I work every day makes a difference in someone else’s life.
I have a professional past, but that’s the one condition of every job I have taken. I was in the corporate world for three months and decided that was enough for me. It wasn’t that feel good when you went home; that you did something good.
But for SSA, being the executive director of this organization is different than any other; so, the tasks and responsibilities are clearly administrative and board related. Those are two things. But the heart of this organization is the mission and programmatic value of working with the various student organizations across the country and making sure they have the resources and support.
That they’re making the jewel that impacts on their own campuses. So for SSA, depending what region you’re in the United States, those are going to be different things that the organization needs and their different impacts on the campuses.
So, our organization needs to be supportive and agile enough to be able to work with different student organizations is important.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/08
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You co-directed the documentary film Losing Our Religion. How did this become an idea?
Leslea Mair: Sheer curiosity! I’ve always been interested in the idea of religious belief, and happened across a blog post about Dan Dennett and Linda LaScola’s study. I just found it fascinating.
To go from being a very dedicated believer — to be in ministry you have to be really committed! — and then to stop believing sounded like such a difficult journey. When the follow-up study came out and The Clergy Project formed, it became even more interesting to me as a filmmaker. There was a sizable group of these people. It felt like a story that needed to be told.
Jacobsen: How were Professor Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola crucial to its foundation and direction?
Mair: First of all, there wouldn’t have been anything to base a film on if it weren’t for Linda’s interest in clergy and Dan’s idea that a formal study should be done. The original study wouldn’t have been done at all without those two factors coming together and that was the foundation for the film.
By the time I came on the scene, their work had given rise to an organized group. Linda was the first person I had contact with from The Clergy Project. She and Dan being involved in the film was essential and my first round of shooting included interviews with both of them.
They were my entry point, both idea-wise and in a very practical sense. Linda also facilitated my contact with Clergy Project members, so she took on the role of guide through the issue both on and off screen. I couldn’t have made the film without her.
Jacobsen: Who were some stars in the film, who represent the non-religious leader movement in North America?
Mair: We were really fortunate to have some very high-profile people in the film! Richard Dawkins very generously gave us some time out of his very busy schedule — he’s not North American, but he is one of the secular movement pioneers internationally.
That’s not why we interviewed him, though — he fit into the story we were telling. He was instrumental in the founding of The Clergy Project and without his foundation’s funding, we wouldn’t have had much to tell! Dan Dennett was also very generous with the time he gave us.
Dan Barker, one more important figure in the formation and continuing life of The Clergy Project, was a terrific interview. He’s doing such important work with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, too, around the seperation of church and state.
Bart Campolo has been a real groundbreaker in the secular movement, and his experience as a former pastor and where he’s taking his secular “ministry” was such a great fit for the film.
Jerry De Witt has done a lot of speaking and was one of the very early people to “come out atheist” after joining The Clergy Project. He was actually one of the founding members.
Gretta Vosper has had a lot of media attention as well, and her work within the United Church to accept non-believers has ruffled some feathers. Again, she’s part of The Clergy Project. Catherine Dunphy has done quite a few speaking engagements on the subject as well.
And of course, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, founders of the Sunday Assembly movement are stars in their own right. They’re both gifted performers and what they’ve created is such a hopeful, uplifting and totally fun experience. Beyond the fun, though, they’ve fostered a growing community. And they’re lovely people.
The real stars of the show, though, were Brendan and Jenn Murphy. I am still blown away at how willing they were to be open with us, let us come into their lives and work through something so personal in front of the camera.
Jacobsen: If you reflect on the losses, what do those who stop believing who intend to leave ministry bet on losing in that act? I ask this because some may think this is in some way a publicity stunt or a way to simply gain in some way over and above the losses.
Mair: I haven’t spoken to a single person who’s found themselves in the position of being non-believing clergy who didn’t deal with a great deal of hardship over it.
The first thing is reconciling the loss of belief with yourself. These are people who took their beliefs seriously and who really felt an attachment to their god. It’s something that really defines who they are.
The loss of that relationship is really tough. People finding out is tough, too. Your relationships with friends, family and congregation are damaged, sometimes irreparably. So not only are you trying to figure out who you are without that belief system, you’re losing the moral and emotional support you’d normally seek from your tribe.
And then there’s the economic side of things. Changing your career is risky and having to make a change quickly and be able to continue to support your family can be incredibly stressful. I don’t know of anyone who didn’t deal with financial hardship leaving the ministry, especially in the short term.
The net gain, though, is on the emotional level. That comes with time.
Jacobsen: Who notably kept their ministry and church, e.g. Minister Gretta Vosper?
Mair: The two people who managed to stay in the ministry are Gretta Vosper with the United Church of Canada and John Shuck, a Presbyterian minister in the US. They both belong to very liberal churches, and they’ve managed to balance questioning, faith and community in a way that is just amazing. It also says a lot about the congregations they’re pastoring.
Jacobsen: What books can people look into for more information on the non-religious community who have leaders that left pastoral roles based on a change of faith into non-faith?
Mair: When you’re dealing with people who’ve had a career in ministry, you’re dealing with communicators! So many people involved with The Clergy Project have written books!
Jerry De Witt wrote “Hope After Faith”. Catherine Dunphy wrote “Apostle to Apostate” (and she let me come shoot video at her book launch party). Another Clergy Project member, Bob Ripley — who was interviewed but didn’t make it into the film — wrote “Life Beyond Belief”.
And Bart Campolo, who isn’t a Clergy Project member, but has had that same path, wrote “Why I Left, Why I Stayed” with his father, evangelical minister Tony Campolo. I recommend them all!
Jacobsen: How have the public reacted to the film with some time for the narratives to sink in more?
Mair: The public reaction that I’ve gotten has been very positive. Anyone who has had anything negative to say hasn’t bothered to reach out to me. I think, though, that the message of the film isn’t something that’s easy to call out. Who can argue with the idea that people need community? Or that being kind, whatever you believe, is a good idea?
Jacobsen: What are your next projects? How people help out?
Mair: My partner, Leif Kaldor, and I make films about a wide variety of subjects. We have a particular passion for science documentaries, and we’re working on a film about environment and health right now.
We also have a few things we’re working on that aren’t ready for discussion yet. I’d love to do more projects on the secular movement, but haven’t had just the right one come along yet. Always open to new ideas!
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Mair: I can’t think of anything!
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Leslea.
Mair: Thanks so much for talking with me!
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/05
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are some effective ways, means of communication to make calls for both pluralism and secularism within Islamic documented history, e.g. calls for pluralism and secularism within Islamic documented history, relationships with one another, more flexible gender roles, and so on?
Shaykh Uthman Khan: Dialogue, understanding one another, listening to each other. One should listen with the intention to understand and not with the intention to reply.
When you’re talking pluralism, there needs to be inter-religious dialogue and intra-religious dialogue. The big mess that we’re in right now is that we don’t have dialogue rather have more debates and this is also within Islamic scholarship.
The best example is how many people disassociate with others because they aren’t from the same group or sect. For example someone studied from one particular methodology or school of thought while another person studied from a different methodology, school of thought, or even institution, in realities both are islamic scholars or at the least educated but many from one side will choose not to associate with the other because they are not from the same group.
There is too much inter-religion and also intra-religion sectarianism. It’s a big problem. The only way to overcome it is to come to a common understanding or a common ground.
Religion aside, I have friends who are Christians and Jews. When I’m talking to them, I don’t talk theology with them. The theological conversation eventually starts trickling in if I need to talk theology, but we’ll talk about something that we both agree on and that is only if the conversation was meant to be theological or religious.
For example the stories of the prophets or ethics or human rights etc. If it’s not a religious topic, we’ll talk about all kinds of stuff: family and kids, sports, weather etc.
However I find many Muslims have segregated themselves from others, or from anyone who is not a Muslim. Anyone non muslims is many times considered “other”.
That approach is promoted in many muslim household and is perhaps born out of culture. When culture dictates a religion then these biases are bound to be imported in. The best approach it “I am a person and you are a person. We may have differences but that is okay!
But within Muslims, I find that a huge problem is that many muslims tend to segregate themselves from everyone who is not a Muslim. It’s a very sectarian mentality. That is why the slurs of Kafir fly around so much in certain groups. Kafir means a non-Muslim. its a word that reflects another person being inferior.
Sometimes considering someone a Kafir is simply because a person doesn’t like the way another is doing things. “I don’t agree with the way you understand this theory. I’m questioning the legitimacy behind this particular prophetic narration.” etc.
Based on this problem we can never achieve pluralism. We can never get everyone on the same page if we’re going to consider everyone that’s not us as “other”. If we want pluralism then we will need to be more inclusive and less restrictive.
This is the result of indoctrination from a very young age. Sure Islam and the books of Hadith tell a person how to live and instruct Muslims how to do the smallest things, however when such acts reflect a persons to consider others inferior then it becomes a problem of ethics. And ethics play a huge role in religion.
Many muslims focus on the details of these rules and forget about the ethics. The question theologians need to answer is can a person be considered a Muslim but lacks ethics? What defines a Muslim?
What separates Islam from other religions is the beliefs and rituals and from beliefs i’m referring to belief in one God, in the Prophet Muhammad, and Holy Books, the Angels, the Day of Judgement. that’s what makes you a Muslim. And these are very similar in other religions as well.
Then a Muslim’s rituals such as praying 5 times a day, fasting in the month of Ramadan, giving charity. However the common point in all religions is ethics, and they are universal. So not backbiting or slandering someone or harming others, and being ethically good, is not necessarily doing something only considered good in Islam, but also doing something good in all religions and the world at large. Looking at these ethics is what will bring everyone together on the same page.
When, in dialogue, a conversation starts with ethics then people are more willing to continue the conversation into other religion specific points.
The religion of Islam is simple. It’s your beliefs and rituals. I pray five times a day. That’s my ritual. The ethics are universal in all religions.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/05
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, with respect to a skeptical outlook on the world, this is a groundwork. Why is it important in functioning in adult life?
Bruce Gleason: I think everybody wonders at one point in their lives “what is the purpose of life?” and “how can I make this life better for me as well as everybody else?”. I believe that everybody has altruism and narcissism built in them.
There is a balance between the two. What can I do to help others? But I also, need have my own security, security for my own family, and my own position in life. So, the idea of skepticism is to find out what is true, why we behave as we do, and why do we think the way we do.
Why do people do the things they do? This obviously comes from what they think and how they think the world should be. So, the skeptical outlook on life is part life examination and part curiosity.
One thing that you’ll find almost all scientific skeptics saying is that they could be wrong about anything, even of the things that they strongly believe are true now. The reason skeptics do this is because once we find scientific evidence to prove that this one issue that you might be concerned about is more likely true, like climate change for instance; skeptics believe that new evidence may come up in the future to prove that those particular truths are offset by new evidence.
We accept a new evidence as long as it’s stronger than the evidence that we currently believe. Of course, with climate change, that’s not going to happen. Obviously the climate will change for the worse during next few centuries, but suppose that it starts getting better for some new reason. That would offset beliefs that we have right now. That’s an example of a provisional, or temporary truth — meaning we only believe things that are true are based on the current evidence.
We can’t tell what is going to be coming up in the future, but if different evidence does come up that’s stronger than the evidence we have, as scientific skeptics, no matter how much our confirmation bias says that can’t be true, we have to accept it’s true if it has stronger evidence than the evidence than we had before.
Jacobsen: We have evolved brains and they have crummy aspects to them and then some of those include a long list of cognitive biases. What are some of the more prominent ones that come into play in the belief of pseudo-scientific claims for example?
Bruce: That’s a great question. I’m starting to formulate a pretty good theory on confirmation bias and it has to deal with environment. It has to deal with selection pressures, especially when you’re younger.
So, my current theory of confirmation bias is that if you start leaning in one direction for any particular issue that you’re more likely to listen to media reports, friends, or associations that confirm your confirmation bias, even if it’s a little bit, then you start building up a stronger and stronger confirmation bias over time. So, it becomes more and more difficult for you to change your mind even if there’s more science or more proof that comes along. The major mantra of scientific skeptics is we could be wrong, so automatically we they and examine our own bias to make sure if follow the evidence.
Let’s take climate change for instance again. There are 1752 climate scientists in the world right now, this is excluding other scientists who are not related directly to climate change. You might be an oceanographer, for instance, but not an actual climatologist. 1752 climate scientists; all of them believe that there is climate change going on and 98% of them believe that it is man-made and the other two percent believe it’s happening but would like more evidence that it’s man made..
The point I’m trying to make is that if you have a confirmation bias that climate change is real, and you have the support of 98% of the people who spend their entire lives working on this problem and working on this issue the chances of you being wrong are much less than someone who reject the consensus of a particular scientific field. So, that is a huge boost in our confidence level that we are on the correct path. There’s another side note there. And that is for those people who don’t believe in the science, let’s take GMOs, for instance.
Do you think Big Pharma has been paying off all of these scientists? First of all, you have to ask, “What are the chances that Big Pharma is paying off every single scientist in favor of producing GMOs?” You have to admit that is much less likely.
If there was evidence of Big Pharma paying off every single scientist and your reject the consensus, what is left? If science is wrong what is left to determine the truth? What is left is to believe in hearsay. What is left is people barking their own opinion on a particular issue with no science fact to back them up. You’re left with nothing solid because once you go down that rabbit hole of conspiracy theories (that all scientists were in on it), then you’ll lose the ability to tell what is true.
Right now, science is the best thing we have until something else comes along. What are the chances of the majority of scientists in any particular field of study are going to be wrong?
Her’s another example. Let’s take paleontology over the past 80 years. A vast majority of paleontologists agree that all the things that have been discovered through paleontology are true. Almost all of the public believe the facts the paleontologists say are true based on the evidence presented Who are we to challenge any of these scientists? We’d have to be a paleontologist to have a professional opinion. GMO food is bad for you, climate change is not man-made, vaccines cause autism, all of the ‘woo’ that is going around amount to ridiculous non-scientific claims. Who are we to challenge these experts who spend their entire lives working on a small slice of knowledge? They study their profession and come up with a conclusion based on evidence.
Jacobsen: What are some resources the Nones can look into to provide a buffer against or protection from pseudo-scientific claims that abound throughout their lives?
Bruce: I think the number one resource is Snopes. Snopes covers not only non-scientific claims, but also political claims as well. So, Snopes is unique, www.snopes.com. It’s unique because if they find out the source of a rumor or a false claim and then they look at the progression of that false claim over time. You can see the development of it. If there’s a false claim that people pick it up, or that Fox News picks it up, and then the president picks it up; you can see the progression of that false claim as it goes through its motions.
Another good resource is almost any skeptical website that is science-based. One of the best podcasts is Skeptical Guide to the Universe or SGU. The hosts of SGU might come back and say, “There’s new evidence and we were wrong about this,” but almost all the time since their entire podcast was based on evidence they are spot on of the different issues at hand: homeopathy, chiropractory, healing Touch therapy, or GMOs. So happens, one of the co-hosts will be at our conference at LogiCal-LA.com
There’s a slew, probably hundreds of different medical procedures and untrue-based claims that are out there. Richard Saunders runs a website from Australia called www.whatstheharm.net . This is another interesting website that will explain what the harm is if someone does not trust science-based medicine.
An example on non-science based medicine is cupping. Cupping is what athletes do to improve their ability to perform. Is there science is behind cupping? Or chiropractors, homeopathy, or naturopathy? All of these procedures have no scientific proof that they work better than a placebo. You might say — so what? No harm can come of this. But there is harm, especially if you have a disease that you don’t know about and you go to any of these non-science professions for two months, and your condition has not improved, you could have a much worst advanced case of your disease. You could have gone to a Western medicine doctor that provides real medicine and find out that, “Oh, we need a blood test right away.” Now, you haven’t wasted the time to go from stage 1 cancer to stage 2 cancer. Now, you KNOW you’re at stage 1 and you can start fighting it right away. If you make the former decision you have just wasted time while doing all of these other unproven and non-scientific procedures and escalated your disease into the next stage.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity, Bruce.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/02/02
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find SMART Recovery?
Steve Bergier: Okay, well, I first started in recovery in 1990. I am an old guy. At that time, only 12-step groups were available. I went to them for many years. Eventually, I stopped going. I restarted going again in 2011. I became increasingly dissatisfied with 12-step. I started looking online for alternatives and things. I found SMART there at that time.
There was one meeting. I went every week. I decided that rather than complaining about 12-step that I should become a facilitator and start facilitating my own meeting. That’s what happened.
Jacobsen: What has been one of your more emotionally moving experiences as a facilitator?
Bergier: That is a good question. I started it more for negative reasons because I liked it. I eventually came to have a great respect for the cognitive behavioral principles. I think the most moving thing was to see some people come in and they would connect with the program and come back week after week.
They would stay clean and sober. That was satisfying for me.
Jacobsen: What is one of the more dramatic turnarounds from addiction to recovery that you have seen in your time?
Bergier: There was one person coming in right out of rehab. They would have 30 days clean. This was a person who was literally homeless and living under a bridge and addicted to heroin. He was kicked out of their home by their family as a young person. Somehow, by meeting us, they became clean. It was a dramatic turnaround in a person’s life.
Jacobsen: Regarding the principles, SMART Recovery adheres to and practices, what is the most crucial principle?
Bergier: I think the most crucial is seeing recovery as their own responsibility. That recovery is a process of taking charge of your life.
Jacobsen: Is there any restriction on people who feel the need for the belief in a higher power when going into SMART Recovery
Bergier: No, now, the meetings tend to be pretty secular. I would say half the attendees are agnostic, secular, nones. That sort of thing. The others are religious. But then there are those who are religious do not like the 12-step model. There are many people who go to SMART who also go to 12-step meetings.
Jacobsen: What are some of the bigger reasons people attend SMART recovery and continue to attend in the long term?
Bergier: I would say the number one thing that I hear is that the 12-step model didn’t work for them for whatever reasons, whether they are secular or religious people. It didn’t seem to help them. The bottom line is that at least in our area. For every SMART meeting, there are 300 12-step meetings. We are the small kids on the block.
It is easier to go to 12-step. There are more meetings. Many people will drive farther and search out the SMART meetings. I think the number one reason is they don’t like the 12-step model. Many people go to both. They will go to 12-step for whatever reasons, to connect with other sober people. That is a real important part of recovery.
12-step has so many more meetings around.
Jacobsen: If people want to donate and help, how can people help out, especially with the massive difference in SMART to 12-step services?
Bergier: You can go to SMARTrecovery.org. If you are willing to donate some time to go the website and take their facilitator training, then you look to starting a meeting yourself. Of course, that takes more of a commitment. The best way to increase the number of meetings is to volunteer your time.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Bergier: The subtitle of SMART is: choice. We need to give people more choices in recovery. But, you know, the enemy addiction and not one program versus another. The more choices that we have the better.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Steve.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/29
I doubt this is comprehensive, nor is it representative of the positives of the church either; it is reportage on the reports from the news. I didn’t see a compendium, so decided to write one. Part 1 and 2.
Former St. George Greek Orthodox Church treasurer Constantine D. Christodoulou sought bankruptcy protection after stealing $415,950 from the church coffers, only becoming caught by the public. He wants, as of October, 2017, protection from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Knoxville.
The church forgave him, apparently, but the state prosecuted him (Satterfield, 2017). His wife filed for bankruptcy too. Not the only case of this in North America, there exists the “Greek church civil war now raging in Toronto,” Canada, with the ‘stealing of donations for a sick baby, the appointment of known sex abusers and skimming money earmarked for the poor…’ (Mandel, 2017).
A baby, Alexander Karanikas, needed $100,000 for a trip hope for lifesaving heart surgery at Sick Kids. The laity, the ordinary Greek-Canadian community — as per usual with the community being beneficent, fair, and just — raised thousands of dollars “after the fundraiser was announced by the archbishop (“the Metropolitan”) of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto (Canada),” but most of the money never went to the family.
Only $1,450 of the $50,000 raised went to the family. In alignment with this ‘mismanagement,’ the archbishop Sotirios Athanassoulas, church women’s auxiliary, four priests, and the Father Philip Philippou misappropriated funds intended for the “sick, homeless and poor” (Ibid.). Known sex abusers, according to the lawsuit listed in the article, were installed with the Greek Community of Toronto (GCT).
Demetre Tsevlikoes was placed at St. Irene Chrisovalantou. He was a known sexual predator and pedophile. Mandel said, “The lawsuit contends the Metropolis installed known sex abusers in GCT former Bishop Georgije Djokic was invited by the Metropolitan to conduct mass in 2016 yet was defrocked for ‘allegations of indecent sexual behaviour.’”
This lawsuit also alleged that the Metropolis and priests used hundreds of thousands of dollars that the GCT fundraised, monies gathered through tithing in a collection plate in the pews. The finances were intended for the “disabled, widowed and orphaned, Sunday schools, food banks and physical upkeep of the churches,” and were used “unlawfully.”
Verbal abuse and physical assault were common with the GCT. Allegedly, Father Vitouladitis was the pepetrator, often against the Women’s Auxiliary at St. Irene Chrisovalantou Greek Orthodox church.
The lawsuit directly claims, “The Metropolitan, the Metropolis, the priests and the Women’s Auxiliary were at all times aided and abetted in the fraud by each other, their respective family members, the other Defendants and persons unknown” (Ibid.).
The Russian Orthodox Church merged its purposes in service of an ex-KGB autocrat in charge of an oligarchic elite — and they shall not be questioned, as noted by Human Rights Watch’s Yulia Gorbunova and Anastasia Ovsyannikova in November 18 of 2016.
A criminal investigation was set against local residents in Moscow because of “insulting religious feelings” (Gorbunova & Ovsyannikova, 2016). Activists took to Torfyanka park as well. How did this begin in Moscow’s Torfyanka park?
They state, “The story starts in 2013, when the Russian Orthodox Church got approval to build a church in Moscow’s Torfyanka park and quickly built a temporary shed and installed a large cross. Soon, the church was running weekly, open-air Sunday services.”
The church members asserted the park visitors created noise and children playing interrupted with the prayer. The religious and environmental activists clashed. People held signs in protests. Come 2015, the local authorities compromised with a plot set outside the park to have the church built there.
The church did not want to leave the park. Things got tense. The Russian Orthodox Church, in the service of the ruling elites, have a reciprocal relationship with the Putin regime. In that light, “Early the morning of Monday, November 14, (2015) masked and armed riot police units came to the activists’ homes.” Gorbunova and Ovsyannikova said, “Police smashed the door of one apartment and cut through the lock of another’s front door. One activist said at least 15 armed policemen came to arrest him. They threw him on the floor, handcuffed him in front of his children, and took him away.”
The pro-Kremlin television referred to the activists as “members of a cell,” “neo-pagans” in the possession of “ammunition and psychotropic drugs.” The Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill called the protesters “pagans” and “cultists.” Same term in one and similar tone overall — religion and government aligned in investment in oppression of the public, assaults on laity freedom.
The criminal case that the activists had to answer questions about in a police station were about “insulting religious feelings,” whereupon the police confiscated computers and phones from the activists’ apartments. As noted by the Human Rights Watch writers (2016):
The ties between the Russian state and the orthodox church run deep. The government extensively relies on the Church for endorsement and support, and the Church receives the government’s generous financial backing. The disturbing lack of separation between the two has led to public criticism, corruption allegations, and protests. In 2013, following the infamous Pussy Riot trial, which ended with band members’ conviction for “hooliganism,” the Russian parliament pushed through a law making it a crime to offend someone’s religious feelings.
So it goes.
References
Gorbunova, Y. & Ovsyannikova, A. (2016, November 18). In Russia, Thou Shalt not Disagree With the Orthodox Church. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/18/russia-thou-shalt-not-disagree-orthodox-church.
Mandel, M. (2017, December 14). MANDEL: Greek Community of Toronto lawsuit claims unholy pilfering by Greek Orthodox church. Retrieved from http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/mandel-greek-community-of-toronto-lawsuit-claims-unholy-pilfering-by-greek-orthodoxchurch.
Satterfield, J. (2017, October 19). Greek church treasurer who stole $415K has filed for bankruptcy. Retrieved from https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2017/10/19/church-treasurer-who-stole-415-k-has-filed-backruptcy/776458001/.
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/28
“After years in darkness, a NASA satellite is phoning home.
Some 12 years since it was thought lost because of a systems failure, NASA’s Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) has been discovered, still broadcasting, by an amateur astronomer. The find, which he reported in a blog post this week, presents the possibility that NASA could revive the mission, which once provided unparalleled views of Earth’s magnetosphere.
The astronomer, Scott Tilley, spends his free time following the radio signals from spy satellites. On this occasion, he was searching in high-Earth orbit for evidence of Zuma, a classified U.S. satellite that’s believed to have failed after launch. But rather than discovering Zuma, Tilley picked up a signal from a satellite labeled “2000–017A,” which he knew corresponded to NASA’s IMAGE satellite. Launched in 2000 and then left for dead in December 2005, the $150 million mission was back broadcasting. It just needed someone to listen.”
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/amateur-astronomer-discovers-revived-nasa-satellite.
“It’s been 200 years since Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein created a creature in an experiment so gruesome it immediately became the stuff of horror legend.
But Shelley’s tale is more than a scary fable. Thanks to a new interactive online experience, it’s also a way to teach kids about science.
Frankenstein200 is a multimedia project designed by researchers at Arizona State University and funded through a grant by the National Science Foundation. It uses Shelley’s tale of scientific hubris to get children thinking about such things as robotics, bioengineering and why humans create.”
“BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) — China has gained its say on the international stage in science and technology in 2017, said an official of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST).
Wan Gang, president of the association, made the remarks at a session of CAST Friday, highlighting Chinese scientists who took top posts at major international organizations last year.
For instance, Gong Ke, head of Nankai University and an expert in electronic engineering, was elected president of the Paris-based World Federation of Engineering Organization, the largest international organization on engineering, becoming the first Chinese scientist to serve as president of the organization.”
Source: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136931776.htm.
“Recently, Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, urged scientists to share their problem-solving innovations with the public in more accessible ways, including by using vernacular languages. This kind of openness and accessibility is important and needed. While most scientists publish their work in academic journals, only 10 people, on average, read a given article in its entirety; so clearly, the general public is not being reached that way.
Translating complicated concepts that are jargon-heavy into terms and ideas the public can understand is not always easy. But, increasingly, scientists, university and research institutions, government institutions and others are trying to find ways to do it. Professional societies like the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Entomological Society of America offer a wide array of tools and programs like science communication courses and science policy fellowships to help scientists with dissemination. The National Academy of Sciences even recently released a report, “Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda,” to help scientists effectively communicate their research. An example of an international effort is the Imagine Project initiative, through which scientists take their research out of the laboratory and share it with rural and indigenous communities in Africa and Latin America.”
“ A convergence of events this week caused me to think about perspectives on science in the United States. While preparing to deliver the Founders Week lecture at the University of Georgia, I was reminded that 1 in 4 Americans still think the Sun revolves around the Earth. A day later a well-meaning adult learned that I was a meteorologist. The person immediately stated that we really do not know how to forecast the weather and just guess. I hear this statement enough that it is clear that most people have no idea that complex mathematic equations describing fluid flow are solved on computer models to make forecasts. At that moment, I began to ponder the well-known lag in U.S. science literacy. I decided to query my friends via social media. They represent a melting pot of socio-economic, cultural, racial, religious, and economic backgrounds. I deliberately sought a Main Street America perspective rather than the “ivory tower” literature. Here is what I distilled.”
“In 2008, Andrew Dolejsi died from injuries sustained in a car accident just days before he was going to turn 27.
Driving four friends home, Dolejsi died when the vehicle went off the road in icy conditions. His family would bury him on his birthday. Turning tragedy into something positive to help others, Andrew’s parents Eva and Ladislav began hosting an annual fundraiser every January as a means of coping with their loss.
At first, a modest gathering of friends and family at the Shark Club, the celebration quickly outgrew the social confines of the downtown bar and lounge. Five years later the couple moved the event to larger venues, eventually settling into a dinner and auction format at a hotel ballr”
“But in her latest book, the Belgian philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers defends the right of scientists to be political, by which she simply means the requirement to be relevant. And as part of this, she argues a need for “slow science”.
Found in translation
I was recently tasked with translating her book, Une autre science est possible!, originally published in French in 2013. It’s now available in English as Another Science is Possible: A Manifesto for Slow Science.
In her book, Stengers says that in order for the work of scientists to be relevant, they have to negotiate with a broader public and respect their questions. Things like: Why are you doing this work? What will it be used for?
The public might have to be prepared to wait for an answer, because the scientists are “still working on it”. But we have the right to be included in the conversation, she argues, as an “intelligent public”.”
Source: http://theconversation.com/how-slow-science-can-improve-the-way-we-do-and-interpret-research-90168.
“The upside of the sustained cold snap that hit Toronto earlier this winter was that the parkland alongside the Humber River, just a block from where I live, became skiable. The first time I hobbled down the hill in my cross-country boots, balancing my skis and poles on my shoulder, I felt like an intrepid explorer — until I saw the network of tracks already carved into the snow.
As a spectator sport, cross-country skiing is preparing for its quadrennial moment in the spotlight, with a strong team led by medal contender Alex Harvey of Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, Que., heading to Pyeongchang for the Winter Olympics. But the steady stream of urban skiers I’ve encountered in the last few months offer a reminder that the sport also has broad grassroots appeal — for very good reason, as these recent research findings show.
Skiers live longer
In the 1980s, Finnish researchers started following more than 2,000 men in and around the town of Kuopio, looking for factors that would predict longevity. One of the baseline questions they asked each subject was how much he skied.”
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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/28
“These days, a popular joke making the rounds in India is that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) loves Muslim women, but not Muslim men.
The joke makes fun of BJP’s attempts to portray its rightwing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a crusader against religious orthodoxy, seeking to liberate Muslim women from the clutches of patriarchy.
The BJP started crafting this narrative in August last year, after India’s Supreme Court banned “triple talaq”, or instant divorce, practised by some in the Muslim community. Four months after the Supreme Court decision, India’s BJP-controlled lower house of parliament passed a bill that seeks to criminalise the practice. If the bill is voted into law, men found guilty of divorcing their wives through “triple talaq” could face jail time of up to three years.”
“SUDBURY — Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing MP Carol Hughes joined the Women’s March in Sudbury on Saturday to add her voice to those calling for a world where women are equal in every way.
Ms. Hughes noted that the Women’s March has taken on international significance since the first one was held in Washington, D.C. last year in response to allegations of sexual misconduct aimed at US President Donald Trump.
“This Women’s March has become one of international significance,” Ms. Hughes told the Recorder last Friday. “We have a long way to go to have equality for women. We’ve made advances but so much more is needed, and we as women are not willing to surrender the gains we’ve made so far. We need to be treated equal too. The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are a step in the right direction.””
Source: http://www.manitoulin.ca/2018/01/26/mp-carol-hughes-marches-solidarity-womens-rights/.
“Davos: Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani activist working on gender equality, on Thursday called for teaching boys to be men and said what is needed is to educate young men on the issue of women’s rights.
Speaking in Davos at the World Economic Forum (WEF), the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize said such an education would be a crucial step towards ending gender inequality.
“When we talk about feminism and women’s rights, we’re actually addressing men. Men have a big role to play. We have to teach young boys how to be men. In order to be a man you have to recognise that all women and all those around you have equal rights and that you are part of this movement for equality,” she said.”
“Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, used the stage at the World Economic Forum on Thursday to send a message to President Donald Trump and other powerful men on the state of gender equality in today’s world.
When asked what her message to “someone like Trump” would be, Yousafzai, the 20-year-old women’s empowerment activist, said she was “so disappointed to see that people in high positions talk about women in unequal terms and do not accept them as equals.”
Responding to another question about Trump’s record on women’s rights and the allegations of harassment and abuse that have been levelled against him, Yousafzai replied that “it is just shocking for a second to believe that this is actually happening … I hope that women stand up and speak out against it.”
Yousafzai first came to international prominence after being shot in the head in 2012 for defying a Taliban ban on girls attending school in her native Pakistan. She has since used her platform to advocate for women and girls and their right to education, especially in parts of the world where access to those basic rights have traditionally been denied to them.”
Source: https://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/8092854-malala-has-a-message-for-trump-on-women-s-rights/.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is urging the international community to do more to promote women’s rights and gender equality.
“I’d like to focus tonight on a fundamental shift that every single leader in this room can act on immediately…I’m talking about hiring, promoting and retaining more women,” Trudeau said to loud applause in a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“And not just because it’s the right thing to do, or the the nice thing to do, but because it’s the smart thing to do.”
He said that would lead to much-needed innovation and change in the workplace.”
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/3981858/trudeau-davos-speech-investment-womens-rights/.
“Fifty years ago, it fell to a tobacco manufacturer to pretend to champion women in a bid to sell cigarettes to the distaff gender.
In 1968, Phillip Morris Companies (now known as Altria Group) introduced Virginia Slims cigarettes, which were aimed at young professional women using the now-famous tagline in advertisements.
In fact, women have come a long way as 2018 marches, but that journey has nothing to do with sucking tar and nicotine into lungs.”
Source: https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/editorial-new-round-fight-womens-rights/.
“SEATTLE — One of the greatest challenges facing women in much of the world is the gap between their legal rights and their ability as individuals to claim them. National constitutions are increasingly likely to guarantee gender equality, but many also recognize the authority of parallel legal systems based on custom, religion, or ethnic affiliation. And, unfortunately, law in many parts of the world has not kept up with changing times.
Fortunately, international human-rights bodies are taking notice of the gap. In 1999 and 2000, two young Tanzanian tailors, married in their teens and widowed in their twenties with four children between them, were dispossessed of their homes under their ethnic group’s customary laws of inheritance. Those customary laws give male relatives a greater claim to the deceased’s possessions than female members of his family, and typically bar wives altogether and give short shrift to daughters. In both of the Tanzanian cases, local courts ruled that the property the woman had shared with her husband, including items that had been purchased with proceeds from her labor, should go to her brother-in-law.
The young widowed tailors were left homeless with their children, but they refused to accept their dispossession. With the help of Tanzania’s Women’s Legal Aid Center and Georgetown University’s International Women’s Human Rights Clinic — which I previously directed — they challenged the decision in the High Court of Tanzania. In 2006, the High Court concluded that customary laws on inheritance were “discriminatory in more ways than one,” but it refused to overturn them. The court likened doing so to “opening a Pandora’s box, with all the seemingly discriminative customs from our 120 tribes” vulnerable to legal challenge.”
Source: http://matangitonga.to/2018/01/29/women-s-rights-and-customary-wrongs.
“Sometimes I forget that there are people in this world who still think that things were better before Women’s Suffrage, but then I go on the internet and someone reminds me. This time it was Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Missouri, Courtland Sykes. But these tweets about Courtland Sykes’ sexist comments make it a little better.
On Wednesday, Jan. 23, Sykes, in response to people asking what his views are on women’s rights, decided to post an image to his very own verified Facebook page with his answer (by the looks of it that text will soon appear on his campaign website).
So does Sykes favor women’s rights? I would have to say it’s a negative on that.”
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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/28
“You can judge a book by its cover — at least in this case. Rhodri Lewis’ sombre dust jacket reproduces some of the more gory sections of A Hunting Scene, painted by Piero di Cosimo about a century before the first performances of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Lewis describes the image: “an all but feral community of appetitive violence, with human beings competing against one another and the animals on whom they preyed”. Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness reads Shakespeare’s tragedy as a defiant rejection of the humanist aspirations of the early moderns: “while humanist educators stuck to their pious ideology in championing the light of self-knowledge, for the Shakespeare of Hamlet, humankind is bound in ignorance of itself”.
Lewis’ critical method is thorough and systematic. He cites chapter and verse of the various “auctoritees”, authors of humanistic treatises on history, poetics, philosophy and hunting. With diligence and patience, he traces these back to their classical sources. Then he shows how poorly Hamlet acts upon, articulates or personifies their principles. At points, this amounts to little more than character assassination: “Hamlet emerges as a thinker of unrelenting superficiality, confusion, and pious self-deceit” or “the thoughts to which he gives voice are the ill-arranged and ill-digested harvest of his bookish education”. Occasionally, the attacks are cheap shots: “Prince Hamlet is the inhabitant of Elsinore most thoroughly mired in bullshit” or, in a throwaway description of the Prince’s “If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come it will be now…” speech, Lewis remarks that he utters “pseudo-profundities worthy of Yoda”.”
Source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/hamlet-and-vision-darkness-rhodri-lewis#survey-answer.
“Karkaria: You are quite the Renaissance man. The importance of the humanities recurs in all three of your ‘lay’ books, including the imminent Tabiyat — Medicine and Healing in India and Other Essays (OUP).
Dr Udwadia: I can’t emphasise this enough. A study of the humanities gives you a wider perspective. After all, we exist in the world, the environment interacts with us, isn’t it? And if you want to know exactly how a human being works, you will be much better off if you had a good idea of the humanities. Read poetry, literature, and you get a good idea of what suffering is. If you can appreciate your patient’s suffering, your response to his disease is much better.
As for history, doctors should at least know that of their own profession. All of us stand on the shoulders of discoveries of past greats, who had no access to the modern technology that has swept over us today. This also gives us another essential quality, humility.
Music?
Oh absolutely. I consider it the most important of the arts. Music has unquestionably shown that it helps the healing process. Even in the World Wars, soldiers convalesced better when they listened to music. Now it is being scientifically understood how it acts on certain parts of the brain, which perhaps control the immune response of the body to disease.
Personally, it gives me a feeling of relief, of satisfaction, and ennobles the spirit. Great music is a great blessing. I’m passionately fond of it.”
“Ursula K. Le Guin, who beginning in the 1960s upended the male-dominated genres of fantasy and science fiction, crafting novels that grappled with issues of gender inequality, racism and environmental destruction — while featuring magical or extraterrestrial characters whom she described as “real people” nonetheless — died Jan. 22 at her home in Portland. She was 88.
Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, said the cause was not immediately known.
While Le Guin occasionally ventured into realistic fiction, she aimed to avoid the standard fare of contemporary literature, books that she once derided as “fiction about dysfunctional urban middle-class people written in the present tense.”
Earlier this month, the New Zealand-based private spaceflight company Rocket Lab successfully delivered its first orbital payload. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket released, along with three commercial satellites, an art installation-as-satellite called the Humanity Star.
Instead, she populated her novels with richly imagined worlds that drew less from recent science fiction than from ancient mythology or Taoism, the Eastern philosophy that emphasizes acceptance and change. Le Guin once translated “Tao Te Ching,” publishing her take on the Taoist classic amid novels, stories and books of essays and poetry that made her one of the most beloved writers in American literature.””
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Ursula-K-Le-Guin-grand-dame-of-science-fiction-12519910.php.
“Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that the solution to all problems in the world like terrorism and Naxalism lies in Adi Shankaracharya’s Ekatmavad. The path to world peace is not in war but in Adi Shankar’s Adwait Darshan.
He said that the Adi Shankar Cultural Unity Trust will be established in Omkareshwar to propagate Adwait Darshan. Through this the work of moral, social, cultural and spiritual renaissance will be undertaken.
CM Chouhan was addressing the Ekatm festival organized on the completion of Ekatm Yatra at Adi Shankaracharya’s dikshasthal Omkareshwar. On this occasion, a video message of Bharatiya Janata Party National President Amit Shah was also shown. Yatra began from four places.”
Source: http://www.centralchronicle.com/solutions-to-worlds-problems-lies-in-ekatmavad.html.
“The works of world-renowned mediaeval artist and craftsman, Master Pavol of Levoča, are being exhibited at the Bratislava Castle to mark the 500thanniversary of the completion of his biggest and most famous work, the main altar of St James’ Church in Levoča. As it is not possible to bring the whole monumental alter to the Slovak capital, other works have been moved there. Altogether 27 parishes as well as several museums, galleries and secular archives contributed to the exhibition.
The idea to present Master Pavol outside his hometown came during the presentation of his mastery in Rome several years ago, head of the Slovak National Museum (SNM, which administers the exhibition halls at the Bratislava Castle) Branislav Pánis noted.”
Source: https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20745536/master-pavol-of-levoca-comes-to-bratislava.html.
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.
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Peter Gajdics is the author of The Inheritance of Shame: A Memoir. He can be found in Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. Here we talk about conversion therapy and his own experience with it.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is conversion therapy?
Peter Gajdics: “Conversion therapy,” also known as “reparative therapy” or even “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE), really took hold in direct response to the burgeoning gay rights movement of the early 1970’s, particularly after the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to declassify homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. As gay liberation exploded over the next several years and gay people carved out their own place in history, taking great strides toward visibility and self-worth, in some cases legal vindication, the religious right advanced its own ideology of being “ex-gay” — that it was possible to sort of “pray away the gay.” Personally, I don’t really like this term, “pray away the gay,” since I think it reduces what is actually a traumatic experience to the sound of a joke, and the process of attempting to strip away a person’s core self and “convert” them into something that they’re not is anything but humorous: lives have been destroyed and even lost in the name of this kind of ignorance and outright hatred. Ultimately, there was nothing new to any of this; what we call “homosexuals” or even “gay” people today have been victims to all sorts of strange methods and ideologies to help “change” them, or at least to help conceal them, over the centuries. In the 20th century alone we’ve seen aversion therapy, castrations and lobotomies, inhumane use of psychotropics, and of course forced psychoanalysis as a common “cure.” At one time not that long ago it was believed that homosexuals were really just confused straight people who wished to incorporate the therapist’s penis orally in an effort to appropriate his omnipotence; or that homosexuality was caused by childhood prohibition against masturbation. Homosexuals were once considered predominantly anti-social, vindictive, and hateful of all people; homosexuals and “dwarfs” were seen to be comparable in that both had apparently been stunted in their growth; passive homosexuals threatened to lure straight men away from their opposite-sex spouses. Homosexuality, it was once believed, could be cured through 40 sessions of hypnosis; gay men and women could be “made straight” by watching childbirth in hospitals; circumcision could lead to “less homosexuality in Jews.” It’s unbelievable when we think about it today, but these “beliefs” were all once accepted as fact.
Today, the most common form of conversion therapy is perhaps still the religious ideology that seems to target those who’ve been raised with the belief that homosexuality is a sin and can therefore be healed through divine intervention. This is a lie, of course, no different than saying a heterosexual person could become homosexual if only they got down on their knees and prayed. It’s absurd, and yet the “gay to straight” ideology is still believed by millions of people worldwide because of the cult and power of religious dogmatism. Sometimes, abandoning these false beliefs means losing one’s faith in their religion, and that is often just intolerable to a lot of people Obviously, conversion therapy need not carry any overt religiosity, such as what happened to me with a psychiatrist.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was your own experience with it?
Peter Gajdics: In 1989, at the age of 24, I started therapy with a licensed psychiatrist shortly after coming out and being rejected by my family. Like many young gay people, I’d recently fled my hometown to “start over,” but quickly fell into a deep depression. I knew I needed to talk to someone, and so my family physician referred me to this psychiatrist. One of the reasons I needed counselling in the first place was that I’d never really dealt with a lot of issues related to being sexually abused as a child. Throughout my young adolescence in the 1970’s I’d learned from a number of sources that sexual abuse “made” a person homosexual. The fear that this was true for me — that the abuse had “caused” my own homosexuality — haunted me through most of my life up until the time I met this doctor. Unfortunately, not long after beginning therapy, the psychiatrist affirmed the belief that the abuse had, indeed, “caused” my homosexuality, and that the only way to heal from the trauma of the abuse would be to revert to my “innate heterosexuality” (his words). I believed him, to a large degree because this belief system “fit” the narrative of my upbringing. What followed was six years of what today we would call “conversion therapy” — though, surprisingly, that term, “conversion therapy,” was never once spoken. The doctor’s methods to try and “change” my sexuality included ongoing primal scream therapy, near fatal dosages of various concurrent psychiatric medications (psychotropics), including weekly injections of ketamine hydrochloride, and aversion therapy.
In the years since this therapy ended, I’ve learned that all conversion therapies begin with some version of the same lie that says being gay or homosexual is an illness or immoral, a deviation, and must therefore be cured or “healed.” My own “lie” was that the abuse had made me gay, and like any convincing lie, I believed it until I no longer believed it, and then everything fell apart. I left the therapy in 1995 with acute post trauma, and started my long journey toward healing.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What have been the justifications for its use in the past?
Peter Gajdics: I think that justifications for the use of these kinds of inhumane treatments of gay people can be largely attributed to the medicalization and moralization of homosexuality, which at one time or another has sadly even been supported and institutionalized by health organizations, governments and world leaders. Much of this barbarianism has been occurring for centuries, and stating it all quite simply like this does not detract from how, for instance, psychiatry’s or certain religions’ treatment and views around homosexuality in the 20th century alone have caused enormous harm toward generations of LGBT people. Hate crimes, murders and suicides, the psychological or physical torture of “conversion therapy,” all are caused by false beliefs, promulgated by authority figures. I often wish that we would all just collectively stop referring to these treatments to “change” sexuality as “conversion therapy.” Nothing is ever “repaired” or “converted” in them, and their methods are anything but “therapeutic.” These are acts of sexuality abuse; they are acts of torture.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Have these justifications changed over time into the present, or not? How?
Peter Gajdics: I’m not so sure the justifications have changed but there’s definitely been a shift in the way the religious organizations have enforced these “conversion” practices, particularly following the demise of Exodus International, the world’s largest “ex-gay” ministry. Today, instead of stating that they can “change” a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual (although in some cases they do continue to say this), now they often use much more subversive language such as how they want to “help” the homosexual live a life of abstinence. In other words — they just want us all to stop having sex because to “act” on one’s homosexuality is the real sin. “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” as the saying goes. There is nothing new to any of this — I grew up hearing all of this in the 1970’s. The religious ideology of conversion therapy forces gay people back into a state of shame-based compartmentalization. We’re supposed to love ourselves as people, because we’re all made in God’s image — but hate what we feel and how we express ourselves intimately. That doesn’t make any sense, and continues with the shame game.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How can young homosexuals work to better manage their feelings and identity in a positive way instead of with guilt and shame?
Peter Gajdics: Shame and guilt, all of those kinds of negative emotions, are learned behaviours; we do not start out feeling shame, but learn it over time from others — family, religion, the media, the culture around us, even from the people we call our friends. The problem is we forget that these are things we’ve learned, and come to believe that they are essential to who and what we are, that they’re part of “us,” like our internal organs. We stop seeing the forest from the trees, and start acting out of these counterproductive emotions and behaviours — belief systems that are not “us,” but thoughts we’ve internalized. Anything that is learned can be unlearned, though with great difficulty. Oddly enough, these are the exact same words my psychiatrist said to me early on with respect to my homosexuality: “Your homosexuality is learned behaviour, and so therefore it can be unlearned, though with great difficulty.” Of course, he was wrong, because homosexuality is not a belief system; it is not something we “learn” but rather it’s a part of who a person is.
The problem in trying to unlearn what we’ve learned as children is that we have to first “see” these behaviours as separate from who we are as adults; we need to create distance from them in our minds. Unfortunately, in today’s madcap culture, driven largely by social media where everyone is always two steps behind the last guy, there is little space for distance. Still, distance must be created, if we are ever to find peace. There are great advantages in learning to recognize these negative emotions as separate from ourselves, since the loss of every part of us that is not who we are helps take us closer to who we were born to 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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/26
A forum will be coming together of a bunch of Humanists in Owerri, Imo State, Southern Nigeria. It is the capital of Imo State. The intention is to give a platform for humanists and freethinkers to have community and do what communities do: share ideas, experiences, and time together.
The goal is to galvanize the population, the local one, in Owerri to be able to found, maintain, and grow a state chapter of the Humanist Association of Nigeria or the HAN. In a marginalized community, based on demographics of belief, this could be a great opportunity to develop that sense of shared community and spirit.
As Igwe notes (2018), the dominant belief system or worldview in Imo State is Christianity. To have a community stationed and built by, and for, the non-religious, especially the proactive form of it in the humanist population, is an important step for equality, as far as I am concerned.
Igwe quips that it is the “Bible Belt” of Nigeria. In other words, Christianity is taken very, very seriously in this region, so this can, in a way, make the foundation of an outlet for those who do not adhere to the dominant faith there doubly important.
As I have found in conversation with people who know the region better than others, or those who grew up and have lived in the culture for a substantial amount of time, there is a ubiquitous admixture of Abrahamic religions and traditional beliefs and practices (or traditional Nigerian religions, as it sounds to my sensibility).
“Ritual killings frequently occur in the area. Osu caste discrimination is practiced in various parts of the state. Christian churches have a lot of influence in Imo stat,” Igwe said, “They virtually monopolize the media, local politics and the educational system.”
Caste, traditional faith, and Abrahamic religion seem like a complicated mixture for the population, especially regarding the political climate as noted by Igwe. The Roman catholic and Anglican churches hold sway and “determine who governs the state and the bills that could pass or be rejected at the local assemblies.”
As these indicate, the separation between church, or place of worship, and state is not a well-delineated phenomenon, but, rather, the obvious conclusion is the blurring of the lines and more often than not in the favour of the religious, i.e., the Christian religious (Catholics and Anglicans).
But like that line from the Star Wars reboots, ‘there has been an awakening…’ Igwe said, “A wave of intellectual awakening is sweeping across the region. And this humanist forum is an initiative to build on this momentum. This forum will be used to promote public education and enlightenment in the state. It will provide a platform for humanists to interact and discuss contemporary issues.”
With this gathering, there could be an improvement in the material and political conditions for the non-religious, the humanists and freethinkers and others, in Owerri. The inaugural meeting will be before the end of March…Stay tuned!
For more information, please see the here:
Prof Dede Konkwo, a lecturer at the Imo State University has volunteered to be the contact person. All who are interested in participating in this forum should contact Prof Konkwo via email at: dedekonkwo@yahoo.com ; Tel 08035774378. According to Prof Konkwo, convening a humanist forum in Imo state is an idea whose time has come! (Igwe, 2018)
References
Igwe, L. (2018, January 26). Humanist Forum and Intellectual Awakening in Inno State. Retrieved from https://www.modernghana.com/news/831120/humanist-forum-and-intellectual-awakening-in-imo-state.html.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/25
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When did you find humanism and irreligiosity?
Jesus Falcis: I found irreligiosity when I was in secondary school, when I was undergoing an identity crisis for being gay vis a vis my Catholic upbringing
I thought about the different religions that existed and how none could be true if every religion said theirs is the only true and correct one
Also thought about the internal contradictions of Catholicism and so rejected religion
I found humanism later in life during postgrad when there were a lot of debates about creationism, intelligent design, and other pseudo scientific religious theories vis a vis the rise of militant atheism
I found humanism to be more appealing as a belief system and as a political strategy than atheism because atheism is more rejectionist, it doesn’t tell people what to believe instead.
Jacobsen: What have been some difficulties in espousing these beliefs publicly?
Falcis: Personally, I haven’t experienced any difficulty about my humanist or irreligious belief given my progressive social circle. Most opponents or conservatives would attack me on my homosexuality, not my irreligiousity.
Jacobsen: What have been your major campaigns to advance the “frontier” — so to speak — of humanists and the irreligious?
Falcis: My advocacies or campaigns that advance humanism or irreligiousity would be the marriage equality petition before the Supreme Court and debate lectures about social constructs on sex, sexuality, and gender identity vis a vis dominant religious beliefs in the Philippines and elsewhere
Aside from that, social media posts against the Catholic Church and Iglesia ni Cristo and Manny Pacquiao when they forward establishment views and theocratic perspectives in sociolegal and political decision making.
Jacobsen: What is the main impediment to the full implementation of human rights in the Philippines?
Falcis: The main impediment to full implementation of human rights would be socioeconomic class — the dehumanization of the poor and the unfortunate uneducated ignorance of the struggling middle class leading to unprogressive beliefs on issues such as the war on drugs, sexuality, women’s rights, and others
Jacobsen: Is life more restrictive for the LGBTQ+ community compared to the rest of society, in law, in culture, in social interactions, in the media, and so on? In short, in all ways?
Falcis: Definitely more restrictive. Yes in all areas of life. LGBTs have to conform to certain stereotypes or acceptable LGBT social constructs such as the flamboyant or effeminate gay, the bisexual lipstick lesbian who caters more to the male gaze, and trans people who must be beautiful
Jacobsen: Why are you doing the work that you’re doing?
Falcis: I do the work that I do because I have been discriminated and I have experienced oppression — and I wouldn’t want others to go through what I’ve gone through and I believe no human being would want to be born in a world of discrimination and oppression.
Jacobsen: Is your life at risk?
Falcis: My life is at risk yes but only mildly — for now
Jacobsen: What is your message of hope for those i dire circumstances as humanists and he generally irreligious?
Falcis: My message of hope is that the youth right now are more progressive and irreligious than ever. Wait for them to come into power. Teach and reach more young people.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Jesus.
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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.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/25
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you first become a humanist? Did this coincide with an atheism?
Hanne Stinson: I was brought up without any religious beliefs, but also encouraged by my parents to respect other people with various religions and to explore different religions and make up my own mind. That was probably partly because my parents had a mixed religious heritage. My father had a Jewish father and Catholic mother, while my mother was brought up as a Protestant Christian, but they had both become either atheist or agnostic before they met or had their children. As a child I was always interested in — and quite puzzled by — religion, but never tempted by any of them. I would have called myself an atheist from a very young age, but only came across the concept and the term ‘humanism’ in my late teens. As I had never felt really happy defining myself by a negative — by the god or gods I did not believe in — I welcomed humanism, and the positive beliefs it seemed to encompass, with open arms.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the biggest umbrella that humanist, as a term and worldview and ethical stance, and humanism can encompass?
Hanne: Like every ‘ism’, it all depends how you define it. While working with and for a humanist organisation, I was sometimes irritated by the way that some religions, not least the Catholic Church, tried to claim humanism as their own. They, of course, had a different definition involving caring for humanity, but within their religious beliefs.
I have always seen humanism as encompassing a very broad range of approaches, but I think the common factors are a rejection of religion and superstitious beliefs, a rational and evidence-based approach, and a commitment to working with others to make the world a better and happier place. I also recognise that people don’t need to describe themselves as humanist to fit within those concepts.
Jacobsen: What are some of the major perennial issues for humanists around the world — indeed, the formal irreligious generally?
Hanne: Humanists in different countries and cultures face different issues, depending largely on the power and influence of religion and religious organisations in the society they live in. A humanist or atheist living in a country where atheism is punishable in law, clearly faces different problems to a person living in a more secular state, where the main issues may be about discrimination and a lack or respect for humanism as a legitimate set of personal beliefs. For many humanists, one of the most difficult issues on a personal level may be rejection by their own families or their community, and I think that the common assumption that morality is based on religion can also make life difficult for some.
Jacobsen: What are some of the prejudices against humanists in law, in culture, in social interactions, even in work and economic contexts?
Hanne: I have already mentioned the assumption that morality can only come from religion, and, even in a relatively free and fairly tolerant society like Britain, I was often surprised by how many people believed that. In the British Humanist Association (the BHA — but now called Humanists UK) we would sometimes get phone calls from parents genuinely concerned about how they could ensure that their children understood why they should be good, but I suppose if you have been brought up believing that a god would judge and punish you, and had then rejected your religion, a parent might feel that they are bringing their child up in a vacuum, and be looking for a bit of support from other non-religious parents, just to give them a bit of confidence that saying ‘how would you feel if someone did that to you?’ to a child may be better than threatening them with eternal damnation!
I have sometimes in discussion asked religious people whether they would go out and steal things or murder people if they lost their religion. Most people say ‘of course not’, but I have occasionally been shocked when someone answers ‘yes, if I thought I could get away with it’. Those people should probably keep their religion!
I might add that far too many people, often encouraged by religious leaders, equate a lack of religious belief with either hedonism or rampant consumerism.
When I worked at the BHA we devoted a lot of effort to trying to address inequalities under the law, many of which still exist. I find it very difficult to accept that state funded faith schools can discriminate not only in pupil admissions, but also employment, to give just one example, and I am outraged by the fact that the UK still has Church of England bishops in the House of Lords as of right. Twenty six of them. Humanist campaigners have made huge steps over recent years, but there is still a lot of work to do.
Jacobsen: In your time as one of the higher-ups in the formal humanist world, what have you found to be the most true?
Hanne: This is a difficult question. I think I would have to say that it is amazing how a very small number of people, whether staff or committed volunteers, can make a huge difference. That was certainly true in the BHA, which had a very low public profile and only some 2,500 paid up members when I became CEO, although it is much larger and more influential now, and also in the International Humanist and Ethical Union, which even has a voice in the United Nations. But it is even more true of the volunteers in countries which were and are building new humanist organisations against all the odds, whether in Africa, Asia or South America. I have enormous admiration for everything people in the many new and small organisations around the world are achieving despite having little in the way of resources and in the face of a huge amount of opposition and sometimes persecution from the established religious organisations.
Jacobsen: You were the CEO for the British Humanist Association in the past. How did you coordinate or help manage the humanists for the country?
Hanne: The first thing I would say is that I never tried to ‘manage’ the humanists in the country, apart form the staff team of course. We used to joke that organising humanists is a bit like trying to herd cats! After all, humanists are, by definition, people who think and decide for themselves. What we tried to do was to support and represent humanists, and the non-religious more broadly — whether or not they identified as humanist.
The main areas of support were in the provision of humanist funerals, weddings and baby naming ceremonies, and also education, whether providing materials on humanism for schools and teachers, or public events. I think the education work is important because, while we never sought to convert or indoctrinate anyone, many people valued confirmation that others shared their ideas and beliefs, or opportunities to explore their existing thoughts and ideas.
As regards representation, this varied from the campaigns we ran on equality legislation and the interpretation of human rights law, to giving humanists a voice on all kinds of issues that affect them. We always knew that humanists felt they didn’t have much of a voice in the public sphere (unlike organised religions) but this was really brought home to us when we launched the ‘Atheist Bus’ campaign in 2009. We intended to raise £5,500 to put a simple message: ‘There is probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’ on a few buses in London, but we raised more than £150,000 in a few weeks, almost all of it from very small donations from a very large number of individuals. From the messages they left, we knew that what they wanted was to see their ideas on public display, and to feel — often for the first time — that they had a voice.
Jacobsen: For the youth, for the upcoming generations, especially in North America and Western Europe — who tend to be more irreligious than their parents, what is your big message for them?
Hanne: I am not sure why you are focusing on North America and Western Europe as it seems to me that, all around the world, younger people are more likely to reject religion. There are some exceptions, particularly in countries that have emerged from a repressive regime so the religions have a new found freedom, and it is also true that some young people develop more extreme or fundamentalist religious beliefs than their parents. There are of course also countries where it is very difficult to be openly non-religious.
I am also unsure that I am in any way qualified to give young people a message (they do pretty well on their own), but if I had to, I think it would be about being firm in your beliefs, looking for opportunities to explore them further, and making contact with like-minded people, while all the time respecting people with different beliefs and recognising how important those beliefs might be to them. If you can find a local organisation, or find support online, that may be helpful.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Hanne.
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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.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Humanist Voices)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/24
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you come into the world of the non-believing community in Uganda? What were some pivotal moments if you could recall those?
Susan Nambejja: I was volunteering with Humanist Association for Leadership Equity and Accountability [HALEA] in 2008 as a secretary. A charity based in Kampala Uganda with a teens empowerment project by then which focused on helping teenagers who get pregnant through forced marriages, rape and other bad acts, we would counsel them and later they are empowered to go back to school.
This was the same time I was pursuing a Bachelors degree at Makerere university. Being a humanist charity, I got to know much about humanism and embraced it.
Jacobsen: How does Ugandan religion influence political and socio-cultural life?
Nambejja: Religious leaders have influenced Ugandan political life since colonial times. Religious leaders have looked for different ways they can bring change in the government. While many religious leaders have actively or silently supported the incumbent regime, others took vocal public stands and fostered political action by expanding space for public debates.
In my view, I will say Religion limits people’s capacity from all different socio-cultural angles to make their own decisions, people are afraid of speaking their mind out in the name of maintaining the image of what the society depending on background they are raised from.
This includes failure to make even healthy related decision to save their lives. One will not take medicine for instance if he is HIV positive but rather collect money take to a pastor as offertory to receive a miracle working prayer. In the end, they lose their lives.
Jacobsen: If you could enlighten as to the more prominent thinkers and writers, and public intellectuals, in Uganda for those that do not know, who are those that lead the way in the non-religious movement?
Nambejja: Lindsey Kakunda an Atheist writer and was journalist/radio presenter with free thought kampala, James Onen also known as Fat boy with Sanyu Fm is a founder of free thought Kampala one of the first atheist organisations in Uganda Just to mention a few, however there are those that are non prominent but good atheists who are now known as good writers, thinkers in the non religious movement.
Bwambale Robert the director of Kasese Humanist Schools, and Kato Mukasa the founder and Executive Director of Humanist Association for Leadership Equity and accountability (HALEA) The two Bwambale and Kato contributed much are still fighting to their best in leading the way in the non religious movement.
Jacobsen: What have been some of your most difficult trials and tribulations in life? How have you overcome them? Were these in any way related to religious or lack thereof?
Nambejja: The death of my only child Baby Malcolm Mutebi on 10th February 2017 is the most difficult trial in life. Malcolm was diagnosed with a rare heart condition known as Truncus arterious type 1.
This where a baby is born with one vessel coming out of their heart instead of two. It leads to breathlessness, difficulty in feeding and failure to thrive. The doctors told us that without heart surgery, Malcolm would die.
We struggled going door to door and using the medis, desperately trying to raise money. Finally, through the help of humanist friends, we found a charity willing to pay for Malcolm’s operation and generous strangers across the world donated and enabled us to fly him to India. I couldn’t believe it, Malcolm’s life had been saved.
After a number of tests, Malcolm was taken for surgery, unfortunately the operation came too late and too much for his tiny heart to cope with. Malcolm died at 7am on 10th February 2017. Losing my son was very difficult.
Now, I have recovered from the immediate grieving process, I want to spend the rest of my life helping others. I want to help parents in their darkest hour. I Unlike in the West, children born with congenital disorders in Uganda are unable to get treatment because of poverty and a lack of medical facilities.
I set up Malcolm Childrens’ Foundation which aims at helping children with congenital diseases to get access to medical treatment they need at home, and where this isn’t possible, overseas. This includes heart problems like my son faced, but also helping children with sight, spinal and respiratory conditions.
In our first year of registration (2017) we managed to save lives of 8 patients. As humanists we have helped many people irrespective of where they come from, all over the world. I am concerned that if we don’t get children’s health right we will never have a healthy adult population in poor countries of the world. To me this is what it means to be Humanist.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved with and help the non-religious movement in Uganda?
Nambejja: People should join us in promoting different causes, if Humanists continue to support our causes, more people will get to know how good humanism is and embrace humanism through the activities we do, its through these activities that people ask us different questions and we give answers.
Jacobsen: Any final thoughts or feelings in conclusion?
Nambejja: I would like to appreciate each and everyone who helped us during the difficult time, and As the director and programmes coordinator of Malcolm Children’s Foundation, i would like to invite humanists across the world to join us in our fight to save little lives. Maybe you can offer ideas, introduce us to any contacts you may have, help us learn from others — any kind of support is warmly welcomed.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Susan.
Nambejja: You are most welcome, Jacobsen.
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.
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