What I Believe

Former NOSHA board member Will Hunn recently read this personal essay at our January 2014 meeting.

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It seems particularly appropriate to me for two reasons to have at this point in my life an opportunity to make a statement of what I believe.  The first reason is that, at 42, I have entered into what is commonly referred to as “middle age,” and by now should have formed some definite opinions.  The second reason—the more important one—relates back to something that happened less than a year ago to a close friend and working associate of many years, an event which has resulted in my taking considerably more time to engage in reflection than I would have normally.

On one particularly beautiful and balmy afternoon, while clearing away an overgrowth of brush from his property, his life was suddenly and quite rudely interrupted by a massive, fatal heart attack.

Now the sudden, unexpected death of one whom you have both valued and admired has a way of arresting your attention like few other events, and is all the more arresting if that person was close to you in years.  It now appears to me that it is one of life’s sad paradoxes that to truly appreciate its worth one must witness its cessation.

In the months since my friend’s death I have found myself forced to take a closer look at my philosophy of naturalistic humanism, but this time in a personal rather than an academic context.  I can perhaps best clarify the point I wish to make by taking a moment to tell of an earlier time.

Twenty years ago I broke completely with Christianity.  During the first few years of my unbelief, my head swam in the heady atmosphere of intellectual freedom, and I spent many hours immersed in the literature of philosophy and free thought.  I cut my agnostic eyeteeth on the works of Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken and others of less celebrity (or notoriety).

I reveled in the thought of being privy to the ideas of some of the most penetrating minds the human race had produced and of being silently wise to The Grand Illusion of popular religion under which most of humankind still labors.  Admittedly, mine was a secret smugness of no mean proportions.  But that smugness became tempered with time, not, mind you, because I no longer believed what those skeptical thinkers had said about the absurdities of Christianity and its many negative effects on civilization, not at all.  I still believed the bulk of their criticisms to be true.

The problem, rather, had to do with what they hadn't spoken of.  They hadn't mentioned the difficulties that some former Christians experience in living without the security of their religion’s psychological support system.

I've heard it said that in life for everything that we take with us there is something that we leave behind.  For years, in my enjoyment of one-upmanship on the world’s believers, I’d somehow overlooked the tradeoff.  I had gained a new-found and, to be sure, much treasured freedom of thought.  What I had left behind was the illusion of immortality, both my own and that of those whom I love.  My freedom, I began to realize, had been bought at a great price.  Thereafter, whenever a relative or close friend died this realization was driven home with even greater force

It has come to me most recently with the death of my friend Dave Grant, to whom I made reference earlier.  Dave’s name was synonymous with excellence among those fortunate enough to have known him.  There is in me now a strong wish for his life, and by extension, the lives of all the others I care for to take on a larger significance than that permitted by the naturalistic philosophy which I believe to be true.  It can be a difficult philosophy to live by.

The worldview of humanism comes to us as the legacy of a four-centuries-old experiment in applying the scientific method to everything that lies within humankind’s purview.  It depicts humans as the product of an evolutionary process leading up to a point where matter actually assumed consciousness, which is another way of saying that we humans are infinitesimally small particles of a universe that has become aware of itself.  Though physically we play a role of minor significance when compared with the vast swirling masses of stars and galaxies, we are (as far as we know) unique in the universe by virtue of our having an eye on existence.  Observing this  gradual ascent of inert matter up to sentient beings prompted one wag to quip that “We are the canny child of a witless mother."

Philosophically, we live in the midst of an enigma, knowing not why we came, nor where we’re going.  At night we look out upon a naked, indifferent universe.  And though the theologians continue to reassure us in the face of global suffering that we are under their god’s constant, benevolent care, to me, any god who can stand idly by as a seven-year-old gets raped and strangled, or as a 747 jumbo jet full of helpless, screaming passengers plunges in flames into a cold sea, is a god in whose presence I would not care to spend a minute, let alone an eternity.

No, we are on our own; moreover, our life spans are mere snippets of time wedged between two eternities of nonexistence.  I view this as an awesome and uncompromising fact; yet, I need not dwell upon it.  In fact, I can, if I wish, use it to advantage.  For it is the very brevity and uniqueness of our individual lives that lends to them a tragic beauty all their own, one that I submit the believer in immortality can never know.  The knowledge that we and our loved ones share a common doom invests our and their lives with a genuine significance.  Perhaps there are times when this belief cannot completely satisfy the heart’s hunger, but unlike the one of old, namely, that of our being the children of some fanciful celestial tyrant, our belief is firmly rooted here on Earth and in reality.

In the end, it is the value and love that we have for one another, that will make our lives precious and meaningful, and enable us to stand side by side on our exposed planet, still vulnerable, but with heads unbowed, even as we face an indifferent universe.

~Will Hunn, January 25, 1987 

Selling Out the Good Way!

If you buy from Amazon, then you can support NOSHA by using this link. 

NOSHA will get credit for the sale if the URL you used to get to Amazon.com contains our identifying tag. This is true whether or not you can see the whole URL on the screen.

You can use the link here or go to to the button at the upper right corner of the NOSHA.INFO website, both contain the correct identifying tag and ought to work fine.

Do it today and everyday! And thank you for your ongoing support of NOSHA!

Greenberger Delivers Humanist Invocation at New Orleans City Council Meeting

We're very proud that Harry Greenberger, NOSHA president emeritus, was invited to give the invocation at a regular meeting of the New Orleans City Council on September 26, 2013!

He has been a guest on several occasions to deliver proclamations for Day of Reason 2012  and Darwin Day in 2010. You can see his presentation below. Bravo, Harry!

There's Always Room for Research

Child Cognition Lab at Boston University is conducting a study that compares how religious vs. non-religious adults think about nature. They have collected data from religious participants and now need non-religious participants to make the comparison. Would you be interested in helping us with our research?

Your participation in this research is voluntary. If you decide to participate, the participation only requires you to visit our study webpage to look at a series of pictures and make judgments about them, and then complete questionnaires about your background, scientific understanding, attitudes and personal beliefs. Participation should only take about 40 minutes. 

This study webpage is designed to work on laptop or desktop computers and will not work on portable devices such as iPads. Also, if you decide to participate, make sure that you are in a quiet place free from disturbances (e.g. TV) and able to concentrate through every task.

Participants will not receive any benefits from this study, other than knowing that they helped science understand better how religious vs. non-religious people think. We hope this will be a good incentive for you, and that you will help us!

And for the sake of the scientific integrity of the study, please participate only ONCE!

Here is the link to the consent form and the study:

THANK YOU so much for your interest!
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Child Cognition Lab
Boston University
(617) 358-1738
www.bu.edu/childcognition

Are You a February Baby?

Harry wanted to pass along this interesting information that he dug up from CNN about what the summer solstice really means for our recent NOSHA picnic:

(CNN) -- In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice has a history of stirring libidos, and it's no wonder. The longest day of the year tends to kick off the start of the summer season and with it, the harvest. So it should come as no surprise that the solstice is linked to fertility -- both of the vegetal and human variety.

"A lot of children are born nine months after Midsummer in Sweden," says Jan-Öjvind Swahn, a Swedish ethnologist and the author of several books on the subject.

Midsummer is the Scandinavian holiday celebrating the summer solstice, which this year falls on June 21. Swedish traditions include dancing around a Maypole -- a symbol which some view as phallic -- and feasting on herring and copious amounts of vodka.

"Drinking is the most typical Midsummer tradition. There are historical pictures of people drinking to the point where they can't go on anymore," says Swahn. While the libations have a hand in the subsequent baby boom, Swahn points out that even without the booze, Midsummer is a time rich in romantic ritual.

To read more: "Summer Solstice: It's All About Sex"

The Bible and Sex....a non-theist review

This year NOSHA Vice-President, Jim Dugan, attended the annual Greer-Heard Forum. This is his report:

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The 2013 Greer-Heard Forum took place at the Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans on February 15th and 16th. The forum is an annual event designed to present a diversity of opinions on broad religious issues, and often includes a point-counterpoint between a theist and a non-theist. This year's forum was probably of less interest to most non-believers, as the various opinions represented were all within the Christian tradition. Nevertheless, the topic was one of broad interest: The Bible and Sex.

The presenters were all highly qualified scholars able to read biblical texts in their original languages. The more progressive among them emphasized that there exists a vast cultural chasm between our culture and the cultures of the writers of the Bible, that reading scripture always requires interpretation (whether the reader wants to admit that or not), and that the interpreter must always take responsibility for the interpretation given. More conservative presenters asserted that biblical texts have correct meanings intended by the original writers, that the reader's job is to extract those original meanings from the text, and never to read modern meanings into it. Unsurprisingly, the more progressive scholars were more supportive of equality for women and sexual minorities, and more supportive of more flexible sexual ethics, while the conservative scholars were not. 

It was interesting to see such a variety of opinions among Christian scholars. These were not just disagreements of interpretation and application, but also disagreements about the methods to be used in deriving those interpretations and applications. To what degree may we understand scripture as allegory rather than fact? How can we tell when a particular biblical narrative is merely a narrative, or is intended to convey an ethical rule or precept? Can interpretation be guided by on-going revelation? To what degree ought we seek to apply biblical precepts to our own culture, rather than seek to structure our twenty-first century society along first-century lines? 

For the non-believer, these scholars seem to be children arguing with each other over whose invisible friend could beat up the others' invisible friends. But for the non-believer who may often feel beleaguered in a society dominated by Christian believers, there is an important lesson here: Christians can't agree with each other on much of anything. The Bible is supposed at least to be divinely inspired, and for more fundamentalist believers to be a perfect revelation of divine will, yet interpretations of that inspired or revealed word vary tremendously. Moreover, that variation in interpretation is not just something we find among ordinary churchgoers; it is endemic to the high-powered biblical scholars who influence, and maybe even guide, rank-and-file opinion.

The topic of next year's Greer-Heard forum promises to be of more interest to unbelievers of all types: God and Cosmology. The main presenters will be arch-theist philosopher William Lane Craig and physicist Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time (2001). Save the date: Friday and Saturday, February 21-22, 2014.

For more information see: Greer-Heard Forum - http://greerheard.com/

A Thanksgiving Sermon by Robert Ingersoll

At our November meeting NOSHA board member, Rose Mortillaro, read this time-honored piece to commemorate the holiday. We wanted to share it here for anyone who has never experienced it.

Whom shall we thank? Standing here at the close of the 19th century -- amid the trophies of thought -- the triumphs of genius -- here under the flag of the Great Republic -- knowing something of the history of man -- here on this day that has been set apart for thanksgiving, I most reverently thank the good men. the good women of the past, I thank the kind fathers, the loving mothers of the savage days. I thank the father who spoke the first gentle word, the mother who first smiled upon her babe. I thank the first true friend. I thank the savages who hunted and fished that they and their babes might live. I thank those who cultivated the ground and changed the forests into farms -- those who built rude homes and watched the faces of their happy children in the glow of fireside flames -- those who domesticated horses, cattle and sheep -- those who invented wheels and looms and taught us to spin and weave -- those who by cultivation changed wild grasses into wheat and corn, changed bitter things to fruit, and worthless weeds to flowers, that sowed within our souls the seeds of art. I thank the poets of the dawn -- the tellers of legends -- the makers of myths -- the singers of joy and grief, of hope and love. I thank the artists who chiseled forms in stone and wrought with light and shade the face of man. I thank the philosophers, the thinkers, who taught us how to use our minds in the great search for truth. I thank the astronomers who explored the heavens, told us the secrets of the stars, the glories of the constellations -- the geologists who found the story of the world in fossil forms, in memoranda kept in ancient rocks, in lines written by waves, by frost and fire -- the anatomists who sought in muscle, nerve and bone for all the mysteries of life -- the chemists who unraveled Nature's work that they might learn her art -- the physicians who have laid the hand of science on the brow of pain, the hand whose magic touch restores -- the surgeons who have defeated Nature's self and forced her to preserve the lives of those she labored to destroy.

I thank the discoverers of chloroform and ether, the two angels who give to their beloved sleep, and wrap the throbbing brain in the soft robes of dreams. I thank the great inventors -- those who gave us movable type and the press, by means of which great thoughts and all discovered facts are made immortal -- the inventors of engines, of the great ships, of the railways, the cables and telegraphs. I thank the great mechanics, the workers in iron and steel, in wood and stone. I thank the inventors and makers of the numberless things of use and luxury.
I thank the industrious men, the loving mothers, the useful women. They are the benefactors of our race.

The inventor of pins did a thousand times more good than all the popes and cardinals, the bishops and priests -- than all the clergymen and parsons, exhorters and theologians that ever lived.

The inventor of matches did more for the comfort and convenience of mankind than all the founders of religions and the makers of all creeds -- than all malicious monks and selfish saints.

I thank the honest men and women who have expressed their sincere thoughts, who have been true to themselves and have preserved the veracity of their souls.

I thank the thinkers of Greece and Rome. Zeno and Epicurus, Cicero and Lucretius. I thank Bruno, the bravest, and Spinoza, the subtlest of men.

I thank Voltaire, whose thought lighted a flame in the brain of man, unlocked the doors of superstition's cells and gave liberty to many millions of his fellow-men. Voltaire -- a name that sheds light. Voltaire -- a star that superstition's darkness cannot quench.

I thank the great poets -- the dramatists. I thank Homer and Aeschylus, and I thank Shakespeare above them all. I thank Burns for the heart-throbs he changed into songs. for his lyrics of flame. I thank Shelley for his Skylark, Keats for his Grecian Urn and Byron for his Prisoner of Chillon. I thank the great novelists. I thank the great sculptors. I thank the unknown man who molded and chiseled the Venus de Milo. I thank the great painters. I thank Rembrandt and Corot. I thank all who have adorned, enriched and ennobled life -- all who have created the great, the noble, the heroic and artistic ideals.

I thank the statesmen who have preserved the rights of man. I thank Paine whose genius sowed the seeds of independence in the hearts of '76. I thank Jefferson whose mighty words for liberty have made the circuit of the globe. I thank the founders, the defenders, the saviors of the Republic. I thank Ericsson, the greatest mechanic of his century, for the monitor. I thank Lincoln for the Proclamation. I thank Grant for his victories and the vast host that fought for the right, -- for the freedom of man. I thank them all -- the living and the dead.

I thank the great scientists -- those who have reached the foundation, the bed-rock -- who have built upon facts -- the great scientists, in whose presence theologians look silly and feel malicious.

The scientists never persecuted, never imprisoned their fellow-men. They forged no chains, built no dungeons, erected no scaffolds -- tore no flesh with red hot pincers -- dislocated no joints on racks, crushed no hones in iron boots -- extinguished no eyes -- tore out no tongues and lighted no fagots. They did not pretend to be inspired -- did not claim to be prophets or saints or to have been born again. They were only intelligent and honest men. They did not appeal to force or fear. They did not regard men as slaves to be ruled by torture, by lash and chain, nor as children to be cheated with illusions, rocked in the cradle of an idiot creed and soothed by a lullaby of lies.

They did not wound -- they healed. They did not kill -- they lengthened life. They did not enslave -- they broke the chains and made men free. They sowed the seeds of knowledge, and many millions have reaped, are reaping, and will reap the harvest: of joy.

I thank Humboldt and Helmholtz and Haeckel and Buchner. I thank Lamarck and Darwin -- Darwin who revolutionized the thought of the intellectual world. I thank Huxley and Spencer. I thank the scientists one and all.

I thank the heroes, the destroyers of prejudice and fear -- the dethroners of savage gods -- the extinguishers of hate's eternal fire -- the heroes, the breakers of chains -- the founders of free states -- the makers of just laws -- the heroes who fought and fell on countless fields -- the heroes whose dungeons became shrines -- the heroes whose blood made scaffolds sacred -- the heroes, the apostles of reason, the disciples of truth, the soldiers of freedom -- the heroes who held high the holy torch and filled the world with light.

With all my heart I thank them all.