I wrote an essay on my personal blog Doug’s Views about the relationship and sometime conflict between young people in the secular movement and those of us who are older and have been down the road awhile. I explore that relationship and connect it to a change in the energy I have for Humanist activism. My conclusion is we seculars, young or old, need each other to make the movement a success.
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May 2nd is the National Day of Reason in the United States. The day is a secular celebration for humanists, atheists, and other secularists and freethinkers in response to the National Day of Prayer, that is unfortunately a legal holiday in the United States. This country has many issues from high unemployment to religious conservatives attacks on women’s rights. The government shouldn’t be holding national days of prayer, we should be using reason to help solve human problems.
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The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) gave a report to the United Nations detailing that Atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other non-religious people are discriminated against around the world, where expression of their views is often criminalized and subject to capital punishment. The report was in response to efforts by Islamic countries to obtain a world ban on “defamation of religion”. Freedom of Religion and freedom of expression shouldn’t be in conflict.
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It has been a couple of weeks since the tragic mass shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school where 26 people were murdered by a man with a gun on December 14th. No one, who is human, can not feel sad at the loss of so many children. Even if you didn’t personally know the victims or their families we all have empathy for them. Not only has the murders brought guns back to the front of the public debate but it also is being used as a litmus test for those of use who are Humanists and non-religious.
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September 30th is designated as International Blasphemy Rights Day. This is when we bring awareness to efforts to censor dissent using the false cover of “protecting religious beliefs”. Although very rare in the US, jail time and even death comes to people deemed to have committed Blasphemy. In the US, public bullying sometimes results in “voluntary” self-censorship. Blasphemy laws are bad for freedom. A vibrant society needs and allows dissent in all forms so that the people are able to make informed choices in their lives. And how tolerant we are of dissent says a lot about how we view our country and our freedoms.
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In the wake of some very public and nasty debates about diversity and lack of respect for women in the freethought community, Jen McCreight, author of the blaghag blog on the Freethought Blogs Network created what she is calling a “new wave of Atheism” whose name evolved into Atheist+. Her goal was to move Atheism from just dealing with the god question – Atheists don’t believe in a god – but to also deal with issues like diversity and social justice. It seems to me that Humanism addresses all the issues McCreight feels is missing from Atheism and Humanism is non-theistic. One question I have is why not be a Humanist?
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