DaveGWH's blog
Secular Pinky Swear
The AHA just launched the "Secular Pinky Swear," which is a concept that challenges the Religious Right's "Silver Ring Thing" and demonstrates that secular people, especially secular young people, can have strong values.
Bishops hold back progress, says AHA
Bishops Hold Back Progress, Say Humanists
For Immediate Release - Contact: Fred Edwords at (202) 238-9088
(Washington, D.C., June 13, 2008) The American
Humanist Association denounced today's document issued by the United States
Roman Catholic bishops in which the bishops "warned" against the "moral
dangers" of embryonic stem cell research. The document states that "no
commitment to a hoped-for 'greater good' can erase or diminish the wrong of
directly taking innocent human lives here and now."
In response, the American Humanist Association warned against the harm to
Humanists come out against bias
Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) has come out of the closet, but not in the way we typically use the term. Stark, who, last fall, accepted the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy’s “Humanist of the Year” award, is the first congressman in history to openly acknowledge his atheism.
The lawmaker’s public disclosure of nonbelief comes at a time when books by so-called “New Atheist” authors — Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Tufts professor Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens — are topping bestseller lists.
The Post-Theological Umbrella
The Post-Theological Umbrella
by David Niose
Published in the Humanist, January/February 2008:
Surely one of the biggest barriers keeping humanism from being a more prominent force in the United States is its nontheistic character. Two relevant surveys provide compelling proof that Americans just don't feel good about openly rejecting belief in a divinity:
A University of Minnesota survey in 2006 found atheists are the most distrusted and disliked minority group in the country.
An American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) from 2001 indicates that over 13 percent of the population identifies as secular/nonreligious, but only 1 percent identify as atheist, agnostic, or humanist.
The University of Minnesota results no doubt help to explain the results of the ARIS survey. That is, the fact that atheists are so vilified explains why only less than 1 percent of the population will identify as atheist, even though over 13 percent will identify as secular/nonreligious.
For humanist activists trying to advance their worldview in a culture that discourages open nontheism, there have traditionally been two ways of dealing with this issue. Some do so by trying to hide the nontheistic nature of humanism, avoiding discussion of nontheism with the hope that maybe nobody will notice it. This approach rarely works, however, because most discussions of humanism with nonhumanists inevitably result in the question: So are humanists atheists?
T&G Article on GWH
An article about humanism and Greater Worcester Humanists in the T&G, Sept. 13, 2007:
