Nontheists and Politics

It is accepted (though it shouldn't be) that a politician who declares himself or herself to be atheist (or any nontheist) is finished. The founding fathers would have been shocked at such a political environment. Many of them were nontheists themselves or at the very minimum thought that religion should be kept stickily separate from politics and it shouldn't matter whether the politician is religious or of what religion. As the following quote from George Washington in a treaty signed by John Adams says:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...

Despite what some say, this is not a Christian nation, it is a secular nation with firm footing in an environment where everyone is allowed to believe and practice as they wish, including atheism.

This last week Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) publicly acknowledged he does not believe in a supreme being. The declaration, it said, makes him the highest-ranking elected official — and first congressman — to proclaim to be an atheist.

Roy Speckhardt of the AHA said: "With Stark's courageous public announcement of his nontheism, it is our hope that he will become an inspiration for others who have hidden their conclusions for far too long."

Stark said he was "a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being." He also wrote "I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social services."

Unitarian Universalism describes itself as creedless, allowing members to shape their beliefs based on personal experience rather than an authoritative statement of religious belief. Some members believe in God, but not all do.

Stark has represented Fremont in Congress since 1973 and chairs the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.

So, is this brave, political suicide, or both? Certainly it is more honest. In both Sam Harris' recent book The End of Faith and Richard Dawkins recent book The God Delusion, the authors explain how statistically a high percentage of intelligent, college educated people are nontheists, yet 100% (until now) if congress and the senate say they are believers (593 total people). The conclusion is inescapable - either they are lying or they are stupid. It is great to see a politician trying to be honest

What is more important, however, is what do we need to do to get back to the secular, freedom from religious discrimination foundations that this country was built on?

Sean

AHA's Humanist Celebrant Program

This past week I was approved by the Humanist Society (associated with the American Humanist Association) to be a Humanist Celebrant. This is a program that certifies celebrants and gives them the rights of clergy to perform weddings, birth celebrations, funeral, etc.

The program itself is a valuable one. I’m honored and excited the AHA has accepted me as a Celebrant. The process itself is straightforward though it takes time. You have to be a member of the AHA for a prescribed period, fill out a detailed application about your views, and get four recommendations. They want to see that you will uphold the Humanist ideals, that you are active in the community, and that you will purport yourself well as an AHA representative.

The only issue I encountered during the process was that one potential reference refused to be one based mostly on the AHA site. These friends are conscientious and religious. I had talked with them about Humanism multiple times. My thinking was that it would be valuable to have input from Christians who knew me well.

These friends don’t just give recommendations though; they needed to understand Humanism more. They went to Humanist sites, avoiding anti-humanist sites because they wanted to hear about Humanism from “the horse’s mouth”. What they found on the AHA site disturbed them to the point that they couldn’t conscientiously be a reference.

They found the Humanist principles and actually agreed with those – they considered them noble and inline with their own thinking. But when they went to the articles and stories on the site, they found those very articles didn’t adhere to the Humanist principles. What they found were emotional, political and irrational thinking instead of the scientific, rational thinking they were expecting.

I’ve had this same complaint myself about some of the work that comes out of the AHA. When they talk Humanism, it is close to perfect, but when the get involved in politics and current affairs, they try to make their point and do so by emotion and passion and not clear and reasoned thinking.

It is frustrating that the very organization I represent as a Celebrant has such an emotional face to it through their web site. I had to get a different reference that didn’t have such conscientious objections for the Celebrant application. Happily this worked and I’ve been approved.

The entire process took a couple of years, but that was because I had to be an AHA member for a certain amount of time and I wanted to build up my Humanist activity with the community prior to applying to be a Celebrant. If you have already been an AHA member and are already active, then the process is really just an application, the references, and then a few weeks for them to review the material.

I’ve posted a page on our site here about my work and availability as a Celebrant (or Officiate).

Rev. Sean Curley

Aostach - Domestic Skills

This is the second in a series of posts about a modern right of passage. This post is about the first section of the Aostach; Domestic Skills. I’ve trimmed each of the sections to keep the length down, but it is still fairly long; my apologies. Go here for the original post explaining the Aostach.

Domestic skills are those required to properly manage and maintain day to day life in the home. These skills range from sewing on a button to planning and cooking nutritious meals. The intent here is to prepare the individual for the time when s/he will be leaving the home, either for college or out on their own. These are basic skills that every person should have learned as they grew up, but we’ve heard from many that say they were forced to learn them on their own the hard way or many that never learned them at all who feel forced to pay others to perform the simplest domestic tasks such as mending or gutter cleaning.

Basic Nutritional Knowledge

This is basic knowledge of what makes up a balanced diet and healthy nutrition. A good diet with consistently healthy choices is not all that difficult when analyzed and broken out into simple clear advice. We explain to our kids that the general concept to keep in mind when planning for a healthy diet is simply concentrating on whole, natural, unprocessed, unsalted and un-sugared foods (foods that don’t usually come in a can, box or package.)

This area also covers vitamins and what we have to augment in our modern diet to have proper vitamin intake.

Balanced Menu

As follow-on to basic nutrition, the individual should be able to plan a week’s balanced menu; explain the various nutritional elements and why they are important. This task should assure everyone that the individual is capable of planning a healthy and varied menu designed to maintain health, energy and proper weight. Over 2/3 of Americans are overweight with over 1/3 of those clinically obese, (a category defined as being 20% higher than normal weight and the most dangerous of categories to be in), thus we believe this knowledge is incredibly vital to pass on to today’s teens. A discussion of portion control is also a vital part of this training section because modern adult America’s, and consequently most teen’s ideas of what actually constitutes an appropriate serving, are so out of proportion.

The individual has to actually produce a plan for an entire week meals (including snacks in between). S/he doesn’t have to shop for or produce the meals, just plan them.

Meal Preparation and Cleanup

The individual should be able to do all the tasks it takes to plan, buy ingredients, cook, and clean up a meal. This particular task is not about a balanced diet or nutrition, but about the mechanics of planning for and preparing a meal. This should include a discussion of comparison shopping, coupons and the possibilities in saving money when done correctly. This is especially useful to people leaving home for the first time that may be limited in available money.

In this case the individual actually has to perform all of this – do the shopping, preparation, serving and cleanup. It is fascinating to see a teenager realize just how much work mom or dad goes through for each meal.

Clothing Maintenance

Clothing is a fairly simple one that includes basic hemming, perhaps some small clothing repairs like unraveled seams, and the sewing on of a button. It also includes the basics of ironing and how to iron without burning a hole in the clothing. We actually call it the “I word” because we all hate it so much. It is one of those (luckily few) things that both my wife and I can’t stand to do. But, everyone should know the basics and how to do a reasonable job of it for those occasions they will actually need it.

Pet care

Most animals need shelter from the elements, food, water, regularly cleaned litter or an appropriate place to toilet, vaccinations and examinations from a qualified veterinarian, spay or neuter (we firmly discuss pet overpopulation, neglect and condition of overflowing animal shelters in the U.S. with all of our kids and why birth control is the most responsible, loving thing one can do for animals in general).

Choose and Wrap Gifts

This is easy and fun, but most kids when they start out have a tendency to choose gifts that they themselves would like to get. We like to discuss how to pick gifts for other people, taking care not to let one’s personal preferences figure in too strongly.

Other than that, this is a fairly simple task that includes how to wrap tasteful, age and station appropriate presents that look like you care and how to wrap them quickly when needed (e.g. via a gift bag). We also mention bringing small but thoughtful “thank you” gifts to hosts & hostesses.

On a related topic, we teach to always send a thank-you card for gifts. We make it fun and let them create and decorate their own, but we always make sure it gets done.

Being a “good guest”

Ideally all children would be taught from a young age that being a polite, thoughtful guest is important. It garners admiration (and a return invitation!) But it also helps to oil the wheels of life, which can be somewhat squeaky and uncomfortable without a bit of graciousness along the way. In our observation modern children may not always understand other people’s viewpoints and may simply forget to practice niceties such as offering to set the table, asking if everyone has had enough before taking last servings, clearing their dirty dishes after the meal, keeping their personal areas neat and clean, wiping muddy feet or removing shoes, saying “thank you for having me, I enjoyed myself”, etc

Home Maintenance

This is a huge topic and very few people know all of it let alone actually do what is supposed to be done for home maintenance every year. There are various lists of home maintenance tasks available on the Internet. Some are incredibly complete and others very superficial.

This topic covers indoor periodic/seasonal maintenance like checking the smoke alarms and air filters to outdoor maintenance like preparation for winter in cold climates.

Shop Skills

Finally we cover basic shop skills including the use of various tools and the potential dangers.

The individual is expected to be able to cut lumber and build a small project. We also explain basic electrical and plumbing maintenance and what should and shouldn’t be done by the individual. In our house, I so almost all home maintenance and am building a cabin on some property we have, so we make sure to tell them that this isn’t how it has to be and that they can hire professionals to do some of the more complex work.



Next post, when I get to it, will be about Financial Skills.

Sean

p.s. We are still looking for a new name for the Aostach...

Respecting the Elderly and Dieing

My wife is in nursing school and has clinical duty where she gets to "be" a nurse. This past week she got to care for a 93 year old woman who was bed-ridden and suffering. The woman was pleading with my wife to let her go (meaning let her die). Of course my wife could not help, but it brought to mind just how disrespectful it is to let our elderly live beyond when they want to live. This religiously-based notion that suicide under all circumstances is an evil thing stops us from allowing the humane thing to be done.

I’m old enough now that I can imagine a time when I’ll be tired of living and would welcome the quiet sleep of death. Death shouldn’t be so feared; the act of dying might be a painful one, but death itself is not.

Many cultures in history have allowed their old to die gracefully when the time came. Our own Native American Indians are an example – the elderly (or really anyone) could wonder off into the woods or fields, as the case may be, and quietly die on their own.

In modern times, we have the luxury of methods that will allow us to quietly go to sleep and die. Why are we therefore hanging on to this notion that all suicide is bad and we force people that would rather just fade away suffer continuously until they get so far gone that technology can’t keep them alive.

It seems to me that this is just being disrespectful of the individual and their right to die when they choose to. Everyone dies, so why should we make the end so painful when there are alternatives?

Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was born today in 1809 (198 years ago). As we approach his 200th birthday and we see continued debate about his theory of evolution, more and more people are recognizing Darwin on his birthday as one of the most noteworthy scientists of the 2nd millennium. There are various celebrations and events going on around the world and a site that tries to tell you about all of them (http://www.darwinday.org).

At this point Darwin’s “theories” have turned into the widely accepted beliefs of evolutionary biology and have been applied to other fields as well. It is a rare (and probably misguided) scientist or intellect who does not believe in the basic theory of evolution. In Darwin’s times there were a number of unproven elements that Darwin himself was unable to resolve before his death; virtually all of those have since been resolved and his theories have stood the test of time better than any others.

It is shocking then that only 14% of Americans think that evolution is “definitely true” (pretty much the lowest in all “western” countries) and over a third think that the world was created “as is” 6000 to 10000 years ago and is immutable. America is falling behind in science and technology while there are people trying to turn it into a Theocracy. These are very frightening facts to me and they should be to you as well.

One of the difficulties with evolution is that it just isn’t intuitive; you look around and can’t see any evolution happening at all and to say that we have a vast majority of our definition (DNA) in common with a rat is, frankly, insulting. Finally though there is a modern example of evolution in the making. The HIV virus has evolved in recent years into two distinct strains (HIV-1 and HIV-2) that are no longer capable of mating (combining) and this is one of the distinctions of two separate races. Scientists have seen the variations happening and have seen how some variations are more successful than others; evolution in the making. The reason this can happen with a virus is the shear numbers of reproductions that occur.

It took us going into space to finally convince the Catholic Church that the Earth revolves around the Sun (something Galileo almost died for in 1633) and maybe this modern proof that life is not immutable will help prove once and for all that evolution is fact.

How this fits into Religion is debatable and not really relevant to this blog. But the fact is that we are connected, each and every one of us, to every other Human (after all, genetically, there is no such thing as race) and also to every other living organism on the planet. That is an astounding thought and hopefully one that makes you look around at the world in a different light.

Thank you Darwin!

If you are interested in reading up on the modern view of Evolutionary Biology, try Steve Jones' Darwin's Ghost, The Origin Of Species Updated from Ballantine Books.

Irreverence is a hallmark of humanism

Irreverence is a hallmark of humanism. No writ is too holy, no image too divine to escape merciless critique, doubt, and even ridicule. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that even the most cohesive and organized humanist groups lack a defining cadre of sacred objects and ideas.

Yet sacredness is essential to spirituality for theists and non-theists alike. What we hold sacred forms the foundation for archtypes, traditions, mythology, rituals, and celebrations. It sets a context for the ethical and moral codes we use to guide our own behavior and to judge the behavior of others. It distinguishes doctrine from opinion and creates a living community out of a primordial soup of zealous individuality.

Humanists shy away from identifying anything as sacred because sacredness shapes behavior in a way that transcends rationality. If we refrain from murder, not because it is reasonable and evolutionarily adaptive to support a murder-free society but because life is sacred, does that defeat an essential humanist principle? Only if your goal is to have a religion of all bishops and no parishioners. And if humans are rational creatures, they are also social ones. Shared beliefs and traditions must be palatable by many, not only an elite few. If we deny our social selves by isolating ourselves into pockets of rationality, we deny our human natures and fall into the pits of hypocrisy. The compromise, then, is to use reason as the measure of sacredness rather than divinity.

There is precedent to guide us. In her novel The Fifth Sacred Thing, Starhawk (a neo-Pagan writer) envisions a future society whose inhabitants are religiously diverse but spiritually cohesive. The prologue to this book is the Declaration of the Four Sacred Things, which names earth, air, fire, and water as sacred. "Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of the Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them." Starhawk also names a fifth sacred thing -- spirit -- that requires freedom, justice, and equality to thrive.

Starhawk's Declaration wraps everything up in a neat little package, and I am not certain that I can improve on what she wrote. It is, of course, a western view of the spiritual elements. Wood and metal are not distinguished from earth, for example. It is also simplistic; carbon is given no more importance than nickel or einsteinium. But it provides a template for us to write the stories and traditions and mores of humanism.

In future posts, I intend to use the Five Sacred Things as a basis for recommending holidays, rituals, and codes of conduct for spiritual humanists.

Looking for a New Name for The Aostach

I've decided to try to come up with a new name for the Aostach. Originally it was Jiyadj which, believe it or not, was from a Klingon dictionary and had something to do with their rite of passage (hard to recall since it has been 10 years or so) and that has been what we called it at home. But, it sounds too much like Jihad and so before writing the book or publishing any blogs, we renamed it to Aostach. But, that name doesn't flow off the tongue well and we never did switch to calling it that at home.

So, I'm after a new name; if you have any ideas, PLEASE send them my way.
Some things that might help (that I've been looking at):

"Iter" is the root for passage and "maturus" is the root for mature, so I tried some combination of those, but didn't come up with anything great.

Madura is the Spanish word for mature and "edad madura" means mature age. This sounds better, but it doesn't make sense to me to use Spanish (why that over any other language). Greek/Latin make some sense, but I haven't found a good combination there yet...

Any thoughts you send my way are greatly appreciated (you can comment on this topic or send me email).

Thanks, Sean