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The Voice of
Sanity
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.uscsh.org
e-mail:
secularhmnst@aol.com |
CALENDAR
The next brunch will be 10:30AM on October 10th;
at Denny’s restaurant; 2521 Wade Hampton Blvd, Taylors.
The next “Fourth Sunday” meeting will be held 5:00PM on October 25th at the home of Joyce Bates; 231 Rainey Road; Greenville. For directions to get there and type of dish to bring call 423-0802. The main meat dish will be provided.
The Secular “Humorist”
Secular humanists generally believe that the methods of science can and
should be utilized to study religion as one might study other social phenomena,
such as crime, poverty, suicide rates, family, economy, politics, etc. This belief is anathema to evangelical
fundamentalists who consider such notions as heretical. Members of the
religious right also consider it taboo to treat anything religious as humorous.
In June of 2008, I was most saddened to learn that my favorite social
satirist and comic, George Carlin, had died at the age of 71; in November of
2008, he was awarded posthumously the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain award for
American Humor. Carlin was raised as a Roman Catholic, but evolved into a
secular humanist and secular humorist in his adulthood. Of his several routines pertaining to
religion, two of my favorites are Religion is Bullshit and the 10
Commandments. Quoted below are the
first few paragraphs of Religion is Bullshit:
“When it comes to bullshit, major league bullshit, you have to stand in
awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims,
religion. No contest. No contest. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit
story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that
there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every
minute of every day. And the invisible
man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he
has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and
anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and
scream and cry forever and ever ‘til the end of time!
“But he loves you. He loves you,
and He needs money! He always needs
money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect,
all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow he just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they
pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now you talk about a good bullshit story! Holy shit!
“But I want you to know something, this is sincere, I want you to know,
when it comes to believing in God, I really tried … but I gotta tell you, the
longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is
f----d up.
“Something is wrong here. War,
disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime,
corruption, and the Ice Capades.
Something is definitely wrong.
This is not good work. If this
is the best that God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the resume of a Supreme
Being. This is the kind of shit you’d
expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in
any decently-run universe, this guy would have been out on his all-powerful ass
a long time ago. And by the way, I say
‘this guy,” because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there
is a God, it has to be a man.
“No woman could or would ever f--k things up like this….”
The full text of Carlin’s routine may be found at www.rense.com/general69/obj.htm. The full routine may be seen and heard on youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNy6ziOyxoA.
Look for Carlin’s the 10 Commandments in the next issue of the Voice
of Sanity.
R. Georges Delamontagne
Evolution As Seen by Organized Religions
Many people who have issues with evolution are fond of saying that it is only a theory. Well, it is a theory but there is no doubt that the controversy over such an outrageous idea in the 19th century was enough to start other scientists on the way to further discoveries. It led to a whole new field of genetics with the study of chromosomes, genes, and finally the discovery of DNA, RNA, and research into the powerful hormones and enzymes that are in so many products and medicines we use today. So, at least it was useful.
The statement about evolution being a theory is also a symptom of the dichotomy between religion, and science.
The theory is disturbing, though, because it’s about life and implies that human beings are not special. Most religions endow human beings with a place above the animals and it is difficult to let go of this idea. We are smarter than they are. We can change the environment to suit ourselves. We can survive in water, in the air, and even in space. Yet, more than 98% of our DNA is the same as a chimpanzee’s. We have 30,000 genes, but a lowly nematode (a kind of worm) that we can’t even see has 19,000 genes. That’s nearly 2/3’s of what we have.
And although the theory has thousands of examples of research to support it, it gives us no direction for the course of our own behavior. It’s a conclusion from research and nothing more. Other scientists know what to do with it, but that is within the scientific realm, and it doesn’t support belief in a higher power, or help us determine whether to use it to destroy our enemies (weapons of mass destruction) or to increase crop production (genetic engineering).
The list below consists of different organized religions and their policies regarding evolution, the results are mixed. Here is a sampling of what I found on the internet. The last entry is the statement for Secular Humanists.
Catholics: When the theory came out in 1859 there was no official statement. In the 1950’s a statement of neutrality was issued. Today the official position is that faith and scientific finding regarding human evolution are not in conflict.
Jews: (Orthodox) The Rabbinical Council of America has maintained that evolutionary theory, properly understood, is not incompatible with belief in a Divine Creation, nor with the first two chapters of Genesis. (Conservative) There’s no official response to the subject but most embrace science as a way to learn about God’s creation.
Islam: There’s no official statement to the effect that the Quran and evolution are compatible.
Protestantism: (Methodist) The Methodist Book of Discipline states: “We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology”. (Presbyterian) Their statement of faith says: “Neither scripture, our Confession of faith, nor our catechisms teach the creation of man by the direct action of God so as to exclude the possibility of evolution as a scientific theory. (Lutheran) There is no official statement to the effect that Genesis and evolution are compatible. (Baptist) There is no official statement. However there is the Clergy Letter Project which argues the case that people don’t need to choose between science and religion.
Although Secular Humanism is a philosophy and not a religion its definition has been included here for the sake of contrast:
Secular Humanism: A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence and scientific methods of inquiry in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
Science is a messenger giving us facts about the real world but it’s up to us to decide what to do with them. Secular Humanism seems to be the only endeavor that embraces the broad scope of scientific investigation, including evolution in its quest for a better understanding of humanity. The focus of secular humanists doesn’t have a hierarchy of importance from God at the top, down through human beings, and finally ending somewhere below our aforementioned nematode. We only deal with what we have.
J. Bates
Sources: Various religious sites on the internet, Wikipedia, and “The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magistrar’s Pox by Stephen J. Gould.