THE COWTOWN
HUMANIST
POLITICAL PARTIES’ PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCES FOCUS
OF AUGUST MEETING
‘OUTFOXED’
TO BE SHOWN AT SEPTEMBER 22 MEETING
TIMELY
TOPICS ON AGENDA FOR OCTOBER MEETING
Mark Green, who as the Democratic nominee for the
Since the
time of Plato a perennial concern of philosophers has been “what can we know
and how can we know it?” Fundamentalists
of all religions claim that the only certain truths are to be had from the
revelations contained in holy scriptures.
Humanists, by contrast, view all truth as provisional albeit
susceptible to verification in many cases with a high degree of certainty
through reason and experience. Holy books may reflect an accumulation of much wisdom, however, they are just as time-bound as any other
source of knowledge and have to be evaluated in the light of scientific
discoveries and of man’s continuing reflection on his own nature and destiny.
Mark
pointed out that we are the first generation in history having the capacity to
feed, medicate and educate everyone on the planet given the will do so and the
development of mechanisms for cooperating toward the attainment of those
objectives. Yet we have been unable
to lift a quarter of the world’s population out of the direst poverty; basic
health care is denied to billions; illiteracy remains the norm in many
countries; as for education, not only does a large portion of the population in
the developing world lack the skills for economically productive lives, the
same is true for a substantial part of the population in the so-called
developed world. There is a
mammoth disparity between what is feasible to our human and physical resources
and what seems likely to be accomplished any time soon given the political,
religious and institutional barriers standing in the way.
Even in
the richest country on earth the realization of personal potential has been
largely thwarted
by the development of a consumerist psychology.
The introduction of labor-saving devices on a massive scale after World
War II held open the possibility of increased leisure allowing richer cultural
and intellectual lives. A half
century later Americans are working pretty much the same number of hours and,
arguably, leading more hectic lives due to longer commuter distances and the
deterioration of public transportation. How did we get into this fix of always
chasing more goods? John Kenneth
Galbraith, for one, has written eloquently on the power of the advertising
industry to create wants previously unknown to us.
Can we break the grip of impersonal forces to lead more authentic lives?
Mark noted
that as a nation we are divided intellectually and psychologically and these
differences are reflected in our politics.
As Bill Clinton recently opined in a television interview, Democrats and
Republicans, at least in the main, see the world in distinctly different colors. Or, perhaps one should say, the world
is black and white for the latter: Good
versus Evil; the Sacred versus the Secular; Truth versus Falsity (“faith
doesn’t strive for knowledge; it is truth”).
Democrats, by contrast, are more apt to see life in shades of gray: eternal truths are few if
any and the complexities of life render judgments on those things human always
tentative. In this world, order is an anomaly, not the norm. We are always
striving to catch up with a reality that is forever on the wing.
He suggested that the nation-state paradigm that has governed for the
past two hundred years has been antiquated by the expansion of our knowledge of
the physical and social sciences and by an increasing interdependence
economically and intellectually. Isn’t
it time to put paid to religious, racial and ethnic quarrels and to rejoice in
our common humanity?
Sometime
in the coming months Mark expects to publish a book of essays exploring some of
these themes. He has been
fortunate, he said, to have had the time to read and reflect on philosophical
issues during the past couple of years.
We will look forward to hearing further from him literarily if not
politically. He joined us at our
pre-meeting dinner at Jason’s. We
who were there can attest to an engaging personality.
RECOMMENDED
“Can
science and reason be used to develop ethical judgments?
Many theists claim that without religious foundations, ‘anything goes,’
and social chaos will ensue. Scientific
naturalists believe that secular societies already have developed responsible
ethical norms and that science and reason have helped us to solve moral
dilemmas. How and in what sense
this occurs are vital issues that need to be discussed
in contemporary society, for this may very well be the hottest issue of the
twenty-first century.” Thus
Kurtz leads off a long discussion first of the objections to a naturalistic
ethics {we cannot deduce what ought to be (ethics) from what is (science), G.E. Moore’s
“naturalistic fallacy”} and then secondly his own take on how science
enlightens our moral principles.
This article ranks right up there with Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers
for the attention of humanists.
SOMETHING
WORTH THINKING ABOUT
Republicans [at their convention] constantly declared they
were going to deliver the blessings of liberty to the far corners of the world. This is the party’s dilemma—it wishes
to spread liberty to people whom it doesn’t really like.
–Fareed Zakaria,
Foreign Affairs editor, Newsweek
SEPTEMBER
MEETING
We
will meet at
In
October, we plan to have a discussion of timely topics:
a roundtable talk in which each participant will have the opportunity to
give a presentation on something recently read, heard or seen deemed to be of
interest to humanists. Coming
just 13 days before the presidential election, the meeting will have plenty to
chew on.
Our
pre-meeting dinner will again be held at Jason’s Deli on
OCTOBER
MEETING
We will meet on the third Wednesday, i.e. October 20. Until further notice, we will
continue thereafter to meet on the third Wednesday of each month, same time and
same location.
The 27th annual national convention of the
Freedom From Religion Foundation will meet in
On
David
Croft reports that a new humanist organization has been established in Dallas,
the “Brights”.
For additional information go to www.DallasBrights.org.
A reminder that dues were to be
paid in March. If
you are still delinquent and wish to retain your membership, please see
Dolores. We continue to send the e-mail version of the Newsletter to persons
who have not renewed their membership.
Anyone in this category who does not wish to receive the Newsletter any
longer should notify the editors. We
have no desire to clog anyone’s system with unwanted mail.
Thanks go out to
Kimberley Rivera and Sandra Langley for forwarding material for the Newsletter. We welcome contributions of both
published articles and your views for incorporation in the Newsletter.
ANOTHER
FEDERAL COURT STRIKES DOWN PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT
In the second such case in three months, a federal judge in
The
Justice Department released a harshly critical review September 1 that shows
that prosecutors failed to turn over dozens of pieces of evidence to defense
attorneys in the first major terrorism trial after the
Last week
[8/25/04-9/04/04] President Bush issued four executive orders addressing
matters that were subjects of recommendations by the 9/11 commission. One of the four created a President’s
Board on Safeguarding American Civil Liberties.
While it is laudable that a civil liberties board was included in the
first set of presidential actions in response to the commission’
recommendations, the new board falls short of addressing the concerns that led
the commission to recommend the setting up of a meaningful oversight board in
the first place. …With twenty or more people, individual members won’t feel
personally accountable or responsible, a fatal flaw for an effective civil
liberties oversight board. …All its members are from within government and
almost all are from the very agencies and departments whose actions are likely
to be the subject of civil liberty challenges and complaints.
…Only outsiders can supply both the independence and the skepticism that
are essential to evaluate the merits of government assertions of power that
intrude on personal privacy. …Already the Patriot Act has been used to
investigate official corruption, money-laundering and computer hacking. …A properly functioning civil
liberties oversight board should also be nonpartisan, and the way to achieve
that is through a balanced appointment process.
The president’s panel is made up almost entirely of presidential
appointees and senior staff members who serve presidential appointees. But the public must have confidence
that the board transcends the partisan interests of whatever administration is
in power. –Richard
Ben-Veniste, 9/11 commissioner, and Lance Cole,
consultant to the commission. (NYT)
President Bush, side-stepping an earlier campaign promise,
is allowing the ban on assault rifles and oversized clips to expire on
September 14 despite polls showing overwhelming public support for the ban’s
renewal. While amounting to only
one percent of America’s 190 million privately owned guns, assault weapons
account for a hugely disproportionate share of gun violence “precisely because
of their macho appeal—they can transform Walter Mitty
into Rambo, for a lot less money than a Hummer,” writes columnist Nicholas Kristoff. (NYT,
ABC News, FWST)
CHENEY AT ODDS WITH BUSH AND PARTY PLATFORM ON GAY
MARRIAGE AMENDMENT
Vice President has publicly stated his personal preference
against the adoption of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages. He emphasized, however, that the
president is the one making administration policy, not he.
Cheney has a lesbian daughter. Cheney’s
wife, otherwise a hard-nosed conservative, has also come out against the
amendment. [How personal
circumstances do influence one’s political views!] (IHS)
Florida’s Supreme Court scrutinized on August 31 Gov. Jeb Bush’s effort to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo alive against her husband’s wishes, sharply
questioning how a special law that the legislature passed to prolong her life
did not violate the separation of powers that the state’s constitution insures. The justices also focused on the fact
that the law does not require the governor to abide by any standards or
procedures, as he is required to do when ordering stays of execution in capital
punishment cases. (NYT)
In his wonderful book, “Summer for
the Gods,” Edward J. Larson paints a picture of
Consider:
In Horry [sic]
County, N.C., last week, local officials opened their council meeting with a
prayer to Jesus, despite the fact that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th
Circuit had ruled the practice unconstitutional.
…A Republican congressman called for a civil rights investigation last
week, after the
Add these
incidents to the national furor over the amputation of “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, and the
president’s decision to hobble stem cell research for religious reasons, and
it’s clear there is a growing wave of public officials convinced that their
own, personal religious freedom renders the notion of a wall between church and
state personally offensive and legally irrelevant.
…At the end of the monkey trial, H.L. Mencken wrote that
In a July 15 complaint to the IRS, Americans United has
charged that Jerry Falwell appears to have blatantly
violated federal law barring tax-exempt groups from partisan politicking. “Falwell is
using his ministry to urge the election of George W. Bush and other candidates
and to implore supporters to make contributions to a PAC whose purpose is to
secure the election of Bush and other candidates, wrote AU Executive Director
Barry Lynn in the complaint to the IRS.
Falwell has claimed that no church has ever
lost its tax-exempt status and that “every American pastor, as a tax-paying
citizen, is free to express his views and opinions.”
Yet the IRS, after a four-year in the 1980s, concluded that Falwell “Old Time Gospel Hour” had helped to raise money
for the “I Love
Before conservatives ousted moderate President Russell Dilday 10 years ago and replaced much of the faculty, Falwell, a pastor, television evangelist and founder of the
Moral Majority movement, would not have been welcome at the seminary, which is
one of the nation’s largest.
But times have changed.
…Falwell, who was making his first appearance
at the seminary, joked with reporters, telling them he was not going to get
into politics “except to tell you to vote for the Bush of your choice.” …”He [Paige Patterson] is the only
[seminary] president I know who is slightly to the right of me,” Falwell declared. …Patterson
upped the political side of Falwell’s visit by also
inviting Pat Carlson, chairwoman of the Tarrant County Republican Party, to
speak before Falwell.
She made the most of it, stating her own Christian beliefs and urging
those present to vote out “ungodly” public servants.
…In an interview after his address, Falwell
said that if 200,000 evangelical pastors can get their members to vote
Republican, it could swing the election to Bush.
–Jim Jones, religion columnist, FWST
CHURCH
POLITICKING BILL WOULD HELP BUSH, SAYS SPONSOR
Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) says his bill allowing
church-based electioneering would help the re-election prospects of President
Bush and other Republicans. According
to a “Legislative Update” from the Religious Freedom Coalition (RFC), a
Religious Right lobbying group, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
(R-TX) may try to include the Jones bill in an appropriations bill.
Current federal tax law forbids churches and charities in the 501©(3) tax-exempt category from endorsing candidates for
public office. These
organizations may address moral and political issues, but they may not use
their resources to support candidates. (C&S)
A nation-wide poll conducted by a
AMERICORPS CAN’T SUBSIDIZE INDOCTRINATION, SAYS COURT
Teachers and instructional aides may not be placed in religious
schools to teach religion and engage in sectarian activities with students as
part of a federally funded community service program, U.S. District Judge
Gladys Kessler of
FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY FUNNELS BILLIONS TO FAITH
The first major study of the implementation of President
Bush’s “faith-based initiative,” released by the Rockefeller Institute of
Government, reveals a huge bureaucracy has been created to implement it, and
signals “a major shift in the constitutional separation of church
and state.” The nonpartisan
Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy points out:
“Religious organizations are now involved in government-encouraged
activities ranging from building strip malls for economic improvements to
promoting child car seats to distributing Medicare prescription cards.”
The
report found that without legislative authority, “the president has
aggressively advanced the faith-based initiative” through executive orders and
rule changes. The report
mentions the following major regulatory changes by the Bush administration:
--Allowing federally-funded religious groups to discriminate on the
basis of religion in employment.
--Permitting
religious groups to convert government-forfeited property to religious purposes
after five years, previously prohibited.
Allowing
federally-funded religious groups to build and renovate structures used for
both religious worship and social services.
--No longer
requiring religious social service providers to certify they exert “no
religious influence” (Veterans Administration).
Allowing students to use federal job-training vouchers to receive
religious training to work at a church or other religious group (Department of
Labor).
The
White House estimates faith-based funding grants increased 41% by the
Department of Health and Human Services and 16% by Housing and Urban
Development in fiscal year 2003.
The Administration claims five federal agencies provided grants of $1.7
billion that year, or 8% of the $14.5 billion awarded.
(Freethought Today)
A disabled religious school student does not have a
constitutional right to demand publicly funded educational services in a
religious environment, ruled the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The parents argued that to get the level of services their son requires,
they would have to forgo sending him to a Catholic school, thus violating their
freedom of religion. The Courts held that parents who choose private education
do so knowing that they may have to give up some services.
“Persons opting to attend private schools, religious or otherwise, must
accept the disadvantages as well as any benefits offered by those schools. They cannot insist, as a matter of
constitutional right, that the disadvantages be cured by the provision of
public funding.” (C&S)
CHARTER
FOR FRAUD?
Since they lack meaningful oversight, voucher plans and
charter schools too often spark fraud and abuse—and leave children out in the
cold. In
HEAD SCARVES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS RILE THE FRENCH
The French parliament recently approved a law banning
conspicuous religious symbols from public schools.
Although the law applies to Christian crosses, Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh
turbans and other religious symbols, the clear target of the legislation is the
headscarf worn by Muslim
women and girls. The French have
been agitated for some time by rising Islamic militancy and the new law seems
to have resulted from public pressure to do something about it.
Still more recently two French journalists were kidnapped in
RELIGION
IN THE NEWS
WHY FAITH DOESN’T ALWAYS DESERVE RESPECT
Civilized people are supposed to respect each other’s
religious beliefs. It may be
rude to ask—but why? Any
clear-eyed person can see that blind faith in “ancient religious texts” serves
as the foundation for much of what troubles the world.
In the Islamic world, tyrants and terrorists rely on the Koran to
justify the brutal repression of women and homosexuals, the use of children as
suicide bombers, and the murder of Americans for the crime of their disbelief. Not all Muslims have such retrograde
views—just those, like Osama bin Laden,
who insist that the Koran is the literal word of God.
In the Koran, “non-Muslims are vilified on every page” as tools of Satan
and worthless infidels; in Koran 9:l23, for example, every Muslim man is
commanded to “make war on the infidels who dwell around you.”
Christianity also is afflicted with dangerous literalism.
Here in the
THE HUBRIS OF THE RELIGIOUS ZEALOT
Empirical evidence doesn’t matter for him,
…like all religious visionaries, he simply asserts that his own faith
will conquer reality. It won’t. –Conservative writer and former
FOR THE ZEALOT, ANYTHING GOES
It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists,
but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all
terrorists are Muslims. –Abdul Rahman al-Rashad, general manager
of the satellite television station Al-Arabiya,
reacting to recent murders of hostages in
A HIDDEN SWING VOTE:
EVANGELICALS
The
press has made a big issue of how President Bush and Senator John Kerry are
both trying to woo voters from groups that usually support the other side, be
they military veterans, Hispanics or Jews.
Yet one group that receives almost no attention is Christian
evangelicals. We are repeatedly
told they form the president’s unshakeable electoral base.
But in truth, this claim is vastly simplistic:
the fashionable image of masses of white evangelical voters,
stirred up by the tricks of Karl Rove and led by Bible-thumping clergymen,
marching in lock step to deny rights to women and to gays, is hardly borne out
by the data. Rather, the real
Republican base is the same as it was before Richard Nixon’s “Southern
strategy” appealed to religious Protestants in 1968:
the wealthy and the powerful.
…While it is true that white evangelicals tend to be more conservative
socially, as well as religiously, than the average American, there is little
correlation between religious conservatism and political conservatism. For example, in social survey, about
40 percent of Americans who believe in the literal, word-for-word
interpretation of the Bible describe themselves as “politically
conservative.”…In the last two presidential elections, about 62 percent of
white evangelicals voted Republican—or about 7.5 percent more than among other
American Protestants. [The
difference contributes only about an additional l.6 percentage points to a
Republican advantage.] Moreover,
those 1.6 percentage points are spread across all regions, not concentrated in
the South, where the evangelicals supposedly contribute to the Republicans’ red
state advantage. Clearly, claims
that evangelicals have hijacked the nation’s politics are greatly exaggerated. In fact, polling data show that
President Bush’s real base is not religious but economic, the group he jokingly
referred to as “the haves and the have mores.”
…if recent patterns hold, a majority (about 52 percent) of poor southern
white evangelicals will vote for Mr. Kerry in November, while only 12 percent
of affluent Southern white evangelical Christians will.
Most poorer Americans of every faith—including
evangelical Christians—vote for Democrats.
It’s a shame that few pundits, pollsters or politicians seem to notice. –Michael Hout,
professor of sociology at U.C. Berkeley, and Andrew M. Greeley, a Roman Catholic
priest and professor of sociology at the U. of Arizona (NYT)
TOP
OF THE NEWS
POVERTY
IN THE
The
number of Americans living in poverty increased by l.3 million last year, while
the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million, the Labor Department
reported August 25. It was the
third straight annual increase for both categories.
Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003,
or about l2.5 percent of the population.
The rise was more dramatic for children.
There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year, or 17.6 percent of
the under-18 population. Nearly
45 million people lacked health insurance, or 16 percent of the population. That was up from 43.5
million in 2002. Meanwhile, the
median household income, when adjusted for inflation, remained basically flat
last year at $43,315. Whites,
blacks and Asians saw no noticeable change, but income fell 2.6 percent for
Hispanics to $32,997. (AP)
A PARTNER NEEDED FOR A RIPE OLD AGE
To
live longer, it is best to live as a couple.
A recent study by the
FIGHTING THE AIDS EPIDEMIC IN PRISONS
In
any given year, 35 percent of the people with tuberculosis, nearly one third of
those with hepatitis C and 17 percent of the people with AIDS pass through
jails and prisons. Faced
with budget crises, many correctional facilities back away from testing
inmates, fearing they will be required to pay for expensive treatments. Condoms are banned or are simply
unavailable in more than 95 percent of the nation’s prisons.
The correctional system processes nearly 12 million people a year. It is especially vulnerable to AIDS
and other blood-borne diseases that spread easily through risky, unprotected
sexual acts. Concern
over the problem led to the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003,
requiring the Justice Department to collect data on prisoner-against-prisoner rape
and act to prevent it. One
study shows that about 70 percent experience their first same-sex encounters
only after landing behind bars.
The infections these men pick up in prisons cycle back into the
community once they are released. The
American prison system is now dominated by the dangerous notion that
distributing condoms would encourage prisoners to break the rules by having sex. Health officials have pointed out
that condoms are freely distributed in prisons in many countries, including
A MYTHIC REALITY
“Lurking
beneath the surface of every society, including ours, is the passionate
yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is
able to deliver.” [Chris
Hodges, War is a Force that Gives Us
Meaning]. When war
psychology takes hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a “mythic reality,”
in which the nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who
isn’t our ally is our enemy. This
state of mind works greatly to the benefit of those in power.
One striking part of the book describes Argentines’ reaction to the 1982
Falklands War. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of
the military junta, cynically launched that war to distract the public from the
failure of his economic policies. It
worked: “The junta, which had
been on the verge of collapse, instantly became the saviors of the country.” The point is that once war psychology
takes hold, the public desperately wants to believe in its leadership, and
ascribes heroic qualities to even the least deserving ruler.
National adulation for the junta ended only after a humiliating military
defeat [by the British]. –Paul Krugman, columnist NYT.
NATURE
AND NURTURE
CLAIMING ONE’S INHERITANCE
The
scientific study of twins goes back to the late 19th century, when
Francis Galton, an early geneticist, realized that
they came in two varieties: identical twins born from one egg and non-identical
twins that had come from two. ...The
twin rule of pathology states that any heritable disease will be more
concordant (that is, more likely to be jointly present or absent) in identical
twins than in non-identical twins—and, in turn, will be more concordant in
non-identical twins than in non-siblings.
Early work, for example, showed that the statistical correlation of
skin-mole counts between identical twins was 0.4, while non-identical twins had
a correlation of only 0.2. …
This result suggests that moles are heritable, but it also implies that there
is an environmental component to the development of moles,
otherwise the correlation in identical twins would be close to 1.0.
Twin research has shown that whether or not someone takes up smoking is
determined mainly by environmental factors, but once he does so, how much he
smokes is largely down to his genes. And
while a person’s religion is clearly a cultural attribute, there is a strong
genetic component to religious fundamentalism.
…The lesson from all today’s twin studies is that most human traits are
at least partially influenced by genes.
However, for the most part, the age-old dichotomy between nature and
nurture is not very useful. Many
genetic programs are open to input from the environment and genes are
frequently switched on or off by environmental signals.
It is also possible that genes themselves influence their environment. Some humans have innate preference
for participation in sports. Others
are drawn to novelty. Might
people also be drawn to certain kinds of friends and types of experience? In this way, a person’s genes might
shape the environment they act in as much as the environment shapes the actions
of the genes. (Economist
magazine)
First
the fish began to disappear. Then
villagers at
ADMINSTRATION SKIMPING ON PROTECTING ENVIRONMENT
The
Land and Wilderness Conservation Fund has also
suffered [neglect along with other environmental programs].
In 40 years, it has invested $12.5 billion in a staggering array of open
space programs, ranging from urban playgrounds and new parklands in the
nation’s suburbs to big chunks of the
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH: MORE MONEY, LESS IDEOLOGY PLEASE
A
decade ago, the world’s leaders met in