http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiyJzWy3CDQ - Part 1
and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPHnXrU5JzU - Part 2
TO: Paula Zahn/CNN
From: Alan Perlman, PhD
Author, An Atheist Reads the Torah: Secular Humanistic Perspectives on the Five Books of Moses
www.thejewishatheist.com
Reginald V. Finley, Sr.
www.infidelguy.com
We were appalled and frightened by the vicious anti-secular propaganda of your January 31 broadcast, in which you exhibited such rank discrimination as to include no secular humanists in a panel on the conflict between theism and atheism.
The visual backdrop to the discussion read something like "Do atheists deserve the hatred that is heaped upon them?" Imagine that the date is 1947 in America, and replace “atheists” with “Negroes.” Imagine you are in Germany in 1937; replace “atheists” with “Jews.” You will always find people who will answer “yes.” And history shows that when you can say anything about a marginalized group, very soon you can do anything to them.
Yes, the Gallaghers and others are quite accurate when they say that they were the focus of hatred and resentment. The violence is always one-way. It is religious believers who torture, destroy, and kill in the name of their God and their Prince of Peace.
Peace on earth is achieved not by conducting religious wars about whose Messiah is going to bring peace on earth. Peace on earth is achieved by human beings not killing each other.
We cannot even begin to respond to the monumentally unenlightened pronouncements of your panelists, but we agree with them on one point: secular humanists do not have good marketing. We would like to remedy that problem.
We would be happy to appear on your program, with or without prominent secular humanists/atheists (as time and availability permit) and to make the following points.
(1) Humanists are not merely against religious excesses and atrocities. There is much that we are for. There are enormous benefits to be gained by a being a secular and humanist and shedding the burden of God.
You need never again worry about what God wants, what God thinks, why bad things happen to good people, and much more. A life without God is a life spent in the real world, and that is refreshing and enriching to the human spirit. Thus, secular humanists are not required to believe in what they know to be impossible, just to be a member of a group. Most of them live lives of truth, honesty, and integrity, with which religious belief is incompatible.
(2) Consequently, secular humanists do not need to spin or distort ancient texts (as so many clergymen do) to give them a profundity and relevance that they really do not have.
Perlman considers this issue in great detail in his book, but the gist of it is that the texts of most Western religions were written by ancient people, quite primitive by our standards, and we have progressed well beyond them in terms of understanding ourselves and our world.
We don’t need an all-powerful God to tell us to be good (one the most base canards against atheists is that they are incapable of morality). We do not need God to punish us when we are bad, or to forgive us, or explain why things are the way they are...we have learned how to do all that through the hard labor of our own experience.
(3) Thus, secular humanists try to practice all the religious virtues -- tolerance, compassion, charity, integrity, and others -- just as believers do... but without any of the fairytales, without any spinning of the ancient texts. In fact, all the good that people do in the name of religion they could do without God -- and all the evil they do comes about because of differences in belief systems and in choice and interpretation of sacred texts.
A secular humanist believes that all humanity belongs to one religion because, as science tells us, the differences between us really are infinitesimal.
(4) The political process is dominated and saturated by talk of God. Yet history shows that when religious and secular power unite, the result is a lot of human bloodshed.
Politics could use a lot less religion. Governments should quit imposing religious morality on their people and inciting them into religious wars.
It's true that atheists too often get publicity for complaining about “In God We Trust” on the currency, but I'd be willing to overlook that fact if there were a conscientiously secular humanist candidate for president. There will be a gay president, a female president, and an African-American president, before there will be a secular humanist president. And yet, that alternative would make the most sense, given that the Founders sought so earnestly to separate church and state.
(5) By the way, the fact that people have been trying for a long time to make America a Christian nation...does not mean that America is or is becoming a Christian nation. We have always had powerful secular voices like Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, Robert Ingersoll, and P.J. O'Rourke, among many others.
Yes, the founders referred to "the Creator" and made similar references to the deity, but we must remember that the Bible was very important and, then as now, a cultural touchstone. Much more important is the fact that America is founded on a profoundly humanist idea: of government without a monarch...government of, for, and by the people...an elected government responsible to the people.
We contend that the Founders were as secular-humanistic as one could be at the end of the 18th century.
(6) The media are saturated and dominated by talk of God. Your broadcast is only the latest atrocity. Like clockwork, Jesus appears on the cover of Time and Newsweek every spring, right along with the tulips. Never, ever is any other point of view shared, except from the occasional "crank" complaining that that his/her children are being forced to pray and study the Bible in school. (It goes without saying that if education and government weren’t so completely intertwined, more children might be exposed to a secular education.)
(7) Religion does not deserve the moral high ground. The record of religious believers is truly appalling, and they have much to apologize for: countless religious wars, Crusades, Inquisitions, witch burnings, suicide bombings...truly, the world of God and religious belief is a world of intolerance and violence, including, most recently, the malice directed at the Gallaghers and others, and in fact by the bias of your program itself.
Christians only recently abandoned religious violence. Muslims seem to be a long way from doing so.
If you want the key questions of secular humanism, here they are: Why would anyone want to be part of -- much less prolong -- this world of religious conflict, intolerance, violence, intimidation, and bigotry? What kinds of fear of motivate people who believe that ancient texts with impossible events are not only true but sacred? Who encourages this fear?
Religion encourages a childlike acceptance and passivity. It fills some of our most basic needs, but in unhealthy ways. It requires us to believe fantasies, to discriminate against others, and perhaps even to be hypocritical and deceitful if we don't really believe what we’re practicing.
A secular humanist asks: how can we outgrow religion? How can these deep needs be fulfilled in more constructive ways?
(8) Religious belief has dominated history for far too long. Humanity can do better. It is time for everyone, including your august panelists, to re-examine their blind faith and ask whether the resulting intolerance, irrationality, and hypocrisy really do make for a better life on earth.
People can shed the burden of God and be good without God. But do they have the courage?
(9) Secular humanism must be considered a religious option. Not only does it address the basic questions of life...it actually offers humanistic revelation, humanistic salvation, and humanistic conversion. Jewish secular humanists have been notably thorough in working out a way to connect with their tradition and still maintain their integrity.
(10) Not only is secular humanism an alternative – it is preferable: you don’t have to pretend to believe the impossible; you don’t have to waste a lot of time in prayer and worship and contemplation of religious fantasies; you don’t have to hate or kill anyone who disagrees with you.
Many people are already quietly living in precisely this manner. Unfortunately, their passivity allows the aggressive and destructive progress of orthodoxy, given (1)-(6) above. That’s why a strong positive response is called for.
We would be happy to say any or all of these things on your show. In the name of journalistic integrity, in the name of truth, we demand equal time.
Respectfully,
Alan M. Perlman
Reginald V. Finley, Sr.