http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/faith-healing-for-skeptics-how-the-expectant-brain-relieves-pain

It explains, using neuroscience, how people like Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, can overcome back pain through a variant of the placebo effect.

What about marching without a permit in streets, tying up traffic, or shutting down the port of Oakland? That does inconvenience others. I’d rather queasy about that, and think those tactics should be used sparingly if at all.

Would engaging with the Occupy movement give Humanists a potential new source of adherents?

I’ve described my participation with Occupy Boston in a post on The Humanist magazine’s blog, Rant & Reason

I’ve led meditations there as an outgrowth of what I’ve been doing at the Humanist Mindfulness group. I have also published an ebook on Amazon called Occupy the Moment, which obviously has to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement and perhaps less obviously with the idea of “being in the moment.”

It only costs 99 cents, but each sale will help give me a track record to maybe someday get this published as a real, physical book, so I’d appreciate your support. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle app for Mac, Windows, iPhone at my Occupy the Moment web site.

We all agreed that there is nothing after death (or “very probably” in the case of an agnostic). I made the argument that the fact that life is finite only makes it more precious, and focuses us on finding meaning in the texture of our actual lives rather than in an imaginary afterlife. Another participant noted that there’s no point in wasting your limited time on earth worrying about death. It was pointed out that people who are confident in either atheism or religious beliefs have less fear of death than those who are in between, and that confident atheists should make an effort to understand the fear of death that others have.

One participant expressed no fear of his own death, but great anxiety about how to comfort someone else who might be grieving or dying. We agreed that Humanists have strong intellectual arguments, but you need to offer emotional comfort as well as logical arguments to console someone. Even though religion may be factually wrong it may still have an advantage in its ability to offer consolation to people who are afraid of death, or grieving the death of a loved one. It was noted that a Humanist funeral is mostly a celebration when the person who died had lived a long and rich life, but that such a funeral is a lot harder in the case of a tragic early death; in that case one has to acknowledge shock, anger and grief first and foremost since there isn’t as much to celebrate.

One participant described how s/he had avoided someone who had experienced the tragic death of a child because s/he didn’t know what to say to the person; we all agreed that it is natural to be afraid in such a situation but that we shouldn’t do this.

We didn’t agree on the best way to die: one of us wanted to die in his sleep; others thought it would be better to have some time to say goodbyes; though we all agreed that lingering severe pain wasn’t appealing.

The participants ranged from under 30 to over 60; it was interesting that the older ones on the whole expressed less fear of death than the younger.

We discussed a couple of ancient texts. My personal favorite was this one from De Rerum Naturae by Lucretius:

Nothing to Fear in Death

15 Death, then, is nothing to us, nor does it concern us one least bit, inasmuch as the nature of the mind is that of yet another mortal possession. .

For, if by chance grief and pain are in store for a man, he must himself exist at the time ill is to befall him. Since death forestalls this and prevents his existence, into which such misfortunes might otherwise crowd, we may be sure that we have nothing to fear in death, and that he who is no more cannot be wretched, and that there is not a scrap of difference to him if he had never at any time been born, when once immortal death has stolen away mortal life.

16 Again, suppose nature should suddenly lift up her voice, and herself rebuke some one of us in these words: “Why is death so great a thing to you, mortal, that you give way excessively to sickly lamentation? Why groan and weep at death? For if the life that is past and gone has been pleasant to you, and all its blessings have not drained away and not been enjoyed—as if poured in a vessel full of holes—why don’t you retire like a guest sated with thee banquet of life, and with calm mind embrace, you fool, a rest that knows no care? But if all you have reaped has been wasted and lost, and life is a stumbling-block, why seek to add more—all to be lost again foolishly and passsed away without enjoyment? Why not rather make an end of life and trouble? For there is nothing more which I can devise or discover to please you: all things are ever as they were.”

http://www.humanistictexts.org/lucretius.htm#_Toc483369282

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Wednesday evening’s meeting (9/28/11)  of the Harvard Humanist Alumni Boston Discussion Group brought about lively debate on issues of how Humanists engage with religious people on both a personal and  group level.  Should the Humanist community build bridges with religious groups, and if so, how?  Are certain beliefs and practices of religionists fair game for ridicule?  Are some religious practices worth emulating within a humanist context?

The following is a summary of the questions raised, highlights of the group’s input on various themes that arose during the discussion, and my personal thoughts on the issues.  Having grown up in the deep South, my formative years were, not surprisingly, shaped by religion.  My parents were transplants, immigrants from Norway, so I was not a complete insider and fortunately was able to maintain a skeptical eye for most of my thirty years in Alabama.  Though the tie of religion to life is one that I perhaps will never be able to completely untether.

Do you engage personally with religious people about faith issues, and if so how?

On a personal level, I think that religion is a private affair.  I do not go out of my way to confront my religious friends about their faith.  My compulsion to engage someone is largely based on the context in which a religious issue is raised.  If a friend sincerely tells me that she is praying for me, I take that as a wish of good will and leave it at that.  If stronger remarks are made that this or that life event was “meant to be”, then I might feel a prickle on the back of my neck and am likely to engage in a discussion about the nature of life’s tragic events, and how callous it sounds to hear that some one’s misfortune  “was meant to be” .

During the discussion, the point was made that successful engagement is best achieved by first recognizing and respecting the fact that we are all people.  Interacting with religious people first on a human level before launching into a deep discussion will go farther than starting with contention.  Politeness aside, there was a consensus that we should not let silence be misconstrued as condoning or agreeing with a certain belief.  Humanists should feel comfortable openly supporting reason over superstition and declaring that we do not share a belief in the supernatural.

The discussion turned to the topic of our interactions and “actions” within religious settings.  When we attend a religious service such as a marriage or a funeral, can we respectfully not participate?  Is that what you do?  Or do you participate in or mimic the rituals out of courtesy?  There were thoughts on both sides of the aisle.  Comments were made that going through the motions without sharing the belief is disrespectful, while someone who had attended a friend’s funeral felt that his childhood familiarity with the rituals and a wish not to make the moment about his beliefs made him inclined to participate as a gesture of goodwill.

Religious expression within a public context was also brought up.  One of our group had recently attended an environmental event where one of the speakers told the crowd that “God wants us to take care of the planet”.  The attendee pondered this unexpected reference to religion at the rally.  Invoking God’s name was not appropriate in such a setting.  As nonreligious supporters, should we take offense? Certainly most of the people present shared the desire to spread a sense of stewardship for the Earth.  Rather than feeling alienated, should we simply welcome having a common goal with an uncommon ally?  There does exist a progressive religious left, albeit small, that cares about the environment.  Does progress toward a common goal trump voicing indignation over small infractions?  How do we best deal with overt religious expression when working with groups who share our goals on certain issues?
How engaged do you think the Humanist movement should be with organized
religions?  (Building Bridges)

I think Humanists should regularly be involved with organized religions in community projects.  Working on interfaith projects gives us the opportunity to educate the community and religious organizations about what Humanism is. It also reminds people that being a contributing, moral member of society is not dependent upon a person’s religion.

Someone pointed out that, as humanists, it is also important to build bridges with organized religion as a commitment to being inclusive, a quality not shared by many religious groups who by their nature suffer from elitism; if you do not believe in their particular God or brand, then you are excluded.  Humanism embraces a wide range of people: nonbelievers, nonreligious, atheists, agnostics, free thinkers.   Basically, humanism welcomes anyone who does not feel that their morality is derived from a belief in a god.  Even the progressively religious can be humanist, or at least friendly allies, since the basic framework for being a humanist is to seek the best in yourself and others, and to believe in your own ability to make a positive difference in the world.

There was a general consensus  that reaching out to the thousands, millions actually, of individuals who are already free thinkers, are not associated with religion or who have left their faiths for whatever reason is more important than building bridges with religious organizations.   In the U.S. today, 1 out 5 young people polled do not associate themselves with a particular religion.  There is a treasure trove of free-thinkers out there with which to align ourselves.  Reaching out to them should be our top priority.  By raising the visibility of Humanists as a group, we are likely to attract many like-minded people in the community who simply never knew that we existed.

When, if ever, is it appropriate to ridicule religious beliefs?

In general, I don’t believe that ridiculing another person’s beliefs is constructive.  However, there are certainly egregious examples of religious doctrine which call for exceptions.  For instance, practices or beliefs that impinge upon the rights of women or those that single out groups such as gays for ill-treatment, should be met with the same latitude of candor or constructive ridicule that would be evoked by a particularly racist comment or promotion of a racist agenda.

There were strong sentiments within the group that certain religious beliefs that have been foisted into the public sphere should be vigorously contested.  The addition of “under God” in the 1950s to the original text  of our pledge of allegiance is an infringement that should be remedied.  “In God We Trust” on our currency falls into the same realm.  The teaching of intelligent design or any other form of pseudoscience holds no legitimate place in public schools.  Encroachment of religion into the public sphere should be met with indignation and a demand for government that is unencumbered by the overt or subtle promotion of religion, especially a particular brand of religion.

What religious practices or emotions should humanism seek to replicate in a non-theistic context?

I think there are quite a few positive things that can be said for the role that religion plays in the lives of its adherents. Outside of its own particular brand of dogma and spiritual guidance, religious institutions lend a sense of community for their members and provide a common place to discuss matters important to them, to socialize, and to celebrate life’s milestones.  An equivalent resource does not really exist for  nonreligious people.   Certainly, there are societies for free-thinkers, atheist associations and the like; but we lack  institutions that provide a more holistic approach.  I think that emulating religious institutions in ways that address people’s needs on an intellectual, social, and personal level would greatly enhance the Humanist movement.  As Greg Epstein emphasizes  in his book, Good Without God, “being a good person in a vacuum is not a very satisfying experience”.

Someone in the group pointed out that Europe has accomplished a largely secular society without the coalescing of a humanist movement.  Another expressed doubt that such emulation of a “community feel” is even possible among the diverse, individually minded free-thinkers in our society.  Agreeing with the skepticism, someone asked if it was better to have a “small group of people with focus and clarity or a large group with an unfocused view”.  He advocated for the former.  I agreed with the person who sided with the latter.   We risk suffering the same elitism of religion if we dismiss the many new and enthusiastic free-thinking voices that have appeared over the past decade.  It is refreshing to see a more unified movement stir that seeks to simply be good for the sake of being good, to bring awareness of the oppressive side of religion, to ask serious questions about widespread beliefs that have no evidentiary basis, and to provide an alternative, supportive community for people to become involved in.  I’m optimistic about building Humanist communities here in the Boston area and all over the United States.  I think that we are on the verge of a tipping point in which a growing cohesive voice of reason may eventually become louder than that of dogma and fantasy.

First, Do No Harm

I do feel fairly clear about what might be called “passive goodness,” i.e. avoiding the unnecessary infliction of harm on others (or, I would add, on myself).  Cruelty, lying, cheating, stealing, violence — all can cause injury to others, and also make me feel bad about myself.  Whenever possible I try to avoid them. Would I tell a lie to save someone’s life? Of course. I might even tell a little “white lie” to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, if I were confident that the harm it might cause were minimal.  I would steal if I were starving, etc.  But as it happens I have the luxury of avoiding active badness almost all the time.

I’m also comfortable doing things that some religions condemn if I’m confident that they don’t cause harm. Most of the “seven deadly sins” don’t trouble me as such, unless they are pursued in a way that causes injury (to me or others): lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, even pride. While wrath may have its place, in general I do try to avoid it. And I’m not sure envy is ever harmless, although it may not always be possible to prevent. And even though I feel no intrinsic compunction about the other “sins” any of them can be injurious if pursued to excess.

It was pointed out the other night that the concept of avoiding harm resonates with the injunction of Maimonides: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to others.”  While few would disagree with this, we all felt that a robust idea of “goodness” means more than simply refraining from active badness. Some religions might see a life of passive meditation as the supreme good. A Humanist, however, would not consider that to be an especially “good” life. “Goodness” requires something more.

Niceness

Perhaps the simplest form of active goodness is common courtesy. Being pleasant, listening attentively, expressing sympathy, not interrupting. Sharing, waiting your turn, avoiding conflicts. Simple niceness will not solve the world’s problems. But it does improve the texture of our daily lives, and I do try to accomplish it.

The Categorical Imperative and The Golden Rule

There is another type of minor-league “goodness” that I practice because it makes me feel good. I think of it — perhaps mistakenly — as having something to do with Kant’s “categorical imperative,” that we should live by principles that we can will to be universal laws.

One example is jaywalking. I happily ignore traffic signals and markings, so long as I don’t require any driver to brake. My reasoning is that I would be happy — either as walker or driver — with a world in which this behavior were universal. I hate jaywalkers who make me brake, when I am driving, so I don’t inflict that on other drivers. (Of course I have no compunction about stopping traffic when I have the right of way.)

Another example involves busy coffee shops. I don’t take or “reserve” a seat until I have received at least part of my order. If everyone followed this rule the available seats would be put to their best use, and nobody would ever have to stand with his/her order because otherwise available seats had been “reserved.” Most of the time this works out — someone gets up by the time I receive my order. But I consider it an acceptable price to pay, for acting in accordance with a sound general principle, that I occasionally have to stand for a while. (I don’t follow this rule if the coffee shop is empty since in that case putting down my coat doesn’t risk anyone’s inconvenience.)

I’m not sure how much further this idea can take me; I haven’t tried to apply it in more serious contexts, but I do feel that jaywalkers who block traffic, and people who “reserve” seats in busy coffee shops, are not my idea of “good.”

There’s a resonance between this idea and the “Golden Rule.” I am in these cases behaving the way I wish others would behave. But to my mind “do unto others as you would have them do to you” is so broad as to be meaningless, unless you limit it to the minor-league domain of niceness. I would like people to give me all their money; so I should give them all my money? There are lots of things I would like that I don’t do, that it would make no sense for me to do. To my mind this — as a fundamental principle — is incoherent.

Competence and Goodness

Competence is obviously not goodness; an evil person could be highly competent.  But I submit that incompetence, especially extreme incompetence, is incompatible with goodness. A bad person intentionally causes harm. A “good-hearted” but incompetent person means well, but causes harm all the same. Lying may require an intent to mislead, but telling the truth requires competence: a person who doesn’t know what’s true or believes other people’s lies will say things that are just as false as if s/he were intentionally lying. The promises of an incompetent person are just as unreliable as those of someone who has no intention of keeping their word. A person who is insensitive to the feelings of others can hurt them as badly as if s/he acted with intentional cruelty. While from a religious perspective intention may make all the difference, in my view a highly incompetent person is scarcely distinguishable from a truly bad person.

Charity and Service

I give money to a variety of charities, mostly because it makes me feel good, and less guilty about what I don’t do. I am especially generous to several charities that cater to the homeless and indigent in the Boston area. I do this specifically so that I will feel less guilty about not giving money to panhandlers. I don’t give handouts on this theory: if I don’t like what people are doing — and I hate being asked for alms — I won’t pay people to do it, thus encouraging them to continue and others to emulate them. On the other hand, I always buy Spare Change newspaper because it gives homeless folks a chance to earn an honest dollar, and because the organization gives them opportunities to work their way out of poverty. I also give generously to musicians and other performers who I like, both to help them and to encourage them to entertain me.

I avoid “service projects,” despite the fact that many love them. An example might be gluing together scarves to keep homeless people warm in the winter. This is a kind idea and I wish all the best to people who want to do it. I am even attracted by the community aspect of getting together with a bunch of nice people to do something virtuous. I don’t particularly enjoy gluing (or whatever), and I’m not particularly good at it, but if those were the only considerations I might sometimes go or sometimes not. This further argument, however, almost always keeps me away: If I am going to spend an hour working for homeless people it is both more enjoyable and vastly more productive for me to do something that I enjoy and am sufficiently good at to be well compensated for, then to donate my earnings. In the example of scarves, the (say) $100 I could earn might buy two dozen scarves professionally made in a third-world factory, as opposed to the handful of amateurishly-glued scarves I might make.

Heroism

In the discussion I raised the question of what we thought we would do if we were faced with a motorcyclist trapped beneath a burning SUV (as happened recently in Utah). A dozen bystanders tipped up the SUV and pulled the cyclist to safety. I don’t know whether I would be so heroic. I kind of hope I would, but I can easily imagine myself being too timid, and coming up with rationalizations for inaction. One of us pointed out, however, that there isn’t much point dwelling on such extreme examples because we really can’t know in advance how we would behave.

Thoughtfulness

Apart from the sketchy ideas outlined above I really don’t have a formal framework for resolving moral questions. There is no Humanist Bible. The most important rule I try to follow is to think about these questions — both in the abstract and when possible issues arise. I try to be sensitive to when I may be causing harm, and take the time to consider whether there is a better way to proceed. And I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims to have a formula or holy book that purports to answer the question of what is or isn’t good.

Why Try to Be Good?

One participant the other night said that s/he has no particular interest in being good. It really is a fair question: since there’s no danger of divine retribution why bother being good at all?

Anyone of course will be influenced by the likelihood of real-life rewards or punishments. It’s obvious that we avoid committing crimes if we think we might get caught, and we can be motivated to do do good deeds by the prospect of applause or compensation. The behavior is good but these cases are uninteresting because they reflect simple self-interest.

What’s interesting is a situation in which a good or bad deed will never be known, or will never have consequences for the actor. In these cases there is only one non-religious reason to be good: that it will make you feel better than if you behave badly.

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I believe that this is usually true for most people in most circumstances. The only explanation I can offer for this happy fact is that most people I know have been brought up with good values in a relatively healthy society. They are hard-wired to feel good about themselves when they behave well and badly about themselves if they don’t. When this is true it is once again a matter of self-interest — thoughtful, enlightened self-interest — to behave well.

It must be acknowledged, however, that not everyone feels this way, and for anyone there will be situations in which other considerations outweigh concern about one’s future feelings. Some people evidently feel no guilt, because of organic defect, faulty upbringing or the coarsening effects of a hard life. It’s easy to call them names — “sociopath” for example — but ultimately we are just lucky there aren’t more of them. There are intermediate cases: someone who thinks s/he will feel no guilt but then is wracked by it (Lady MacBeth), and someone who fears guilt but finds in the event that s/he feels nothing (MacBeth himself).  I would like to think, however, that most of us would do the right thing, absent a strong countervailing motive. I personally have the luxury of indulging my sense of self-satisfaction almost always because there happen in my life to be relatively few motives that tempt me to behave badly (according to my own values).

Regina Spektor sings a wonderful song about someone who finds a wallet. It ends as follows; I get chills at the final note:

I’ll take your wallet
to my local blockbuster
they’ll find your number
in their computer
you’ll never know me
I’ll never know you
but you’ll be so happy
when they call you up

Empathy and Dignity

I think the basis for our desire to be good — such as it is — lies in empathy, our capacity and propensity to put ourselves in another person’s place, to feel — to some extent — their pain and pleasure as our own.

Adam Smith explains in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” that empathy for others, while natural, is naturally much less intense than concern for ones own feelings.  One might imagine someone who is truly more concerned about the feelings of others than about his or her own feelings, but this is more likely to be pretense than reality. And I much prefer the real world, in which people pursue their own interests, tempered by a reasonable measure of concern for others.

It was also pointed out the other evening that empathy varies depending on the degree of kinship with the other person. Stephen Pinker argues in “How the Mind Works” that our empathy for others is proportionate to how many of our genes the other person shares. While I would argue that the mental systems evolved through pure genetic natural selection have in many cases been co-opted for broader social purposes I acknowledge the fact that empathy is variable: One typically has greater empathy with relatives than with acquaintances, greater empathy with friends than with strangers, greater empathy with people “like me” than people who are “different,” etc.  One of us pointed out the other night that even nice people can be affected by unconscious racial bias, e.g. in employment.  I can’t be sure that I am free of this, although the breadth of my contacts with people of different cultures and races may be helpful. My only thought about how to correct such bias is to be aware of the possibility and to attempt to consciously compensate for it whenever possible. I perceive the problem of variable empathy as especially problematic in the extreme case where others are “depersonalized” so as to be excluded altogether from empathy. Humans seem all to ready to do this to “the enemy,” or even just to someone from a different tribe. A minimum level of empathy for all other humans, however different, would go a long way towards mitigating the most horrific atrocities.

Greg Epstein wrestles with the definition of goodness in “Good Without God,” and settles on a somewhat different formulation, Sherwin Wine’s concept of “dignity.”  (p. 90)  I had the privilege of hearing Wine speak at the New Humanism conference in 2007. He was an extraordinarily powerful speaker: clear, forceful, witty, wise. I didn’t know him personally but I still felt shattered when I learned of his tragic death, in a car crash, just three months later. Wine’s idea of “dignity” is composed of four elements:

• high self-awareness
• willingness to assume responsibility
• refusal to find one’s identity in any possession
• sense that one’s behavior is worthy of imitation by others

This is a powerful combination, which I can easily imagine has the ability change lives. To me, however, it appears to be a recipe for self-actualization, rather than a formula for any sort of goodness.  Someone following these principles would quite possibly be effective in leading others, but where they might lead seems undefined. From my perspective the missing component is empathy.

Perfection

For the sake of argument, the other night, I threw out the idea of perfection, supposing that it would be quickly dismissed.  To my surprise it sparked a lively interchange. One participant expressed the view that perfection is impossible; that whatever our idea of goodness we are doomed in the real world to fall short of the ideal. But another participant asked what we strive for if we don’t seek to achieve perfection. I was taken aback at this idea since in my own life I try to do a good job and avoid doing a lot of damage, but I never even think about perfection. The idea has a 19th century ring to me; “Excelsior!” Yet I wonder whether that attitude is the way in which really significant accomplishments are achieved! Another participant recounted a wonderful story — too personal I think for me to repeat here — about how “perfect” life can be.

Individual Goodness and the Good Society

One striking feature of the other night’s discussion was the way the conversation veered again and again between individual goodness and social health or illness. We are responsible as individuals for our own behavior. But our ability to be good and our desire to be good are inextricably dependent on the quality and character of the society in which we live. Contributing in whatever way we can to the health and fairness of our community is perhaps one of the most important elements of active goodness.

I mentioned last night a book that I am currently reading entitled “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.”  It presents extensive evidence for the proposition that once a society reaches a certain level of wealth — which the developed world has long achieved — additional wealth adds little to happiness, health, and many other indicia of well-being.  Those desirable characteristics are, however, very strongly correlated with low income disparity between rich and poor.  The authors contend, based on extensive and persuasive data, that inequality correlates with (and arguably causes) a host of social ills.  If the book sustains this argument it may cause me to shift my own political views sharply leftwards, more closely aligned with European socialism than with any mainstream American political movement.

But did you know that Jesus also created a living bird from a handful of clay?  Now that’s a real miracle, right up there with God’s creation of Adam from a handful of dust!

I don’t believe this myself, mind you, but 1.5 billion people do.  It’s not in the Bible so how can I make this claim?  Because it’s in the Koran.  Pickthal’s translation of Surah 3, verse 49 reads, “Lo! I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, and I breathe into it and it is a bird, by Allah’s leave.”  (The story is repeated in Surah 5, verse 110.)

While Muhammad is considered the final (and best) prophet, Muslims also revere Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other biblical figures as earlier prophets of Allah, the God of the Old and New Testaments. Jews and Christians are considered “people of the book,” to whom Allah gave holy, although no longer definitive, religious texts. So why can’t they all get along?  That would be a true miracle!

Corvino: A Skeptic’s Faith

I have a vivid memory of the first time I became aware that children could die.  It was early evening in the leisurely dusk of summer, and after eating with my mother at a local coffee shop, we passed by a newspaper vending machine outside.  A child victim, kidnapped, murdered and disposed of like garbage, stared ominously out at me from the front page of the paper in grainy black and white.  I remember my sense of horror when my mother told me that the child, who was approximately my age, would never see his parents again.  Associating death with old people, I was stupefied by this seeming contradiction.  Although raised heretically in a secular household, I had been corrupted by the prayer-saturated social universe of waxen blue-eyed Jesus’ plastered on my friends’ living room walls.  Alone in my bed that night, I wondered how “God” could have countenanced such unspeakable evil.

Decades later there is an aching space where this child’s life would have been, his personhood “frozen” at abduction.  Violent death by homicide at an early age is a grim reality for many youth of color.  Gangsta rap romanticizes it and dishes it up for the voyeurism of white suburbia.  Mainstream media ignores it or relegates it to social pathology.  Every semester when I ask my students if they’ve had a young friend or relative die violently at least half will raise their hands.  Their tattoos, notebooks and Sidekick phones are filled with vibrant mementoes for the dead.  It is not necessary to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or some other theatre of American imperialism to experience the devastation that the killing fields of disposable youth inflicts.  Yet, God takes care of children and fools, or so the shopworn saying goes.  In the midst of sudden death there is refuge in the belief that the Cecil B.  De Mille epic doomsayer of the Old Testament must have a special place in his heart for this tender constituency.  Pied Piper religionists pat children on the head and whisper into their dewy ears that the murder of an innocent child is part of some grand design.  They dish up the concept of divine providence like hard candy.  They lure sweet-toothed youth with a ready “antidote” to the quandary of trying to make sense out of the senselessness and randomness of evil.  The Wynken, Blynken and Nod bedtime story of grand design is chased down with the simple carrot of eternal reward for slain innocents. The inexplicable is assimilated.  Senseless evil, evil that befalls the good and stalks the innocent, is legitimized as part of the divine’s hardscrabble boot camp for the living. 

If it can be understood, it isn’t God, said Augustine.  In ambiguity then, prayer is the great equalizer and potential redeemer.  As American children we grow up with recurring images of kneeling girls and boys, hands clasped solemnly in prayer.  These images propagandize faith as a normal, natural phenomenon.  The magic bullet of prayer is trotted out as an escape hatch from the small indignity to the unspeakably cruel act of wild-oats-sewing youth.  Bad kids pray obsessively for forgiveness.  Good kids pray strategically in crisp starched pajamas for family members, friends, and Fido to be delivered to the top of God’s check list.  Sinful thoughts can be defused by requesting a special audience with God.  Good thoughts can be “deposited” into one’s virtual piggy bank of moral worth. 

Blasting the hypocrisy of this brand of yo-yo morality in the Doors’ song “the Soft Parade,” Jim Morrison bellows:

When I was back there in seminary school, a person put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with prayer…petition the Lord with prayer…petition the Lord with prayer…You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!!!

Morrison’s fierce monologue highlights the absurdity of prayer as a form of negotiation.  Clearly, the more meditative personal and intimate benefits of prayer can be therapeutic to the believer.   Yet, the assumption that prayer can be a bargaining chip in moments of crisis merely allows individuals to refuse to accept responsibility for their actions.  Children who are indoctrinated into this escape hatch mentality are forced early on to reconcile an out of control, evil, morally rudderless world with the illusion of a forgiving tailor-made God that they can summon like hocus pocus.  Picking and choosing morality and dividing the world into the Christian “us” and the immoral, unwashed secular/Muslim/Hindu/“them,” “faith-based” children are socialized to see and enforce hierarchies of personhood rather than embrace fellowship. 

Since God sees and “forgives” everything that is petitioned, the moral universe of children is a tiny, confining funhouse of mirrors.  In communities where death at an early age is considered unremarkable by mainstream media and policymakers, the deferment demanded by faith is an insurance policy against social oblivion.  When death is near, it is easy to arm a child with the “faith” that their 15 year-old cousin, killed in a drive-by shooting, has gone on to a “better place.” When death is near, the fear of retaliation for being a “snitch” compels crime witnesses to remain silent.  As a result, homicide cases remain open indefinitely while perpetrators walk around free and clear in the same neighborhoods.  Yet faith allows victims and witnesses to rationalize this seeming contradiction.  God will take care of the evildoer in the afterlife, whilst granting the departed everlasting peace and deliverance in heaven.

And for the parents of a dead child it is said that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.   Having lost a child to a congenital disease, this is bitter refuge and rank fraud.  This reductive homily has been especially tailored to domesticate and seduce women, saddled with a thousand obligations, the primary care of children and infirm relatives, dead end jobs with marginal pay.  It is God’s will that you be eaten alive by the “womanly” stress of always being expected to defer, sacrifice and persevere.  And it is God’s will that you must bite back your Eve-bequeathed rage in silent complicity.

In my infant son’s final hours, I stared down at the phalanx of tubes that separated him from death.  Soon, they said, he will be an angel.  I could feel nothing but the obscenity of divine providence, the mockery of robust babies whisked from the delivery room to pink and blue splattered nurseries without incident, innocent of the antiseptic drone of the neonatal ICU. 

But then, there is the stripped-to-the-bone eloquence of women waiting for deliverance; like that depicted in a story I read recently about a homeless Haitian single mother’s heartbreaking quest for permanent shelter.  Desperately she waits for God to “put something into her hand,” to perhaps give her a sign that she won’t be like scores of parents fated by this rudderless God to outlive their young children.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a senior fellow for the Institute for Humanist Studies.

The Indian Humanist Union was established in 1960 by Narsingh Narain, the late Mr.Narain’s father. The organization evolved from the 1954 Society for the Promotion of Freedom of Thought and functions with the official object of A. “Diffusing knowledge concerning moral and social problems from the humanist viewpoint” and B. “Social Service.”  (What exactly constitutes the aforementioned “humanist viewpoint” is described in refreshing detail on the Union’s website, and is one of the most comprehensive definitions of humanism we’ve seen so far. Read it here.)

The first part of their outline lists two basic principles behind Humanism: “love of fellow beings and solidarity of mankind without distinction of race, caste, creed or nationality” and a commitment to “intellectual integrity and scientific spirit.” Interestingly, much as Greg Epstein and other new American Humanists emphasize, the Union’s official documents posit that “Humanism can be yours regardless of metaphysical beliefs.”

After talking with Mr. Narain over delicious trays of thali, we came to understand fairly quickly why the Humanist Union was so concerned with the philosophy and ideology behind humanism. The reason: it’s mostly all they do. The Union publishes a quarterly journal called The Humanist Outlook and holds meetings every other Saturday in which members share ideas and viewpoints.

Narain was quick to point out that the Humanist Union is not a social work organization. “We simply don’t have the resources or the energy,” he said. But beyond their material inabilities, Narain doesn’t believe social work is the purpose of a humanist group. In contrast to what we’d heard from The Social Development Foundation and at the Radical Humanist Seminar, Narain stated boldly that “Humanism is not about human rights.”  He continued by clarifying that the two are inseparable but distinct.  The key, he said, “is not making human rights a central issue because it distracts from humanism’s original goals.”

We saw where he was coming from. It’s true that everyone seems to be “jumping on the human rights bandwagon,” as Narain puts it, and a shift too far in this direction distracts from the secular agenda of the movement. He was also wary of providing social services in the name of Humanism, as he believes this is inevitably a form of prosthelizing. Narain holds that the best strategy for the future of the movement is to return to its original purpose, clarify its message and, well, wait.

And that’s the thing about Mr. Narain; he doesn’t seem all that concerned with the future of humanism. But this complacency seems to stem more from a practical understanding of reality than unconcern. “These things will happen in time,” he said, “that is, unless we fail to deal with fundamental Islam.” Narain sees the world as tending naturally towards secularization, and views humanists as “gatherers, not hunters.” He doesn’t believe humanists should seek to convert others, but rather gather those who have reached humanist beliefs on their own.

In principle, we agree with this concept. The problem, however, is that people simply don’t know what humanism is. In our experiences in the US and in India, it seems that many people are culturally religious but skeptical and rational rather than devout. Can you be a humanist if you don’t know what humanism is? Probably. But the key seems to be spreading awareness about what humanism is so the “gathering” can happen effectively.

The Humanist Union isn’t completely unaware of this necessity. In sticking to humanism’s secular identity, its members often write editorials in newspapers arguing against religious education in schools, superstitions and the propagation of other anti-rational ideas. They also work to translate new scientific studies into Hindi and encourage their availability to India’s population. One example was an editorial Narain himself wrote only weeks ago in the Indian Express, speaking out against the outsourcing of education to religious organizations. (Read it here.)

Despite these efforts, however, Narain recognizes that his membership is dwindling. The problem is attrition, he says, as his demographic is mostly “retired academics and lawyers in their sixties and seventies.” The Humanist Union has 200 official life members but Narain suspects few actually read their magazine and stay involved: “humanists and atheists are notorious non-joiners,” he said, “which makes membership organizations a challenge.”

When the Thali bowls were cleared and Mrs. Narain had slipped out for her bridge game, Mr. Narain took us into the Centre’s library where he had reserved a stack of books and pamphlets for us to take. One thing seemed clear both from their titles and our meeting with Mr. Narain – it was all about humanism. There were no complex political debates or social service projects thrown in the mix. Unlike some of our other meetings, we didn’t need to dig to find the humanist thread. The Humanist Union understands what it stands for and recognizes the humility of its goals. The point: they have the right idea. The larger point: they seem to symbolize the fading energy of the Indian humanists to do anything about it. Mr. Narain smiled as he walked us outside and pointed us towards the delicately manicured Lodi Gardens, bidding us farewell before his afternoon T-time.

“These things will happen,” he said again. “We’re just a beautiful and ineffectual angel beating its humanist wings in vain.”

Gogineni  began his remarks with a stark affirmation: “We do not have a movement anymore, we have a dying organization.” And yet, he claimed, “Humanism has never been more relevant.” He continued by outlining the key issues he sees Humanism facing, particularly in India, and the goals that it must accomplish. “Humanism is a life-affirming philosophy,” he said, “and in our globalized, economically integrated world, there’s an excess of corruption and a lack of common morals and individual initiative.”

Babu remarked that humans have shown the world what humans are capable of and that it is time to utilize knowledge through science instead of revelation. After a few weeks in this country, his words struck a particular chord with us; we have already encountered many stories of Indian law, politics, and medicine favoring superstition and religious belief as opposed to the rational basis of science and critical analysis. This reality is all the more a shame in a country where bills advertising MBA and Biotechnology degrees don street corners from Delhi to the far reaches of Rajasthan’s deserts and a massive generation of highly educated students return from their universities and technical programs with increasing numbers each year.

Instead of preaching for an unrealistic pace of social change, Babu’s challenge was simple: “identify superstition close to you, and squash it.” His is far from a purely philosophical approach to Humanism. In a conference filled with aging individuals, Babu addressed the problems that Humanism faces without hesitation: “can we do any of this as a community of 50, with magazines that hardly anyone reads? When will we join the marketplace of ideas?”

Babu’s answer unfolded in a story of his own actions, and those of various members of the Indian Humanist movement, to confront superstition head-on through a media awareness campaign. During recent lunar eclipses in India ­– important astrological events here in which Hindu religious believers maintain that leaving the house is dangerous, can cause blindness, and that babies born during the eclipse will soon die – Babu and others have hit the television airwaves to explain the science behind the eclipse and work to dispel rumors.

In a direct display of his efforts in the name of Humanism – something lacking from some of the speakers that followed him – Babu told of a pregnant woman who had gone into labor during an eclipse whose parents insisted that it was unsafe to transport her to the hospital. In a dramatic rebuttal of superstition, a family member who had seen Babu’s science-based television report on the eclipse held firm and maintained that neither the mother nor child would be harmed by such a common astronomical occurrence. The television report was enough to convince the family, who took her to the hospital for a successful delivery.

 How, in a country that has sent a satellite to the moon, can we be afraid of the moon’s shadow?”

–       Babu Gogineni 

Babu’s tale was inspiring and indicative of the progress that Humanist reasoning makes possible, but his humanist ideals didn’t stop with rational thinking. “Humanism is about the most fundamental right to think,” he said. And he did have an optimism that India was a fertile place for the movement to grow. “If humanists can make a difference, it will be here,” he asserted. “We have a wave of ideas, but we need more than that, we need organization and action.” 

But everyone seemed to have their own opinion about how the achieve these ends. One participant rose to ask whether education was really the route by which the transformation of Indian society will occur. With a population currently 66% literate, he wondered if a rise to the goal of 90% literacy would be enough to bring about much change.

Again, Babu’s answer was straightforward and optimistic; the strategy of Humanism must be to “rely on what people have already learned to rebut what they say.”

Interestingly, however, the seminar was conducted almost entirely in English. While we have no way of knowing for sure, the fact that moderators occasionally translated a question to Hindi and the lack of participation from a group of lower-class looking attendees sitting the back made us wonder whether everyone could understand exactly what was going on. One moderator kept beginning his remarks in Hindi, but was eventually persuaded to speak in English. “Everyone here speaks English,” Babu asserted, “we don’t practice language chauvinism.” He gestured to us when he spoke these words – nonverbally expressing that as the only non-Indians, we were the ones who couldn’t speak Hindi.

But the Radical Humanist magazine is printed in English. And even their banner and program lacked Hindi translations. There was talk of reaching out to the lower castes and the larger Indian population – but the talk was in a language that that very demographic most likely can’t understand.

What Babu said next surprised us: “humanism is about human rights.” And indeed, the seminar seemed to agree with this avowal. The discussion was broken down into sections under the heading “Crisis of Indian Democracy” and included sub-topics of: Terrorism, Communalism, the Maoist Movement, Corruption, Growing Poverty, Liberalization and Nuclear Weapons.” After Babu’s initial remarks, humanism seemed to almost disappear from the dialogue. Despite the occasional reference to secularity or non-theism, the seminar was by and large a political argument. It had the feel of a college seminar (with a minimum age of 50) – with everyone eager to share their views on India’s social, political and economic development. The final discussion category wasn’t started until  nearly 4:30 pm, a half hour before the seminar was over — its title: “The relevance of Radical Humanism in the present context.”

            We wanted more. Hearing well-educated and qualified Indians discuss their national issues was fascinating; however, we left wondering where exactly the humanism fit in. If humanism is just about human rights – what’s the need for the “middle man” so to speak. Students around the world seem empowered and excited around the human rights movement and if humanism wants to take off, the “relevance of humanism in the present context” needs more than a half hour. Why is secularization relevant to human rights and what will provide the president to draw this connection?

More and more it seemed like the key demographic addressed by the seminar were young people, a group entirely absent from the conference. Everyone seemed to agree that the future of the movement lies in mobilizing a new generation of non-theist activists.

We decided to pose a question in the closing minutes of the seminar on this very topic: why, excluding the two of us, were there no students or young people in attendance? It took a moment to determine whether or not our question had even registered on the majority of participants gathered around the tables at the front of the room. It would be a guest seated at the back of the room who rose to respond. The man said he had asked his son in fifth grade what percent of his classmates were non-believers. His answer – 70% — was a surprise, but seemingly unbelievable. Rekha Saraswat, one of the moderators (and the editor of the Radical Humanist’s magazine) responded almost defensively that the older demographic was due to the university holiday, causing an absence of students in New Delhi. However, when we spoke with her college-aged daughter in the lobby, she agreed that getting young people involved was a challenge.

At the conclusion of the day’s activities we hailed a rickshaw (or ‘tuk tuk’ as some refer to them, given the propensity of their small motors to emit precisely such a noise) for Old Delhi, noting the countless Hindu shrines and godly images scattered about the city, as well as inside the vehicle itself. Twenty minutes later we arrived at Asia’s largest mosque, the Jamu Masjid, immediately following evening prayer, and were at once surrounded by hundreds of young people in traditional white garments eager to snap our photograph. We had no choice but to question our question’s explanation. Was it really the summer school holiday that kept students from the conference but not the mosque?  Or was the answer a lack of enthusiasm (or effort to foster enthusiasm) in a new generation of Humanist Indians?

Over a week later, as we write from the Buddhist enclave of Dharamsala, we continue to hear from more and more Humanists across the country inviting us to this and that institution from Mumbai to Chennai to remote villages in between, but the answer still eludes us. More than anything, we’ve found India to be a visual country where the vibrant oranges of Hindu devotees, the fantastic blue skin of gods displayed at small roadside shrines or in towering monuments and the elaborate architecture of Sikh temples snatch our attention and constantly overwhelm our senses. Still in the beginning stages of our research, we eagerly await encountering Humanism among students, in the countryside, and on display wherever it may exist.