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Show 222: Carolyn Porco – Can Science replace Religion?

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Does the awe and wonder generated by our scientific endeavors provide a sufficient alternative for the role which religion plays in people’s lives?Our guest this Sunday will be Dr. Carolyn Porco, Senior Research Scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and Director of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations. The Cassini space mission has enabled us to see images of Saturn and it’s moons which are breath taking and elevates the question of the possible existence of extraterrestrial life to new heights.

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Show 221: Fund Drive Special with Rev. Billy and Alyson Cole

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Our 2007 Fall Fund Drive Special featured Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping and social scientist Allyson Cole, author of The Cult of True Victimhood: From the War on Welfare to the War on Terror. Here is a bit about/from the guests!

“Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives. The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, “commons” places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. But if we “back away from the product” – even a little bit, well then we Put The Odd Back In God! The supermodels fly away and we’re left with our original sensuality. So we are singing and preaching for local economies and real – not mediated through products — experience. We like independent shops where you know the person behind the counter or at least – you like them enough to share a story.We ask that local activists who are defending themselves against supermalls, nuke plants, gentrification — call us and we’ll come and put on our “Fabulous Worship!” Remember children… Love is a Gift Economy! “— The Rev

Allyson Cole: According to the publisher, “Condemnations of ‘victim politics’ are a familiar feature of American public life. Politicians and journalists across the ideological spectrum eagerly denounce “victimism.” Accusations of “playing the victim” have become a convenient way to ridicule or condemn. President George W. Bush even blamed an Islamic “culture of victimization” for 9/11 … Cole investigates the ideological underpinnings, cultural manifestations, and political consequences of anti-victimism in an array of contexts, including race relations, the feminist movement, conservative punditry, and the U.S. legal system. Being a victim, she contends, is no longer a matter of injuries or injustices endured, but a stigmatizing judgment of individual character. Those who claim victim status are cast as shamefully passive or cynically manipulative.”

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Show 220: “The New Humanism” with Chris Wells

“The New Humanism” with Chris Wells

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The term “humanism” has a fairly long history. Most Westerners would describe modern humanism as that philosophy born first in the European Renaissance, and which then found its teeth in the European Enlightenment. Of course, both of those periods might be better understood as the birth place of reason, science and atheism, rather than humanism.

In 1933, the first of several “humanist manifestos” were written, and here is where science advocacy, reason and atheism were combined by some to form an “ethical, philosophical life stance.” Although this life stance affirms the non-theist, human-centered, naturalism of the Enlightenment, it also calls for a free and universal society, a cooperative economic system and a participatory democracy, and the breaking down of artificial barriers to freedom such as racism, sexism, classism and other forms of separatist ideologies.

The so-called “new” humanism was first articulated in Latin America by Mario Rodriguez Cobos (pen name, Silo), and while his interpretation of humanism also respects science and reason, it is far more centered around humanism’s sociopolitical ideology than naturalism or religious critique. In fact, the “new” humanism is not closed to religious people, as some secular humanists are, because they realize the only way toward a humanist future society is by welcoming non-fundamentalist religionists into the fight. As various humanist writers and political scientists have argued, not to do so is to isolate humanism as a fringe movement in this still quite religious world.

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Show 219a: “Understanding and Defending Evolution” with Sam Datta and Massimo Pigliucci

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This two-part conversation with Sam Datta and Massimo Pigliucci will dig into how evolution takes place, including by taking on popular misconceptions about evolution, and explore why understanding the science of evolution matters. We will touch on the escalating attacks on evolution and science in general, and explore more fully why these are happening now, and visit the intersection where science and morality meet.

Since its publication last fall, The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism; Knowing What’s Real and Why it Matter, by Ardea Skybreak, has received increasing recognition from renowned scientists like Richard Leakey, Kevin Padian, Taner Edis and David Seaborg as well as educators… and from many people who are ordinarily denied access to science, including a large number of prisoners.

The book is unique in the way it popularizes the science of evolution and the scientific method and in the very non-defensive way it takes on religious superstition. It combines uncompromising scientific rigor with an accessible style which gives it the ability to connect with a broad and diverse audience.

Recently, Skybreak’s book was named as one of three finalists for the 2007 Benjamin Franklin award in the category of Science/Environment.

After reading this book a prisoner described the debate going on over evolution inside his prison, and remarked that, “A lot of these bible bangers who have been misled think this debate is about ‘winning or losing.’ I tell them this debate is about struggling for the truth.”

Skybreak was unavailable for this interview, but has connected us with one of her publicists, Sam Datta, whom we will be speaking with about her book.

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Show 218a: Thomas Clark – “Encountering Naturalism”

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Or, Can You Call Yourself a Naturalist and Still Believe in Free Will?

At its core, the most defining element of a naturalistic world-view is the idea that there exists an unbroken chain of cause and effect which determines the way that all entities in our classical universe behave.

In a naturalistic world-view, there are no forces or entities that exist outside the chain of cause and effect that can influence events in our universe. Everything that exists, has ever existed, or ever will exist, is inextricably linked in this chain; and this, of course, includes humans.

Using this idea to address the most crucial questions of our time with regard to our place in the universe, our relationship to each other, and our understanding of our selves, is to bring the full power of the naturalistic world-view to its most practical social and personal applications.

This week and next, Equal Time for Freethought will be joined by the Director of The Center for Naturalism, and author of the new primer on naturalism Encountering Naturalism, Thomas Clark.

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Show 217: “ParEcon, ParPolity & the Future of the Left” with Robin Hahnel and Steven Shalom

“ParEcon, ParPolity & the Future of the Left” with Robin Hahnel and Steven Shalom”

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What is ParEcon?

Participatory economics is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society. Proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism or coordinatorism, it is described as “an anarchistic economic vision.” It emerged from the work of activist and political theorist Michael Albert and that of radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s.

Albert and Hahnel stress that parecon is only meant to address an alternative economic theory and that it must be accompanied by equally important alternative visions in the fields of politics, culture and kinship.

What is ParPolity?

Stephen R. Shalom has begun work on a participatory political vision he calls “parpolity”. Elements of anarchism in the field of politics, polyculturalism in the field of culture, and feminism in the field of family and gender relations are also discussed by the authors as being possible foundations for future alternative visions in these other spheres of society.

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Show 216: Michael Albert – “Introduction to ParEcon”

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Over the last few months, we have been airing an interview series on Equal Time for Freethought unofficially called the “Economics of Humanism.” The purpose of these programs is to address what I personally think ought to be the center of focus for 21st Century humanism; that is, humanism ought to redirect its primary focus away from atheism, secularism and religious critique and toward the sociopolitical and economic aspects of human culture.

Humanism, as promoted and defended in the Humanist Manifestos (which serve as modern humanism’s defining documents), is a philosophy or world-view about an ethical, moral system of thought, derived from scientific method, naturalism and reason, and must be applied to the real world. If we want – as is argued in these documents and elsewhere in myriad humanist literature – a cooperative, tolerant, peaceful society where everyone has equal opportunity to live “the good life,” where people are not held back by racism, class-ism, sexism and nationalism, and where we can control or even eliminate the more dangerous sides of human nature such as violence, crime and the actions born from religious fundamentalism, we have to be serious, focused, and even strident about our mission.

The crux of our humanity can be found in our relationships with one another in what we have come to call societies or cultures. The way in which we interact on the large scale as we need to with 6 billion of us on the planet and growing, falls within those areas of study sociologists are interested in – which of course, includes how we govern ourselves (politics) and how we share human made and natural resources (economics). And, If we want to apply humanist ethics and morals to creating a very real planetary humanism, the means must be equal – ethically and morally – to the ends.

The means modern humankind has endeavored at over the last 200 years or so – capitalism, hierarchal democracy, state socialism and Party Communism – have all failed to bring us close enough to the ethical and moral sensibilities of humanism. In fact, too often, they have taken us further away. Therefore, we interviewed for the “Economics of Humanism” series Annalee Newitz on how capitalism’s evils have been represented in horror films in March, Joel Kovel on ecosocialism in April, and Noam Chomsky and Michael Perelman on, in part, the problem of capitalism and old forms of socialism, and what do to about it, in June and July respectively.

And now, for this week and next, we will explore one possible alternative to both capitalism and our current form of democracy.
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