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Show 227: Having a Merry Naturalistic Christmas

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No matter how secular or naturalistic you are it’s impossible not to notice that Christmas time is here. To avoid getting a whiff of Douglas Fur should atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers hold their breath until mid January when the sanitation department guides the once noble icons to their transition into wood chips?

Looking beyond its association with faith and beyond the way it has been co-opted by the merchants of crass consumerism, are we left with anything about Christmas worth celebrating? With nine day until Christmas, Equal Time for Freethought will be discussing why “Having a Merry Naturalistic Christmas” is not only possible, it’s desirable.

But what would be the philosophy behind a naturalistic approach to Christmas; and what would activities for a naturalistic Christmas look like?

To facilitate the participation of widely different groups of people that the church wanted to assimilate early church fathers adopted a wide range of local traditions into Christmas. The result is that today’s Christmas celebration is essentially a pan-regional, best of traditions past collection. Rather than denying Christmas, if like the Church fathers of the past, naturalists could find ways to build upon some of the existing holiday traditions and make them their own, it may go a long way to helping establish naturalism as a popular practice.

Hear why, when it comes to Christmas, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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Show 226: Leonard Wheat – Against Religious Superstition: Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”

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Friday, The Golden Compass opens in theaters nation wide. Whatever critics may say about this new children’s fantasy trilogy, the die has already been cast. According to Christian activist groups, Golden Compass is a direct affront to Christianity and indeed God Himself, as emails, chatrooms, blogs and conservative television pundits warn everyone that in this trilogy, a little girl “kills God.”

Of course, the truth is not so far removed from the Christian propaganda it has spurned. While there is no doubt Hollywood’s version of author Philip Pullman’s – a member of the British Humanist Association – novel series will be rather tame, the books do indeed offer a non-religious take on C.S. Lewis’s Christian vision found in his seven-book Chronicles of Narnia series (indeed, Narnia was the inspiration for Materials).

Christian activists are arguing that Pullman is being grossly deceptive by offering watered-down film versions of his work to entice children to ask their parents to buy them the books, which will in turn de-convert them from Christianity. If only it were that easy.

But seriously, what does Pullman’s books actually say about Christianity, and religion in general, and what ought a secular society take from either the films or novels in question?

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Show 225: George Victor – The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable

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December 7th, 2007 marks the 66th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. As recent as 2006, on official government websites including WhiteHouse.gov., some historians and patriots still talk about the events of December 7th 1941 as a surprise attack by the Japanese. Reading from the White House website, “65 years ago, more than 2400 Americans lost their lives in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. On that peaceful Sunday morning, the country suffered a vicious, unprovoked attack that changed the course of history.” Last year, when this passage was written, President George Bush proclaimed December 7th 2006 as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. And, on another government website, it is written, “many Americans, including some military commanders had come to see U.S. lands immune from enemy invasion. That feeling of immunity ended forever on the morning of December 7th, 1941.” If sentiments of an event 66 years old sound familiar, it of course won’t surprise you that the government takes exactly the same position, regarding September 11th, 2001.
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Show 224a: “The Deepening Crisis: Islam and the Structure of Global Power”

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From 9/11 to the continuing invasion and occupation of Iraq to the saber rattling of a possible war against Iran, Americans have been inundated by the so-called “war on terror;” and at least as some see it, the war against Fundamentalist Islam. On the Right, we hear of “Islamo-fascism” and are warned that if we don’t stifle the great evil of Islamic terrorism, we are heading for another world war. In liberal circles, while the rhetoric is different, we are still told that the U.S. will hunt down terrorists wherever they may be, and that militaristic – even nuclear – measures against the Middle East are very much “on the table.”

In contrast, the Left has recognized that the ‘war on terror’ is really a pseudo-war against that which the U.S. itself helped create, and that our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and perhaps soon in Iran – which are making the world less safe regarding terrorist actions – are about controlling the precious, if deadly, energy resource of oil, and thus controlling the market so as to benefit the rich power elite.
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Show 223: “Ecstatic Humanism”

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In God and The State, anarchist Mikkail Bakunin asserts that people under the power of religion and superstition suffer not so much from “an aberration of mind as a deep discontent at Heart.”

Does popular humanist outreach focus too much on intellectual Puritanism at the expense of emotional transcendence? How can humanism help people address the emotional and psychological stress of living in a society fraught with war, aggressive advertising, and cultural flux? Is there room for ecstasy in humanism?

This week, guest host Michael O’Neil will explore these questions and more!

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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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