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Sunny Jackson

Council for Secular Humanism - 0 views

www.secularhumanism.org/index.php

Cached ≡ Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - Cached
  • secular humanists don't believe in a God or an afterlife
  • secular humanism encourages people to think for themselves and question authority
  • secular humanism says the morality of actions should be judged by their consequences
  • ...57 more annotations...
  • There is no central authority
  • People come to secular humanism by following their own curiosity and reasoning
  • secular humanism is not so much a body of beliefs as a method for reaching understanding
  • It is an approach to life that tries to be positive, rational, realistic, and open-minded
  • we are not expressing a doctrine
  • doing our best to state the consensus shared
  • Secular humanists believe morality and meaning come from humanity and the natural world
  • It is our human values that give us rights, responsibilities, and dignity.
  • We believe that morality should aim to bring out the best in people, so that all people can have the best in life.
  • morality must be based on our knowledge of human nature and the real world
  • treat others with the same consideration as you would have them treat you
  • the common moral decencies - for example, people should not lie, steal, or kill; and they should be honest, generous, and cooperative - really are conducive to human welfare
  • Humanists realize that individuals alone cannot solve all our problems, but instead of turning to the supernatural, we believe that problems are solved by people working together, relying on understanding and creativity
  • humanists are committed to promoting human values, human understanding, and human development
  • Humanists also emphasize the importance of self-determination - the right of individuals to control their own lives, so long as they do not harm others
  • freedom of choice
  • people create their own meaning and purpose in life
  • The value and significance of life comes from how we live life, not from some supposed transcendent realm
  • The moral differences between secular humanism and religion do not justify the allegation that secular humanist have no morals. This claim is not an argument, just an insult.
  • Nonreligious, humanistic moral systems existed before Christianity
  • the Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics of classical Greece and Rome
  • the common moral decencies are found throughout the cultures of the world
  • The most important moral and political concepts of the modern era have developed out of humanistic thinking
  • You will search the Bible in vain for opposition to slavery or support for democracy and equality
  • neither the Supreme Court, nor this circuit, has ever held that evolutionism or secular humanism are `religions'
  • they refused to reverse a ruling that secular humanism is not a religion
  • Secular humanism is not a religion by any definition: There are no supernatural beliefs, no creeds that all humanists are required to accept, no sacred texts or required rituals. Humanists are not expected or required to have "faith" in what is said by any authority, living or dead, human or "supernatural."
  • humanists derive their meaning and values from the natural world. Secular humanism is a naturalistic, nonreligious worldview
  • humanists don't worship anything
  • Humanity's constant challenge is to understand itself and improve itself
  • We don't pretend that our ethics and values are divine: we recognize that they are human, and therefore part of nature
  • individual secular humanists differ
  • the human species has evolved by the same natural processes as every other species
  • some of our most treasured traits, such as language and the ability to understand and care for others, are on an evolutionary continuum with communicative and cooperative behaviors of other animals
  • humans have a moral responsibility towards the rest of the natural world
  • secular humanists cover a wide spectrum
  • One political view that secular humanists do share is unswerving support for democracy, freedom, and human rights
  • All secular humanists are utterly opposed to totalitarian systems
  • The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights contain no references to God or Christianity. Their only references to religion establish freedom of religion and separation of church and state
  • The motto on the Great Seal of the United States, unchanged since its adoption in 1782, is E Pluribus Unum ("From Many, One")
  • The Pledge of Allegiance did not contain an oath to God, until it was added in the 1950s
  • In 1797 the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Treaty of Tripoli which stated that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
  • the remarkable thing about the United States is precisely that it was created as a secular republic organized around the rights and freedoms of its citizens
  • on the basis of shared philosophical principles and ideals
  • The myth that secular humanists are unAmerican is an insult to the patriotism and distinguished service of millions of people.
  • all beliefs are fallible and provisional, and that diversity and dialogue are essential to the process of learning and developing
  • we value tolerance, pluralism, and open-mindedness as positive and beneficial qualities in society
  • Humanists are staunch supporters of freedom of religion, belief, and conscience, as laid out in both the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights protect the freedom of religious belief equally with the freedom of nonreligious belief, the freedom of religion equally with the freedom from religion.
  • the neutrality of a secular society
  • Secular humanists believe that a healthy society supports a variety of worldviews
  • We also believe that religious and philosophical views should be every bit as open to debate and discussion as political beliefs.
  • All these claims make the same mistake: they confuse neutrality with hostility
  • neutrality toward different worldviews is the best protection from persecution
  • Separating church and state doesn't mean that the state promotes atheism and humanism, but that it provides equal protection to all beliefs
  • The amoral, power-hungry "secular humanist" conspiracy described by some religious conservatives is a myth
  • the vibrant movement that champions a moral approach to living based on reason and happiness is alive and growing
  • there are secular humanists. But no, there is no bogeyman.
Sunny Jackson

Bundlr - Reason(s) & Belief - 0 views

bundlr.com/reasons-and-belief

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • contrived
  • circumstantial evidence
  • all members of that religion would speak with one voice regarding ethical and theological issues
  • ...97 more annotations...
  • some piece of knowledge that the people of the time couldn't possibly have known but that is now known to be true
  • still explicable as the result of purely human forces
  • To convince me, a miracle would have to be genuine, verifiable, and represent a real and inexplicable divergence from the ordinary.
  • If a given religion's sacred text consistently promotes peace, compassion and nonviolence
  • Anything that can be explained by peer pressure, the power of suggestion or the placebo effect does not count.
  • Did God intend to communicate his message clearly but failed to do so?
  • if that religion's history reflects that fact
  • I'll be happy to believe in God if he tells me to in person, as long as he does it in such a way that I could be sure that it was not a hallucination
  • interesting theological problems
  • subjective experience
  • self-fulfilling
  • impressive
  • a dramatic, statistically significant increase in recovery rate
  • True inerrancy
  • Almost every religion claims their scripture is perfect, but none that I know of have actually met this exacting standard
  • almost every religion that has ever had the power to do so has persecuted those who believed differently, and I do not think it likely that a morally good deity would allow his chosen faith's good name to be smeared by evil and fallible humans
  • It seems reasonable to expect that, if there existed a god that was interested in revealing itself to humanity and desired that we follow its commands, that god would write down whatever instructions it had to give us in a way that was only amenable to one interpretation.
  • for no apparent reason
  • tended to explode in flames
  • interesting
  • even minor but objectively verifiable miracles would do
  • Favorable coincidences or kind or courageous acts performed by human beings also do not meet this standard.
  • travel to every planet in the universe individually
  • compelling
  • this could still be the result of human influence
  • detailed, specific and unambiguous
  • result could be repeated and confirmed
  • multiple reliable witnesses
  • I invite all theists to respond by preparing a list of things that they would accept as proof that atheism is true.
  • glowing auras of h*** light
  • Why doesn't this happen any more today?
  • conclusive
  • proposed those ideas long ago
  • a double-blind study
  • verified by independent evidence
  • indisputable proof
  • circumstantial, not conclusive, evidence
  • a h*** text entirely without error or self-contradiction
  • extra-biblical evidence
  • I'm not interested in the testimonials of people who converted to a religion, not even if they used to be atheists.
  • to protect them from harm
  • independent of any claim
  • faith healing, or people being "slain in the Spirit" and toppling over, owes more to showmanship and the placebo effect used on eager-to-please individuals that have been worked up into highly excitable, suggestible states
  • possible to disprove
  • there must be independent verification that the piece of knowledge was written in texts that existed well before it was actually discovered by science
  • Everyone has moments of weakness in which emotion overrides logic.
  • Biblical miracles are people raising their hands and telling something impossible to happen, and it happens.
  • something so counter-intuitive that the odds against guessing at it correctly would be staggering
  • the lone success among a thousand failures
  • members of all faiths claim to have had convincing subjective experiences of the truth of that faith
  • something surprising, unlikely or unique
  • if faith healers could restore severed limbs...
  • explain what logic and evidence persuaded them
  • If you attempt to prove God's existence to me by listing the evidence for a young earth, more likely than not you'll be disappointed. (Though I'm always happy to debate the merits of evolution.)
  • “There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse" (Rowe, 1979, p. 336).
  • the temporal lobes, especially the left lobe, are somehow involved in religious experience
  • what arguments and tactics are likely to be ineffective at convincing an atheist to change their mind
  • religious hallucinations associated with epilepsy
  • "An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally as bad or worse" (Rowe, 1979, p. 336).
  • In order to leap the chasm from deism to theism; from deism to Christianity - you need to establish that Yahweh was not merely the natural evolution of Canaanite polytheism, and more importantly, rationalize how an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God, is compatible with pointless animal suffering.
  • case histories with hallucinations of a religious nature
  • Family religion was focused on the god of the settlement
  • "God by definition is all-powerful, all knowing and all good. If God is all-powerful, He can prevent evil. If God is all knowing and can prevent evil, He knows how to prevent it. If God is all good, He would want to prevent evil. But since there is evil God cannot exist” (Martin & Bernard, 2003, p. 316).
  • there is a profound chasm between (1) deism and (2) theism
  • The Christian God does not exist.
  • The Bible is not the Word of God.
  • The Bible is not 100% factually accurate.
  • This god was the patron of the leading family and, by extension, of the local clan and the settlement
  • the magnetic configurations, not the subjects’ exotic beliefs or suggestibility, were responsible for the experimental facilitation of sensing a presence
  • Convergence involved the coalescence of various deities and/or some of their features into the figure of Yahweh
  • The Cosmological argument, the Kalām cosmological argument, the Teleological or Design argument, and the Ontological argument - merely take you to the deists' side of the chasm.
  • Features belonging to deities such as El, Asherah, and Baal were absorbed into the Yahwistic religion of Israel.
  • religion was predominantly a matter of the family
  • speaks in tongues (glossolalia)
  • Jesus was not God.
  • “The text itself of each Gospel is anonymous and its title represents what later tradition had to say about the identity of the author … the first Gospel was put together by an unknown Christian who utilized the Gospel of Mark, the Matthean collection, and other special sources.” (Metzger, 2003, p. 114)
  • Allegiance to the clan god was concomitant with membership of the clan
  • Epicurus (341 - 270 BCE) Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
  • "Many of the books of the New Testament are pseudonymous – written not by the apostles but by later writers claiming to be apostles" (Ehrman, 2009, pp. 5-6).
  • God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
  • Ecclesiastes 9:5 – "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten."
  • Religious experience can be replicated using magnetic fields
  • at least one of the gospel authors is making content up
  • “The text itself, like all the gospels, is anonymous.” (Price, 2006, p. 493)
  • At least one of the gospels is incorrect
  • seizures can also be “focal”; that is, they can remain confined largely to a single small part of the brain
  • even if both phrases were said together, he could only die immediately after one of them
  • 80% of normal people will feel a sensed presence within the room if you stimulate a person’s temporal lobes with magnetic fields
  • at least one gospel is making content up
  • they cannot both be true
  • “To refer to the author as Matthew is only a convention.” (Miller, 1995, p. 56)
  • “Like all the gospels, our so-called Matthew was originally anonymous.” (Price, 2006, p. 114)
  • if they happen to be in the limbic system, then the most striking symptoms are emotional.
  • God changed his mind
  • put to death men and women, children and infants
  • “The text itself of each Gospel is anonymous and its title represents what later tradition had to say about the identity of the author.” (Metzger, 2003, p. 114)
  • there do exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse” (Rowe, 1979, p. 337).
Sunny Jackson

Why blame God for Godlessness? by *Verixas92 on deviantART - 0 views

verixas92.deviantart.com/...-God-for-Godlessness-345371926

Reason(s) and Belief Dislike

shared by Sunny Jackson on 01 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • why try to blame God when evil occurs?
  • If God didn't help because people "reject" him, then how come terrible things happen to people who don't?
  • I didn't know that God was so petty.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • if I'm to believe that God has a plan for all of us, as I've been told several times in the past, especially in times of strife, then technically it's still God. [If God exists]
  • Instead of punishing, a loving god might have chosen to... reveal himself a little more?
  • Or maybe he might have made it so that evil didn't exist in the first place?
  • If God was all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, surely he could have found a way to prevent that tragedy, if only to avoid the suffering
  • if such an 'imperfect' being as a human can think of some way to avoid those things from happening, surely God would be able to find a much better way.
  • Instead, we're left with this petty creature that supposedly cares so much about us that he's willing to let slide the brutal murders of dozens of children, just to teach us a lesson about faith.
  • Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved
  • It kinda makes God sound like a petulant child.
  • I'm fine with God not helping, considering he's sort of... not there. Or at the very least, malevolent enough to stand by even while people feverishly pray and go unanswered, who lets horrible things happen and does nothing. If he's really so petty to abandon suffering people because people won't worship him, then I would rather not have him here.
  • We aren't trying to stomp out Christianity, we're asking for evidence. Until we get that, there is no reason to believe in your claim.
  • widespread delusion is pretty hard to get going with people already past the age of reason
  • So we have an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent god willing to kill people to get them to listen, but he can't just reveal himself to prove his own existence? What does that say about him?
  • faith [belief without evidence, not without seeing] is not a virtue
  • Trust and other such things can be considered such things; piety is trust in something that may or may not exist.
  • There is an enormous difference between a video game and real life: you can leave a video game. You can choose not to play a video game.
  • Does God go against our free will by forcing us into a world like this?
  • Morality doesn't originate from any one religion, no more than it comes from a belief in benevolent fairies.
  • I have yet to hear an moral action or deed that a believer can commit that cannot be matched or even surpassed by a non-believer.
  • There isn't much of a difference between starving someone to death and letting someone starve to death. Either way, you must take responsibility for your action, and you end up with the same result.
  • If God has power over the death of people, he is accountable for that-no all-loving deity would allow them to die.
Sunny Jackson

HUMANISM: Public school teaching, ethics, is it a religion? - 0 views

www.religioustolerance.org/humanism2.htm

Humanism

shared by Sunny Jackson on 22 May 13 - Cached
  • A non-religious approach to human sexuality would make use of the latest findings about sexual orientation; they would teach that bisexuality, heterosexuality and homosexuality are natural and human sexual variations.
  • non-religious approach to human sexuality would make use of the latest findings about sexual orientation; they would teach that bisexuality, heterosexuality and homosexuality are natural and human sexual variations
  • Public Schools are required to base their curriculum on secularism because of the principle of separation of church and state which the U.S. Supreme Court has said is implicit in the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Humanists have successfully developed moral and ethical systems which are independent of divine revelation
  • foundational beliefs
  • Systems of morality and ethics can be developed through mutual agreement much like we develop laws and social customs
  • based upon common needs that humans have for survival, security, personal growth and love
  • Humans are social animals who can make the greatest achievements through mutual cooperation
  • reasonable
  • effective
  • lead to self esteem
  • consistent with one's natural feelings of caring, compassion and sympathy
  • do not lead to condemnation or rejection
  • accepted
  • Humanists do not generally believe in a supreme deity or deities, demons, ghosts, angels, or in a supernatural world, or in heaven and hell, or in a divinely ordained ethical code for humans to follow. Most would regard the Gods and Goddesses as a creation of mankind
  • Religious Humanism has been loosely defined as religion without deity worship and traditional theological beliefs
  • a belief in the scientific method as the best way to determine truth
  • philosophical and educational in nature
  • The ARIS study of 2001 showed that 76.5% of American adults consider themselves to be Christian. The Canadian Census of the same year showed that 76.6% of Canadian adults consider themselves to be Christian.
Sunny Jackson

Religion vs politics- goes both ways by *Verixas92 on deviantART - 0 views

verixas92.deviantart.com/...itics-goes-both-ways-346066628

Reason(s) and Belief Dislike

shared by Sunny Jackson on 01 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Marriage comes with civil benefits
  • Religiously, marriage can be a multitude of things
  • If you really want to have more credibility with your arguments, maybe you should try to not sound like you are generalizing a whole group of people.
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Civil partnerships are not equality. It's like asking black folks to drink from the "civil drinking fountain."
  • religion and politics should be kept separate
  • I'm also curious to know what glass house you think I'm in.
  • You can fact check all my statements and you'll find them to be quite true.
  • If he is allowed to post his beliefs in a stamp, journal, or art, then I am allowed to post my opinion in a comment.
  • I am not forcing Atheism on anybody
  • I am not in any group concerning christians
  • I'm only stating my opinion
  • I wasn't searching for religious stamps, but political stamps.
  • I don't care if christians think I'm a troll
  • the picture is in the group. Too bad. I am not
  • This isn't a "Christian community" this is deviantart. As a fellow atheist, I found this stamp by searching for "gay art", not "Christian community", just like many of the other commentators did
  • Just because it's featured in a Christian group doesn't mean it can't be found outside the group
  • unless you're actively searching IN the group there's no way to know that the stamp is part of any religious club
  • Marriage is not religious. I'm atheist, and I can get married any time I want.
  • I'm an atheist, and I celebrate Christmas as a holiday to love my family.
  • Get over yourself.
  • it's what gives people morals
  • If you NEED religion to have morals, you're actually a pretty shitty person.
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