The Humanist Advocate

On Sticking Apart

On Sticking Apart

This is the wa y the world ends     This is the way the world ends     This is the way the world ends     Not with a bang but a whimper.   T. S. Eliot “The Hollow Men” 1925 Sometimes the magnitude of a crisis doesn’t register with you until something—something large, small, something normally insignificant or unavoidably substantial—presents itself to you with the abruptness and urgency of a boxing glove sailing your way; and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s quotation “Hell is other people”…

Coronaville, TX and LA.

      It’s probably a good hunch that the decision to cancel services at Lakewood Church in Houston was made by every secularist’s favorite bad-example preacher Joel Osteen, who, for when all is said and done, owns the place.        And his decision was the right thing to do: he closed the congregation as a public gathering in the church’s huge sanctuary Sunday, March 15, in  an effort to help in the mitigation of the spread of God’s latest pestilence, COVID-19. The show…

Biblical Prophecy/Public Policy: Nuptials From Hell

There is a church in the city of Bethlehem built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born called the church of Nativity. If you consult UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites, it will tell you that the church is located in Palestine. But when the question of its location came up during a round of Jeopardy in January 2020, the answer of one of the contestants who mentioned Israel set off something of internet firestorm.     Today, evangelical…

Barking Mad D.o.G. Theology

The Madman “Whither is God: he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers”…..Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God?…God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him….What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy…

The Remains to be Seen

The Remains to be Seen

Occasionally there is an event or circumstance in New Orleans that can lead our thoughts and imaginations to very interesting and sometimes even large topics or principles about the humanist experience, and how it meshes with the reality of that circumstance. The existence and revelation and consequent public reaction of the visibility of the remains of a construction worker pinned in the collapsed rubble of the Hard Rock Hotel building site at the corner of Canal and Rampart street in…

American Heretics: A Film Review

Reflecting back 20 years on the protracted outbreak of radical Islamist terrorism and the overwrought reaction by its United States victim and the calamitous consequences that followed (and continue to this day), you might recall this challenge from liberals, conservatives, the religious, and the secularists: The Islamic religious leaders of should make it clear and punishable to those who carry out acts of violence and murder are not acting in accordance with Islamic law. Get control of your people!  …

Theocratic Conservatism Tests the Limits of Liberal Republics

It has been over three years since Donald Trump was elected and Evangelicals can now claim to have the momentum practicing political power since  gaining a foothold in the administration of Ronald Reagan. America is witnessing an unprecedented political turnover in defining the very existence of the union. Despite the unconstitutionality of intertwining religion with politics, evangelical Christians have influenced many social policies the White House administration has passed since 2017.    Despite not being a constitutionally religious republic, Donald…

Milestone 20 Was a Very Good Year

As the year of NOSHA’s twentieth anniversary wanes and winds to the 2020 future, a look back to the activities and people who made them work in 2019 shows that interest and commitment to the secular project in Greater New Orleans has not waned—even a little bit. December is without doubt the high point, and, ironically, due in major part to the Christian high holiday of buying stuff. In addition to our monthly collection of non-perishables for the Second Harvest…

“A Pair of Spurs and a Fig-Leaf is Aplenty”

The editors of The Bible According to Mark Twain suggest that this is the last “substantial” piece of work written by Clemens. The manuscript with the advice on etiquette was given to his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, when Paine arrived in Bermuda in 1910, where he had come to assist Clemens return home to Connecticut because Clemens was suffering from angina pectoris: chest pains likely the result of coronary heart disease, and the probable cause of his death one week…

The Secularist’s Anxiety

      I have Secularist’s Anxiety (SA). It is not a medical or psychological condition, but one I made up to explain an effect a trend of national events that are possible forebodings of difficult times ahead for we who are serious about living and teaching secularism. Maybe I should call it secular jitters. Much of what I relate to in this opinion piece is probably familiar to all readers here, and quite recently published. But I believe listing…

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