The Humanist Advocate

Why Do I Write?

.     “….no one is born to be anything but human.”—Eugene C. Thomas   Eugene C. Thomas—Baba Geno—has been  a recent guest on NOSHA’s cable access television program The Humanist Perspective. Insights into his life becoming  the consummate humanist, from student and soldier, to spiritualist, writer, community radio broadcaster, and attorney-at law, can be heard at the link above.  Here, he shares an introduction to his planned book compilation of essays and observations–edited, with permission from him.    …

The Self-Destructive Denial of Climate Change

The Self-Destructive Denial of Climate Change

    Denialism has always been synonymous with human nature; that is, any definition of “human nature” would need to include this frailty. We follow our confirmation bias to defy reality and challenge evidence  that is widely accepted by society.   The term climate change evolved before from what was known in the 1980s as “Global Warming.” The rise of an increasingly globalized economy spurred several multinational corporations— like Exxon—to undertake studies which yielded findings that there could be catastrophic…

The Cure That Wasn’t

The Cure That Wasn’t

  Walter Kaufmann (1921-1980) was a philosopher, translator, and poet. His translations and interpretations of Nietzsche’s work are considered by many of his contemporaries to be the standard; and the influence of Nietzsche’s and other 20th Century philosophers and psychological theorists of the early modern age—as well as his poetic bent—are evident in this excerpt from Critique of Religion and Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, fifth paperback printing, 1990) in a chapter titled “The Core of Religion.”     Man…

Health and Wellness at City Hall

Health and Wellness at City Hall

  Until a few months ago, NOSHA’ s relations with the public officials at City Hall have been cordial, if not completely chummy with everyone. A good example of this is President Emeritus Harry Greenberger gave secular invocations to begin city council meetings on eight occasions, which began sometime between 2001 and 2003—the last in 2015. A recent action in October by the new administration, however, led by Mayor Latoya Cantrell brought to the attention of  NOSHA member Glenn Pearl…

The Futile Future Awaiting America’s Polarized Right

The Futile Future Awaiting America’s Polarized Right

The Futile Future Awaiting America’s Polarized Right The politics of the United States has always been on unstable and shifting grounds because this instability is heavily influenced by societal changes depending on the era. Political centrism started declining in the late 1970s when conservatism was redefining itself as a core identity within the American politics to resist  the escalating influence of socialism by the Soviets. This turning point debunks the standard rule that societies evolve in a linear direction, and…

What Science Is Not

The following is a continuing review of John Gray’s recent publication Seven Types of Atheism.     Social evolution is an exceptionally bad idea. But bad ideas rarely evolve into better ones. Instead they mutate, and reproduce themselves in new guises. John Gray     In the chapter “A Strange Faith in Science,” from John Gray’s Seven Type of Atheism, he tells of a collection of books under the name “The Thinker’s Library,” published by the Rationalist Press Association in…

Got Hate?

Got Hate?

The second in a series reviewing Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray (Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2018.) If, said I, it is sweet to refuse to do good, it must be heavenly to do evil.   “The Dark Divinity of Nature” The writings of Dontien Alphones Francois, Marquis de Sade, from whose name we are indebted to as the origin of English words such as sadism, sadistic, and sado-masochism are filled with “descriptions of orgies….which feature highly ritualized fantasies of…

A Trump-ed Up Case Against Immigration

A Trump-ed Up Case Against Immigration

Far-right English conservative, Douglas Murray, released a highly controversial book in 2017 called The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, identity, Islam (Bloomsbury Continuum, London). The book was written amid the European refugee crisis that caused a political turmoil in the aging continent—a crisis that highlighted the rise of contemporary right-wing populism. Murray describes himself as a Christian atheist (a non-doctrinal atheist with “Christian” values), a neoconservative, and an openly gay activist. Murray has accused the European Union establishment for promoting…

From the Dead God Files

From the Dead God Files

“On Angels” by Donald Barthelme   The death of God left the angels in a strange position. They were overtaken suddenly by a fundamental question. One can attempt to imagine the moment. How did they look at the  instant the question invaded them, flooding the angelic consciousness, taking hold with terrifying force? The question was,”What are angels?” New to questioning, unaccustomed to terror, unskilled in aloneness, the angels (we assume) fell into despair. The question of what angels “are” has a considerable history….

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