Showing posts with label Saturday Evening Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saturday Evening Post. Show all posts
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Saturday Evening Post - Election Day Nears
On Tuesday, let's remember what makes this country a powerful beacon of hope in the world:
free elections and peaceful government transitions.
Vote on November 6!
ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884 - Walt Whitman
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara-nor you, ye limitless prairies-nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite-nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones-nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes-nor Mississippi's stream:
-This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name-the still small voice vibrating-America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen-the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd-sea-board and inland-Texas to Maine-the Prairie States-Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West-the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling-(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity-welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
-Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify-while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Come On In, The Water's Fine!
"It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price ... One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying." Morris West, The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1963.
Millions of people the world over are atheist but only a tiny fraction of these people publicly identify as such for a variety of reasons. The most common reasons are that either they do not realise that they are atheist or they are afraid to acknowledge that they are atheist. Because of the harm that they see being caused by the power that religious dogma is given in society, some atheists become frustrated and discouraged about the number of closeted atheists in our midst, and sometimes their frustration spills out in accusations of hypocrisy - which sometimes pushes the closeted atheists more deeply into the closet.
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Get out of hot water FREE! |
But, religion is not a benign force in the world. Religion wreaks havoc on efforts to promote world peace. Religion mandates that women be treated as less than fully human, enshrining in its "holy books" the misogyny that permeates human culture and providing a "divine" justification for the oppression of half of humankind. Religion fosters - even insists upon - religious and racial bigotry. Religion suppresses and tries to destroy sources of human knowledge which threaten its power. It is accorded a level of obsequious acceptance and awarded a degree of power and influence that would be unthinkable for any other unelected, nontransparent entity in a modern, democratic society.
The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. Ferdinand Magellan.

Faith is essentially intolerant ... essentially because necessarily bound up with faith is the illusion that one's cause is also God`s cause. Ludwig von Feuerbach.
Are you a closeted atheist? Incredible though it may sound, it is possible not to realize that one is actually atheist. There is no shame or hypocrisy in it. While it is true that religion's greatest source of energy comes via true believers, religious leaders know that the number of zealous true believers is too small to secure real power in a culture, so they rely on the large moderate majority to protect and enable them to achieve their goals. To that end, the strategic tool of childhood indoctrination and enormous social pressure to conform to "tradition", coupled with the more liberal mainline Christian ethics of the post WW2 western world, ensures that millions of people feel more comfortable continuing to identify as "believers" - even though they know on at least some level that they do not, really, believe everything that their religion tells them is ultimate truth.
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means. George Bernard Shaw

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw.
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Did you just say you don't believe in God? |
And yet, by remaining silent, are we in the western world really safeguarding ourselves and our children?

The moderates in these countries did not imagine that the hard-won gains that had been so recently made could be rolled back. They did not think that the extremists among them could seize control of their countries and push them all back into a new dark age. But it happened. It happened with the unwitting help of the moderates who did not anticipate that while their more extreme co-religionists might only target vulnerable minorities at first, they would inevitably turn their attention to the insufficiently devout within the majority - the moderates themselves. By the time the moderates woke up to what was happening to their countries, it was too late.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela
It is recognition of the ultimate consequences of society's continued acceptance of religious hegemony which prompts atheists to urgently challenge closeted atheists to take a stand for humanity. Insistence on the benignity of belief systems which wreak havoc on world peace, which mandate the oppression of women and which demean and discredit the highest achievements of humankind is irrational and destructive, even if the motive for doing so makes perfect sense to the moderate majority which is scrambling to protect its own cherished privileges and traditions.
The benefits that closeted atheists receive from their church communities are outweighed by the harm that religion is doing to those same communities and to the societies which they influence, to the earth via support for climate change denial through anti-science anti-intellectualism and to the whole of humanity through hatred, bigotry and the implacable religious drive for theological supremacy. Our fear of ostracism today ought to be outweighed by our concern about the kind of world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. By coming out of the closet, atheists, agnostics and secular humanists will encourage each other to see that we already have the numbers to support thriving human communities, based upon better ideas than fear and misogyny.

In a world that is as oppressively and even violently dominated by religion as ever in human history, it may take more courage - even in societies which claim to protect religious freedom (for now) - than the average person can muster to come out as an atheist.
And yet, I am asking you to do it.
We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Some recommended reading:
The cost of staying in the closet. MarieAlena Castle, Atheists For Human Rights,
Coming out of the closet, Eric Jeffries, exchristian.net
Religious Moderation Enables Religious Fundamentalism, Reason-Being.com
The Clergy Project, a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs. The Clergy Project launched on March 21st, 2011.
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris, 2004.
The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, 2006.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens, 2007.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Prom Night
Tonight is prom night for my sons and all their friends.
Enjoy the evening of dining, dancing and the company of friends!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Class of 2012
In honor of my daughter, graduating today with her degree in physics and philosophy.
You challenged yourself.
You took the road less traveled.
You learned how very capable and talented and awesome you are.
Congratulations, Niftydottir, I am so proud of you.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Women Unite 4.28.12
To salute the WomenUnite rallies protesting the War on Women.
I cannot believe that we are still fighting this battle in 2012.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
April Fool's Day
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April Fool's Cover, March 31, 1945 |
In honor of April Fool's Day tomorrow, a fun little challenge.
See if you can find the 51 mistakes or "fools" in this painting by Norman Rockwell.
Also, the calendar on the tree mentions Monday, April 1, 1945 when apparently April 1 fell on Sunday that year, just like this year.
See if you can find the 51 mistakes or "fools" in this painting by Norman Rockwell.
Also, the calendar on the tree mentions Monday, April 1, 1945 when apparently April 1 fell on Sunday that year, just like this year.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Moving Day - Saturday, March 10
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Opening Night
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