Here are some excerpts from my talk last Sunday, which as always will be available shortly in full on our podcasts page (and all the other places our podcasts are posted, such as iTunes). I’m curious if other people also see a parallel between attitudes toward the Constitution and attitudes toward religious texts and if so, what that might mean for trying to create a better public discourse. Continue reading
Platform: Things You Didn’t Learn in PoliSci 101 by Jeff Smith, Ph.D.
Politics, it is often said, is war by other means. And most of those other means will never appear in a civics textbook, or be taught in a political science class. Dr. Smith will describe the way that some of these other means are employed during election campaigns and during the policy process, with special focus on the role of money and how it might be overcome. He will discuss the impact of these other means both on the body politic and, more personally, on those who aspire to public office.
11 a.m. Auditorium. Continue reading
I don’t normally review movies that are actually TV mini-series, but this one is really unique. It’s also six hours long, on two DVDs from Netflix.
It’s full of stars: Al Pacino plays Roy Cohn, a Jewish lawyer and Washington insider who is “evil incarnate,” as one character puts it. Meryl Streep plays Hannah Pitt, mother of Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson) and mother-in-law of Harper Pitt (Mary-Louise Parker), two very confused Mormons. Streep also has two other roles; look for her. Continue reading
Hooray! Washington State has become the 7th state in the U.S. to affirm legal marriage equality!
Since I was busy last Sunday drumming with Occupy Ethical as the platform “music,” it seems an appropriate week to post some notes from my platform “Get on the Love Bus,” originally given at the Ethical Society of St. Louis in March 2010. You can hear the whole thing if you scroll down on our podcasts page. Continue reading
Platform: The Constitution as Sacred Text by Kate Lovelady, Leader
Ethical Humanism, as a form of liberal religion, does not have a sacred text and reads other traditions’ sacred texts in the light of history, literary criticism, science, and individual experience and conscience. But what about the Constitution of the United States? Should that document, too, be treated as just another human-created text with good and bad ideas, or would such a liberal attitude toward the Constitution undermine the foundations of our democracy? How are differences between views on Constitutional issues attributable to different attitudes toward the Constitution as a secular Sacred Text? Or do attitudes toward the Constitution change to justify political desires?
11 a.m. Auditorium. Continue reading
“German Freethought Communities in Missouri,” a platform presented by Dorris Keeven-Franke is now available on our podcast page.
With the age of Enlightenment, came reason, spreading across Europe, reaching Germany. With the Napoleonic wars had come oppression, famine, chaos; and when the military campaigns ended, Germans were faced with an even more horrific struggle – for freedom. The Universities were filled with young men engulfed in that battle, where they learned Latin by daylight, yet studied democracy secretly by lamplight. A dream emerged, born of the oppression, fueled by repression, for a place where all Germans could raise families, educate their children, and live a life free from fear. When rationalism arrived in the far western states of North America, those ideals took shape in talks in crude cabins and traveled the countryside on broadsheets and books – and freethought was born on the Missouri frontier.
An extremely stimulating book. Thought-provoking. Made me want to learn more about almost every person and event she discusses. In other words, just what a history book should be.
American secularism started in Europe, of course, especially in what colonists came to America to avoid. Of course you were told as a child that many came here to avoid religious persecution in Europe, but Jacoby throws a whole new light on the subject. She makes it abundantly clear why our Constitution does not mention God, not even once. Why there is the prohibition of a religious test for public office in the body of the Constitution, and why it could not be ratified without the Bill of Rights. I suppose we’ve long understood why the First Amendment came first. Continue reading
The Reason Rally is an event sponsored by many of the country’s largest and most influential secular organizations. It will include music, comedy, and speeches by many famous secularists including Richard Dawkins, Tim Minchin, PZ Myers, and James Randi. It will be free to attend and will take place in Washington, D.C. on March 24th, 2012 from 10:00AM – 4:00PM at the National Mall. Continue reading
Inspire and motivate young people. The Ethical Society has an opening for a part-time Sunday School Director to serve grades pre-K through high school. Continue reading
“Slaves, Servants and Soldiers: Uneven Paths to Freedom in the Border States, 1861-1865, ,” a platform presented by Dr. Louis Gerteis is now available on our podcast page.
By exempting the Border States from the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln continued to extend to them some of the autonomy they had enjoyed during the first years of the war. Civil governments continued to function in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and in the new state of West Virginia, but Lincoln also authorized the imposition of martial law in these states. Lincoln rejected repeated pleas to resolve the tensions in the Border States, either by placing them entirely under federal military control or by deferring to the authority of their civil governments. Lincoln’s middle course helped to insure that the Civil War in the Border States earned its name. Conflict in these states raged at the most intimate levels of civil society.
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