Bringing Humanism Home

Lesson Plans and Activities that encourage family interaction!

The lesson plans and activities were put together and developed with the idea that parents and children could learn alongside one another about humanism. The plans and activities are intentionally kept simple–so that families can easily incorporate activities and discussion within their daily lives.

Of course, older children are welcome to use these lesson plans and activities in their own self-guided education. But younger children will need some guidance and help with materials needed for the majority of the plans.

These lesson plans and activities are also an excellent resource for Secular Homeschooling families and can easily be adapted for a variety community group settings.

We hope you enjoy!

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important things is not to stop questioning. –Albert Einstein

Explore Lesson Plans:

Self to Self	Self to Others	Self to Community	Self to Environment	Self to the Future

Involves an individual’s free and disciplined search for personal truth, meaning, and purpose for life. It involves developing a positive self-concept.	Involves respect for the worth and dignity of other individuals and their truths demonstrating the use of the democratic process and developing a sense of reciprocity.	Involves the search for insights from great prophets, thinkers, and teachers of every age and tradition in developing social contracts.	Involves developing respect for all life and a sense of responsibility for the earth and its resources now and for the future.	Involves developing oneself as a citizen of the world, striving for a world community of love, reason, justice and peace.

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is an American philosopher, author and editor, and noted humanist. He is particularly notable for having been the Editor of Free Inquiry, a leading journal of secular humanist discussion and commentary.

Madigan graduated in philosophy from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1984, later gaining an MA and a Ph.D. from the same institution.

From the mid-1980s Madigan was employed by the journal Free Inquiry. He became its Executive Editor (1987-1996) and then Editor (1996-1998). He left to become the Editorial Director of the University of Rochester Press, in Rochester, New York. He is currently Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at St John Fisher College, also in Rochester, NY. Madigan is also one of the US Editors of Philosophy Now magazine.

As Secular Humanist Mentor of the Council for Secular Humanism, Madigan was active in helping establish local secular humanist societies throughout the United States. Since 1993 he has been a member of the board of directors of the Bertrand Russell Society. In 2015 he was elected President of the Bertrand Russell Society. Madigan is a frequent speaker and panel chair at academic conferences on a wide range of humanities subjects. His own advice on chairing conference sessions has been published in Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors.

Books

The Question of Humanism with David Goicoechea and John Luik (1991)
The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays by William Kingdon Clifford edited by Timothy J. Madigan (1999)
Promethean Love, edited by Timothy J. Madigan, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006.
God and the Philosophers, by Paul Edwards edited by Timothy J. Madigan, Prometheus Books, 2008.
W.K. Clifford and “The Ethics of Belief”, by Timothy J. Madigan, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009.
Lucretius: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance ed by David B. Suits and Timothy J. Madigan, RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press 2011
Beyond Sustainability, (co-written with Tim Delaney), McFarland Publishing, 2014.
The Sociology of Sports, 2nd Edition (co-written with Tim Delaney), McFarland Publishing, 2015.
Lessons Learned from Popular Culture, (co-written with Tim Delaney), SUNY Press, 2016.
Bertrand Russell, Public Intellectual, (co-edited with Peter Stone), Tiger Bark Press, 2016.
Friendship and Happiness and the Connection Between Them, (co-written with Tim Delaney), McFarland Publishing, 2017.

Wikipedia

The Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake is an annual event held on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper’s Hill, near Gloucester in England. Participants race down the 200-yard-long hill after a round of Double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down it. The event was traditionally held by and for the people who live in the local village of Brockworth, but now people from all over the world take part. The Guardian called it a “world-famous event”, with winners from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Nepal.

This ceremony originally took place each Whit Monday, before it later was moved to the Spring Bank Holiday. Two possible origins have been proposed for the ceremony. The first is said that it evolved from a requirement for maintaining grazing rights on the common. The second proposal is pagan origins for the custom of rolling objects down the hill. It is thought that bundles of burning brushwood were rolled down the hill to represent the birth of the New Year after winter. Connected with this belief is the traditional scattering of buns, biscuits, and sweets at the top of the hill by the Master of Ceremonies. This is said to be a fertility rite to encourage the fruits of the harvest.

Wikipedia

The Anti-defamation League, formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States. It was founded in late September 1913 by the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith, a Jewish service organization, in the wake of the contentious conviction for the murder of Leo Frank. ADL split from B’nai B’rith and continued as an independent non-profit. ADL states that its mission is a dual one: “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to, “via the development of “new programs, policies, and skills to expose and combat whatever holds us back.” with a focus on coating antisemitism and other forms of hate, and fighting domestic extremism both online and off, ADL describes its “ultimate goal” as “a world in which no group or individual suffers from bias, discrimination fo hate.” In 2018, ADL rebranded itself as an “anti-hate” organization and adopted the logo: “Fighting Hate for Good.”

Wikipedia

American Family Association, a Christian fundamentalist organization, created One Million Moms and One Million Dads, two websites with the stated goal of mobilizing parents to “stop the exploitation of children by the media. It uses these websites to organize boycotts and urge activists to send emails to mainstream companies employing advertising, selling products, or advertising on television shows they find offensive. In 2021, the group started and then backed off from a failed campaign against the hiring of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson for department store chain J.C. Penny. They opposed her employment on the grounds that DeGeneres is “an open homosexual”.

The One Million Moms campaign expressed opposition to Marvel and DC Comics issues which featured gay characters, describing the storylines as a “brainwashing and desensitizing experience” for children, written to “influence them in thinking that a gay lifestyle choice is normal and desirable.”

Wikipedia

is a 2004 American biblical drama film produced, co-written, and directed by Mela Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus of Nazareth, Maia Morgenstern as the Virgin Mary, and Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It also draws on pious accounts such as the Friday of Sorrows along with other devotional writings, such as the reputed Marian apparitions attributed to Anne Catherin Emmerich.

was born on October 21, 1988, in Arlington, Virginia, and raised in the same state. Wynn’s parents are a psychology professor and a doctor. After studying piano at Berklee College of Music, she attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and studied philosophy, then enrolled at Northwestern University in Illinois to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy, also serving as an instructor. Wynn left Northwester, saying it had become “boring to the point of existential despair”, and moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she now lives.

Wynn started publishing YouTube videos in 2008, initially focusing on criticism of religion and her position as an atheist and skeptic. In 2016, she began the ContraPoints channel in reaction to the Gamergate controversy and the increasing prevalence of right-wing YouTubers, shifting her content to countering their arguments. Early ContraPoints videos also covered subjects such as race, racism, and online radicalization. In her videos, Wynn uses philosophy, sociology, and personal experience to explain left-wing ideas and to criticize common conservative, classical liberal, alt-right, and fascist talking points.

Wynn’s videos often have a combative but humorous tone, containing dark and surreal humor, sarcasm, and sexual themes. Wynn often illustrates concepts by playing different characters who engage in debate. The videos have been noted for showcasing Wynn’s production choices such as complicated lighting, elaborate costumes, and aesthetics. She takes aesthetic cues from drag performance, saying in a 2019 interview that if conservatives were going to call her a drag queen anyway, she decided to “be the most extravagant drag queen on YouTube.” In a 2018 interview for The Verge, Katherine Cross notes a significant difference between Wynn and how she presents on YouTube, explaining that the YouTube channel portrays an image of being “blithe, aloof, decadent, and disdainful”, while personally Wynn “can be earnest–and she cares deeply, almost too much.”

Wynn’s videos have been praised for their clarity, nuance, and attention-grabbing sense of humor. Jake Hall, writing for Vice, called Wynn “one of the most incisive and compelling video essayists on YouTube.” In an article contrasting her personal sincerity and her ironic sense of humor, The Verge describes her as the “Oscar Wilde of YouTube.” New York magazine states, “ContraPoints is very good. Regardless of the viewer’s interest or lack thereof in internet culture wars, YouTube Nazis, or any of the other wide-ranging subjects covered in its videos, they’re funny, bizarre, erudite, and compelling.” Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs calls ContraPoints a “one-woman blitzkrieg against the YouTube right,” describing her videos as “unlike anything I’ve ever seen…She shows how debate should be done: not by giving an inch to poisonous ideas, but by bringing superior smarts, funnier jokes, and more elegant costumes to the fight.”

Wikipedia

is an American Science fiction media franchise originating from the 1960s television series Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry. That series, now often knows as “The Original Series”, debuted on September 8, 1966, and aired for three seasons on NBC. It followed the voyages of the starship USS Enterprise, a space exploration vessel built by the United Federation of Planets in the 23rd century, on a mission “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to bodily go where no man has gone before”. In creating, Star Trek, Roddenberry was inspired by C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series of novels, Johnathan Swift’s 1726 novel Gulliver’s Travels, the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, and television westerns such as Wagon Train.

Roddenberry intended the show to have a progressive political agenda reflective of the emerging counter-culture of the youth movement, though he was not fully forthcoming to the networks about this. He wanted Star Trek to show what humanity might develop into, if it would learn from the lessons of the past, most specifically by ending violence. An extreme example is the lien species knowns as the Vulcans, who had a violent past but learned to control their emotions. Roddenberry also gave Star Trek an anti-war message and depicted the United Federation of Planets as an ideal, optimistic version of the United Nations. His efforts were opposed by the network because of concerns over marketability e.g. they opposed Roddenberry’s insistence that Enterprise has a racially diverse crew.

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Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925-1954) and Cambridge University (Magdalene College, 1954-1963). He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

Lewis and fellow novelist J.R.R. Tolkien were close friends. They both served on the English faculty at Oxford University and were active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the Inklings. According to Lewis’s 1955 memoir Surprised by Joy, he was baptized in the Church of Ireland but fell away from his faith during adolescence. Lewis returned to Anglicanism at the age of 32, owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, and he became an “ordinary layman of the Church of England.” Lewis’s faith profoundly affected his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.

Melissa Viviane Jefferson was born in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of ten, her family relocated to Houston, Texas. She was classically trained as a flutist by renowned music teacher Claudi Momen from the age of ten until she graduated high school. Lizzo started rapping as a teenager in the southwest part of Houston known as Alief. At the age of 14, she formed a musical group called Cornrow Clique with her friends. At this time she acquired the nickname “Lizzo”, a variety of “Lissa” inspired by Jay-Z’s “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)”. After graduating from Alief Elsik High School in 2006, she studied classical music focusing on flute at the University of Houston. At the age of 21, after the death of her father, she lived out of her car for a year as she tried to break into the music industry. She moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2011.

While living in Minneapolis, Lizzo performed with groups including the electro soul-pop duo, Lizzo & the Larva Ink. During this time she helped form a three-piece all-female rap/R & B group: the Chalice. In 2021, the Chalice released their first album, We are the Chalice, which was locally successful.

Lizzo’s hip-hop-focused debut album, Lizzobangers, produced by Lazerbreak and Ryan Olson, was released on October 15, 2013. Killian Fox of The Guardian gave the album 4 stars out of 5, saying: “At times joyfully nonsensical, Lizzo’s stream-of-consciousness rhymes can also be lethally pointed.” The album topped Star Tribune’s “Twin Cities Critics Tally 2013” list. Music videos were created for the songs “Batches & Cookies”, “Faded”, “Bus Passes and Happy Meals”, and “Paris”…

After struggling with body issues at an early age, Lizzo became an advocate for body positivity and self-love as she attracted more mainstream attention while making diversity the focus of her music, in regards to one’s body, sexuality, race, and more. Her group of back-up dancers, the Big Grrrls, consists of all plus-size dancers. Highlighting body inclusivity and celebrating individuality, Lizzo appeared in ModCloth’s “Say It Louder” campaign which launched on June 11, 2018. In the same event, she sported the first plus-size outfit made for FIT’s Future of Fashion runway show by Grace Insogna for her performance at NYC Pride’s Pride Island Event. Lizzo was profiled in the June 2018 Teen Vogue Music Issues.

Wikipedia

Is a 2014 American Christina drama film directed by Harold Cronk and starring Kevin Sorbo, Shane Harper, David A. R. White, and Dean Cain. The film was released theatrically on March 21, 2014, by Pur Flix Entertainment.

Written by Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman, and based on Rice Broocks’ book God’s Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty, the film follows a Christian college student (Harper) whose faith is challenged by an atheist philosophy professor (Sorbo), who declares God a pre-scientific fiction. It received mostly negative reviews but grossed over $62 milling on a $2 million budget. The film presents the evangelical narrative of claimed persecution of Christians in the United States, specifically the trope of colleges as “atheist factories”. The film was criticized for using straw man arguments and common stereotypes of atheists, instead of any actual debate.

In 2014, an associate professor at Georgia Southern University was investigated for offering extra credit for students who watched the film.

Wikipedia

(born August 22, 1949) is an American author, journalist, motivational speaker, and long-distance swimmer. Nyad gained national attention in 1975 when she swam around Manhattan (28 mi or 45 km) and in 1979 when she swam from North Bimini, The Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Florida (102 mi or 164 km). In 2013, on her fifth attempt and at age 64, she became the first person claiming to have swum from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage, swimming from Havana to Key West (110 mi or 177 km) although this has not been formally ratified by any recognized swim body. Nyad was also once ranked thirteenth among US women squash player.

Wikipedia

Lecturing for a week about how “evolution could not have happened”. Offering extra credit for students to watch the film God’s Not Dead. Showing religious bias in exam questions. Student reviews saying he’ll try to “convert you”.

Those charges, among others, make up a compilation filed recently by two First Amendment watchdog groups against T. Emerson McMullen, an associate professor of history at Georgia Southern University. The institution says it’s now investigating the professor for allegedly using his classroom at the public university to promote his anti-evolution Christian beliefs.

“We understand that as a historian, particularly a historian focused on science, McMullen could legitimately discuss the development of scientific ideas,” reads a letter sent to Georgia Southern from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.” He could even legitimately discuss religious doctrines masquerading as science, such as young earth creationism and intelligent design.”

However, the letter continues, “it appears that McMullen does not present these as religious ideas lacking scientific merit. Instead, McMullen presents these religious beliefs as scientific fact. In short, McMullen appears to use at least some of his class to preach religion instead of teaching history.”

The First Amendment watchdog foundations lay out numerous allegations of proselytizing, including that–as reported by one original complainant–McMullen lectured for more than a week about “how evolution could not have happened.” The groups also reference several student reviews on RateMyProfessor.com saying that McMullen’s a “huge religious nut” who spends “a lot” of time talking about Darwinism, that he “tried to push his outdated views on the class” and that his extra-credit assignments were “trying to convert you”.

McMullen, who teaches courses on the history of science and technology, also allegedly offered his students extra credit last semester to see the film God’s Not Dead, a pro-Christian drams about a college student who must prove the existence of God to his philosophy professor.

For the rest of the article

By Colleen Flaherty, for Inside Higher Ed

Natural evolution was the final piece in the puzzle for those positing a naturalistic explanation of the world and humanity’s place in it. Evolution explained how intelligent beings could arise from a process lacking intelligence. The science of evolution, first explained by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species : By Means of Natural Selection in 1859, galvanized the scientific community and shook intellectual Christianity to its foundations. It not only overturned the Biblical claim that humans and all the other species had been created by God as separate and unchanging forms, but also removed the need to propose an intelligent “Creator” to explain the astonishing complexity of life on Earth.

The explanatory power of Darwin’s theory meant that it was quickly accepted by the scientific community. Today, even the Roman Catholic Pope accepts evolution, and it is rejected mostly by die-hard Christian fundamentalists in the United States; though, increasingly, Muslim fundamentalists are opposing the teaching of evolution in Europe as well as the Middle East. (See Evolution, Creationism, and the Nature of Science, the cornerstone course in COHE Study Area II, Science and Humanism, for more on the theory of evolution.)

In Germany, the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) transformed the studies of metaphysics and ethics. Though a religious believer himself, Kant offered a rational basis for morality that required no reference to God or the supernatural.

Although best known for his very dense and lengthy explorations of profound metaphysical problems, Kant once wrote a two-page article for a monthly newspaper that had invited essays on the question “What is Enlightenment?” His opening paragraph is still worth quoting:

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

We have adopted Kant’s motto of the Enlightenment:

Sapere Aude! – Dare to know!

Perhaps the most important of the Classical Greeks’ contributions to world culture was the idea that human excellence can be taught. The Greeks created the concept of “liberal education,” which they saw as a way to bring out the best in each and every individual. The heart of the Greek concept of liberal education was a program of subjects that included philosophy, logic, rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, literature, and drama. The Greeks called this educational program paideia. The Romans made paideia the foundation of Roman education, translating paideia into the Latin Studia Humanitas (the study of humanity.)

The Renaissance scholars who revived the Studia Humanitas, almost one thousand years after the Fall of Rome, became known as “humanists.” Our modern term “humanism” also ultimately derives from the Latin Humanitas. (Studia Humanitas is also the root word for “Humanities”– the university subjects derived from the Greek paideia.)

Some scholars argue that the Buddha – in the late sixth century BCE – was a thoroughly naturalistic and humanist thinker, but that the schools of Buddhism that developed after his death largely submerged the Buddha’s revolutionary humanist ideas beneath the traditional supernaturalism of South Asian religion.

Certainly the Buddha advanced many naturalistic and humanistic ideas. These are particularly clear in the Pali Literature, which is thought to be the earliest of the Buddhist writings. For example, the Buddha rejected the doctrine of an immortal soul, saying, “Since neither soul nor aught belonging to soul can really and truly exist, the view which holds that this I who am ‘world,’ who am ‘soul,’ shall hereafter live permanent, persisting, unchanging, yea abide eternally: is not this utterly and entirely a foolish doctrine?”

Louisa Steenstra paid dearly for her heroism—with her husband’s life. Louisa and Albert Steenstra (a winery manager) built a concealed chamber in a closet of their home in the Dutch city of Groningen. In that tiny space the couple secreted two Jews and a Dutch Resistance fighter. For more than a year, a Jewish businessman and his brother also shared the space.

By January 1945 all but one of the Steenstras’ wards had left the house and were relocated by the Resistance. But the family had a new worry—a Dutch couple billeted in one of their downstairs rooms by the local authorities. One day the couple let slip word of the illegal tenant to a Dutch policeman they took for a friend. Soon after, an SS officer tipped off by the policeman came storming into the house behind a barking police dog. In the secret chamber he found the Jewish refugee. The officer shot him and Louisa’s husband dead.

Grabbing her 4-year-old daughter, Beatrix, Louisa ran out the door and fled to the underground. The two of them spent the remaining months of the war hiding in an attic with five other people.

When Canadian troops liberated the Netherlands, Louisa denounced the Dutch policeman who had brought the SS to her house. “He first got the death penalty,” she says. “But later it was changed to 20 years.”

Now 77, Louisa lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Why did she help? “I have asked myself that question a hundred times,” she admits. “Because I felt sorry. And I hated the Germans for what they did. I never regretted anything. We did it of our own freewill.”

People Magazine
“Professor Sam Oliner Studies the Brave Souls Who Saved Him -and Many Others-from the Nazis”
December 02, 1985, Vol. 24, No. 23

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 799 (1995), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot impose qualifications for prospective members of the U.S. Congress stricter than those specified in the Constitution. The decision invalidated the Congressional term limit provisions of 23 states. The parties to the case were U.S. Term Limits, a non-profit advocacy group, and the politician Ray Thornton, among others.

The Supreme Court affirmed by a 5-4 vote. The majority and minority articulated different views of the character of the federal structure established in the Constitution. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that:

“Finally, state-imposed restrictions, unlike the congressionally imposed restrictions at issue in Powell, violate a third idea central to this basic principle: that the right to choose representatives belongs not to the States, but to the people…Following the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913, this ideal was extended to elections for the Senate. The Congress of the United States, therefore, is not a confederation of nations in which separate sovereigns are represented by appointed delegates, but is instead a body composed of representative of the people.”

Modern political campaigns have set new standards for how successful campaigns are conducted day-to-day. The campaign is conducted in what would seem to the public like pseudo-military style, with a strict chain of command, zero tolerance for certain prohibited actions, and an extended daily schedule that starts early and ends much later than most “day jobs’.

Prohibited actions may include, but are not limited to: lying about numbers generated (e.g. phone calls made, doors knocked, volunteers recruited, etc.) -this is increasingly an issue in offices that are wirelessly connected, without direct oversight; going outside the chain of command (e.g. talking to a superior’s superior who happens to be a friend in order to get special favors or report information); non-press-shop members talking to the press; blogging (considered another form of “talking to the press”, which can interfere with message discipline); and being arrested (or otherwise becoming a potential easy target for opponent smear campaigns).

The daily schedule of a political campaign is hyperextended, and often has no definite beginning or end, only a series of tasks to be completed by certain benchmark times, or, most often, “COB” (“Close of Business”). COB for political campaigns is generally defined as “the time at night at which your supervisor is required to report his/her numbers” (or shortly beforehand), so that your numbers reporting (generally the last action a political campaigner takes before COB) can be factored into theirs.

Political campaigns are generally about contacting voters and volunteers at the nuts-and-bolts level; and so dependent on state law, local peculiarities and the preferences of campaign organizers and volunteers, a certain block of time (usually ending at 8pm or 9pm) is set aside each night for “voter/volunteer contact”. (Violation of this block of time to conduct other activities often cannot happen or needs strong justification, such as attending an important meeting.) Only a small fraction of campaign workers (such as people who deal with vendors) do the bulk of their work during traditional business hours.

Wikipedia

The United States is a federation, with elected officials at the federal (national), state and local levels. On a national level, the head of state, the President, is elected indirectly by the people, through an Electoral College. Today, the electors virtually always vote with the popular vote of their state. All members of the federal legislature, the Congress, are directly elected. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature. There are also elected offices at the local level, in counties and cities. It is estimated that across the whole county, over one million offices are filled in every electoral cycle.

State law regulates most aspects of the election, including primaries, the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic constitutional definition), the running of each state’s electoral college, and the running of state and local elections. The United States Constitution defines (to a basic extent) how federal elections are held, in Article One and Article Two and various amendments. The federal government has also involved in attempts to increase voter turnout, by measures such as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

The financing of elections has always been controversial, because private sources make up substantial amounts of campaign contributions, especially in federal elections. Voluntary public funding for candidates willing to accept spending limits was introduced in 1974 for presidential primaries and elections. The Federal Elections commission, created in 1975 by an amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act has the responsibility to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of U.S. presidential elections.

Wikipedia

Campaign finance refers to all funds raised in order to promote candidates political parties, or policies in elections, referendums, initiatives, party activities, and party organizations. The funds could also detract from the opponents of the above. Campaign funds is the subject heading under which all books dealing with money in politics are catalogued by the Library of Congress. Other nations use other terms for the subject and offer a broader perspective. Cross-national comparisons prefer the more comprehensive “political finance”, researchers in continental Europe use “party finance”. All of them deal with “the costs of democracy”, a termed coined by G. Alexander Heard for his famous analysis of campaign finance in the U.S.

Political campaigns have many expenditures, such as the cost of travel of candidates and staff, political consulting, and/or the direct costs of communicating with voters. The types and purposes of campaign spending depends on the region. For instance, in the United Kingdom, television advertising is provided to campaigning parties for free and limited by law, while in the United States, it is one of the biggest expenses in the campaign budget, especially for statewide and national campaigns.

In the U.S. the campaign, political action committee (PAC), and super PAC are adequate terms to identify the units that raise and spend money for political purposes. For most other democracies (including the European countries, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Israel) the political party is a useful concept to identify and aggregate the multitude of entities that raise and spend political funds. Parties run national headquarters, constituency associations, regional branches and local chapters as well as offices in the field. Each of these units collects revenue and incurs expenses that used to fund political competition.

Wikipedia

Some countries rely heavily on private donors to finance political campaigns. In these countries, fundraising is often a significant activity for the campaign staff and the candidate, especially in larger and more prominent campaigns. For example, one survey in the United States found that 23% of candidates for statewide office surveyed say that they spent more than half of their scheduled time raising money. Over half of all candidates surveyed spent at least 1/4 of their time on fundraising. The tactics used can include direct mail solicitation, attempts to encourage supporters to contribute via the internet, direct solicitation from the candidate, and events specifically for the purpose of fundraising, or other activities.

Most countries that rely on private donations to fund campaigns require extensive disclosure of donations, frequently including information such as the name, employer and address of the donors. This is intended to allow for policing of undue donor influence by other campaigns or by good government groups, which preserving most benefits of private financing, including the right to make donations and to spend money for political speech, saving government the expense of funding campaigns, and keep government from funding partisan speech that some citizens may find odious.

Wikipedia

Amanda Knief is a public policy and constitutional expert on religious freedom and civil liberties. She is the author of The Citizen Lobbyist: A How-to-Manual for Making Your Voice Heard in Government.Amanda has a JD from Drake University Law School and a BS in journalism and science communication from Iowa State University. She has previously worked as a legal counsel and legislative drafter for the Iowa Legislature, lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America and Managing Director, In-House Counsel for American Atheists.

Amanda Knief is currently the Director of Iowa State Lectures Program.

Jack Allen Abramoff (born February 28, 1958) is an American former lobbyist, businessman, movie producer and writer. He was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation that led to his conviction and to 21 persons either pleading quilty or being found guilty, including White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides…

After a guilty plea in the Indian lobbying scandal and his dealings with SunCruz Casinos in January 2006, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison for mail fraud, conspiracy to bribe public officials, and tax evasion. He served 43 months before being released on December 3, 2010. After his release from prison, he wrote the autobiographical book “Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Corruption From America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist” that was published in November 2011.

Wikipedia

Collective Action: Most of the kinds of goods, services, policies, and goals we care about socially, economically, and politically require that people work together to produce, provide, implement, or achieve them. The problem of collective action is the problem of organizing collective efforts in pursuit of jointly desired ends. Market mechanisms are an important type of collective action providing us with a great many of the things we value. But markets cannot provide everything we collectively value, particularly things best characterized as public goods, like clean air or democratic government. These require different approaches to organizing collective action than market mechanisms alone provide.

Contract Lobbyists: Temporary employees of a group hired specifically to present a group’s concerns and proposals to legislators, bureaucrats, and other government officials during a legislative session or for a contractually arranged period of time. Typically, these are individuals with a background in government and a network of governmental connections which they can market to private groups willing to pay for help with getting their concerns and proposals heard by key government decision makers.

Direct Lobbying: Trying to influence decision makers by traditional and direct means including personal contact and mail or phone calls to push a particular policy position or even more specifically, to push for a supportive vote on a legislative motion or regulatory action. Interest groups may engage in direct lobbying by mobilizing their members to contact policy makers, or by hiring a contract lobbyist or having in-house lobbyists to undertake the action.

American Politics: A Gov 310 Resource

Astroturf Campaign: The term “grassroots movement” implies a broad based, deeply rooted sentiment and action among the populace. An astroturf campaign, by comparison, is artificial – i.e. it may look like the real thing, but it is orchestrated and directed by a few well-placed interest groups. In a democratic system, grass roots support is an essential legitimizing force, so political and corporate economic campaigns often subsidize or even manufacture the appearance of grass roots activity to advance particular interests.

Disturbance Theory: Over the past several decades, the United States witnessed a tremendous growth in the number of interest groups. Why did these particular groups arise? One theory describes the origins of interest groups as reaction to a disturbance in society. When the normal social, economic, or political routine is disturbed, a group or groups emerge to restore the status quo ante or to take advantage of the disturbed conditions to press for policy changes.

Interest Goup: An organization whose purpose is to pursue the interests of its members, in public or private forums. A group must maintain its membership, often by providing benefits (material, solidary, or purposive) to those members. It must also vigorously pursue its goals (the members’ interest); often it must also pursue secondary goals, in order to increase its chances of achieving its primary goals.

American Politics: A Gov 310 Resource

There are several forms of advocacy, each representing a different approach in a way to initiate changes in society. One of the most popular forms is social justice advocacy. Although it is true, the initial definition does not encompass the notions of power relations, people’s participation and a vision of a just society as promoted by social justice advocates. For them, advocacy represents the series of actions taken and issues highlighted to change the “what is” into a “what should be”, considering that this “what should be” is a more decent and a more just society.

Some of the other forms of advocacy include:

Budget Advocacy
Bureaucratic Advocacy
Express versus Issue Advocacy
Health Advocacy
Interest-group Advocacy
Legislative Advocacy
Mass Advocacy
Media Advocacy
Special Education Advocacy

Wikipedia

Project Vote Smart (PVS) is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States. It covers candidates and elected officials in six basic areas: background information, issue position (via the Political Courage Test), voting records, campaign finances, interest group ratings, and speeches and public statements. The information is distributed via their web site, a toll-free phone number, and print publications. The president of the organization since its founding is Richard Kimball.

PVS also provides records of public statements, contract information for state and local election offices, polling place and absentee ballot information, ballot measure descriptions for each state (where applicable), links to federal and state government agencies, and links to political parties and issue organizations.

Wikipedia

Here at Project Vote Smart, Americans young and old volunteer their time, take no money from special interest groups, and have committed themselves to an extraordinary effort that, if successful, will provide their fellow citizens with the tools for a reemergence of political power not known for half a century. Their idea is one you have thought of yourself. It is a deceptively simple concept but enormously difficult to achieve and would not be possible without the collaboration of citizens willing to lay their partisan differences aside for this one crucial task.

votesmart

Lobbying legislators is about persuading them to do what you want. There are five main categories of legislators to think about, each requiring its own special strategy:

1. Champions: All issues need a group of lawmakers dedicated to being tireless, committed advocates for your cause. What they can do for you is make the case to their colleagues, help develop a strong “inside” strategy, and be visible public spokespeople. What they need is good information, and visible support outside the Capitol.

2. Allies: Another group of legislators will be on your side, but not necessarily out in front of your issues. But they can be pushed to do more, such as to speak up in part caucuses or lend their voice in support during a debate on the bill.

3. Fence Sitters: Some legislators will be uncommitted on your issues, potentially able to vote either way. These are your key targets and your lobbying strategy is about putting together the right mix of “inside” persuasion and “outside” pressure to sway them your way.

4. Mellow Opponents: Another group of legislators will be clear votes against you, but they are not inclined to be active voices of opposition against your issue. With this group what’s key is to keep them from becoming more active, lobbying them enough to give them pause, but not to make them angry.

5. Hard Core Opponents: Finally, there are those lawmakers who are leading your opposition. What is important here is to isolate them, to highlight the extremes of their positions, rhetoric and alliances and to give other lawmakers pause about joining with them.

Connecticut Association of Nonprofits

Effective lobbying requires a coordination of two very different kinds of lobbying activity:

“Inside” Lobbying

One form of lobbying takes place in the Capitol. It includes a mix of the following:

Meetings with lawmakers and legislative staff
Providing analysis and information on your services and service population to legislators and staff
Testifying in committees
Negotiating with policymakers and other lobby groups

For the most part this type of lobbying is carried out by or in coordination with advocates who work on a regular basis at the Capitol.

“Outside” Lobbying

An effective lobbying campaign also requires activity outside the Capitol, aimed at shifting the politics and pressure around the issue. Some of these activities include:

Media Activity including news conferences, editorial board visits, and assisting reporters with stories
Local lobbying visits by constituents to their legislators
Building broad, diverse coalitions
Letter writing campaigns to legislators
Grassroots activity such as rallies, etc.

It is important that these kinds of “outside” lobbying activities be coordinated with “inside” lobbying activity, to assure that they make strategic sense in terms of timing, targeting, messages, etc.

Connecticut Association of Nonprofits

DO LOBBY, DON’T OVER DO IT!

To be effective in your lobbying, here are some practical suggestions to follow:

Know your legislators

Know the legislation

Know the basic legislative process

Know how to be firm but friendly

Attack the issue, not the person

Don’t underestimate public officials

Son’t look down on government and politics

Be understanding

Be thoughtful

Don’t blame public official for “failing” to do what you wanted

Avoid selfish requests for special favors and exemptions

Don’t be a busybody

Be cooperative

Be realistic

Be practical

Virginia School Boards Association

There are four basic types of legislation: bills, joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and simple resolutions.

Step 1. Referral to Committee

Step 2. Committee Action

Step 3. Subcommittee Review

Step 4. Mark up

Step 5. Committee Action to Report a Bill

Step 6. Publication of a Written Report

Step 7. Scheduling Floor Action

Step 8. Debate

Step 9. Referral to Other Chamber

Step 10. Conference Committee Action

Step 11. Final Action

Step 12. Overriding a Veto

American Humanist Association

A How to Manual For Making Your Voice Heard In Government

“More citizen involvement is needed in our government to ensure the voices of people are heard over the money of paid lobbyists, unions, and coalitions across the country. Too often public officials seem removed from the people who hired them to be their representatives and fail to work on their behalf. The Citizen Lobbyist is a handbook for anyone who wants to learn about how to be active in local, state, and federal government and have a voice in creating public policy. It gives a step-by-step plan on how to lobby elected officials about whatever issues you care about, offers information on how to plan a lobbying meeting for individuals and groups, and provides sample lobbying worksheets and resources to assist with finding legislative information and history. The Citizen Lobbyist is your go-to reference for being a grassroots activist and citizen lobbyist.”

Author, Amanda Knief

Paine’s closing years, pitiful as they were, contained one closing triumph. He might have become a scarecrow-like figure. He might have been forced to subsist on the charity of friends. He might have been denied the right to vote by a bullying official, when presenting himself at the polling station, on the grounds that the author of Common Sense was not a true American. But as the buzzards began to circle, he rallied one more time. It was widely believed by the devout of those days that unbelievers would scream for a priest when their own death-beds loomed. Why this was thought to be valuable propaganda it is impossible to say. Surely the sobbing of human creature in extremis is testimony not worth having, as well as testimony extracted by the most contemptible means? Boswell had been to visit David Hume under these conditions, because he had been reluctant to believe that the stoicism of the the old philosophy would hold up, and as a result we have one excellent account of the refusal of the intelligence to yield to such moral blackmail. Our other account comes from those who attended Paine. Dying in ulcerated agony, he was imposed upon by two Presbyterian ministers who pushed past his housekeeper and urged him to avoid damnation by accepting Jesus Christ. “Let me have none of your Popish stuff,” Paine responded. “Get away with you, good morning, good morning.” The same demand was made of him as his eyes were closing. “Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?” He answered quite distinctly: “I have no wish to believe on that subject.” Thus he expired with his reason, and his rights, both still staunchly defended until the very last.

Open Culture. Christopher Hitchens: No Deathbed Conversion for Me, Thanks, But it was Good of You to Ask

Unless you hold a degree in one of the counseling sciences (and any applicable state certifications), you legally cannot offer counseling services, nor can you use “Humanist Counselor” in your title. If you do hold a degree that allows you to counsel individuals and you are approached as a Celebrant-counselor, then you should take advantage of your shared humanist perspective as well as your secular credentials. Celebrants can and are encouraged to “lend an ear” to anyone who wishes to know what a Humanist perspective would be for any given situation. Referring to such services as “coaching” or “mentoring” can help to ensure people do not confuse your services for licensed counseling, social work, or mental health services.

The above also applies to grief, family and conflict resolution counseling. Unless you are specifically trained to offer such services, it is strongly suggested that you refer to qualified practitioners. When making referrals, advise them to ask for the counselor’s experience, education credentials, and any licenses and certifications.

Humanist Society, A Handbook for Celebrants

Arnold van Gennep, in full Charles-Arnold Kurr van Gennep (born 1873, Wurttemberg, Germany -died 1957), French ethnographer and folklorist, best known for his studies of the rites of passage of various cultures.

Although Gennep was born in German and had a Dutch father, he lived most of his life and received his education in France, his mother’s native country. Gennep learned a remarkable number of languages, 18 by his own count, and thus could effectively use linguistic and philological facts in his ethnographic studies. Most of his work was done outside of, and occasionally at odds with, the academic community, which he himself described in Les Demi-Savants (1911; The Semi-Scholars).

Gennep’s major work was Les Rites de Passage (1909; The Rites of Passage), in which he systemically compared those ceremonies that celebrate an individual’s transition from one status to another within a given society. He found a tripartite sequence in ritual observance: separation, transition, and incorporation. Gennep offered interpretations of the significance of these rites as forms of social regeneration, based on such natural symbols as death and rebirth.

Gennep also made studies of European folklore, viewing folk literature and practices as aspects of a living culture rather than as remains of a dead one. His writings include the monumental Manuel de folklore francais contemporain (1937-58; “Manual of Contemporary French Folklore”). He also edited the “Ethnographie-Folklore-Religions-Prehistoire” section in the publication Mercure de France and wrote Religions, moeurs et legendes; Essais d’ethnographis et de linguistique (1908-14; “Religions, Customs and Legends; Essays of Ethnology and Linguistics”).

Encyclopedia Britannica

THE ORIGIN OF THE PROPOSAL

In the 19th century, declaration of love was tantamount to proposal; arranged marriages did not include proposals nor did marriage by capture. Asking the bride’s father for her comes from the era of arranged marriages.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGAGEMENT

The engagement is a means to an end -marriage. Indeed, the full term is “engaged to be married.” At one time, however, the engagement was as important as the wedding itself. Anglo-Saxons were used to stealing away their brides-to-be. Romance, wooing and engagements were not in the picture. But the families of the women insisted on being reimbursed for what was, after all, a working member of the family. The engagement itself signified the intended transfer of ownership from father to husband and also provided a person during which the “bride’s price” could be agreed. Several centuries later, the situation was in reverse and fathers were paying future sons-in-law, or their families, a “dowry” to marry off their daughters. The engagement was again a time for agreeing on the payment, or dowry, and also a time for collecting an extravagant trousseau, at least for rich brides.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY

Once marked by a party called a “flouncing”, the couple met with their future in-laws to make the engagement official. Neither of the couple could be seen talking to another man or woman after this point and should the engagement be broken, the one breaking it forfeited half of his or her worldly goods.

THE ORIGIN OF THE RING FINGER

During 3rd century Greece, the ring finger was the index finger. In India, it was the thumb. During the Christian wedding the priest arrived at the fourth finger (counting the thumb) after touching the three fingers on the left hand ‘…in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’ The Egyptians believed that a special vein, which they called a “bena amoris” or vein of love, ran from the third finger on the left hand, directly t the heart. By putting on a fitted ring, the affections were bound in and could never flow out the fingertips. Also, this finger although not the smallest on the hand is the weakest and most dependent on the others for help in lifting and holding. It seemed to symbolize the young wife supported by the strength of her husband.

The “ring” finger has sometimes been on the left hand, sometimes on the right, according to country and custom. Among English-speaking persons, it has been on the left since the edict of Edward VI in 1549.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGAGEMENT RING

The truth or promise ring is older than the wedding band. Its earliest form was probably plaited sweet grass, which came from the custom of securing the bride’s writs and ankles with rushes during the age of marriage by capture. When restraint became more symbolical than physical, a grass ring was given to her, succeeded by rings of metal as man became more accomplished in the crafts. The Romans and Egyptians, with their love of precious metal and stones, initiated the production of platinum, silver and gold rings. In early Rome, a gold band came to symbolize everlasting love and commitment in marriage.

In 860 A.D., Pope Nicholas I decreed that an engagement ring become a required statement of nuptial intent. He insisted that engagement rings had to be made of gold, which signified a financial sacrifice on the part of the prospective husband.

THE ORIGIN OF THE WEDDING RING

Before coinage, gold rings were circulated as currency. By giving a gold ring to his bridge, a man showed he trusted her with his property. Under Roman law, the ring was a sign of security, protecting the interests of the bride-to-be. In Elizabethan times, an interlocking set of three rings was used and worn during the engagement period by the bride, the groom and the witness at the wedding. The three rings would be placed on the bride’s finger during the wedding ceremony.

DIAMOND RINGS BECAME POPULAR IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Roman wedding rings were carved with two clasped hands. Very early rings had a carved key through the which a woman was thought to be able to open her husband’s heart. Jeweled rings were the next step and the diamond is mentioned specifically from about the fourth century A.D., and frequently from the fifteenth century on.

Although not required to validate marriage under a civil law, rings were required in 16th century by the Council of Trent. Circular shape symbolizes eternity.

THE ORIGIN OF THE BEST MAN WEDDING TRADITION

In 200 A.D., the male Germanic Goths of northern Europe usually married a woman from within his own community. However, when there were fewer women, the prospective bridegroom would capture his bride from a neighboring village. The bridegroom was accompanied by his strongest friend (or best friend), who helped him capture his bride.

WHY IT BECAME BAD LUCK FOR THE GROOM TO SEE THE BRIDE BEFORE THE WEDDING

Until relatively recently, brides were considered the property of their father. Their futures and husbands were arranged without their consent. The marriage of an unattractive woman was often arranged with a prospective groom from another town without either of them having ever seen their prospective spouse. In more than one instance, when the groom saw his future wife, usually dressed in white, for the first time on the day of the wedding, he changed his mind and left the bride at the altar. To prevent this from happening, it became “bad luck” for the groom to see the bridge on the day of the wedding prior to the ceremony.

THE ORIGIN OF THE TRADITIONAL WHITE WEDDING DRESS

White is the ceremonial symbol of purity and virtue and hence of maidenhood. It has been so since Biblical times. But white has not always been the fashion for wedding gowns. Prior to the 19th century, it was fashionable to wear a colorful outfit that could be adopted for later wear.

In 1499, Ann of Brittany wore the first white wedding gown. Nellie Custis revised the wearing of white at her marriage to George Washington’s favorite nephew on the ex-president’s last birthday, Feburary 22, 1799 and white has now been the fashion for some 200 years.

THE ORIGIN OF “SOMETHING BLUE”

In early Biblical times, blue not white symbolized purity. Both the bride and groom usually wore a band of blue material around the bottom of their wedding attire, hence the wedding tradition of “something blue”.

THE ORIGIN OF THE BLUE GARTER

We all know that something blue is lucky for the bride, but why a blue garter? This seems to stem from the noble Order of the Garter, the oldest order of knighthood in Europe. Its regalia includes a collar, a star and an actual blue velvet garter. Since queens and princesses are the only women invested with the Order, and a bride is a “queen for the day”, she may enjoy royal prerogatives by wearing a blue garter below her left knee.

WHY THE BRIDE STANDS TO THE GROOMS LEFT

After the bridegroom captured his bride, he placed on her in his left to protect her, thus freeing his right hand or sword against sudden attack.

THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM WEDDING

Although some brides were kidnapped, marriage by purchase was the preferred method of obtaining a wife. The “bride price” could be land, social status, political alliances, or cash. The Anglo-Saxon word “wedd” meant that the groom would vow to marry the woman, but it also referred to the bride price (money or barter) to be paid by the groom to the bride’s father. The root of the word “wedding” literally means to gamble or wager!

THE ORIGIN OF THE BOUQUET

Symbolizes life, growth, and fertility. Herbs ward off evil spirits. Flowers with different meanings are assembled into a bouquet. Flower meanings:

Acacia = Elegance
Carnations = Fidelity
Honeysuckle – Generosity
Hyacinth = Playfulness
Irises = Wisdom
Orchids = Fertility
Roses = Love

WHY ORANGE BLOSSOMS?

There are cycles of favor for bridal flowers just as with other bridal fashions. There was the era of rosemary, then myrtle, and more recently, the orange blossom has enjoyed a full century of popularity. Carried from Spain to France many years ago, and then to America, the orange blossom wedding tradition became so strong that brides wore the flowerets moulded in wax when they couldn’t get fresh blossoms.

The meaning is significant: the orange tree is one of the very few in all nature that bears its flowers and its fruit at the same time — a symbol of young and fruitful spouse. Because the tree from which orange blossoms come is an evergreen, they are also thought to symbolize the everlasting nature of the newlywed’s love for each other.

THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILIES SITTING ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE CHURCH

Fathers would sometimes offer their daughters as peace offerings to warring tribes. Because of the hostility, the families were placed on opposite sides of the church so the ceremony could go on without bloodshed. The ceremony united the two warring factions into a family, and danger of war was resolved.

THE ORIGIN OF TAKING EACH OTHER’S RIGHT HAND

The open right hand is a symbol of strength, resource and purpose. The coming together of both right hands is a symbol that both the bride and the groom can depend on each other and the resources that each brings to the marriage. It also represents the merger of their lives together into one.

THE ORIGIN OF THE WEDDING KISS

No ceremony is complete without the kiss. In fact, there was a time when an engagement would be null and void without one. Dating back from early Roman times, the kiss represented a legal bond that sealed all contracts. If one of the engaged paid died before the wedding, the other could keep the gifts only if they had already kissed. The wedding kiss is no longer a required part of the wedding ceremony. The wedding kiss is a symbol of the newlywed’s faith and love, respect and obedience to mutual benefits. It grew out of the feudal practice of kissing the lord’s ring.

Another story goes; the priest first kissed the groom after the ceremony. Then the groom kissed the bride, the priest kissed his assistants, and his assistants kissed the guests. No longer is the tradition carried this far.

THE ORIGIN OF THE WEDDING RECEPTION

The fact is that marriage feasts have been in existence nearly as long as marriage ceremonies. The early Greeks held a splendid wedding feast for every couple. And it was a very special occasion indeed, because although women were not usually included in other Greek banquets, they were invited to wedding feasts.

THE ORIGIN OF SERVING GOOSE AT A WEDDING FEAST

According to folklore, goose was served at weddings because the gander, always faithful to his original mate, became the symbol of marriage and fidelity. By serving goose, it was believed that the main dish would symbolize things hoped for and dreamed for in the marriage.

THE ORIGIN OF THE WEDDING TOAST

What about the origin of “toasting”? As drink goes, wine has always been central to the wedding, even mentioned in the Bible. The first recorded toast was given at a Saxony feast in 450 A.D. by a woman who became a bride herself before the end of the evening.

British King Vortigern was so moved by the sentiment: a simple “Lord King, be of health,” offered by Rowena, daughter of the Saxony leader Hengist, that he proceeded to make passionate love to her. Intoxicated by the drink, possible love, and definitely greed, he then bargained with Hengist for her hand. A deal was arranged whereby Hengist received the province of Kent in exchange for her hand. Vortigern and Rowena were married that same evening. From that time forth, “to life, to health, to love,” has been a part of the toasting tradition, as glass touches glass and a chorus of clinks heralds a festive time for all.

Once it literally involved scorched bread. In the days when wine was regularly decanted, it left much more sediment than other modern bottles do. So the French cleverly placed a piece of toast in the bottom of the cup to absorb the dregs.

A competent toaster drank everything to get to the toast at the bottom because decorum dictated that one drain the glass.

So good wishes were often accompanied with the dictum, “Bottoms up!”

Today the good wishes remain but happily, the actual soggy toast has disappeared. And, clinking of glasses after a toast scares away the devil who is repelled by the noise.

THE ORIGIN OF DANCING AND GAMES

Ancient weddings dances were communal and symbolic of life giving and beginnings. The first dance of the bride and groom leading to their dancing with the guests was to give them strength from the community before they retired to the bedchamber.

THE ORIGIN OF THE BRIDAL BOUQUET TOSS

Guests invaded the bridal chamber and threw the bride and groom’s stockings. The one whose throw landed on the bride or groom’s nose was the next to marry. It was customary in the 14th century for the bride to toss her garter to the men. Sometimes the men would get drunk, become impatient, and try to remove the garter ahead of time. Therefore, the custom evolved for the groom to remove and toss the garter. By the end of the 14th century, the groom was throwing the bride’s garter to prevent their being rushed at the altar. With that change, the bride started to toss the bridal bouquet to the unwed girls of marriageable age.

THE ORIGIN OF THE WEDDING CAKE

The tradition of the wedding cake has ancient roots. The Roman wedding ceremony included a simple cake made from salt, water, and wheat flour. The cake culture may also be connected to the fertility rituals of many cultures. One custom, similar to that of throwing confetti, involved showering the bride with many small cakes after the wedding. Sometimes the cakes were even broken over the bride’s head.

In Shakespeare’s time, sheaves of wheat were carried in the wedding procession and sometimes the bride wore weathers in her veil because this graceful grain is a symbol of fertility. In a later era, the wheat was ground to flour and little hearth-baked cakes were broken and eaten by the bride and groom. Gradually these loaves became more elaborate. The bridesmaids carried them to the church to be blessed, which led to the belief that the very crumbs under one’s pillow would induce dreams of romance.

At Elizabethan weddings, the bride and groom would kiss over a stack of small sweet buns. A 17th century French chef frosted the little cakes with white sugar to hold them together.

The bride and groom feed each other a taste of cake to symbolize the sharing of life’s bounty. A small bit of icing on his face foretells a “rich and sweet life”; his face smeared with icing, “trouble”; and if a child under five snitches frosting, their first-born will be the same sex as the child.

BREAKING THE CAKE OVER THE BRIDE’S HEAD

An old tradition that isn’t practiced today, breaking the cake over the bride’s head has its origins in the roman empire. The groom would eat part of the loaf of barley bread baked for the occasion and break the rest over the head of the bride. It is believed that this symbolized the breaking of the hymen and the dominance of the groom over the bride. As time wore on and wedding cakes evolved into a more modern form of a cake, it became impossible, much to the relief of many brides, to properly “break” the cake over the bride’s head.

CUTTING THE CAKE

Perhaps the most well known tradition associated with wedding cakes is the joint task of cutting the cake. Here the first piece is cut by the bride with feigned assistance from the groom. It has come to symbolize the first task in the couple’s life together and is a key image for the wedding photographer to capture. Originally, it was the sole duty of the bride to cut the cake for sharing by the guests. As cakes became grander, the task became quite formidable, particularly in the early multi-tiered cakes where the icing had to be strong and rigid enough to support the upper tiers. It became a joint task more out of necessity than symbolism. Immediately after the cutting, the bride and groom feed each other the first slice. This action symbolizes the commitment to provide for each other that the bride and groom have undertaken. However, in most American weddings, this task has the appearance of a traditional slapstick pie-fight.

A marriage license is a document issued, either by a church or state authority, authorizing a couple to marry. The procedure for obtaining a license varies between countries and has changed over time. Marriage licenses began to be issued in the Middle Ages, to permit a marriage which would otherwise be illegal (for instance, if the necessary period of notice for the marriage had not been given).

Today, they are a legal requirement in some jurisdictions, a “pardon” can be obtained, for marrying without a license and in some jurisdictions, common-law marriages and marriage by cohabitation and representation are also recognized. These do not require a marriage license. There are also some jurisdictions where marriage licenses do not exist at all and a marriage certificate is given to the couple after the marriage ceremony did take place.

Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that “Men and women of full age, without limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. marriage shall be entered into only the free and full consent of the intending spouse.”

Wikipedia

The above also applies to pre-martial counseling of a couple approaching you for wedding services. Unless you are specifically trained to offer such services, it is strongly suggested that if the couple wishes such counseling, that you refer them to qualified practitioners in experience or knowledge. When making referrals, advise them to ask for the counselor’s experience, education credentials, and any licenses and certifications.

Humanist Society, A Handbook for Celebrants

Spinoza believed God exists and is abstract and impersonal. Spinoza’s system imparted order and unity to the tradition of radical thought, offering powerful weapons for prevailing against “received authority.” As a youth he first subscribed to Descartes’s dualistic belief that body and mind are two separate substances, but later changed his view and asserted that they were not separate, being a single identity. He contended that everything that exists in Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe) is one Reality (substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which surrounds us and of which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality,[69] namely the single substance (meaning “that which stands beneath” rather than “matter”) that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser “entities” are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is understood only in part. His identification of God with nature was more fully explained in his posthumously published Ethics. That humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites while being unable to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do. Spinoza has been described by one writer as an “Epicurean materialist.”

Bento (in Hebrew, Baruch; in Latin, Benedictus) Spinoza is one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period. His thought combines a commitment to a number of Cartesian metaphysical and epistemological principles with elements from ancient Stoicism and medieval Jewish rationalism into a nonetheless highly original system. His extremely naturalistic views on God, the world, the human being and knowledge serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness. They also lay the foundations for a strongly democratic political thought and a deep critique of the pretensions of Scripture and sectarian religion. Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth-century, perhaps none have more relevance today than Spinoza.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Naturalism commonly refers to the viewpoint that laws of nature (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe. Adherents of naturalism (naturalists) assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe, that the universe is a product of these laws.

Philosopher Paul Kurtz argues that nature is best accounted for by reference to material principles. These principles include mass, energy, and other physical and chemical properties accepted by the scientific community. Further, this sense of naturalism holds that spirits, deities, and ghosts are not real and that there is no “purpose” in nature. Such as absolute belief in naturalism is usually referred to as metaphysical naturalism (or philosophical naturalism). In contrast, assuming naturalism in working methods, without necessarily considering naturalism as an absolute truth with philosophical entailments, is called methodological naturalism.

Theists challenge the idea that nature is all there is. They believe in one or more gods that created nature. Natural laws have a place in their theology; they describe the effects of so-called secondary causes. But, natural laws do not define nor limit deities as primary causes.

Wikipedia

Reductionism can mean either (a) an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings.

Reductionism strongly reflects a certain perspective on causality. In a reductionist framework, phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena, are called epiphenomena. Often there is an implication that the epiphenomenon exerts no causal agency on the fundamental phenomena that explain it.

Reductionism does not preclude the existence of what might be called emergent phenomena, but it does imply the ability to understand those phenomena completely in terms of the processes from which they are composed. This reductionist understanding is very different from that usually implied by the term ’emergence’, which typically intends that what emerges is more than the sum of the processes from which it emerges.

Religious reductionism generally attempts to explain religion by boiling it down to certain nonreligious causes. A few examples of reductionistic explanations for the presence of religion are: that religion can be reduced to humanity’s conceptions of right and wrong, that religion is fundamentally a primitive attempt at controlling our environments, that religion is a way to explain the existence of a physical world, and that religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection. Anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer employed some religious reductionist arguments. Sigmund Freud’s idea that religion is nothing more than an illusion, or even a mental illness, and the Marxist view that religion is “the sigh of the oppressed,” providing only “the illusory happiness of the people,” are two other influential reductionist explanations of religion.

There is a certain degree of reductionism in the social sciences, which often try to explain whole areas of social activity as mere subfields of their own field. As an example, Marxist economists often try to explain politics as subordinated to economy, and sociologists sometimes see economy and politics as mere sub-spheres of society.

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Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known as George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American, although he always kept a valid Spanish passport. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters.

Santayana is known for the sayings, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, and “[O]nly the dead have seen the end of war.” The latter sentence is often (for example, at the start of the film Black Hawk Down) falsely attributed to Plato; the former appears in Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of Santayana’s five-volume Life of Reason. (In the 1905 Charles Scribner’s Sons edition, it is found on page 284.) Santayana is broadly included among the pragmatists with Harvard University colleagues William James and Josiah Royce. He said that he stood in philosophy “exactly where [he stood] in daily life.”

Santayana’s main philosophical work consists of The Sense of Beauty (1896), his first book-length monograph and perhaps the first major work on aesthetics written in the United States; The Life of Reason five volumes, 1905–6, the high point of his Harvard career; Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923); and The Realms of Being (4 vols., 1927–40). Although Santayana was not a pragmatist in the mold of William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Josiah Royce, or John Dewey, The Life of Reason arguably is the first extended treatment of pragmatism written.

Like many of the classical pragmatists, and because he was also well-versed in evolutionary theory, Santayana was committed to metaphysical naturalism. He believed that human cognition, cultural practices, and social institutions have evolved so as to harmonize with the conditions present in their environment. Their value may then be adjudged by the extent to which they facilitate human happiness. The alternate title to The Life of Reason, “the Phases of Human Progress”, is indicative of this metaphysical stance.

Santayana was an early adherent of epiphenomenalism, but also admired the classical materialism of Democritus and Lucretius (of the three authors on whom he wrote in Three Philosophical Poets, Santayana speaks most favorably of Lucretius). He held Spinoza’s writings in high regard, without subscribing to the latter’s rationalism or pantheism.

Although an agnostic, he held a fairly benign view of religion, in contrast to Bertrand Russell who held that religion was harmful. Santayana’s views on religion are outlined in his books Reason in Religion, The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, and Interpretations of Poetry and Religion. Santayana described himself as an “aesthetic Catholic”. He spent the last decade of his life at the Convent of the Blue Nuns of the Little Company of Mary on the Celian Hill at 6 Via Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, where he was cared for by the Irish sisters.

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Denis Diderot (French: [dəni didʁo] ; October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d’Alembert.

Diderot also contributed to literature, notably with Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master), which emulated Laurence Sterne in challenging conventions regarding novels and their structure and content, while also examining philosophical ideas about free will. Diderot is also known as the author of the dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau’s Nephew), upon which many articles and sermons about consumer desire have been based.

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Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS[1] (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis. He was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London (1935–1942), the first Director of UNESCO, and a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund.

Huxley was well known for his presentation of science in books and articles, and on radio and television. He directed an Oscar-winning wildlife film. He was awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science in 1953, the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 1956, and the Darwin–Wallace Medal of the Linnaean Society in 1958. He was also knighted in that same year, 1958, a hundred years after Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace announced the theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1959 he received a Special Award of the Lasker Foundation in the category Planned Parenthood – World Population. Huxley was a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society and its president from 1959–1962.

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The Iroquois, also known as the Haudenosaunee or the “People of the Longhouse”, are a league of several nations and tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the Iroquoian-speaking peoples of present-day central and upstate New York coalesced as distinct tribes, by the 16th century or earlier, they came together in an association known today as the Iroquois League, or the “League of Peace and Power”.

The original Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, as it was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations. After the Tuscarora nation joined the League in 1722, the Iroquois became known as the Six Nations. The League is embodied in the Grand Council, an assembly of fifty hereditary sachems. Other Iroquian peoples lived along the St. Lawrence River, around the Great Lakes and in the American Southeast, but they were not part of the Haudenosaunee and often competed and warred with these tribes.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Haudenosaunee were based in what is now the northeastern United States, primarily in what is referred to today as upstate New York west of the Hudson River and through the Finger Lakes region. Today, the Iroquois live primarily in New York, Quebec, and Ontario.

The Iroquois League has also been known as the Iroquois Confederacy. Modern scholars distinguish between the League and the Confederacy. According to this interpretation, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in the Grand Council, while the Iroquois Confederacy was the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. The League still exists. The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War.

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In political philosophy the social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.[1] Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory.

Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, as well as in the Biblical idea of the covenant, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is a heuristic examination of the human condition absent from any political order that Thomas Hobbes termed the “state of nature”.[2] In this condition, individuals’ actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience. From this shared starting point social contract theorists seek to demonstrate, in different ways, why a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up his or her natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.

Hugo Grotius (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) are among the most prominent of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theorists of social contract and natural rights. Each solved the problem of political authority in a different way. Grotius posited that individual human beings had natural rights; Hobbes asserted that men consent to abdicate their rights in favor of the absolute authority of government (whether monarchial or parliamentary); Pufendorf disputed Hobbes’s equation of a state of nature with war.

Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and that the rule of God therefore superseded government authority; and Rousseau believed that democracy (self-rule) was the best way of ensuring the general welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence. Social contract theories were eclipsed in the nineteenth century in favor of utilitarianism, Hegelianism, and Marxism, and were revived in the twentieth, notably in the form of a thought experiment by John Rawls.

Wikidpedia

The Non-Cooperation Movement was a significant phase of the Indian struggle for freedom from British rule. This movement lasted from September 1920 to February 1922. It was led by Mahatma Gandhi and was supported by the Indian National Congress. It aimed to resist British occupation in India through non-violent means. Protestors would refuse to buy British goods, adopt the use of local handicrafts, picket liquor shops, and try to uphold the Indian values of honour and integrity. The Gandhian ideals of Ahimsa or non-violence, and his ability to rally hundreds of thousands of common citizens towards the cause of Indian independence, were first seen on a large scale in this movement.

Among the significant causes of this movement were colonial oppression, exemplified by the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh massacre, economic hardships to the common man due to a large chunk of Indian wealth being exported to Britain, ruin of Indian artisans due to British factory-made goods replacing handmade goods, and popular resentment with the British over Indian soldiers dying in World War I while fighting as part of the British Army –, in battles that otherwise had nothing to do with India

The calls of early political leaders like Mohammad Ali Jinnah (who later became communal and hardened his stand), Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Congress Extremists) for home rule were accompanied only by petitions and major public meetings. They never resulted in disorder or obstruction of government services. Partly due to that, the British did not take them very seriously. The non-cooperation movement aimed to ensure that the colonial economic and power structure would be seriously challenged, and British authorities would be forced to take notice of the people’s demands. Here we should know that many revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad were supporters of this very movement but were really dissatisfied by the dismissing of movement by Gandhiji.

Gandhiji had shown a similar movement in South Africa and in 1917-18 in Champaran, Bihar and Kheda, Gujarat that the only way to earn the respect and attention of British officials was to actively resist government activities through civil disobedience.

Now in Champaran and Kheda in 1918 he led impoverished farmers, mired in social evils like unhygienic conditions, domestic violence, discrimination, oppression of women and untouchability. On top of their miseries, these people were forced to grow cash crops like indigo, tobacco and cotton instead of food, and for this they were virtually not compensated. In addition, they had to pay taxes despite a famine.

The Governments of the affected regions signed agreements suspending taxation in face of the famine, allowing the farmers to grow their own crops, releasing all political prisoners and returning all property and lands seized. It was the biggest victory against the British Empire since the American Revolution.

Gandhiji were assisted by a new generation of Indian revolutionaries like Rajendra Prasad and Jawaharlal Nehru. In Kheda, the entire revolt had been led by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was to become Gandhi’s right hand man.

A meeting of unarmed civilians was being held at Jallianwala Bagh near the Golden temple in Amritsar. The people were fired upon by soldiers under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer. He also ordered the only exit to be blocked. The massacre resulted in the deaths of some 370 protestors while over 1000 were injured in the shooting. The outcry in Punjab led to thousands of unrests, protests and more deaths at the hands of the police. The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre became the most infamous event of British rule in India. Gandhiji was horrified. He lost all faith in the goodness of the British government and declared that it would be a “sin” to cooperate with the “satanic” government.

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The Two Treatises of Government (or “Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, And His Followers, are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter is an Essay concerning The True Original, Extent, and End of Civil-Government”) is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise attacks patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence refutation of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha and the Second Treatise outlines his ideas for a more civilised society based on natural rights and contract theory. Writing about the Two Treatises of Government, Hans-Hermann Hoppe has referred to John Locke as “the outstanding champion of freedom”.

Two Treatises is divided into the First Treatise and the Second Treatise. The original title of the Second Treatise appears to have been simply “Book II,” corresponding to the title of the First Treatise, “Book I.” Before publication, however, Locke gave it greater prominence by (hastily) inserting a separate title page: “An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil Government.” The First Treatise is focused on the refutation of Sir Robert Filmer, in particular his Patriarcha, which argued that civil society was founded on a divinely sanctioned patriarchalism. Locke proceeds through Filmer’s arguments, contesting his proofs from Scripture and ridiculing them as senseless, until concluding that no government can be justified by an appeal to the divine right of kings.

The Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society. John Locke begins by describing the state of nature, a picture much more stable than Thomas Hobbes’ state of “war of every man against every man,” and argues that all men are created equal in the state of nature by God. From this, he goes on to explain the hypothetical rise of property and civilization, in the process explaining that the only legitimate governments are those that have the consent of the people. Therefore, any government that rules without the consent of the people can, in theory, be overthrown.

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Intrinsic value has traditionally been thought to lie at the heart of ethics. Philosophers use a number of terms to refer to such value. The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.” Extrinsic value is value that is not intrinsic.

Many philosophers take intrinsic value to be crucial to a variety of moral judgments. For example, according to a fundamental form of consequentialism, whether an action is morally right or wrong has exclusively to do with whether its consequences are intrinsically better than those of any other action one can perform under the circumstances. Many other theories also hold that what it is right or wrong to do has at least in part to do with the intrinsic value of the consequences of the actions one can perform. Moreover, if, as is commonly believed, what one is morally responsible for doing is some function of the rightness or wrongness of what one does, then intrinsic value would seem relevant to judgments about responsibility, too. Intrinsic value is also often taken to be pertinent to judgments about moral justice (whether having to do with moral rights or moral desert), insofar as it is good that justice is done and bad that justice is denied, in ways that appear intimately tied to intrinsic value. Finally, it is typically thought that judgments about moral virtue and vice also turn on questions of intrinsic value, inasmuch as virtues are good, and vices bad, again in ways that appear closely connected to such value.

All four types of moral judgments have been the subject of discussion since the dawn of western philosophy in ancient Greece. The Greeks themselves were especially concerned with questions about virtue and vice, and the concept of intrinsic value may be found at work in their writings and in the writings of moral philosophers ever since. Despite this fact, and rather surprisingly, it is only within the last one hundred years or so that this concept has itself been the subject of sustained scrutiny, and even within this relatively brief period the scrutiny has waxed and waned.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Other important transcendentalists were Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, Frederic Henry Hedge, and Theodore Parker. Stimulated by English and German Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, and the skepticism of Hume, the transcendentalists operated with the sense that a new era was at hand. They were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity, and urged that each person find, in Emerson’s words, “an original relation to the universe” (O, 3). Emerson and Thoreau sought this relation in solitude amidst nature, and in their writing. By the 1840s they, along with other transcendentalists, were engaged in the social experiments of Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden; and, by the 1850s in an increasingly urgent critique of American slavery.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The term ‘pantheism’ is a modern one, possibly first appearing in the writing of the Irish freethinker John Tolland (1705) and constructed from the Greek roots pan (all) and theos (God). But if not the name, the ideas themselves are very ancient, and any survey of the history of philosophy will uncover numerous pantheist or pantheistically inclined thinkers; although it should also be noted that in many cases all that history has preserved for us are second-hand reportings of attributed doctrines, any reconstruction of which is too conjectural to provide much by way of philosophical illumination.

At its most general, pantheism may be understood positively as the view that God is identical with the cosmos, the view that there exists nothing which is outside of God, or else negatively as the rejection of any view that considers God as distinct from the universe.

However, given the complex and contested nature of concepts involved, there is insufficient consensus among philosophers to permit the construction of any more detailed definition not open to serious objection from some quarter or other. Moreover, the label is a controversial one, where strong desires either to appropriate or to reject it often serve only to obscure the actual issues, and it would be a sad irony if pantheism revealed itself to be most like a traditional religion in its sectarian disputes over just what counts as ‘true pantheism.’ Therefore pantheism should not be thought of as a single codifiable position. Rather it should be understood as a diverse family of distinct doctrines; many of whom would be surprised — and, indeed, disconcerted — to find themselves regarded as members of a single household. Further, since the concept has porous and disputed boundaries there is no clear consensus on just who qualifies, no definities roll-call of past pantheists. Given this situation the range qualifies, no definitive roll-call of past pantheists. Given this situation the range of things that may be usefully said about all pantheisms is perhaps limited, but nonetheless a variety of concepts may be clarified, the nature of contentious issues explored, and the range of possible options more precisely mapped out.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of physiology, psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as “the stream of thought” and the baby’s impression of the world “as one great blooming, buzzing confusion” (PP 462). It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America, including Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. James studied at Harvard’s Lawrence Scientific School and the School of Medicine, but his writings were from the outset as much philosophical as scientific. “Some Remarks on Spencer’s Notion of Mind as Correspondence” (1878) and “The Sentiment of Rationality” (1879, 1882) presage his future pragmatism and pluralism, and contain the first statements of his view that philosophical theories are reflections of a philosopher’s temperament.

James hints at his religious concerns in his earliest essays and in The Principles, but they become more explicit in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine (1898), The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and A Pluralistic Universe (1909). James oscillated between thinking that a “study in human nature” such as Varieties could contribute to a “Science of Religion” and the belief that religious experience involves an altogether supernatural domain, somehow inaccessible to science but accessible to the individual human subject.

James made some of his most important philosophical contributions in the last decade of his life. In a burst of writing in 1904–5 (collected in Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912)) he set out the metaphysical view most commonly known as “neutral monism,” according to which there is one fundamental “stuff” that is neither material nor mental. In “A Pluralistic Universe” he defends the mystical and anti-pragmatic view that concepts distort rather than reveal reality, and in his influential Pragmatism (1907), he presents systematically a set of views about truth, knowledge, reality, religion, and philosophy that permeate his writings from the late 1870s onwards.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy. He has been called “the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century.” Mill’s conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hoping to remedy the problems found in an inductive approach to science, such as confirmation bias, he clearly set forth the premises of falsification as the key component in the scientific method. Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy.

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Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato’s teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle’s writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

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Liberation theology is a Christian movement in political theology that interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions. It has been described by proponents as “an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor’s suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor, and by detractors as Christianized Marxism.

Although liberation theology has grown into an international and inter-denominational movement, it began as a movement within the Roman Catholic church in Latin America in the 1950s-1960s. Liberation theology arose principally as a moral reaction to the poverty caused by social injustice in that region. The term was coined in 1971 by the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez, who wrote one of the movement’s most famous books. A Theology of Liberation. Other noted exponents are Leonardo Boff of Brazil, John Sobrino of El Salvador, and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay.

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David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment.

Beginning with his “A Treatise of Human Nature” (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalist “science of man” that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In stark opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behavior, saying: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” A Prominent figure is the skeptical philosophical tradition and a strong empiricist, he argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding instead that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience.

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Sir William David Ross (1877-1971) made significant contributions to the translation and interpretation of the works of Aristotle and to moral philosophy. His work in ancient philosophy, especially his various commentaries on Aristotle, is still considered to be of the highest caliber. Many believe that Ross’s work in this area is his most valuable contribution to philosophy. However, his main writings on moral philosophy are of lasting if not equal value. His “The Right and the Good” is arguably one of the most important works of moral philosophy published in the twentieth century. Although Ross’s view appeared to suffer at the hands of critics in the middle and late parts of the last century, recent interest in normative and meta-ethical intuitionism has sparked a renewed respect for and admiration of his unique contribution to ethics.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Divine Command Theory has been and continues to be highly controversial. It has been criticized by numerous philosophers, including Plat, Kai Nielsen, and J.L. Mackie. The theory also has many defenders, both classic and contemporary, such as Thomas Aquinas, Robert Adams and Philip Quinn. The question of the possible connections between religion and ethics is of interest to moral philosophers as well as philosophers of religion, but it also leads us to consider the role of religion in society as well as the nature of moral deliberation. Given this, the arguments offered for and against Divine Command Theory have both theoretical and practical importance.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was an English philosopher and political radical. He is primarily known today for his moral philosophy, especially his principle of utilitarianism, which evaluates action based upon their consequences. The relevant consequences, in particular, are the overall happiness created for everyone affected by the action. Influenced by many Enlightenment thinkers, especially empiricists such as John Locke and David Hume, Bentham developed an ethical theory grounded in a largely empiricist account of both motivation and value according to which what is fundamentally valuable and what ultimately motivates us is pleasure and pain. Happiness, according to Bentham, is thus a matter of experiencing pleasure and lack of pain.

Although he never practiced law, Betham did write a great deal of philosophy of law, spending most of his life critiquing the existing law and strongly advocating legal reform. Throughout his work, he critiques various natural accounts of law that claim, for example, that liberty, rights, and so on exist independent of government. In this way, Bentham arguably developed an early form of what is now often called “legal positivism.” Beyond such critiques, he ultimately maintained that putting his moral theory into consistent practice would yield result in legal theory by providing justification for social, political, and legal institutions.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“… Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear … Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure for you.”

Thomas Jefferson, writing to nephew Peter Carr on August 10, 1787

Secular Coalition For America is an advocacy group located in Washington, D.C., representing atheists, humanists, freethinkers, agnostics, and other non-theistic people with a naturalistic worldview in American politics.

The Secular Coalition works to increase visibility and respect for non-theistic viewpoints in the United States and to protect and strengthen the secular character of the U.S. government. The Coalition advocates complete separation of church and state within American politics which they claim is clearly established in the U.S. Constitution under the First Amendment. They point out that freedom of conscience, which includes religious freedom, was of such importance that it was made the first of all freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights. The Coalition holds reason and science as it guiding tenets for public policy.

“On religion in particular, the time appears to me to have come, when it is a duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have, on mature consideration, satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false, but hurtful, to make their dissent known.” — John Stuart Mill

“Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.” — Isaac Asimov

“The survey shows that a significant number of Americans would be reluctant to vote for a well-qualified candidate if he or she were a member of a particular religious group, especially a Muslim (38%). But many more express reservations about voting for a candidate without religion than one with a specific faith (52%). In all, 64% of Americans admit that a candidate’s religion, or lack thereof, could lead them to vote against a well-qualified candidate from their own party …

.. asked if there are ‘any reasons’ not to vote for a candidate with a particular religious affiliation if he or she were nominated by the respondent’s preferred party … [41%] say there are reasons why they would not vote for an atheist — far more than say that about a Muslim, an evangelical Christian, a Catholic or a Jew.

Atheism is a particular concern for white evangelical Protestants and African-Americans — majorities of each say there are reasons why they might not vote for an atheist if one received their party’s presidential nomination.”

Religion and Politics: Contention and Consensus (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life)

The American Humanist Association has stood as the voice of humanism in the United States for over 70 years.

We strive to bring about a progressive society where being good without gods is an accepted way to live life. We are accomplishing this through our defense of civil liberties and secular governance, by outreach to the growing number of people without traditional religious faith, and through continued refinement and advancement of the humanist worldview.

Humanism encompasses a variety of nontheistic views (atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, naturalism, secularism, and so forth) while adding the important element of a comprehensive worldview and set of ethical values–values that are grounded in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, informed by scientific knowledge, and driven by a desire to meet the needs of people in the here and now.

We count humanists and other nontheists as the core of our movement but are always willing to work with friends and allies on issues of common concern. The positions we hold and the actions we take are not simply for our own benefit, but for the betterment of all of society and the world in which we live.

Biblical literalism (also called Biblicism or Biblical fundamentalism) is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is association with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to scripture–the historical-grammatical method–and is used extensively by conservative Christians, in contrast to the historical-critical method of liberal Christians. The essence of this approach focuses upon the author’s intent as the primary meaning of the text. Literal interpretation does place emphasis upon the referential aspect of the words or terms in the text. It does not, however, mean a complete denial of literary aspects, genre, or figures of speech with the text (e.g., parable, allegory, simile, or metaphor). Also literalism does not necessarily lead to total and complete agreement upon one single interpretation for any given passage.

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“Many religious people believe that cloning human individuals is wrong in principle because it treads upon the province of God, who they believe should remain with a monopoly on the power to create and tinker with human life. [Humanists] do not share this view, since we believe that scientific research should not be hobbled by religious beliefs … [We] do have a moral objection to the cloning of human beings at this juncture in history … We do, however, see future benefits in finding an alternative procedure to help deal with the painful consequences of human infertility and so espouse continued animal testing so that one day this problem can be addressed.”

— The Institute for Humanist Studies statement on cloning, January, 2002

Preamble

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore the General Assembly proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respects for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible. Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror.

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Authoritarianism is characterized by highly concentrated, and centralized power maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential challengers. It uses political parties and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime.

Authoritarianism emphasizes arbitrary law rather than the rule of law, it often includes election rigging, political decisions being made by a select group of officials behind closed doors, a bureaucracy that sometimes operates independently of rules, which does not properly supervise elected officials, and fails to serve the concerns of the constituencies they purportedly serve.

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Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, Humanists International (formerly International Humanist and Ethical Union or IHEU) is the sole world umbrella organization embracing Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, skeptic, laique, ethical culture, freethought, and similar organizations worldwide.

Our vision is a Humanist world; a world in which human rights are respected and everyone is able to live a life of dignity. We work to build and represent the global Humanist movement that defends human rights and promotes Humanist values world-wide.

Based in London, HI is an international NGO with Special Consultative Status with UN (New York, Geneva, Vienna), General Consultative Status at UNICEF (New York) and the Council of Europe (Strasbourg), and maintains operational relations with UNESCO (Paris). HI has observer status at the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) is a nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of church-state separation as the only way to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.

AU was founded in 1947 by a broad coalition of religious, educational and civic leaders. At that time, proposals were pending in the U.S. Congres to extend government aid to private religious schools. Many Americans opposed this idea, insisting that government support for religious education would violate church-state separation. The decision was made to form a national organization to promote this point of view and defend the separation principle.

AU’s leaders wanted a group with a nationwide focus that would be active on several fronts. The organization worked to educate members of Congress, as well as state and local lawmakers, about the importance of maintaining church-state separation. At the same time, state and local chapters of Americans United were formed, and the organization began publishing Church & State magazine and other material in support of church-state separation to educate members of the general public. These activities continue today and form the core of AU’s operations.

Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population structure. It attempts to explain such phenomena as adaptation and speciation.

Population genetics was a vital ingredient in the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Its primary founders were Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane and R. A. Fisher, who also laid the foundations for the related disciple of quantitative physics.

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Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to Abrahamic God. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis creation narrative. At this time those holding that species had been separately created (such as Philip Gosse in 1847) were generally called “advocates of creation” but they were occasionally called “creationists” in private correspondence between Charles Darwin and his friends. As the creation-evolution controversy developed, the term “anti-evolutionists” became more common, then in 1929 in the United States the term “creationism” first became specifically associated with Christian fundamentalist disbelief in humanist evolution and belief in a young Earth, though its usage was contested by other groups, such as old earth creationists and evolutionary creationists, who believed in various concepts of creation.

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Stuart Alan Kauffman (September 28, 1939) is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. In 1971 Kauffman proposed the self-organized emergence of collectively autocatalytic sets of polymers, specifically peptides, for the origin of molecular reproduction. Reproducing peptide, DNA, and RNA collectively autocatalytic sets have now been made experimentally. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well as for applying models of Boolean networks to simplified genetic circuits. His hypotheses stating that cell types are attractors of such networks, and that genetic regulatory networks are “critical” have found experimental support.

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1921 Kaluza-Klein theory: Electromagnetism can be derived from gravity in a unified theory if there are four space dimensions instead of three, and the fourth is curled into a tiny circle. Kaluza and Klein made this discovery independently of each other.

1970 String theory is born: Three particle theorists independently realize that the dual theories developed in 1968 to describe the particle spectrum also describe the quantum mechanics of oscillating strings. This marks the official birth of string theory.

1971 Supersymmetry: Supersymmetry is invented in two contexts at once; in ordinary particle field theory and as a consequence of introducing germions into string theory. It holds the promise of resolving many problems in particle theory, but requires equal numbers of fermions and bosons, so it cannot be an exact symmetry of Nature.

1976 Supergravity: Supersymmetry is added to gravity, making supergravity. This progress is especially important to string theory, where gravity can’t be separated from the spectrum of excitations.

1980 Superstrings: String theory plus supersymmetry yields an excitation spectrum that has equal numbers of fermions and bosons, showing that string theory can be made totally supersymmetric. The resulting objects are called superstrings.

1984 The Big Year: This was the year for string theory! Deadly anomalies that threatened to make the theory senseless were discovered to cancel each other when the underlying symmetries in the theory belong two special groups. Finally string theory is accepted by the mainstream physics community as an actual candidate theory united quantum mechanics, particle physics and gravity.

Official String Theory Web Site (superstringtheory.com)

Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916 – October 24, 2970) was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century. Hofstadter, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University, became the “iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus”, largely due to his emphasis on ideas and political culture rather than the day-to-day doings of politicians. His influence is ongoing, as modern critics profession admiration for the grace of his writing, and depth of his insight.

His most important works are Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963); and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964).

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Scientism is a term used, usually pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints. The term frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek, philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, and philosophers such as Hilary Putnam to describe the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measurable.

Scientism may refer to science applied “in excess.” The term scientism can apply in either of two equally pejorative senses:

1. To indicate the improper usage of science or scientific claims. This usage applies equally in contexts where science might not apply, such as when the topic is perceived to be beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, and in contexts where there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify a scientific conclusion. It includes an excessive deference to claims made by scientists or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as scientific. In this case, the term is a counterargument to appeals to scientific authority.

2. To refer to “the belief that the methods of natural science, or categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry.” or that “science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective” with a concomitant “elimination of the psychological dimensions of experience.”

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Punctuated Equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria [plural form]) is a theory in evolutionary biology that proposes that most species will exhibit little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history, remaining in an extended state called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, the theory proposes that it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation called cladogenesis. Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another.

Punctuated equilibrium is commonly contrasted against the theory of phyletic gradualism, which states that evolution generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages (called anagenesis). In this view, evolution is seen as generally smooth and continuous.

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Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population.

The process of speciation may fall within the purview of either, depending on the forces thought to drive it. Paleontology, evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics and genomic phylostratigraphy contribute most of the evidence for the patterns and processes that can be classified as macroevolution. An example of macroevolution is the appearance of feathers during the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs.

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In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that is explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable the universe’s fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.

The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by Barrow and Tipler (see variants) states that this is all the case because the Universe is compelled, in some sense, for conscious life to eventually emerge. English writer Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, used the metaphor of a living puddle examining its own shape, since, to those living creatures, the universe may appear to fit them perfectly (while in fact, they simply fit the universe perfectly). Critics of the SAP argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined by Brandon Carter, which states that the universe’s ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias: i.e. only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing any such fine tuning, while a universe less compatible with life will go unbeheld.

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Nim Chimpsky (November 19, 1973 – March 10, 2000) was a chimpanzee who was the subject of an extended study of animal language acquisition (codenamed 6.001) at Columbia University, led by Herbert S. Terrace. Chimpsky was given his name as a pun on Noam Chomsky, the foremost theorist of human language structure and generative grammar at the time, who held that humans were “wired” to develop language.

The validity of the study is disputed, as Terrace argued that all ape-language studies, including Project Nim, were based on misinformation from the chimps. R. Allen and Beatrix Gardner made a similar earlier study, called Project Washoe, in which another chimpanze was raised like a human child. Washoe was given affection and participated in an everyday social activity with her adoptive family. Her ability to communicate was far more developed than Nims. Washoe lived 24 hours a day with her human family from birth; Nim at 2 weeks old was raised by a family in a home environment by human surrogate parents to see if he could refute Noam Chomsky’s thesis that language is inherent only in humans. Both chimps could use fragments of American Sign Language to make themselves understood.

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The phrase “Nature versus nurture” in its modern sense was coined by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton in a discussion of the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement, although the terms had been contrasted previously, for example by Shakespeare (in his play, The Tempest: 4.1). Galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two interwoven parameters, as for example an environment of wealth, education and social privilege are often historically passed to genetic offspring.

The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from “nurture” was termed tabula rosa (“blank slate”) by philosopher John Locke, and proposes that humans develop from environmental influences. This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of development, most modern psychologists and anthropologists consider the question naive — representing an outdated state of knowledge.

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If you’re at home and say something nice to your spouse, and s/he smiles in return, you not only have a memory of your home’s stimulus characteristics, and your spouse’s characteristics and smile, and your nice words, but the all-important fact that saying something nice (B) in your home environment (A) made your spouse smile (C), which you liked. So the next time you’re just at home doing nothing, and you want a lift, your brain will recall that previous experience — and all other similar ABCs in your past — and produce whatever B you’ve learned to do in that situation to get a reinforcement (like saying something nice to your spouse). Life is learning and using such associations.

Associative learning is the process by which an association between two stimuli or a behavior and a stimulus is learned. The two forms of associative learning are classical and operant conditioning. In the former, a previously neutral stimulus is repeatedly presented together with a reflex eliciting stimuli until eventually, the neutral stimulus will elicit a response on its own. In operant conditioning, a certain behavior is either reinforced or punished which results in an altered probability that the behavior will happen again. Honeybees display associative learning through the proboscis extension reflex paradigm.

Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from Pavlovian conditioning in that operant conditioning uses reinforcement/punishment to alter action-outcome association. In contrast, Pavlovian conditioning involves the strengthening of the stimulus-outcome association.

Elemental theories of associative learning argue that concurrent stimuli tend to be perceived as separate units rather than “holistically” (i.e. as a single unit).

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The first use of the term behavior modification appears to have been by Edward Thorndike in 1911. His article Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning makes frequent use of the term “modifying behavior.” Through early research in the 1940s and the 1950s, the term was used by Joseph Wolpe’s research group. The experimental tradition in clinical psychology used it to refer to psycho-therapeutic techniques derived from empirical research. It has since come to refer mainly to techniques for increasing adaptive behavior through reinforcement and decreasing maladaptive behavior through extinction or punishment (with emphasis on the former). Tow related terms are behavior therapy and applied behavior analysis. Emphasizing the empirical roots of behavior modification, some authors consider it to be broader in scope and to subsume the other two categories of behavior change methods. Since techniques derived from behavioral therapy and applied behavior analysis to be founded in behaviorism. While behavior modification encompasses applied behavior analysis and typically uses interventions based on the same behavioral principles, many behavior modifiers who are not applied behavior analysts tend to use packages of interventions and do not conduct functional assessments before intervening.

In recent years, the concept of punishment has had many critics, though these criticisms tend not to apply to negative punishment (time-outs) and usually apply to the addition of some aversive event. The use of positive punishment by board-certified behavior analysts is restricted to extreme circumstances when all other forms of treatment have failed and when the behavior to be modified is a danger to the person or to others. In clinical settings, positive punishment is usually restricted to using a spray bottle filled with water as an aversive event. When misused, more aversive punishment can lead to affective (emotional) disorders, as well as to the receiver of the punishment increasingly trying to avoid the punishment (i.e. “not get caught”).

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Hull’s motivational theory dominated the psychology of motivation during the late 1930s and the 1940s. Hull’s last great work was published in 1952, shortly before he died. Already psychologists were questioning Hull’s exclusive emphasis on drive-reduction. Hull portrayed all motivation as a matter of reducing uncomfortable drive or tension states. It is true that hunger and thirst are uncomfortable, but this conception of motivation leaves out many of the factors that energize and direct human behavior. As Hull’s dominance in the field weakened, psychologists began to explore different types of motives not directly aimed at satisfying biological needs.

In 1959 Robert W. White wrote a classic article for Psychological Review titled, “Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence.” In it, White proposed a new concept: effective motivation. Effectance was described as a “tendency to explore and influence the environment.” White suggested that the “master reinforcer” for humans is personal competence. He defined competence as “the ability to interact effectively with the environment.”

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At a broad level, a Creationist is someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will. Such a deity is generally thought to be constantly involved (‘immanent’) in the creation, ready to intervene as necessary, and without whose constant concern the creation would cease or disappear. Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all Creationists in this sense. Generally they are known as ‘theists,’ distinguishing them from ‘deists,’ that is people who believe that there is a designer who might or might not have created the materials on which he (or she or it) is working and who does not interfere once the designing act is finishing. The focus of this discussion is on a narrower sense of Creationism, the sense that one usually finds in popular writings (especially in America today). Here, Creationism means the taking of the Bible, particularly the early chapters of Genesis, as literally true guides to the history of the universe and to the history of life, including us humans, down here on earth.

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

Originally, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress. However, starting with Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court has applied the First Amendment to each state. This was done through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has also recognized a series of exceptions to provisions protecting the freedom of speech.

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Antonin Gregory Scalia (1936-2016) was an American jurist who served as the Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia has been described as the intellectual anchor of the Court’s conservative wing…

In his quarter-century on the Court, Scalia staked out a conservative ideology in his opinions, advocating textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation. He was a strong defender of the powers of the executive branch, believing presidential power should be paramount in many areas. He opposed affirmative action and other policies that treat minorities as groups. He filed separate opinions in large numbers of cases, and, in his minority opinions, often castigated the Court’s majority in scathing language.

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The establishment clause arose during James Madison’s efforts to have the constitution ratified. Virginia had disestablished the gentry-supported Church of England during and after the American Revolution. This left the Baptists in a position of political influence. Col. Thomas Barber, an opponent of the constitution in Madison’s home of Orange County, Virginia, began a campaign for election to the state ratifying convention. He garnered support among the local Baptists by warning them that the constitution had no safeguard against creating a new national church. To head off Barber’s challenge, Madison met with influential Baptist preacher John Leland and promised that, in exchange for Leland’s support of ratification, he would sponsor several amendments that were ultimately combined into the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause was established mainly as consensus among all of the religious groups in American during 1787, to prevent one religion from having too much influence.

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The Sherbert Test consists of four criteria that are used to determine if an individual’s right to religious free exercise has been violated by the government. The test is as follows:

* whether the person has a claim involving a sincere religious belief, and

* whether the government action is a substantial burden on the person’s ability to act on that belief.

If these two elements are established, then the government must prove

* that it is acting in furtherance of a “compelling state interest,” and

* that it has pursued that interest in the manner least restrictive, or least burdensome, to religion.

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Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment required that government demonstrate a compelling government interest before denying unemployment compensation to someone who was fired because her job conflicted with her religion.

The case established the Sherbert Test, requiring demonstration of such a compelling interest in Free Exercise cases. This test was eventually all-but-eliminated in Employment Division v. Smith 292 U.S. 872 (1990). However it was resurrected by Congress in the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, but the Court in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) and Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao doVegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006), limited its application to federal laws only.

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Strict scrutiny is the most stringent standard of judicial review used by United States courts. It is part of the hierarchy of standards that courts use to weigh the government’s interest against a constitutional right or principle. The lesser standards are rational basis review and exacting or intermediate scrutiny. These standards are used to test statutes and government action at all levels of government within the United States.

The notion of “levels of judicial scrutiny”, including strict scrutiny, was introduced in footnote 4 of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Carolene Products (1938), one of a series of decisions testing the constitutionality of New Deal legislations. The first and most notable case in which the Supreme Court applied the strict scrutiny standard and found the government actions valid was Korematsu v. United States (1944), in which the Court upheld the exclusion of Japanese Americans from designation areas during World War II. Statutes and policies that are subjected to strict scrutiny often but not always fail to meet it.

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There have been many occasions when religious freedom and free speech concerns have coincided. While speech can never be protected as much as belief, which is absolute, it generally receives more protection than physical actions, which the state must regulate to some degree in order to preserve social peace and order. The two cases described on the next page raise many questions. Not only do they demonstrate how quickly the Court can change its mind, they also address the question of how religious speech receives Constitutional protection.

Moreover, they raise a question about symbolic speech —- speech that involves actions such as the burning of the American flag. Should that kind of speech receive the same protection as verbal speech? Finally, these two cases are not situations of prohibiting something, but require an individual to perform some affirmative act that violates their freedom of conscience. In America the emphasis of most laws is generally about prohibiting people from doing something -— they usually do not require a person to perform some duty. There are exceptions, such as the duty to serve in the military or on a jury when called upon. However, these cases go further. It is one thing to prohibit speech, but can government compel you to advocate a position you do not hold?

In Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), the Court upheld the expulsion of two students from a public school for not saluting the American flag during the Pledge of Allegiance. The students claimed that as Jehovah’s Witnesses their religion forbade them from serving two masters. The Court did not agree.

In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the Supreme Court reversed itself and allowed a Jehovah’s Witness to refrain from saluting the flag without any subsequent punishment. The Court held that while “the State may require teaching by instruction and study in the structure and organization of our government, including the guaranties of civil liberty which tend to inspire patriotism and love of country,” it could not compel students to declare a belief in such principles.

The question here is often phrased as one of religious liberty, but shouldn’t this right to abstain from swearing to a belief have extended to everyone who did not feel like exhibiting patriotism? Wouldn’t it have been far better to view this case as a universal right than one particular to a specific religious viewpoint? Later cases seemed to bear this interpretation out, making enforcement of the speech clause as one concerned with equal treatment of the expression of all ideas, including religious ones. But at the time the case seemed to focus only on religious liberty.

Sandra Day O’Connor (born March 26, 1930) is a retired United States Supreme Court justice. She served as an Associate Justice from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan until her retirement from the Court in 2006. She was the first woman to be appointed to the Court.

Prior to O’Connor’s appointment to the Court, she was an elected official and judge in Arizona. On July 1, 2005, she announced her intention to retire effective upon the confirmation of a successor. Samuel Alito was nominated to take her sear in October 2004, and join the Court on January 31, 2006.

O’Connor tended to approach each case narrowly without arguing for sweeping precedents. She most frequently sided with the court’s conservatie bloc. In the latter years of her tenure, she was regarded as having the swing vote in many cases as the court grew more conservative.

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The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb through 42 U.S.C.§ 2000bb-4 (also known as RFRA), is a 1993 United States federal law aimed at preventing laws that substantially burden a person’s free exercise of their religion. The bill was introduced by Howard McKeon of California and Dean Gallow of New Jersey on March 11, 1993. It was held unconstitutional as applied to the states in the City of Boerne v. Flores decision in 1997, which ruled that the RFRA is not proper exercise of Congress’s enforcement power. But it continues to be applied to the federal government, for instance in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, because Congress has broad authority to carve out exemptions from federal laws and regulations that it itself has authorized.

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Lino A. Graglia (born January 22, 1930), Italian American, is the Dalton Cross Professor of Law at the University of Texas specializing in antitrust litigation. He earned a BA from the City College of New York in 1952, and an LLB from Columbia University in 1954, before working in the the Eisenhower administration’s United States Department of Justice. He thereafter practiced law in Washington, D.C. and New York City before join the University of Texas’ law school in 1966.

Graglia is “one of the most conservative legal academics in the United States.” He is well known critic of affirmative action and racial quotes, and a critic of some aspects of judicial review, believing that the courts are an illegitimate avenue for securing social change. He accuses modern liberals of making an end-run around democracy by seeking political victories in front of judges instead of at the ballot box.

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A Humanist officiant (or Humanist celebrant) is a person who performs secular humanist celebrancy services for wedding, funerals, child namings, coming of age ceremonies, and other rituals. Some Humanist officiants are ordained or accredited members of the Ontario Humanist Society (OHS), Humanist Association of Canada (HAC), the American Humanist Association (AHA), the British Humanist Association (BHA), the Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS), the Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ), the American Ethical Union (AEU), or the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).

Laws in each state of the United States vary about who has the right to perform wedding services, but Humanist Celebrants or Officiants are usually categorized as “clergy” and have the same rights and responsibilities as ordained clergy. In Canada and in states that legally recognize same-sex unions within the U.S., Humanist officiants perform LGBT marriage ceremonies. The Humanist Society, an adjunct of the American Humanist Association, maintains a list of Humanist Celebrants.

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Same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 to all fifty states in 2015 through various state court rulings, state legislation, direct popular votes, and federal court rulings. Same-sex marriage is also referred to as gay marriage, while the political status in which the marriages of same-sex couples and the marriages of opposite-sex couples are recognized as equal by the law is referred to as marriage equality…

The most prominent supporters of same-sex marriage are human rights and civil rights organizations as well as the medical and scientific communities, while the most prominent opponents are religious groups. The ruling of the Supreme Court in Obergefell occurred following decades of consistently rising national public support for same-sex marriage in the United States, with support continuing to rise thereafter.

A study of nationwide data from January 1999 to December 2015 revealed that the establishment of same-sex marriage is associated with a significant reduction in the rate of attempted suicide among children, with the effect being concentrated among children of a minority sexual orientation, resulting in approximately 134,000 fewer children attempting suicide each year in the United States.

The United States of America is the most populous country in the world to have established same-sex marriage nationwide.

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A Hindu wedding is thought to be the bringing together of two people who are said to be compatible. Hindu wedding ceremonies are traditionally conducted at least partially in Sanskrit, the language of most holy HIndu ceremonies. The local language of the people involved is also used since most Hindus do not understand Sanskrit. Hindus have many rituals that have evolved since traditional times and differ in many ways from the modern western wedding ceremony and also among the different regions, families, and castes. The Hindus attach a lot of importance to marriages, and the ceremonies are very colorful and extend for several days.

In India, where most Hindus live, the laws relating to marriage differ by religion. According to the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, passed by the Parliament of India, for all legal purposes, all Hindus of any caste, creed or sect, Sikh, Buddhists and Jains are deemed Hindus and can intermarry. By the Special Marriage Act, 1954, a Hindu can marry a person who is not Hindu, employing any ceremony, provided specified legal conditions are fulfilled.

The pre-wedding ceremonies inclue engagement (involving vagdana or oral agreement and lagna-patra written declaration), and arrival of the groom’s at the bride’s residence, often in the form of a formal procession. The post-wedding ceremonies involve welcoming the bride to her new home.

Despite modern Hinuism being largely based on the puja form of the worship of devas as enshrined in the Puranas, a Hindu wedding ceremony at it core is essentially a Vedi yahna (a fire–sacrifice), in which the Aryan deities are invoked in the Indo-Aryan style. It has deep origin in the ancient ceremony of cementing the bonds of friendship/alliance (even among people of the same sex or people of different species in mythological contexts), although today, it survives in the context of weddings. The primary witness of a Hindu marriage is the fire-deity (or the Sacred Fire) Agni. By law and tradition no Hindu marriage is deemed complete unless in the presence of the Sacred Fire seven encirclements have been made around it by the bride and the groom together.

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Cremation was not legal in Great Britain until 1885, but interest in this form of disposing of human remains emerged during the second half of the 19th century from ideas that reached the country from Italy. In 1869 the idea was presented to the Medical International Congress of Florence by Professors Coletti and Castiglioni “in the name of public health and civilization”. In 1873 Professor Gorini of Lodi and Professor Brunetti of Padua published reports or practical work they had conducted. A model of Professor Brunetti’s cremating apparatus, together with the resulting ashes, was exhibited at the Vienna Exposition in 1873 and attracted great attention, including that of Sir Henry Thomason, 1st Baronet, a surgeon and Physician to the Queen Victoria, who returned home to become the first and chief promoter of cremation in England.

Sir Henry Thompson’s main reason for supporting cremation was that “it was becoming a necessary sanitary precaution against the propagation of disease among a population daily growing larger in relation to the area it occupied.” In addition, he believed, cremation would prevent premature burial, reduce the expense of funerals, spare mourners the necessity of standing exposed to the weather during interment, and urns would be safe from vandalism. On 13 January 1874, some advocates of cremation held a meeting at Thompson’s house in London and formally founded the “Cremation Society of Great Britain” which was “organised expressly for the purpose of obtaining and disseminating information on the subject and for adopting the best method of performing the process, as soon as this could be determined, provided that the act was not contrary to the Law.”

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The Bible documents seven suicides, but appears to not document any condemnation of these acts. The most well-known suicides are Samson, Saul, and Judas. Samson (Judges 16:30), one of the most renowned of the Hebrew judges, judged Israel for 20 years. He was supernaturally strong and performed many heroic feats before he was captured by the Philistines following his self-indulgence with Delilah. Having renewed his vows to God, God restored Samson’s strength. Samson then pulled the temple of Dagon down on himself and thousands of Philistines, killing all.

Saul (II Samuel 21:4-5), first King of Isareal, friend of David, and another man of strength, ended his life in suicide. The Philistines had killed all three of his sons and severely wounded Saul himself. Fearing the treatment at the hands of th ePhilistines, Saul requested that his armor rearer kill him. The armor bearer refused, so “Saul took his sword and feel on it (I Samuel 31:4).” Seeing that Saul was dead, his armor bearer also killed himself.

Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:3-5), one of the twelve disciples, felt remorse following his betrayal of Christ, returned the blood money, and hung himself.

Abimelech (Judges 9:54), one of the sons of Gideon, reigned over Israel three years. He killed 70 of Gideon’s sons in an attempt to be Gideon’s sole descendant. Later, having been dethroned, he attacked his former subjects. A woman threw a milestone down from a tower, striking him on the head. In order not to die at the hands of a woman, a terrible disgrace at that time, he commanded his armor bearer to kill him.

Ahitophel (II Samel 17:23) was one of David’s trusted counselors whose counsel “was of if one inquired of the word of God” (II Samuel 16:23). Ahitophel, however, joined Absalom in revolt against David. When the revolt was over, he “set his house in order, and strangled [hung] himself” (II Samuel 7:23)

Simri (I Kings 16:18) slew Elah the son of Baasha, then King of Israel at Tirzah. He then slew all of Baasha’s sons and installed himself as king. Seven days later, the people conspired against him and made Omri king. Zimri, seeing no escape from Omri, set fire to the King’s house and perished in the flames.

One of the remarkable facts concerning these seven suicides is the Scriptures’ lack of censure or condemnation concerning the suicidal actions.

Critical Concepts Consulting

November 1913-4 January 1960) was a French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in this essay “The Rebel” that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom.

Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one, even during his own lifetime. In a interview in 1945, Camus rejected an ideological associations: “No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked…”

Wikipedia

During an academic career spanning five decades, Larue became a widely cited expert on topics including Satanism, visions of Mary, and death and dying. He wrote or co-wrote a dozen books, including the provocatively titled “Sex and the Bible” (1983) and “Playing God: Fifty Religions/Views on Your Right to Die.” (1996).

In 1908 he became founding president of the Hemlock Society conceived by “Final Exit” author and right-to-die movement pioneer Derek Humphry to provide information to the terminally ill and legalize physician-assisted suicide.

“He stepped up to the plate when others were afraid,” Humphry said. “He presided over Hemlock with great diplomacy when it was highly sensitive and controversial–when American was just beginning to address the subject of the hot-button topic of the right to choose to die when at life’s end.”

LA Times

is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century in response to the limitations of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism. With its roots running from Socrates through the Renaissance, this approach emphasizes individuals’ inherent drive towards self-actualization, the process of realizing and expressing one’s own capabilities, and creativity.

It helps the patient gain the belief that all people are inherently good. It adopts a holistic approach to human existence and pays special attention to such phenomena as creativity, free will, and positive human potential. It encourages viewing ourselves as a “whole person” greater than the sum of our parts and encourages self exploration rather than the study of behavior in other people. Humanistic psychology acknowledges spiritual aspirations as an integral part of the human psyche. It is linked to the emerging field of transpersonal psychology.

Primarily, this type of therapy encourages a self-awareness and mindfulness that helps the client change their state of mind and behavior from one of reactions to a healthier one with more productive self-awareness and thoughtful actions. Essentially, this approach allows the merging of mindfulness and behavioral therapy, with positive social support.

Wikipedia

12 March 1626 -7 June 1697, was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the Brief Lives, his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England, and who is particularly noted as the discoverer of the Avebury henge monument. The Aubrey holes at Stonehenge are named after him, although there is considerable doubt as to whether the holes that he observed are those that currently bear the name. He was also a pioneer folklorist, collecting together a miscellany of materials on customs, traditions and beliefs under the title “remaines of Gentillisme and Judaisme”. He set out to compile county histories of both Wiltshire and Surrey, although both projects remained unfinished. His “Interpretation fo Villare Anglicanum” (also unfinished) was the first attempt to compile a full-length student of English place-names. He had wider interests in applied mathematics and astronomy, and was friendly with many of the greatest scientists of the day.

Wikipedia

Moral arguments for God’s existence form a diverse family of arguments that reason from some feature of morality or the moral life to the existence of God, usually understood as a morally good creator of the universe. Moral arguments are both important and interesting. They are interesting because evaluating their soundness requires attention to practically every important philosophical issue dealt with in metaethics. They are important because of their prominence in popular apologetic arguments for religious belief. Evidence for this can be found in the amazing popularity of C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity” (1952), which is almost certainly the best-selling book of apologetics in the twentieth century, and which begins with a moral argument for God’s existence. Many ordinary people regard religion as in some way providing a basis or foundation for morality. This fact might seem to favor religious arguments for morality rather than moral arguments for religious belief, but if someone believes that morality is in some way “objective” or “real”, and that this moral reality requires explanation, moral arguments for God’s reality naturally suggest themselves. The apparent connection between morality and religion appears to many people to support the claim that moral truths require a religious foundation, or can best be explained by God’s existence, or some qualities or actions of God.

C. Stephen Evans essay offering general comments about theistic arguments and brief history of moral arguments, discussing overall several different forms of the moral argument
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Where does morality come from? The modern consensus on this question lies close to the position laid out by by the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. He thought moral reason to be “the slave of the passions.” Hume’s view is supported by studies that suggest that our judgments of good and evil are influenced by emotional reactions such as empathy and disgust. And it fits nicely with the discovery that a rudimentary moral sense is universal and emerges early. Babies as young as six months judge individuals on the way that they treat others and even one-year olds engage in spontaneous altruism.

All this leaves little room for rational deliberation in shaping moral outlook. Indeed, many psychologists think that the reasoned arguments we make about why we have certain beliefs are mostly post-hoc justifications for gut reactions. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it, although we like to think of ourselves as judges, reasoning through cases accordingly to deeply held principles, in reality we are more like lawyers, making arguments for positions that have already been established. This implies we have little conscious control over our sense of right and wrong.

I predict that this theory of morality will be proved wrong in its wholesale rejection of reason. Emotional responses alone cannot explain one of the most interesting aspects of human nature: that morals evolve. the extent of the average person’s sympathies has grown substantially and continues to do so. Contemporary readers of “Nature,” for example, have different beliefs about the rights of women, racial minorities and homosexuals compared with readers in the late 1800s, and different intuitions about the morality of practices such as slavery, child labour and the abuse of animals for public entertainment. Rational deliberation and debate have played a large part in this development.

Paul Bloom article discussing emotions such as empathy and disgust might be at the root of morality, but psychologist should also study the roles of deliberation and debate in how our opinions shift over time.

Born August 12, 1942 is an American psychologist, educator and author of self-help books. Since the late 90’s, Seligman has been an avid promoter within the scientific community for the field of positive psychology. His theory of learned helplessness is popular among scientific and clinical psychologists. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Seligman as the 31st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Seligman is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychology. He was previously the Director of the Clinical Training Program in the department. He is the director of the university’s Positive Psychology Center. Seligman was elected President of the American Psychological Association for 1998. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Prevention and Treatment Magazine (the APA electronic journal) and is on the board of advisers of Parents magazine.

Wikipedia

In philosophy, the term means to an end refers to any action (the means carried out for the sole purpose of achieving something else (an end). It can be thought of as a metaphysical distinction, as no empirical information differentiates actions that are means to ends form those that are not–that are “ends in themselves.” It has been incurred that all actions are means to other ends; this is relevant when considering the meaning of life.

Immanual Kant’s theory of morality, the categorical imperative, states that it is immoral to use another person merely as a means to an end, and that people must, under all circumstances, be treated as ends in themselves. This is in contrast to some interpretations of the utilitarian view, which allow for use of individuals as means to benefit the many.

Wikipedia

The correlation between well-being and positive psychology has been proven by many social scientists to be strong and positive. According to McNulty (2012) “positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences.” Well-being is an important factor in this subjective experience, as well as, contentment, satisfaction of the past, optimism for the future and happiness in the present. People are more likely to experience positive psychology if they take in the good things in each experience or situation. Even in the past if a person only focuses on the negative the brain will only be able to recognize the negative. The more the brain has access to the negative, the easier it becomes, because that is what is more memorable. It takes more effort for the brain to remember the positive experiences because typically it is the smaller actions and experiences that are the positive ones.

Wikipedia

The proposal that reason gives humanity a special position in nature has been argued to be a defining characteristic of western philosophy and later western modern science, starting with classical Greece. Philosophy can be described as a way of life based upon reason, and in the other direction reason has been one of the major subjects of philosophical discussion since ancient times. Reason is often said to be reflexive, or “self-correcting,” and the critique of reason has been a persistent theme in philosophy. It has been defined in different ways, at different times, by different thinkers.

For many classical philosophers, nature was understood teleologically, meaning that every type of thing had a definitive purpose which fit within a natural order that was itself understood to have aims. Perhaps starting with Pythagoras or Heraclitus, the cosmos is even said to have reason. Reason, by this account, is not just one characteristic that humans happen to have, and that influences happiness amongst other characteristics. Reason was considered of higher stature than other characteristics of human nature, such as sociability, because it something humans share with nature itself, linking an apparently immortal part of the human mind with the divine order of the cosmos itself. Within the human mind or soul (psyche), reason was described by Plato as being the natural monarch that should rule over the other parts, such as spiritedness (thumos) and the emotions. Aristotle, Plato’s student, defined human beings as rational animals, emphasizing reason as a characteristic of human nature. He defined the highest human happiness or well-being (eudaimonia) as a life which is lived consistently, excellently and completely in accordance with reason.

The conclusions to be drawn from the discussions of Aristotle and Plato on this matter are amongst the most debated in the history of philosophy. But teleological accounts such as Aristotle’s were highly influential for those who attempt to explain reason in a way that is consistent with monotheism and the immortality and divinity of the human soul. For example, in the neo-platonist account of Plotinus, the cosmos has one should, which is the seat of all reason, and souls of all individual humans are part of this soul. Reason is for Plotinus both the provider of form to materials things, and the light that brings individuals souls back into line with their source. Such neo-Platonist accounts for the rational part of the human soul were standard amongst medieval Islamic philosophers, and under this influence, mainly via Averroes, came to be debated seriously in Europe until well into the renaissance, and they remain important in Iranian philosophy.

The early modern era was marked by a number of significant changes in the understanding of reason, starting in Europe. One of the most important of these changes involved a change in the metaphysical understanding of human beings. Scientists and philosophers began to question the teleological understanding of the world. Nature was no longer assumed to be human-like, with its own aims or reason, and human nature was no longer assumed to work according to anything other than the same “laws of nature” which affect inanimate things. This new understanding eventually displaced the previous world view that derived from a spiritual understanding of the universe.

Wikipedia

Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. It is closely linked to the concepts of responsibility, praise, guilt, sin, and other judgments that apply only to actions that are freely chosen. It is also connected with the concepts of advice, persuasion, deliberation, and prohibition, which are pointless unless different possible results follow from different courses of action. Traditionally, only actions that are freely willed are seen as serving credit or blame; if there is no free will, there is no retributive justification for rewarding or punishing of free will, varying by how exactly it is conceived, which is a matter of some debate.

Free will is sometimes understood to mean origination, the power to break the causal chain of events, so that one’s choice is uncaused by any previous event, external or internal. The concern for this conception of free will is to reconcile the existence of free will thus conceived with the possibly deterministic nature of the universe. Determinism suggests that only one course of events is possible, which is inconsistent with the existence of free will thus conceived. As far as we know, this problem was first suggested by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C.E., but it is till a major focus of philosophical debate. This view that conceives free will to be incompatible with determinism is called incompatibilism, and encompasses both metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and thus free will is at least possible, and hard determinism, the claim that determinism is true and thus free will is not possible. It also encompasses hard incompatibilism, which holds not only determinism but also it negation to be incompatible with free will, and thus free will to be impossible whatever the case may be regarding determinism.

In contrast, compatibilists hold that free will is compatible with determinism. Some compatibilists even hold that determinism is necessary for free will, arguing that choice involves preference for one course of action over another, requiring a sense of how choices will turn out. Compatibilits thus consider the debate between libertarians and hard determinists over free will vs determinism a false dilemma. Different compatibilists offer very different definitions of what “free will” even means, and consequently find different types of constraints to be relevant to the issue. Classical compatibilists consider free will nothing more than freedom of action , considering one free of will simply is, had one counterfactually wanted to do otherwise, one could have done otherwise without physical impediment. Contemporary compatibilists instead identify free will as psychological capacity, such as to direct one’s behavior in a way responsive to reason. And there are still further different conceptions of free.

Wikipedia

Basic action theory typically describes action as behavior caused by an agent in a particular situation. The agent’s desires and beliefs (e.g. my wanting a glass of water and believing the clear liquid in the cup in front me is water) lead to bodily behavior (e.g. reaching over for the glass). In the simply theory, the desire and belief jointly cause the action. Michael Bratman has raised problems for such a view and argued that we should take the concept of intention as basic and not analyzable into beliefs and desires.

In some theories a desire plus a belief about the means of satisfying that desire are always what is behind an action. Agents aim, in acting, to maximize the satisfaction of their desires. Such a theory of prospective rationality underlies much of economics and other social sciences within the more sophisticated framework of Rational Choice. However, many theories of action argue that rationality extends far beyond calculating the best means to achieve one’s ends. For instance, a belief that I ought to do X, in some theories, can directly cause me to do X without having to want to do X (i.e. have a desire to do X). Rationality, in such theories, also involves responding correctly to the reasons an agent perceives, not just acting on wants.

While action theorists generally employ the language of causality in their theories of what the nature of action is, the issue of what causal determination comes to has been central to controversies about the nature of free will.

Conceptual discussions also revolved around a precise definition of action in philosophy. Scholar’s may disagree on which bodily movements fall under this category, e.g. whether thinking should be analyzed as action, and how complex actions involving several steps to be taken and diverse intended consequences are to be summarized or decomposed.

Wikipedia

Hursthouse spent her childhood in New Zealand and taught for many years at the Open University in England. She was head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland from 2002 to 2005. Though she had written a substantial amount previously, Hursthouse entered the international philosophy scene for the first time in 1990-91, with three articles:

First, “Arational Actions”, which made an important break with models of voluntary human actions familiar from the work of Donald Davidson, with more general implications for those models of human agency popular within positivist schools in the social sciences. Hursthouse turns her philosophical attention, and ours, to the kinds of reasons actually sought for and given by human beings in the explanation of human behavior; what it is we really do as human beings, being, particularly, an emotional as well as rational, social, political, linguistic, lawful animal.

Second, “Virtue Theory and Abortion”, in which Hursthouse outlined the structure of a new version of Aristotelian virtue ethics, defended it against possible objections, and applied it to the issue of abortion. Hursthouse collapses the theoretical/applied distinction in ethics, as well as the fact/value distinction in general. As a pioneering work in neo-Aristotelian practical philosophy, Hursthouse demonstrates the emphasis within virtue ethics, as a revitalized tradition in Western Philosophy, upon the realities of situated agents and their lives as wholes (including the consequences of their actions), and the salient capacities and considerations involved in truly acting well, or as well is objectively possible, within whatever situation an agent may actually find herself in.

Wikipedia

The study of irrational behavior is of interest in fields such a psychology, cognitive science, economics, game theory and evolutionary psychology, as well as of practical interest to the practitioners of advertising and propaganda.

Theories of irrational behavior include:

People’s actual interest differ from what they believe to be their interests.

Mechanisms that have evolved to give optimal behavior in normal conditions lead to irrational behavior in abnormal conditions.

Situations are outside of one’s ordinary circumstances, where one may experience intense levels of fear, or may regress to a fight-or-flight mentality.

People fail to realize the irrationality of their actions and believe they are acting perfectly rationally, possibly due to flaws in their reasoning.

Apparently irrational decisions are actually optimal, but made unconsciously on the basis of “hidden” interests that are known to the conscious mind.

People have the inability to comprehend the social consequences of one’s own actions, possibly due in part to a lack of empathy.

Some people find themselves in this condition by living “double” lives. They try to put one “mask” for one group of people and another for a different group of people. Many will become confused as to which they really are or which they wish to become.

Wikipedia

The stage theory of dying was first proposed by the Swiss-American psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book, On Death and Dying (1969), is perhaps the single theoretical model that is best known to the general public in the entire field of studies about death and dying (thanatology). In its simplest form, this theory claims that dying people will proceed through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. More broadly, the theory maintains that other individuals who are drawn into a dying person’s experiences, such as family members, friends, professional care providers, and volunteer helpers, may also experience similar “stages of adjustment.”

Origins of the Theory

Kubler-Ross explained in her book that she was a new faculty member in psychiatry at a Chicago-area teaching hospital in the fall of 1965 when four theological students seeking assistance with a student project approached her. They had been assigned to write about a “crisis in human life” and had chosen to examine death as “the biggest crisis people had to fact”. In order to tackle this topic, she agreed to help them gain access to and interview some dying patients.

Some suitable patients were found, and Kubler-Ross developed a procedure whereby she would approach likely candidates, secure their permission, and then interview them about their experiences, while the students and others who came to observe would do so from behind a one-way glass mirror. Following the interviews and the return of the patients to their rooms, the group would discuss the patients’ responses and their own reactions.

On Death and Dying is based on interviews with approximately 200 adult patients during a period of less than three years. Examples from the interviews, along with clinical impressions and the theoretical model that Kubler-Ross formed from these experiences, were subsequently reported in her book.

Encyclopedia of Death and Dying

“In a spirit of compassion for all, this manifesto proclaims that every competent adult has the incontestable right to humankind’s ultimate civil and personal liberty-the right to die in a manner and at a time of their own choosing. Whereas modern medicine has brought great benefits to humanity, it cannot entirely solve the pain and distress of the dying process. Each person deals with death in their individual way. Which way is determined by their health, their ethics, and personal living conditions.” –Derek Humphry, co-founder of the Hemlock Society and author of Final Exit.

How we die is a question that concerns us all, especially as we age and face serious illness or the declining of health of our loved ones. On November 1, 2014, twenty-nine-year-old Brittany Maynard ended her life surrounded by close friends and family. Her decision to end her life on her own terms has brought the issue to national attention and galvanized the right-to-die movement (also called “death with dignity”) in the United States.

Diagnosed last January with brain cancer, Maynard went through surgery only to find out the cancer had progressed to stage four and that she had only months to live. Knowing that the progression of the disease would causee untold pain and suffering to herself and to her loved ones witnessing it, Maynard and her husband made the decision to move to Oregon to take advantage of it Death Dignity Act. Her controversial decision to end her life with lethal drugs prescribed by her physician, and to speak publicly about it, has catapulted the right-to-die movement into the collective consciousness and could lead to a watershed moment on this issues.

Outside the United States, aid-in-dying laws exist in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, with a groundbreaking law recently passed in Quebec. In the United States physician-assisted death is currently legal in Oregon, Montana, Vermont, and Washington State…

Read the full article by Tone Stockenstrom in TheHumanist.com.

(1878-1957) was a Unitarian minister, born at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, is called the “Father of Religious Humanism.” He was educated at Franklin and Marshall College and at the Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, ordained in the ministry of the Reformed Church in 1905, and defrocked in 1911 for failing to affirm primary Christian beliefs. His religious development evolved to Humanism and Unitarianism, in which he served various pastorates, including First Unitarian Society of Spokane (1911-1916), and then First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis (1916-1938). He retired to Berkeley, California, where he died. He is buried in the crypt of First Unitarian Church of Chicago.

Wikipedia

(August 13, 1851-1933) was a German-American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, influential lecturer on euthanasia, religious leader and social reformer who founded the Ethical Culture movement. In 1876, Adler at age 26 was invited to give a lecture expanding upon his themes first presented in the sermon at Temple Emanu-El. On May 15, 1876 he reiterated the need for a religion, without the trapping of ritual or creed that united all of mankind in moral social action. To do away with theology and to unite theists, atheists, agnostics and deists, all in the same religious cause, was a revolutionary idea at the time.

Wikipedia

(September 3, 1887-June 5, 1961) was an educator, administrator, social activist, journalist, and Unitarian minister. He was a founder and president of the American Humanist Association, Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference (WUC), and Dean of the Abraham Lincoln Centre, an integrated social and educational community organization in Chicago. An editor of “Unity,” he wrote influential books on religious humanism and helped prepare the 1933 “Humanist Manifesto.”

Wikipedia

was born in Louisville, KY on July 17, 1933 to Henry and Lannie Jones. Rev. Jones attained his Bachelor Arts degree in Philosophy from Howard University in 1855. He then went on to earn a Master of Divinity from Harvard University in 1958, and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Brown University in 1969. Rev. Jones was ordained by the Unitarian Society of Wellesley Hills, MA on June 15, 1958. From 1958-1960, he was the Assistant Minister and Director of Religious Education at the First Unitarian Church in Providence, RI. From 1977-2012, he served as a community minister at Florida State University. Notably, he was a member of the UUA Board of Trustees from 1993-2000, and worked with the Liberal Religious Educators Association to develop resources for professional religious educators. Rev. Jones authored articles regarding oppression and the church’s role in social change. His work has been the subject of a vast number of newspaper and journal articles as well as dissertations. In 1978, he co-edited Black Theology II, and in 1973, Beacon Press published Rev. Jones’ controversial piece, Is God A White Racist? A Preamble to Black Theology.

In Memory of William R. Jones, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association

(January 25, 1928-July 21, 2007) was a rabbi and a founding figure in Humanistic Judaism. Originally ordained a Reform rabbi, Wine founded the Birmingham Temple, the first congregation of Humanistic Judaism in 1963, in Birmingham, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan (the temple later relocated to its current location in Farmington Hills, Michigan). In 1969, Wine founded the Society for Humanistic Judaism. He later was a founder of several other organizations related to Humanistic Judaism, a humanist movement within Judaism that emphasizes secular Jewish culture and Jewish history rather than belief in God as sources of Jewish identity. Wine was also the founder of several humanist organizations that are not specifically Jewish, such as the Humanist Institute and the International Association for Humanist Educators, Counselors and Leaders, as well as the co-founder of Americans for Religious Liberty, which promotes separation of church and state.

Wikipedia

The phrase “spiritual but not religious” has gained so much popularity over the years that it has evolved to become one of the main identifiers of the Millennial generation, aged 18 to 34.

Studies conducted within the last two years reveal that compared to their parents and grandparents at the same age, millennials are considerably less likely to be attached to ideas of organized religion. Only about 40 percent of millennials consider religion to be an important part of their everyday life, yet 80 percent of the individuals in the same survey say that they have spiritual beliefs, identifying with statements like, “I feel a deep sense of spiritual well-being” and “I experience a sense of wonder about the universe.”

…One of the most significant considerations behind the dramatic decrease in religious affiliations for millennials revolves around the differences between generational teachings. The children of the Baby Boomer generation make up the millennial community, and, as with any generational gap, there are different lifestyle traditions in place that emerge as the so-called “legacy” of that time…

Study Breaks: for full article

“Like most persons of this persuasion, I regard myself as a Religious Humanist not because of having been converted to a creed; a faith; not because of my having signed a membership card in a crusading fraternity of believers. The term Religious Humanism is more a descriptive of a state of mind, of an attitude with respect to philosophy, religion, ethics, than it is a label for another ‘ism.'”–Lester Mondale (from Religious Humanism: A Testimonial)

“Humanism is a celebration and a promise; it celebrates the integrity of human reason, responsibility, and compassion, and it promises a satisfying lifestyle that can be counted on. No more deprecation of the human condition; rather, an opportunity to remain true to ourselves by having both feet in this world and responding to the challenges of existence with excitement and pragmatic service to others. Humanism is religion come of age; at long last we humans can live dignified lives, finite creatures though we may be. At long last, men, women and children can find ultimate fulfillment through bringing out the best in humanity for the sake of humanity.” –Beverly Earles

“…YES: Humanism can be religious; indeed, the most meaningful and liveable kind of humanism is itself a religious way of understanding and living life. It offers a view of [people] and [their] place in the universe that is a religious philosophy…overarching and undergirding it all, there can be a hunting sense of wonder which never leaves one for whom life itself is a mystery and miracle. Where did we come from, why are we here, where are we going with all the effort, frustration, the grief, the joy? To be caught up in this sense of wider relatedness, to sense our being connected in live ways with all the world and everyone in it, is the heart dimension of religion, whatever its name.” –Peter Samson (from Can Humanism Be Religious?)

About Religious Humanism, UU Humanists

was founded in 1881 and is a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Since 1916 when Rev. John Dietrich became the Senior Minister, the Society has been known as a leading force for Religious Humanism. A century later under our current Senior Minister, Rev. Dr. David Breeden, we more often speak of Congregational Humanism. While we impose no fixed creed, we are agreed upon our aspirations and core values. A few of those humanist goals include:

To grow beyond damaging tribalism, whether of religion, race, gender, nation, location, or class.

To encourage human potential and the diversity of human expression, in art, and in life

To pursue knowledge and wisdom, wherever the pursuit leads.

About Us: First Unitarian Society

is an American professor, author, and public intellectual working at the intersections of African-American religion, constructive theology, and humanist thought. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning in Houston, Texas, and Director of Research for the Institute for Humanist Studies in Washington, D.C. He earned his Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at Harvard University in 1994. His dissertation was entitled “I Wonder as I Wonder: An Examination of the Problem of Evil in African-American Religious Thought.” The topic of theological responses to evil and suffering in Black religion provided the foundation of Pinn’s early work. Today, Pinn’s research interests span theory and method in the study of religion, black religious aesthetics, religion and popular culture, and African-American humanism.

Wikipeda

A ritual “is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence.” Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized but not defined by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.

Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school “rush” traditions and graduations, club meetings, sporting events, Halloween parties, veteran parades, Christmas shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals.

Wikipedia

1) The share of Americans who identify as atheists has roughly doubled in the past several years…

2) Atheists, in general, are more likely to be male and younger than the over population…

3) Self-identified atheists tend to be aligned with the Democratic Party and with political liberalism…

4) Although the literal definition of “atheist” is “a person who does not believe in the existence of God or any gods,” 8% of those who call themselves atheists also say they believe in God or a universal spirit…

5) Unsurprisingly, more than nine-in-ten self-identified atheists say religion is not too or not at all important in their lives…

6) In the 2014 Religious Landscape Study, self-identified atheists were asked how often they share their views on God and religion with religious people. Only about one-in-ten atheists say they do at least weekly…

7) Virtually no atheists turn to religion for guidance on questions of right and wrong…

8) Americans like atheists less than they like members of most major religious groups…

9) About half of Americans say they would be less likely to support an atheist candidate for president…

10) About half of Americans say it is not necessary to believe in God to be moral…

Pew Research