Rachel’s Musings

In the latest issue of free inquiry, Paul Kurtz published an editorial about his idea for multi-secularism. Now, I know that Kurtz is a very important figure in the secular humanist movement. I certainly appreciate all the work he has done for us. But what is he trying to say in this editorial? It is a rather confusing read - and I must admit I read the piece in parts, so maybe I missed the connections. As far as I can decipher he is distancing himself from atheism, or what he calls negative atheism, and he is arguing that we should reach out to moderately religious folks to build a multi-secularism. These two themes are intertwined to a point where the message is becoming muddled, which is Kurtz’s call for multi-secularism:

However, secularism needs to be adapted to diverse cultural conditions if it is to gain ground. [...] Accordingly, multi-secularism seems to be the best strategy to pursue: that is, adapting secular ideas and values to the societies in which they arise.

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Sam Harris writes in his book The End of Faith with an eye-opening candor about the dangers of taking political correctness too far. His position can probably be summarized well with a quote I saw somewhere: “You don’t want to be so openminded that your brain falls out.” I am not sure if being PC is what motivated a principal to discipline teachers for booing a speaker, who happened to be black but also very much anti-gay, during his speech at an MLK event at a high school close to Seattle, Washington. The sad thing is that the invitation of this African-American pastor signals homophobic sentiments within the student body at this Washington State high school: well, first, they invited Hutcherson to speak at their MLK event and now they’re harassing students who refuse to sign a petition to end the “Day of Silence,” which is supposed to raise awareness to just that kind of behavior: homophobia. How bad anti-gay is Hutcherson? He refers to the school’s gay/straight alliance as a “sex club” and his organization, Watchmen, had this to say: “Your generation beat the Nazis, and our country beat the Communists. Together we will defeat the homosexuals!” And a couple of days later, a junior high school student killed a classmate, possibly because the victim was gay.

And, as Sam Harris also points out, religion is behind this: Hutcherson is a preacher. The anti-gay movement on the West coast is driven by Russian immigrants who proudly attend evangelical churches. Somehow, hearing voices, these people think they have a god-given right to harass and even kill people. This is exactly why religions are so dangerous!

I guess it had to happen sooner or later but it is still rather disturbing: The racists and white supremacists are coming out of hiding and are starting to attack Obama, including with threats to his life. At this point, they are still making anonymous threats, so who knows how serious we have to take them (although an anonymous bullet is just as deadly…). The same forces probably attack Hillary Clinton with the same venom because she is a woman. I have trouble searching the sites linked from the cross-post on Alternet for any references to Hillary Clinton - it’s rather uncomfortable… Sorry, a brief perusing of those sites is all I can stomach… They refer to Clinton as “Hillary” - granted, I have done that, too, but I’ve realized that this is rather demeaning. After all, we’re talking about Obama, not Barack. There are two Clintons, that’s true, but Hillary Clinton is in the lime-light right now. At White Civil Rights, which apparently is a David Duke organization, they argue: “While Hillary is challenging Democrats to vote for the first woman presidential candidate, Obama is asking Democrat liberals to vote for the first black presidential candidate. In the liberal world a black candidate trumps a woman candidate.” (I don’t really want to link to these guys…).

And the more “respected” Right-Wingers are getting more violent, too. Bill O’Reilly - infamous talkshow host - sort of called for Michelle Obama’s lynching. Sort of because he carefully hedged that he’d have to see evidence. As if Right-Wingers ever need evidence… Disgusting!

After reading an excellent article on homeopathy in Skeptical Inquirer, I have now completely chucked that “treatment.” It is indeed just water (or sugar or alcohol). There is nothing there that could possibly impact anybody’s health. This seems clear cut to me.

However, I am struggling with hypothyroidism. My doctors keep claiming that my results are “normal.” The last time I heard that, I argued with an endocrinologists pointing out that the “normal” results were above the range of the organization he is a member of (AACE). He increased my dosage by 50%! Obviously, something wasn’t normal - if he just wanted a placebo effect, which a lot of endocrinologists seem to claim, he could’ve increased my dosage by a token amount. Going from 75 mcg to 112 mcg is not a token increase - that’s a 50% increase (tablets are available in 88 mcg and 100 mcg, so that wasn’t the issue). There’s a lot of information out there, including information gathered by self-proclaimed patient advocate Mary Shomon. Some of the doctors on her site are listed as less than credible at Quakwatch. Mary has also been active in the controversy around Dr. Hotze. The AACE sent a letter to CBS after Hotze was featured there claiming that hypothyroidism is much more prevalent than the medical community lets on. So, is Mary Shomon’s information credible? She’s helping a supposed “quack.” The AACE is partially founded by the maker of one of the top drugs prescribed for hypothyroidism. Dr. Hotze was promoting alternative care. Is AACE just worried about their funding? Are they really independent?

And through all of that, I am getting tired, sluggish. Yet my numbers are “normal” again. This time, they didn’t even give me the results of the tests, so I don’t even know if their normal is the AACE normal. What’s a skeptic got to do? Questions arise about everything: the experts might not be as independent as they should be and the advocates might be peddling snake oil but can I really trust the judgment on that from an organization that has a financial interest in the other drug? Or is this just the same argument that sustains homeopathy? Confused, I am stuck with symptoms that my doctor dismisses.

Apparently, there’s a debate going on in the non-religious community about what we ought to call ourselves: atheists, humanists, freethinkers, brights, somethings… Since I’ve never really been too keen on labeling myself as something forever, I usually take the labels more lightly. So, I am an atheist. But that’s not all I am. I am also a freethinker (sometimes freely associated thinking). I am also a secular humanist. However, I realized that there is more to a label. Take “atheist” for example: I am an atheist - I think there is a very, very low probability that there is a God or any supernatural force/being/something. However, if I am just that, I am stuck in defining myself in opposition to something (theism in this case) and I might end up simply with religion-bashing. While that is probably an important step in my human growth, it would be sad to get stuck there. Bashing something might be fun but it is not very constructive. That’s why I like the label “secular humanist.” This implies the search for answers of the fundamental human questions (e.g., what is the purpose of my life, what happens after death). Rather than bashing someone else’s answers, we are looking for our own answers, knowing that the answers from religions, for example, are not meaningful to us.

Note: I removed the label of a Bright from my original post: I think that the danger of implying “brighter than you” is just too great. I agree with those who think that we just can’t redefine how others call us, especially with a term that already has a clear definition. I don’t see any reason why I can’t say that I am an atheist (and many reasons for doing so as outlined above). To me, there is no need for a new term, especially not an umbrella term coined by two people (which seems a contradiction in itself).

The New York Times reports on Susan Jacoby’s book “The Age of American Unreason.” It is interesting reading the book review - even though it is a rather dumbed down version of a book review - after watching “Friends of God,” a documentary about Christian Evangelicals, which portrait nicely their naive happiness and ignorant bliss.

According to the Times review, Jacboy notes that “anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (”the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.” A scary combination indeed… I would argue - based on my impressions from the documentary - that this fusion has been propagated and encouraged by evangelicals, including, of course, the US president.