“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates (470 BC-399 BC)
As an atheist, I do not get to find solace in the idea that I have an afterlife to plan for. I have to make peace with the idea that this one life is all that I have and that every single solitary moment counts right now. It counts in moments, that are slowly ticking away. And while I also have to realize that while there is no God keeping track of those moments and my actions within them, that none-the-less they matter.
Secular is one of those words that theocratic propagandists have shifted the Overton Window on, to make it seem like secular is the opposite of pluralist when in fact it is only a secular stance that makes pluralism possible. Post-secular? Hm.
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the name of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
The 85 Richest people own the same wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people…
How to undermine your own Women In Secularism conference: spend most of your opening speech scolding feminists for Doin It Rong, because why not encourage the already hyper-active flying monkeys to fling more crap at secular women?
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
… under such duress, people confessed at length and in great detail to the fantastic and impossible, often also indicting others, in a spreading, spiraling cascade of fantasies. Remember also that terror regimes the world over use it delightedly to terrify and suppress dissidents within their populations. […] And they can do this only in an environment in which there are people naive enough to believe the absurd perjuries concocted under such conditions.
Don’t be one of those people.
All over the news in Australia today: the Girl Guides of Australia have removed references to God and the Queen from their pledge.
Somewhat in the news in the USA last week: a new activist network for Secular Women was announced.
In my years on the ‘net, I’ve seen any number of people want to interview others or get them to take surveys for everything from a short high school or undergraduate paper through to graduate research projects and books. And they so seldom manage to meet basic ethical guidelines for making sure they aren’t wasting their participants’ time at best or endangering them at worst.
Disdain for “political correctness” is often positioned as a concern that some important truth is not being spoken for fear of offending someone. But that concern is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
How can we raise our children to be willing to take a stand against injustice in favour of integrity? Where do we start?
Hoyden About Town 