Giving Ourselves Permission To Grieve Our Own Way

I find it helpful to remember that grief is a process, and everybody grieves in different ways. There isn't a "right way" to do it that will apply to everyone. There isn't a set time limit by which you should "get over it." Even the well-known stages of grief we hear about won't be relevant to every person.

Whether you are grieving the loss of a family member, a valued relationship, or your country, you can do it your way. Give yourself permission to take the time you need. Seek support from others, or don't. It is okay not to be okay. And in the case of grief, not being okay shouldn't surprise anybody!

Wealth Might Not Trickle Down but Hate Does

If you live in the United States, you are familiar with "trickle-down" economics. Republicans have favored this approach at least since Reagan. Tax cuts for the wealthy are supposed to be good for the rest of us. They are the "job creators," after all. More money for them means more job opportunities for us and a better economy for all.

What happens when wealth doesn't trickle down? The solution is always to elect more Republicans. We do because we are desperate to believe the myth. The sunk-cost fallacy kicks in, and we can't cut our losses now. More Republicans it is!

Attitudes of Americans Toward Equal Protection for LGBTQ People Are Improving

One challenge involved in sharing more good news involves finding it. In the context of secular activism, humanism, and related areas, it often seems scarce. But it is there, and it is important to acknowledge progress. Evidence that our efforts are working helps us keep doing what we're doing.

With that in mind, I wanted to highlight a bit of good news you might have missed. It deals with attitudes toward LGBTQ civil rights in the United States. Anti-LGBTQ discrimination has been in the news quite a bit. It isn't always easy to know whether this reflects widespread bigotry on the part of our neighbors or something else.

An Accurate History Gives Us the Context to Understand Our World

While talking with my family recently, the topic of history came up. This was in the context of news about Republicans meddling in the teaching of history. I had said something about the importance of having an accurate history. Without it, children would grow up not understanding the context of their world.

How about a quick example? Consider the topic of police brutality in the United States. Focus on the problem of racial bias in policing and how it has led to the death of many Black men. Could anyone make sense of this problem without knowing something about our troubled history of race relations? And what if the only information they had about race relations was incomplete? What if racism was never mentioned in their history classes? What if they never learned why the Civil Rights movement was necessary?

Christian Faith is Not Necessary to Motivate Social Justice

Shortly after his win in Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock thanked some sort of god. And why wouldn't he? Professional athletes, such as his opponent, have been doing this sort of thing for as long as I can remember.

Democratic observers were happy with his win. Given the failure of imagination that plagues many Democratic pundits, what we heard was not surprising. Rachel Maddow suggested "that perhaps Democrats should elect more Baptist ministers..."

Sen. Warnock seems like a decent guy. In this post from Religion News Service, he's described as representing "a particular brand of social justice-focused Christianity that favors voting rights and prioritizes the poor." This doesn't sound bad, though Christianity doesn't seem necessary.

The point of the post was to contrast Sen. Warnock's pro-faith approach with stereotypes of godless Democrats. That's fair. Many on the left are religious, and the right does like to deny that reality. Pointing that out every now and then is fine.

Dear Critics, What Are You Doing To Contribute?

Constructive criticism is valuable, and it can benefit anyone who creates content. Of course, not all criticism is constructive, and we won't find it all valuable even when it is constructive. The point is not that we should accept all constructive criticism. Rather, the point is that we should look for the value in considering it. "Does the critic make a valid point?" "Is this an opportunity for me to learn something?" "Could this help me improve?" These are among the questions I try to ask myself in the face of criticism.

It can be difficult to distinguish constructive criticism from other types of criticism. Many of the atheists I encounter online seem to enjoy criticizing content or those who create it. Some do so in ways that are far from constructive. I ran into one who was claiming that a prominent atheist blogger is "overrated." This critic was unwilling to acknowledge that he was expressing his preferences. They might not reflect the absolute value of the blogger's work. In other words, he decided that since he did not care for this blogger's work, the work must be without merit.

A Thriving Secular Humanism Would Be More Valuable Than Atheism

In my youth, atheism felt rebellious. I didn't choose it because it was rebellious. I didn't choose it at all. I sometimes compare atheism to losing one's hair. One can fight it (and many do), but it is going to happen. The rebellious part was something I learned to enjoy a few years after realizing I was an atheist. Its appeal was short-lived, but it was good while it lasted.

As I've grown older, atheism has receded into the background. It is still part of who I am. I still don't believe in gods. Atheism continues to be relevant because anti-atheist bigotry is common where I live. It affects how people treat me. But atheism has taken a back seat to something else: secular humanism. There's so much more to humanism, and I find it consistent with my desire to improve the world in the time I have left.

Social Media Can Ruin Lives and We Should Reject Mob Justice

Over the last several years, I've noticed a terrifying trend that seemed to be getting worse. I say "seemed" because I think it might have peaked, but I'm not sure. A growing chorus of voices has called on us to accept all accusations of wrongdoing made by women against men. This seems potentially dangerous but is just the tip of the iceberg. Many of these same voices expanded their calls for us to accept any accusations of wrongdoing made about anyone they do not like. This includes people who disagree with them on social media, politicians from the other party, and public figures who dare to say things they don't like. Some demand the uncritical acceptance of criminal accusations.

They have no interest in due process, the rule of law, or the rights of the accused. Some reject the presumption of innocence. For them, accusation = guilt and is more than enough to warrant punishment. This is mob justice, and it is beyond dangerous. If you are an atheist or a member of a religious minority, you already know this.

Most of those who seem eager for mob justice would claim to oppose the brutal murders of women accused of witchcraft. They'd condemn the treatment of black men in the South accused of being too interested in White women. They are not fans of tormenting gay men accused of immorality. Most would agree that police officers sometimes arrest innocent people for bullshit reasons. Thus, they know that some accusations are false. They also know that some charged with crimes are innocent. The message seems to be clear: mob justice is okay as long as we are the ones doing it.

Atheists With a Broad View of Social Justice Can Make a Difference

Image by Joshua Choate from Pixabay

Being an atheist does not mean that one wants to make the world a better place. One could be an atheist and be apathetic about such things. One could be an atheist and feel hopeless about one's ability to make a difference. I suppose one could even be an atheist (though probably not a humanist) while being so misanthropic that one did not believe others were worth the effort.

It seems safe to assume that those of us who participate in secular activism (e.g., promoting the separation of church and state, human rights, reality-based education, data-driven public policy) want to bring about positive changes. We have observed something we do not like (e.g., how atheists are treated, the high costs of religion, the manner in which our rights are restricted by religiously based legislation), and we hope to change it. We may do this to improve our own experience, because we are concerned with the plight of others, or even for future generations.

My Guns vs. Their Children: An American Empathy Deficit

Image by Renee Olmsted from Pixabay

I think it is safe to assume that almost all parents love their own children. There are exceptions, of course. Few would deny that there are some awful parents out there, but I think we can agree that the majority of parents are concerned about the welfare of their own children. They would not want anything horrible to happen to their children.

How do most parents (and non-parents) feel about other people's children? Many have great concern, compassion, and empathy. Most would express agreement with the notion that children, including other people's children, are a vital aspect of our future. They should be protected, and we should all be concerned about their welfare.

There are many challenges facing those in the U.S. who would like to see additional restrictions on gun ownership. One is the degree to which people value their guns vs. the degree to which they value other people's children. When push comes to shove, plenty of people value their guns more than they value the lives of other people's children.

Religious Believers Use Accusations of Intolerance to Silence Critics

Bad Religion (Photo credit: alterna2, CC BY 2.0)

If you are an atheist, you have first-hand experience with religious intolerance. You have learned to hold your tongue in certain situations (e.g., family gatherings where religious persons are involved, around religious co-workers, etc.). You have experienced as least some adverse consequences for failing to do so. You are aware that many religious believers despise, fear, and misunderstand you. If you've spent any time studying religious texts, you have learned that these negative attitudes are not a twisted interpretation of religion. They are contained in the "holy" texts themselves. Intolerance is a feature, not a bug.

Of course, if you are an atheist who has expressed your lack of belief, you have been accused of being intolerant. You are perceived as hating religion and religious believers. You want to ban their texts, prevent them from engaging in their cherished rituals (most of which seem to involve public displays), and even end their "sacred" holidays. You want no such thing, but this is how you are depicted. In other words, you are the real purveyor of intolerance, not them.

Do Charitable Organizations Reflect a Failure of Government?

Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay

I'll admit that some of the views I am about to express are highly conflicted. I feel an odd mixture of shame and anger even in entertaining some of these thoughts. I'm writing this because I am worried I must be missing something that may be obvious to everyone else. If so, please feel free to set me straight. I may learn something.

Here's my thesis: the nature and prevalence of charitable organizations in the U.S. reflects a serious failure in what should be a core part of the mission of our government. I remember watching footage of President Obama visiting the New York offices of the Red Cross and wondering why a country as wealthy as the U.S. would need aid from the Red Cross at all. I have had the same thought when watching charities spring into action after every natural disaster. Isn't our government supposed to take care of the people it claims to represent, or would that make us the "nanny state" on which so many Republicans seem to be fixated?

Climate Change and the Coming Apocalypse: Paying a High Price for Inaction

One of the main reasons I've always loved October was the change in the weather it used to bring. The Mississippi heat and humidity subsided, and going outside was finally appealing. It looks like those days may be gone unless the end of 2021 was just a fluke. While we had the sort of brief cold snap in October that usually marks the beginning of improved weather, we I found myself having to mow the grass into December. I've never even had to do this in November much less December because grass was never still growing. This was the warmest December I can recall and the humidity even returned after a brief reprieve.

Will We Confront a Fundamental Lack of Empathy for Others?

Had I not already been up for a couple hours by the time it happened, I would have been more than a little annoyed with the neighbors who started their Jesus-centric fireworks celebration at exactly 6:30 am this morning. I should clarify that they aren't close neighbors. I don't know exactly where they live, but the direction of the many loud explosions was sufficient to give me a general idea. Had they been close and identifiable, I think I might have paid them a visit because my curiosity over what would possess anyone to do something like this was so intense I'm not sure I would have been able to restrain it.

It continues to baffle me how many Mississippians seem genuinely unable to celebrate anything without fireworks or how insensitive their use of fireworks is for everyone else. They operate as if they are the only ones who matter, so it shouldn't surprise me that someone would get to the fireworks at 6:30 am. Hell, the person probably thought he was doing the rest of us a favor by waiting until 6:30 am!

How We Treat Religious Believers Impacts Their Attitudes Toward Us

If you, I, or any other atheists were to have several negative experiences with members of a group, we'd likely form negative impressions of the group from which we might generalize to other members. The nature of the group would not matter much. We could be talking about evangelical fundamentalist Christians, environmentalists, country music fans, or pretty much any group. The more negative experiences we'd had with them and the more negative each of these experiences was, the more likely we'd be to do develop negative attitudes toward the group.

Is there any reason to think that religious believers would be any different from atheists in this respect? Is it reasonable to expect that they would not develop negative attitudes toward a group no matter what kind of experiences they had with members of the group? I don't think so. In fact, I think it would be unreasonable to expect them not to be just as susceptible to this as we are.

Make Income Inequality Less Abstract By Highlighting Poverty and Hunger

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) did not invent the phrase "income inequality," but he's probably done as much as anyone else to put it into contemporary American consciousness during the last decade. Like any other politically relevant concept, some believe it is of vital importance to the health of our democracy, and others equate it with Communism or Venezuelan socialism (because that is the only form of socialism we are allowed to consider). One challenge with this and many other terms we encounter in a political context is that they can be too abstract for many to grasp. And so, I find it helpful to remember that ideas like this only remain abstract if we fail to apply them.

Mississippi's Clarion Ledger recently published an article by Sarah Warnock of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting titled "Reaping what is sown at arms length, food pantry seeks to end hunger in the Mississippi Delta." Without digging too far into the details of the story (I realize people are quick to tune out as soon as anyone mentions poverty, hunger, or similar issues), we can boil the whole thing down to one simple message: Despite producing food that benefits many of us, Mississippi's Delta region has been plagued by extreme poverty, malnutrition, and lack of access to healthy food for decades. Even today and even in the "greatest country in the world," the predominately Black region is afflicted by hunger.

People Who Disagree With Us Are No Less Valuable

Of all things I do not understand about our modern world and the outrage culture that seems to plague it, I think the one I find most baffling has to be the widespread refusal to extend even a modicum of respect to those with whom we disagree. I have little difficulty identifying people I consider brilliant, insightful, informative, talented, and thoroughly decent even though I disagree strongly with some of the positions they hold. This isn't something I've discovered recently, as I can't recall it ever not being the case. And yet, I don't seem to have much company.

I've encountered too many atheists to count on social media who will not acknowledge that a religious believer might possess any of these attributes. They insist that someone like Francis Collins is an ignoramus because he's a Christian despite ample evidence to the contrary. I'm fortunate enough to know many wonderful people who are far smarter than I'll ever be and who have many talents I lack who happen to be Christian. We disagree when it comes to their faith, but I respect them very much.

Humanism Should Inspire Us to Reduce the Impact of Natural Disasters

I realize this may be too soon, seem insensitive, and be overly simplistic but I need to vent about something because awful but preventable things keep happening that lead to unnecessary human suffering. New Orleans appears to be without power because the one tower that evidently brought electricity to the entire city collapsed. Doesn't it seem fairly obvious that routing all the electricity for a major city through one fragile point was a disaster waiting to happen? It isn't like Ida was the first hurricane to hit New Orleans. And it isn't like the tower couldn't have been damaged in a non-weather-related incident as well. Why do we (i.e., Americans) keep doing things like this?

I live in a part of the county where none of the power lines are underground despite the fact that this means countless people lose power in every storm. While reading a report from one of the big power companies as Ida rolled in, a sentence caught my attention. It said that widespread and prolonged outrages were expected in areas with above-ground power lines. Yes, I would expect so. And yet, they are all above ground throughout this entire hurricane, tornado, and severe thunderstorm ravaged area! Maybe there are good reasons for that, but the result is that power outages are a common part of life here. People wonder why I have zero interest in owning an electric car, but it is because I live in a region of the United States that cannot (or will not) provide reliable electricity to residents.

What is Secular Humanism and How Does it Differ From Atheism?

Secular humanism is much broader than atheism and entails many things that atheism does not. This is easy to understand if you remember that atheism refers to nothing more than the lack of belief in any sort of gods. Some people do not like to hear this and disparage what I just said as "dictionary atheism." I find this unfortunate since communication is impaired when we forget that words have meaning. We don't need to expand atheism to include everything secular humanism includes, and we don't need to demand that all atheists become secular humanists. It is okay for them to co-exist as having distinct meanings. Unlike atheism, secular humanism takes us much closer to something resembling a worldview. So what is secular humanism?

Showing Some Consideration for One's Neighbors on the 4th of July

You know how conservatives are often accused of trying to take the United States "back" to a time that never existed outside of the re-runs of Leave It To Beaver some of us remember watching as young children? I think there's a great deal of truth to that accusation; however, I've decided to start this post by doing something similar. I'd like you to imagine a time in our remote past before empathy for others was considered a weakness and long before social media outrage was the favorite way to pass time. It was a magical (and possibly fictional) time in which Americans would periodically come together to help each other out. But most of all, it was characterized by having a basic level of respect and consideration for one another.

Clearly, living in any sort of modern civilization entails a few compromises. No one person will always get their way. Whatever freedoms we may have are necessarily limited by the presence of other people. My freedom, for example, does not include the right to break into your house and steal whatever I want. The freedom of the individual is balanced against the welfare of his or her neighbors. These limits are necessary and even desirable because complete freedom would entail the freedom to harm others. If my free act is to hurt you, your rights are jeopardized. Because of that, we all have an interest in surrendering some of our freedom to insure that the social order is maintained.