Dear Humanist,
We are all
at each others throats in our house over voting for pop idol. Half the family think we should vote X for
he is from our locality. But most of us
agree that Y is more talented. I think we
should vote for the guy we consider to be the best singer.
The Humanist says,
Damn right you are! Voting
for someone just because you know them or because they are one of you is
totally unfair. The purpose of pop
stars is to entertain and take the talented to the top. I would feel totally insulted if I was X or
Y and my family were voting for me not because of my talent but because of who
I was. To do that is the same as not
voting for a talented person just because they are black or gay.
Dear Humanist,
I have been asked to sponsor a child at a Catholic Confirmation
ceremony. But I am an Humanist. I feel I will be looked down on if I refuse
so what should I do?
The Humanist says,
You are right to perceive that the role of sponsor is a problem
for an Humanist. Sponsors are regarded
as having the right and duty to supervise the faith of the child they are
sponsoring but the Humanist cannot do that for the Humanist will seek to
undermine the child’s faith if the child consents. Sponsors don’t usually exercise that right which shows up again
the total hypocrisy of Catholicism. You
will be looked down on unless you explain tactfully why you are not happy with
it. if they still pressure you then
they are not real friends and you can give as bad an impression of them as they
can of you! Confirmation is a serious
act of child-abuse for if a child has reservations they are pressured to go
ahead with the ceremony. You don’t hear
of children not going forward especially in Ireland. If the child has too many doubts to commit to Catholicism or if
the child does not feel ready nobody cares.
The ceremony gives the impression that the autonomy of the child and the
right to think for yourself are to be discarded. Nobody recognises superstition as a good thing. The whole point about superstition is that
it claims that the doing or not doing of certain actions makes some force
attack you for some reason best known to itself. Confirmation is definitely a superstition for it claims to impart
a greater measure of the Holy Spirit.
You only need to see that confirmed children are worse than unconfirmed
children to know that is not true.
Dear Humanist,
I am married to my wife and in a few years after we together we became
Humanists. Given that Humanism frowns
upon marriage we feel we are doing wrong by being married. Should we seek a divorce and cohabit?
The Humanist says,
Humanist regards marriage as an invalid contract. Just live together as before but the
degrading elements of marriage must be put out of your minds. Marriage is anti-respect. Frankly, it makes a prostitute of your wife
but you can correct this and the only way you need to do it is in your
heart. Even if your wife earns her own
bread the relationship is still one of prostitution for you are to give her
financial benefits for sex if she needs them.
A woman that has sex with a man so that she can have a bed with him for
the night is as much of a prostitute as one that walks the streets and takes
money. Men are the stronger and more
fearsome sex so it is absolutely certain that women will never have or be able
to take full and equal rights that match men’s. The intimidation is there.
Marriage gives men the wrong idea of women because when women will never
be proper equals their getting married implies that women are consenting to
this treatment and are the bad guys if they protest afterwards. Any man that really respects his wife does
so in spite of marriage and not because of it.
Recognise that marriage is really nothing. A relationship is better when there are no rings and rules to try
and force it to last for life.
Resentment is stronger when someone you are tied to for life hurts you
because you have to put up with them until you die or they die. But in a relationship based on mutual desire
and affection and not on the rules of other people this resentment will
naturally be less. Most married people
hate their partners but have learned to disguise it. They also carry the burden of feeling trapped.
Dear Humanist,
I’m in my late teens and I like to dress sexily. My mother thinks I should have more respect
for my sexuality and stop doing this.
She thinks I should have more modesty.
But I don’t want to feel I must be ashamed of my body and my sexuality.
The Humanist says,
Dressing sexily is about making yourself feel good. If it feels good then do it. It does not mean that you will do anything
wrong sexually with anybody. Nobody has
any excuse for seriously believing that it means you are making yourself too
sexually available. They might say it
about you but they know it is not true so it is only words. There is no doubt that your mother is trying
to get you to be ashamed of your body.
The stuff about self-respect that she comes out with sounds like the
drivel that comes from the Christian faith which says that to excite lust is a
very serious sin when the truth is that it is a good thing when channelled
sensibly and properly. Lust makes life
fun and nothing makes people abuse sexuality but their own inner sickness. The truth is that the Christian prudery
because anything that has to be respected so much that unnecessary misery and
pain come from respecting it must be a bad thing. Think of it this way. If
you got the opportunity to become a pop star you would have to dress skimpily
for sex sells. Obviously the Church
begrudges pop stars their success. They
will reply that they do not but only oppose the way they go about getting
it. Falseness like this is one of the
cult’s many attempts to exploit people for you cannot want people to succeed
and have wonderful lives if you want to stop them doing something that is a
major part of that success. By
suggesting that by being clean and sexy your morals are bad the Church is
encouraging the belief of many raped and abused children that the abuse is
partly their fault.
Dear Humanist,
I find a great sense of peace with religious images round the
house and by visiting religious sites such as Lourdes. I find an emptiness inside me since I became
an Humanist because I have to do without these things.
The Humanist says,
The fact that you have these needs does not indicate that your
devotion to the Humanist philosophy is any less. You have just learned to feel safe with these things. Do not push yourself too fast. It is probably best that you wean yourself
off these things but take your time. Be
perceptive. There are other pictures
and there are other places that give you a similar sense of peace if you just
look out for them and try new things.
Meditate often on The Gospel According to Atheism. When you conquer fear through its message
you will find the need for these things will disappear.
Dear Humanist,
There was a sermon preached by the priest in the local Catholic
Church against Humanists. The priest
said that Humanists were opposing human dignity for our dignity is found only
in submitting to the will of God and not our own. He stressed the role of the Church as a prophet of God and that
only the Church could guide us to eternal salvation.
The Humanist says,
Go to that priest and have a friendly word. He is judging us not by our merits but by
his own presuppositions and that is intolerable. His words however sweetly spoken are undoubtedly an attack on us.
Dear Humanist
I am a girl of 17. My
girlfriends at college boast of the guys they have done it with. So to be like them I seduced a lad I
know. We had sex and I told the rest of
the girls and now they call me a slag and avoid me.
The Humanist says,
As long as you were careful you are not a slag. There is nothing wrong with casual sex for
enjoyment as long as you can avoid emotional harm and more importantly when you
are sure there is no danger of rape or of catching a sexually transmitted
disease. I could advise you to stress
this but it may be that if you say nothing the whole affair may be as good as
forgotten far sooner. Be clear in your mind that your friends have no right to
treat you this way. Maybe when the new
college year begins you will be able to make new friends. But be aware there is a lot of difference
between saying something and doing it and that what your girl friends were saying
they did was just talk. But the tragedy
is that when the girls boast about their alleged sexual activities they know
fine well you haven’t done wrong for they would see that it is not wrong when
they boast about being like you.
Another tragedy is it is religions and parents who hit out at sex
outside marriage that call you a slag.
They will say they would not use that word but they mean that word by
their condemnation. Understand too that
nobody no matter what they do is a slut or a slag. To dislike the sin is to
dislike the sinner – that is what happens when you believe in free will which
we Humanists deny.
Dear Humanist,
I like to
wear a cross. I am an office manager
and some of my staff think I should not wear the cross for it is offensive and
discriminatory towards agnostics and atheists.
The Humanist
says,
The cross represents things
that to the atheist and agnostic or humanist are very offensive so you should
stop wearing the cross in public. In
the office you should not have religious screensavers on your computer, you
should not have religious pictures anywhere or have a Bible on display. Religious expressions like “Thank God”, or,
“God Bless” are grossly inappropriate in a work situation even when all the
workers are the one religion. It is a
bad habit. The practice of saying grace
before meals at office meals must also be struck out. All work relates to the public and so it should be secular for
the sake of the public. Your God wants
you to put him first so it is certainly wrong for you to heed these directives
for God wants reminders of him everywhere so that his grace will work and
convert them. But we cannot accept
that as an excuse. We have to try and
please everybody on earth as well as we can and if God suffers in the process
then tough.
You must remember as well that
humanists cannot be expected to be comfortable with people who have not looked
into the insights of humanism which seeks to put humanity first. Why humanism and not some religion like
Buddhism? Because humanism is person
focused. Not looking into humanism is a
deadly form of discrimination against humanists.
Dear Humanist,
I have a son of five years of
age. I never had him baptised and it is
time for him to start school. I am
worried about sending him to the Roman Catholic primary school because I worry
about how he will feel when he cannot go forward to the First Communion like
the rest in his class.
The Humanist says,
Children can be devastated by not being able to participate in what
the other children participate in.
Ideally, the child should not mind but be proud not to be going for
First Communion but this rarely happens.
Send him to a Presbyterian school or to a mixed Protestant school where
it is more up to the child what he or she wants to do and where the Anglican
children might be going for their First Communion and the Presbyterian children
will not be at least at the same time.
Better still send the child to a secular school. It is possible as well to get the teacher to
teach religion to the child but not in an indoctrinating way when there is no
way to avoid the child being exposed to religion and when you don’t want the
child to be seen as too different.
There is a danger of attracting bullies. There is a danger with all
religious run schools that humanist children will be urged to degrade
themselves by praying. We know that
praying is degrading for many reasons for when we pray we pray that people
would do what we want we are trying to get people’s wills manipulated for our
ends. We must do all we can to have the
education system secularised.
Dear Humanist,
I would like to say that though
I sympathise with your cause the straight-talking blunt tone of your books
bothers me. Most of my Churchgoing
friends don’t mind – they don’t care enough about their religion to mind but
surely some will be offended? How can I
direct people to your website? It embarrasses
me to say anything good about it.
Titles like Love People, Not God and Blessed Sacrilege of the Altar are
clearly intended to offend.
The Humanist
says,
The site deals with very
serious issues. There is no way to talk
about distortions of truth that do harm except bluntly and assertively. Love People, Not God used to be a
book called Hate the Lord thy God but I changed the title to keep it
blunt but less offensive and confrontational and make it more positive by
showing that love means giving God the elbow.
It advocates love for people not God and religious people are going to
find that offensive no matter what. To
love God demands that you be antagonised and insulted if anybody suggests you
should not. The new title is meant to
grab attention and is certainly more effective than say a title like, “Why
we should not believe in loving God”.
It is not my intention to offend.
My intention is to jolt people into reality. We all know that though aggression is always bad it does no harm
to be blunt and to the point and controversial when we have to be. Being too sweet waters down the effect. If you don’t do your job properly you will
listen better and take more heed of the person who says, “You are lazy” than a
person coming up smiling and nice and shy saying, “We would like you to do more
work than you do”. We need fast
results.
When I say that the Mass is a
sacrilege I am only saying what my head tells me it is. I am not saying I am right or wrong but I
have the right to tell it as I see it.
If the Mass is a sacrilege it should be called one and people should not
be feeling turned off by such language even if they are believers. They should not be offended for views are
just views and not worth annoying oneself over. If I tell a Catholic, “I don’t believe in the Mass”, what I am
saying is, “The Mass is a superstition and a sacrilege”. That is what I am saying. So why shouldn’t I say the latter when I can
say the former? There is no such thing
as offensive language but there is language people like to upset themselves about and that is their
concern. They are finding what is not
intrinsically offensive to be offensive and insulting the person who is
speaking to them by accusing them of doing something bad. Though I should be blunt I should not say
things like, “F**k the Mass it’s a pile of s***e”. That is aggression not assertion and it is wrong. That would be really offensive and abusive
talk.
It is vital that society be
encouraged to value straight-talking and get away from imagining
grievances. Religion has encouraged
people to take offence as part of its own self-defence and to stop them hearing
anything that proves religion to be a force for error.
As long as you prepare people
properly and try to get the points of view I have made across regarding the
language I use and warn them you should have no problem with directing anybody
to read my writings.
Dear Humanist,
My son is
living with his girlfriend. They are
coming to stay for a few days. They
want to share the spare bedroom. I
think sex outside marriage is wrong so what do I do? Refuse to let them come?
I feel I am a hypocrite because I visit them at their house.
The Humanist
says,
What if they had to come to
your house to live? Would you forbid
them to sleep together then? It would
be sure to lead to them breaking up.
Though it is your house, you have no right to force your views on
them. They don’t think they are doing
is wrong and you should respect that.
What you are saying if you refuse them is that you are judging them as
evil if they have sex. Well waken up
sunny one, not everybody can be expected to see things as you do and to have
your prejudices. If you are going to
refuse them over something that is doing them no harm and making them happy,
then don’t have them around. Has it
ever occurred to you that it is not just what they are doing in bed that you
would have to consider sinful? It would
have to be their whole relationship for that relationship is an erotic
one. One of the reasons they are
together is to have sex. If you are
going to let them into the house even for a cup of tea you are giving the
message you approve of their relationship and their arrangement so you should
let them go to bed together in your house.
I’m sure you have no problem with gossip-mongering relatives coming to
stay and do harm to the neighbours but you need to ask yourself why you are so
bigoted that loving sex is a problem.
It is true that people should respect your own views in your own house
but your prejudices is a different matter.
If your faith told you that races should not intermarry, you would not
have the right to put your son in a different room from his wife if she was
black. Marriage is one of the most
disturbing sources of hate and prejudice out there, remember that. Remember too, that when you treat them as a
couple by visiting their house you are sanctioning their relationship. Because of the kind of relationship they
have you cannot treat them as girlfriend and boyfriend without sanctioning that
relationship. You know that you are
being a hypocrite and that is good for it shows you that the Church teaching
about sex is vicious and troublesome.
The Gospel According to Atheism
