Seeking a positive agenda!

[coberst]

Fools errand 1

I wish to make explicit that which I conclude to be implicit.

Religious people recognize two avenues leading to truth: reason and revelation. Secular humanists recognize only reason as a legitimate avenue to truth.

When we attempt to persuade a religious person that his/her truth of revelation is false, because it does not meet the standards of truth as dictated by reason, we are on a “fool’s errand�.

It appears to me that there are three primary sources of power: wealth, ideology and organization. There is no secular humanist organization with any significant wealth, organization or well-defined ideology of which I am aware. Secular humanists have no significant power.

If we are ever to be a force in the world we must organize. Perhaps in the process of organizing we might begin to develop a more cohesive ideology. I do not expect that secular humanists will ever acquire a base of power through wealth.

Why do we need power? Because religious fundamentalism is growing ever stronger and ever more menacing. Religious fundamentalism is an inherent characteristic of all religions whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism etc. A powerful secular humanist group could, perhaps, begin to move the minds of the population more toward a rational, rather than emotional, worldview.

To organize we must have a positive agenda. A “fool’s errand� is not a positive agenda. It is time to brainstorm in search of a vigorous, compelling and positive agenda about which to organize.

[King Rat]

You should contact usartist, he has been posting similar thoughts lately.



Unless you are a sockpuppet, in which case you are already aware of his position...

[coberst]

King Rat, you really know how to hurt a guy. I have just read some of usartist postings. I think I have been insulted.

[residentearth]

coberst, you may be interested to learn of United Universists :)
http://universist.org/mission.htm

[Demosthenes]

we are not going to have accusations of sockpuppets flying around here.

[coberst]

OK, I'll bite, what is a sockpuppet?

[King Rat]

King Rat, you really know how to hurt a guy. I have just read some of usartist postings. I think I have been insulted.

No man, just being cautious. I'm a little leery of the 'organizationists' right now. And I've had it up to here with missionary work, if you catch my drift.

[SEF]

OK, I'll bite, what is a sockpuppet?A sockpuppet is an unidentified duplicate account of an existing person on a site. This is usually for the sole purpose of doing bad (or merely uncharacteristic) things while protecting the appearance of the main account, eg ganging up with oneself on someone else in a dispute and making it look like the majority of posters are on the other side - can be very intimidating to inexperienced users who aren't expecting it and is designed to be very misleading to readers. You might find it worthwhile practising looking up such terminology on the internet itself though, eg google would point you at a selection of online glossaries of internet terminology and abbreviations.

[coberst]

I have become somewhat aware of the reluctance of secular humanists to engage in any thing resembling organized activity. I must admit I do not understand this attitude. Is it the nature of sceptics to be sceptical of everything? I consider myself has being a critical thinker and thus to examine most things closely. It seems that if individuals like ourselves continue to treat all organization as destructive of our worldview then we are destined to remain the 98 pound weakling constantly suffering the sand in the face kicked up by religions.

[SEF]

The first couple of points may only apply to me but the others are more general:

1. I'm not in the USA.

2. I'm effectively a hermit.

3. It seems that all organisations do tend to become corrupt. I blame it on the humans involved. There are too many nasty dishonest ones who are not stopped by the inobservant or cowardly ones. However, that doesn't mean that people here don't support any sort of organisation at all. Most probably think an education system is a pretty good idea, eg with some standard essential subjects for everyone. Most probably think some sort of government is a pretty good idea as opposed to anarchy - though they undoubtedly disagree on the details. Given that the organisation for education already exists inside the organisations for government, they don't need to be started as such. They just need to be very carefully watched for signs of corruption which need to be eliminated.

4. Quite a number of people got organised enough to sign a recent petition against the bad changes to education in one US state. So temporary alliances for a particular well-defined goal seem to work quite well. Come up with a very specific one off agenda and you may find people joining/supporting your "organisation". However, given the way sceptics (humanists, liberals or whatever else you call such people) acknowledge that there are different points of view and that independent evidence for things matters, they are unlikely to give mindless blanket approval to any organisation in the way that the unthinking indoctrinated masses tend to do. That, after all, is what makes us different in the first place!

[SEM]

Is it the nature of sceptics to be sceptical of everything?
Well, yes. (Speaking for myself, that is.)

[NearNihil Experience]

Fools errand 1

I wish to make explicit that which I conclude to be implicit.

Religious people recognize two avenues leading to truth: reason and revelation. Secular humanists recognize only reason as a legitimate avenue to truth.

When we attempt to persuade a religious person that his/her truth of revelation is false, because it does not meet the standards of truth as dictated by reason, we are on a “fool’s errand�.

It appears to me that there are three primary sources of power: wealth, ideology and organization. There is no secular humanist organization with any significant wealth, organization or well-defined ideology of which I am aware. Secular humanists have no significant power.

If we are ever to be a force in the world we must organize. Perhaps in the process of organizing we might begin to develop a more cohesive ideology. I do not expect that secular humanists will ever acquire a base of power through wealth.

Why do we need power? Because religious fundamentalism is growing ever stronger and ever more menacing. Religious fundamentalism is an inherent characteristic of all religions whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism etc. A powerful secular humanist group could, perhaps, begin to move the minds of the population more toward a rational, rather than emotional, worldview.

To organize we must have a positive agenda. A “fool’s errand� is not a positive agenda. It is time to brainstorm in search of a vigorous, compelling and positive agenda about which to organize.



Guns would help.