Reason Versus Faith, Freethinking Versus Dogmas

Reason and faith, freethought and dogma lead the seeker of positive well being to different pathways, including support for or resistance to church/state separation.

Introduction: Reason Is In Season – Year Round

No one should throw away his reason, the fruit of all experience.
It is the intellectual capital of the soul, the only light, the only guide,
and without it, the brain becomes the palace of an idiot king,
attended by a retinue of thieves and hypocrites. Robert Green Ingersoll

A sweet sentiment from the seemingly inexhaustible warehouse of Ingersollian brilliance. In a similar vein are these thoughts of Ingersoll, once featured on a plaque at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York CIty, where Ingersoll and his family once had a private home:

I shall follow the light of reason, be true to myself, express my honest thoughts, help destroy superstition and work for the happiness of my fellow beings.

Note the qualities Ingersoll extolls: Devotion to critical thought, respect for human judgement, observation and experience, the celebration of intelligence, personal integrity, reason and the embrace of happiness.  Contrast the credo of reason with the credo of Christian faith:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven and sitteth (sic) on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

On what basis would a sentient adult believe such improbable claims? Would it happen if the individual were devoted to critical thought, respect for human judgement, reliance on observation and experience, the celebration of intelligence, personal integrity, reason and a fondness for the pursuit of happiness?

I find the likelihood of that difficult to believe.

If Ingersoll Lived in Our Time

Wouldn’t it be lovely if The Great Agnostic were with us today, if we had his commentaries on topical matters like the state of the Republican Party that in his era was the Party of Lincoln? Imagine his observations on the not-so-Plumed Knight who seems certain to be the Party’s choice for president in 2016.  Or his take on any of the multiple incursions of religion into government and the rights of women, gays and non-Christians? A partial list of such incursions, as shown below, comes from an essay by Iris Vander Pluym; details on the listed violations of church/state separation can be read here at the Palace:

*  Religious exemptions for withholding medical treatment from children.

*  Religious education that enjoys little to no regulation with a host of predicable tragic results.

*  Catholic hospitals that can and do refuse treatment when quality medical care conflicts with dogmas affecting rights to contraceptives, abortion, end of life, etc.

*  Pharmacy conscience laws that enable zealots to refuse to fill prescriptions, whenever their interpretations of religious beliefs conflict with recommended medical care.

*  A White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives that provides taxpayer support for dogma-guided programs.

*  Abortion restrictions, biased counseling, mandatory delays, forced ultrasounds and other theocratic  legislative acts that reduce access and close secular clinics.

A conservative estimate is that government supports for religion amount to at least $83.5 billion annually.

The Unfortunate Immersion of Children in Religious Dogma

My take on the sentiments expressed by Ingersoll is that few today consciously discard their intellects though sadly, the neglected soils of youth provide little but a barren harvest of experience. The capital of the soul, in such cases, is capable of little more than the faintest light. This, alas, provides little guidance for the discovery and embrace of freethought as a part of a larger, REAL wellness philosophy.

There is, for most, not much of reason’s light to follow, so the paths of loyalty to the unknown self are unmarked, and convenient impressions are easily mistaken for honest thoughts, at least by oneself. Instead of destroying superstitions, the discarded, un-nurtured intellect defends superstition, a lamentable state in evidence today. Too little reason as a foundation of positive well being does little to advance happiness or improve men and women.

Needed: A Product to Treat Early life Brainwashing

Perhaps there is something to be said for targeted, pinpoint brainwashing. If the local supermarket had over-the-counter brain-cleansing products along with polish removal, mouthwash, rinses and the like, I would purchase and apply it, carefully of course, so as not to suffer collateral memory loss, to the portion of my brain that holds to this day the remnants of jejune Catholic elementary school prayers, such as the voodoo-like Christian example quoted above.

Ingersoll’s words on that plaque deserve our attention:

No one should throw away his reason, the fruit of all experience. It is the intellectual capital of the soul, the only light, the only guide, and without it, the brain becomes the palace of an idiot king, attended by a retinue of thieves and hypocrites.

Well, I suppose re-education is the best method of brainwashing we can hope for, informed by the embrace of reason for a better, secular future for each person and the nation. Reason does not get a lot of support but is it our best hope – and that’s why the positive, life – enriching form of wellness with reason as the foundation dimension of skill-building (along with exuberance, athleticism and liberty) is so invaluable for quality of life promoters to advance at every turn.

Support for reason (versus superstition) is tenuous, at best, as Ingersoll suggested:

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, — blown and flared by passion’s storm – and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.

All good wishes.

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Donald B. Ardell can be reached at awr.realwellness@gmail.com; his latest books are 1) Wellness Orgasms: The Fun Way to Live Well and Die Healthy and 2) REAL Wellness – it can be examined and ordered here.

A WELLNESS PERSPECTIVE ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

-By Don Ardell

We are awash in an almost unprecedented media fixation on Donald Trump, the leading contender for nomination to be the presidential standard bearer for the Republican Party in November. While Republican primary voters in most states where voting has taken place to date seem to think he is a reasonable substitute for the long-promised Second Coming of Jesus, a far greater number of Americans – and observers around the world, are appalled. How could the Republicans sink this low? Even if Trump should falter, look who’s waiting in the wings – Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, two religious, far right zealots many find far scarier than Trump. After all, Trump is just saying crazy things to fire up Republicans; the other two in the wings really believe what they’re saying, which is as bad or worse. 

Paul Krugman attributes this sorry state of a Republican descent into madness to deliberate political strategies over many decades. Republicans have worked to bring out the worst in people. They prey on the fears of underclass whites about blacks and other minorities, on the superstitions of religious fundamentalists and on everyone else who can be convinced that big government, taxes, and enemies abroad are clear and present dangers to all that Republicans hold dear, such as guns, god, power and money.

Krugman suggests that Trump’s constituency is being led to believe as follows:

That black people are lazy, Mexicans are stealing their jobs, torturing Arabs is fun and women should stay in the kitchen. Trump does not put it that way, but that’s his message. (Source: Paul Krugman, Not Even Most Hardened Cynics Would Have Imagined The GOP Would Sink So Low, New York Times, March 7, 2016.)

And it only works if people are mean enough, if not dumb enough, to believe it.

Not much can be done if it’s mainly because so many are so dumb, meaning poorly educated and determined to stay that way. After all, Gallup polls show that 18% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth and 42 percent of Americans still believe God created human beings in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Another poll found that 25 percent of American public school biology teachers believe humans and dinosaurs inhabited the earth simultaneously.

This is the Mother Lode for The Donald. 

My hope is Trump is winning largely because Republicans are so mean. That can be changed, as I will suggest in the next AWR which will focus on the greatest challenge there can be for wellness promoters. It not promoting less risky behaviors in order to reduce illness (prevention) nor even to advance better physical health status, however important both goals truly are. But, sights can be set even higher – improved men and women.

It’s really no wonder Trump’s winning. Krugman summarizes the situation as follows:

From a historical point of view, this is a fascinating time to be alive as we are witnessing the planet’s most dangerous political party evaporate in spectacular fashion, and all thanks to a reality TV star with fake hair.

It won’t surprise you to read that I believe the country as we’ve come to know it depends on the success of either Bernie or Hillary and the Democrats putting an end to the Republican madness in November. But I also believe Trump knows very well which celestial body goes around which, that humans go back a lot farther than 10,000 years and that no human hunter ever bagged a dinosaur or got eaten by one. 

And I’m convinced that Cruz and Rubio believe all three of the above preposterously uninformed beliefs and a great deal of additional supernatural, as well as secular, policy craziness far zanier than the three above listed examples of 21st century human ignorance run amok.

Be sure to vote in November. Please.

Barry Lynn Is a Kick-Ass Warrior in the Battle Against Creeping Theocracy

-A review of Barry W. Lynn’s new book God and Government, by Don Ardell.

Preface

I don’t think the Religious Right understands that religion thrives best where government takes no sides and offers no ‘help.’ There are two thousand different religious groups in the United States and tens of millions of Americans who choose no spiritual path. We all live in relative harmony. Look at Iran; look at Northern Ireland; look at Afghasastan  – state-sponsored religions and the wars against other faiths it engenders should teach us all that we have a pretty good thing going here. In fact, the separation of church and state is probably the single best idea that our two-hundred- year experiment in democracy has engendered.

Barry W. Lynn, “God and Government, p. 61.

Introduction: Barry W. Lynn

Barry Lynn once confessed, though not, I suspect, with heavy heart, that the Reverend Jerry Falwell does not like me. That was about as caustic and mean-spirited as Barry can manage but, oh my, how incisive, informative and entertaining he can be defending and advancing church/state separation. Make no mistake—this book is timely, for such a defense is vital at this time in the nation’s history. God and Government demonstrates as well as the landmark books by Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens, if in a nice and velvet glove way, that secularists are in a serious battle against a home grown Right Wing ISIS-of-the-mind religionists whose passions extend well beyond denying evolution, science, climate change, women/gay and unbeliever liberties and the human right to be free from religion. They want what they have long and falsely claimed the founders of this country wanted America to be—a Christian nation.

Were it not for Barry Lynn and others like, if not quite the equal of him, we might be such a society already.

Mr. Lynn has for decades been the Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). I’ve listened to him in person on several delightful and inspirational occasions. (I refer to him with the Reverend deliberately omitted — I don’t care to utilize the Reverend prefix, even though he has earned and never abused it. I try to avoid use of all religious titles, including Father, Your Excellence, Your Holiness, Your Eminence and so on. If Mr. Lynn desired it, however, I’d make an exception in his case, and for other heroic figures with clergy credentials. I’m still a little flexible. For now, I prefer The Most Right Honorable and Highly Esteemed Sir Barry Lynn.)

Like millions of others, I’ve enjoyed Mr. Lynn’s articles and countless media interviews and appearances before Congressional committees. (His description of an encounter before a committee chaired by the god-addled Republican Congressman from Texas, Louis B. Gohmert, is hilarious. You can find that on page 289.)

Mr. Lynn is a lawyer and minister in the United Church of Christ. The latter background is, no doubt, a big boost for his effectiveness with Christians and others who still have some respect for faith-based thinking, despite the superstitions that attend the dogmas, grotesque policies and deviant behaviors professed and/or exhibited by many religious figures.

Real Wellness and Religion

Liberty is one of the four dimensions of REAL wellness: separation of church and state helps preserve our secular democracy. This is more important than ever now at a time when the Protestant Religious Right and the Roman Catholic hierarchy seek a Christian nation agenda. While I believe most Christian leaders favor an American theocracy, this goal is rarely expressed publicly. Of course, to a regrettable extent, America is already something of a theocracy, given In God We Trust on our money, in courtrooms, in the Pledge of Allegiance and with enormous tax exemptions for religions and on and on. If there were a god that controlled everything, as most Americans seem to think, I’d thank him, her or it for Barry Lynn, who among other stalwarts for secularism works tirelessly and effectively to keep American ununited in church and state. So far, they are succeeding, if just barely.

Religion and REAL Wellness Are Incompatible

Reason, the R in REAL wellness, and religion represent two distinct ways of thinking. One trusts in revelation (i.e., assertions based on authority); the other is found upon critical thinking, evidence and an objective search for understanding the true nature of reality. Religion does not blend well with democracy, freedom, human rights, joy, happiness, wellness orgasms or other states that secularists seeking well-being of the mind and body associate with quality of life pathways. Religion is antagonistic to reason. Religious authorities insist that the faithful submit their wills to a higher power (whose wishes only they can interpret). They demand belief in religious dogmas, adherence to rituals and respect for all of these things from the rest of society that has and seeks no part of any of it. They make a virtue of faith (aka believing what you know ain’t so, as Mark Twain put it) which, by definition, means lacking evidence or other rational bases. Religions have no use for such life-affirming, reason-based democratic principles as expressed in the Affirmations of Humanism, or in the U.N’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While there is no connection with the A (athleticism or exercise and nutrition), the E (exuberance) and L (liberty or personal freedoms) dimensions are equally incompatible with the toxicity of religion. Thus, it seems entirely legitimate and reasonable if not imperative for REAL wellness enthusiasts to address religion in the context of describing the nature and dynamics of living a healthy, happy and meaningful life guided by reason and freedom that facilitates exuberance.

Thus, Barry Lynn’s God and Government could be and in my view is a REAL wellness worthy publication. One needs not be a history professor to know that religions have not displayed much enthusiasm for or tolerance of qualities associated any one of these three dimensions.

God and Government

Mr. Lynn’s latest work, published by Prometheus Books, contains ten chapters that represent a mix of his columns, testimony and speeches over the course of two and a half decades. The book contains extensive notes (references) and an index. Hundreds of the author’s encounters with Religious Right theocracy-promoting activists are described with wit and humor. Among my favorite sections are those dealing with these critical church/state issues:

• School prayer and prayer everywhere else.
• Taxpayer-subsidized vouchers for religious schools.
• Creeping religious beliefs into the public sector (e.g., preventing end-of-life choices, promoting censorship and so on).
• The imposition of religious beliefs by legislators into policies and laws.
• Opposition to science in a broad sense and evolution in particular.
• Attempts to proselytize by including religious content into public educational curricula.
• Religion in the military, the court system and local governments.
• Tax preferences for clergy; subsidies for chaplains, etc.
• Criminal clerics.
• Encounters with nice and strange famous people while fighting the battle of church and state.
• Descriptions of historic events that shaped the current standoff so far preventing the loss of our right to freedom from religion.

Five Stars

I fully agree and endorse what comedian Lewis Black, author Frank Schaeffer (Crazy for God), Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal and filmmaker Jill Soloway wrote in blurbs for God and Government, respectively:

• No one is more on top of the challenges facing the first amendment than Barry Lynn…with intelligence, wisdom, humanity and a devilish wit, Lynn makes the issues come alive.
• This book is literally a defense of freedom against the theocratic illness.
• Barry Lynn knows all the tricks, twists and turns of those who want to turn the clock back several centuries.
• Barry Lynn has the extraordinary ability to demonstrate how religious fundamentalism poisons almost every public policy debate that matters.

To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen’s tribute to Robert Green Ingersoll, Barry Lynn’s God and Government demonstrates what he has done for equality, education, progress, free ideas and free lives, against the superstition and bigotry of religious dogma. We need men like him today more than ever. His writing still inspires us and challenges the ‘better angels’ of our nature, when people open their hearts and minds to his simple, honest humanity. Thank goodness he (is) here.

Freethought Women Pioneers of REAL Wellness

Introduction

In a new book on WOs (Wellness Orgasms), Dr. Grant Donovan and I take note of the fact that many of the greatest minds in history have taken a rational, WO-filled view of life. We believe the sheer number of luminaries who favor science over religion is encouraging to freethinkers. Perhaps, in time, reason will overtake faith. When and if that ever happens, our species will better appreciate and look after the Earth’s extraordinary natural wonders. What’s more, we all will better appreciate the wonder of our chance existence.

Women Luminaries

One section of our book is devoted to people past and present that we chose to celebrate as “Luminaries of REAL Wellness.” We take a walk down what we call our “REAL Wellness Lane of Luminescence” with short bios of our heroes. There are 18 women and men selected as favorites who have contributed multiple WO-inspiring perspectives. Some are living, some not. We offer a few of their words for the insights they evoke and to encourage you to explore more of their life work.

Eight of the luminaries are women. In this essay, all of the women freethinkers who advanced the prospects of REAL wellness via reason, exuberance and liberty are highlighted. Enjoy these brief overviews of remarkable people to whom we all owe much.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919-1995)

Madalyn Murray O’Hair – Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a champion of secularism. Time magazine called Madalyn Murray O’Hair the most hated woman in America during her reign as a leading secularist in the second half of the 20th century. Her unyielding and, to most, abrasive defense of the wall separating government from religion was as effective as it was controversial. She relished every opportunity to provoke the faithful and challenge public officials who illegally granted religion special privilege in American life. School prayer was the first of many issues that brought Madalyn to public attention when she objected to Bible readings in the Baltimore public schools.

O’Hair founded American Atheists and debated religious leaders on a variety of issues across the land. She annoyed nearly everyone, including fellow religious skeptics and her life truly was an unhappy mess. She is credited with helping put a halt to plans that would have had astronaut Buzz Aldrin staging a televised communion on the moon. She also blocked a Texas law that would have required public officials to affirm belief in a Supreme Being. O’Hair tried, like many other atheists since, to get “In God We Trust” off coins and to prevent the pope from saying mass on the Mall in Washington, D.C. She also took legal action in efforts to put a stop to tax exemptions for churches.

Memorable quotes:

* I’ll tell you what you did with atheists for about 1500 years. You outlawed them from the universities or any teaching careers, besmirched their reputations, banned or burned their books or their writings of any kind, drove them into exile, humiliated them, seized their properties, arrested them for blasphemy. You dehumanized them with beatings and exquisite torture, gouged out their eyes, slit their tongues, stretched, crushed, or broke their limbs, tore off their breasts if they were women, crushed their scrotums if they were men, imprisoned them, stabbed them, disemboweled them, hanged them, burnt them alive. And you have nerve enough to complain to me that I laugh at you?

* This religion gives you goals which are outside of reality. It enriches your fantasy life with ugliness. It fills you with ideas of guilt over the most common human experiences — usually related to sex. In this room, right now, each of you, in your own lives, has agonized over the fact that you have masturbated. Masturbation isn’t sinful. If it feels good — do it. You have my blessing, and you yourself know how it relaxes you.

* People say, ‘So what? It’s just a little cross.’ What if it were a little swastika?

* Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a lifestyle and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and the scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969 – present)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali – A Somali-born American activist, writer and politician, Ali is known for her views on Islam, female genital mutilation, women’s rights and atheism. Author of two bestselling books, Infidel: My Life and Nomad: from Islam to America, she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005. Ali has several other distinctions and awards, including a free speech prize from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the Swedish Liberal Party’s Democracy Prize and the Moral Courage Award for commitment to conflict resolution, ethics and world citizenship.

Memorable quotes:

* All life is problem solving. There are no absolutes; progress comes through critical thought. Reason, not obedience, should guide our lives. Though it took centuries to crumble, the entire ossified cage of European social hierarchy – from kings to serfs, and between men and women, all of it shored up by the Catholic Church – was destroyed by this thought.

* When a ‘Life of Brian’ comes out with Muhammad in the lead role, directed by an Arab equivalent of Theo van Gogh, it will be a huge step forward.

* Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.

Anne Nicol Gaylor (1926 – present)

Anne Nicol Gaylor – As editor of the Middleton Times Tribune, Anne Nicole Gaylor editorialized from 1997 for legalized abortion. Requests from pregnant women in desperate straits led Ms Gaylor into volunteer activism for feminist rights. She founded the ZPG Abortion Referral Service in 1970, which resulted in 20,000-plus referrals for birth control, abortion and sterilization over an initial five year period. Two years later, she co-founded a charity to assist low-income women seeking abortions; a service that helped 14,000 women over a 32 year period. In 1976, Ms Gaylor and two others, including her daughter Anne Nicole, created the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) for the promotion of free thought and separation of state and church. Today, FFRF has over 21,000 members and a distinguished record of legal actions.

Memorable quotes:

* Nothing fails like prayer.

* There were many groups working for women’s rights but none of them dealt with the root cause of women’s oppression – religion.

* There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

Wendy Kaminer (1950 – present)

Wendy Kaminer – A graduate of Smith College in 1971 and Boston University Law School in 1975, Kaminer spent her first years practicing law before switching to journalism in 1991. Her eight books include Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism, Perils of Piety and Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today. She has received many recognitions of a major nature, including the Extraordinary Merit Media Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus and a Guggenheim fellowship. The focus of Kaminer’s work includes atheism and state/church issues, the harm of religion’s influence on politics, civil liberties, psychology and the law.

Memorable quotes:

* Atheists generate about as much sympathy as pedophiles. But, while pedophilia may at least be characterized as a disease, atheism is a choice, a willful rejection of beliefs to which vast majorities of people cling.

* The magical thinking encouraged by any belief in the supernatural, combined with the vilification of rationality and skepticism, is more conducive to conspiracy theories than it is to productive political debate.

* I don’t care if religious people consider me amoral because I lack their beliefs in God. I do, however, care deeply about efforts to turn religious beliefs into law, and those efforts benefit greatly from the conviction that individually and collectively, we cannot be good without God.

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898)

Matilda Joslyn Gage – Ms Gage distinguished herself as a suffragette, abolitionist, Native American activist, secularist and feminist. She worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as an eloquent spokesperson for the then outrageous idea that women had a natural right to vote. Matilda served as President of the National Woman Suffrage Association and in 1890 organized the Woman’s National Liberal Union devoted to separation of church and state. Over a century ago, Gage identified the church as the root cause of the oppression of women and also warned about a danger that confronts the country today, namely, a union of Catholics and Protestants attempting to put God in the Constitution and attack secular schools.

Memorable quotes:

* It is the church and not the state, to which the teaching of woman’s inferiority is due: it is the church which primarily commanded the obedience of woman to man. It is the church which stamps with religious authority the political and domestic degradation of woman.

* There is a word sweeter than mother, home or heaven. That word is liberty.

* In order to help preserve the very life of the Republic, it is imperative that women should unite upon a platform of opposition to the teaching and aim of that ever most unscrupulous enemy of freedom – the Church.

* During the ages, no rebellion has been of like importance with that of woman against the tyranny of the church and state; none has had its far reaching effects. We note its beginning; its progress will overthrow every existing form of these institutions; its end will be a regenerated world.

Butterfly McQueen (1911 – 1995)

Butterfly McQueen – A dancer turned actress, Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen is best known for playing Prissy in “Gone with the Wind” (1939). She acted in twenty other movies and television into the 1950s. During World War II, she made many appearances on the Armed Forces Broadcast Jubilee as a comedienne. Butterfly was a nearly lifelong atheist. She retired from acting because studio executives felt she was insufficiently deferential for a black woman and so she often worked in service jobs including, ironically, as a maid, as a salesperson at Macy’s, a taxi dispatcher, running a snack shop and as a seamstress. She graduated in 1974, at age 64, from New York City College with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

Memorable quotes:

* As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion.

* I’m an atheist and Christianity appears to me to be the most absurd imposture of all the religions and I’m puzzled that so many people can’t see through a religion that encourages irresponsibility and bigotry.

* They say the streets are going to be beautiful in heaven. Well, I’m trying to make the streets beautiful here…When it’s clean and beautiful, I think America is heaven. And some people are hell.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 – 1902)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is viewed as the founding mother of the feminist movement. Her issues were women’s subjugation and religion’s role in keeping women subordinate. A suffrage plank she introduced at the historic Seneca Falls convention in 1848 won endorsement and galvanized women for the next 72 years. In her diary, she noted that her beliefs were “grounded on science, common sense and love of humanity, not fears of the torments of hell and promises of the joys of heaven.” She described how “the bible was hurled at us from every side” in a history of the early movement. Nearly every speech Stanton wrote condemned religious dogma. She is also fondly remembered by contemporary secularists for writing “The Woman’s Bible” in 1895.

Memorable quotes:

* The Church is a terrible engine of oppression, especially as concerns woman.

* I have endeavored to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at least that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church. . . the less they believe, the better for their own happiness and development.

* For fifty years the women of this nation have tried to dam up this deadly stream that poisons all their lives but thus far they have lacked the insight or courage to follow it back to its source and there strike the blow at the fountain of all tyranny, religious superstition, priestly power and the canon law.

Vashti McCollum (1912 – 2006)

Vashti McCollum – Vashti McCollum endured the wrath of the loving faithful, including death threats, harassed children, murder of the family cat, job loss and more, for challenging school prayer in the public schools and eventually winning the Supreme Court case that put a stop to religious education in public schools in America. This 1948 ruling remains in force to this day. Her book, One Woman’s Fight (1953), was a best-seller and propelled her career as a free thought leader. Ms McCollum served two terms as president of the American Humanist Association and she was featured in a PBS documentary entitled, The Lord Is Not on Trial Here. The title was inspired by an incident during court hearings when a Bible-toting man confronted the school board’s attorney, announcing that he was there to testify for the Lord. The attorney replied, “The Lord, sir, is not on trial here today.”

To their credit, the Baptist Joint Committee submitted an amicus brief to the Court in support of McCollum, saying, “We must not allow our religious fervor to blind us to the essential fact that no religious faith is secure when it meshes its authority with that of the state.”

Memorable quotes:

* Between being praised and persecuted, condoned and condemned, I might understandably have become bewildered, particularly at the brand of ethics sometimes displayed by the staunch defenders of Christianity. But of one thing I am sure: I am sure that I fought not only for what I earnestly believed to be right but for the truest kind of religious freedom intended by the First Amendment, the complete separation of church and state.

* As long as the public school is used to recruit the child or to segregate the children according to religion or to use the truancy power of the public schools to make them go to religions classes, I’m against it.

That’s an overview of our female freethinker heroines—hundreds more could be identified who have done wonders for the spread of reason, exuberance and liberty for everyone and all deserve our gratitude and respect.

In the course of researching the facts on these and other luminaries, varied sources were examined. However, special appreciation goes out to the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) Freethought of the Day feature, particularly to Anne Laurie Gaylor, Bill Dunn and Sabrina Gaylor.

Be well and look on the bright, luminescent side of life.

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For information on obtaining our new book about this concept entitled, Wellness Orgasms: The Fun Way to Live Well and Die Healthy by Exploring the Secrets of REAL Wellness, write Dr. Donovan at grant@perceptionmapping.com

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Eat Here the Standard Mega-Corporate Diet

Introduction

A program called “The 2014 Food Revolution Summit” began on April 26. The first day of the proceedings brought to mind, at one point, Dante’s 1814 Divine Comedy.

The Summit featured a series of 24 free lectures on the Internet, each lasting almost an hour, conducted over an eight-day period, with three talks per day. The range of topics dealt with the challenge of eating in ways that are good for the health of the individual, that respect and conserve the environment and that exhibit decent regard for other life forms. A lot of attention, as you might expect, was focused on the power of what one speaker called the “corporate kleptocracy” that transgresses mightily against the three interests noted—human health, the environment and other animals.

No doubt a major theme of this event was this: That food products created and promoted by major industries cause massive amounts of suffering all over the planet. Details concerning this proposition were offered depicting the degradation of the food supply, with stomach and brain churning data regarding the problems and hazards of our industrial food system. No wonder such an overwhelmingly large segment of society does not live and dine wisely. The Summit is simply another reminder of the fact that reality is not cheerful—“cantdoit” is the norm and it’s not going anywhere soon.

Over 100,000 participants registered for this free Summit event. While the nature of the dreadful system described is unlikely to change anytime soon, awareness of the realities is unquestionably useful for the small number of informed people who can recognize how and why things are as they are.

The founder and leader of the Summit ia John Robbins, assisted by his son Ocean. Robins is an author, social activist and a  humanitarian. He is a recipient of many honors, including the Rachel Carson, Albert Schweitzer, Peace Abbey’s Courage of Conscience and the Green America Lifetime Achievement awards. The two men interviewed 24 highly engaged doctors and others well-known for their books, research, nutrition-reform initiatives and other involvements. All these speakers are, as usual, celebrated in some nutrition circles, loathed in others. That’s how it is when you make a mark in the world or, come to think of it, when you fail to make a mark in the world, as well. Not only can you not please all the people all the time; it seems you can’t avoid really pissing off a good number of them, either.

The goal of the Summit is to promote a movement for change in the American and other food systems that will enable greater opportunities for a future with healthier, more sustainable, more humanely derived and consciously enjoyed food for all.

Day One: The Big Three of a Plant-Based Diet Approach

I tuned in to the first day’s three lectures, featuring three of the biggest “guns” or “hardest hitters” or whatever phrase might be assigned to the renowned lead-off medical experts with rather nutrient-dense portfolios.

First up was Mark Hyman, a family physician, author and adviser for multiple media outlets, politicians, a charlatan or two and varied citizen groups active in large scale weight loss projects. Among them are Rick Warren’s mega-church, though it’s obvious that Dr. Hyman’s diet advice must be of little interest to the Reverend himself, a bloated bloviator of biblical babble.

The second speaker was Dean Ornish, founder of a noted research institute and author of six best-sellers. More than any other, the Ornish program is based on making lifestyle changes an alternative to drugs and other medical strategies. In addition to the usual diet, exercise and stress reduction emphases, Dr. Ornish advocates such REAL wellness qualities as love, enjoyment and meaning to extend and transform lives.

The third speaker was , a former rancher, surgeon and successful author who runs a plant-based diet program at the Cleveland Clinic and from his own foundation that he claims will render adherents “bullet-proof” to heart disease. Needless to say, this makes him a lightening rod for powerful interests in the medical community whose careers, livelihood and reputations are founded on interventions to treat heart disease. Dr. Esselstyn is also the father of Rip Esselstyn, a former professional triathlete who himself is quite famous and successful for his books and programs about “Engine 2” whole-foods plant-based approaches to well being.

Highlights

The three opening day speakers provided sweeping overviews of the system—one noting that there are 600,000 food items available today—and you don’t benefit from most of them. Politics and disease drive the health, or rather medical care system, with our Federal government inadvertently subsidizing the obesity epidemic.

Common fallacies were addressed, such as the idea that all  calories are the same, that if you balance calories in and calories out you’ll do fine. This was termed absurd. It’s the nature of the calories taken in that matter more than number consumed. The extent of dysfunctional subsidies for unhealthy food that Congress steers to mega-farming industries was documented. Politically-driven priorities are, of course, guided by massive campaign donations. Surprisingly, such perfidy is not universal: Mexico is one of the few countries that subsidize and promote foods high in nutrient values.

The determinants of health were reviewed. Dr. Hyman said that “we inherit tendencies from our parents, but we don’t inherit destinies.” At present, the food industry, “which is the biggest drug ring on the planet,” profits by alienating us from our bodies. People can change, but under present conditions it’s unlikely—they can’t do it. The good doctors downplayed genetics from its all-controlling reputation to a 50/50 role with environments and chance. One identified an overlooked variable—the lifestyles of friends. (“You are more likely to be overweight if your friends are overweight than if your parents are overweight.”) Our connections are more controlling of the choices we’ll make than anything else. The advice: If you want to be fit and trim, hang out with healthy people who eat and otherwise live wisely. Good plan, and of course offered in the context of other considerations (e.g., being kind and helpful to those who don’t meet the healthy test).

One needed strategy for all who desire food system reforms is to decentralize; local actions are more likely to succeed. All speakers want us to “reclaim our taste buds,” dulled by sugar and other non-nutritive added ingredients. In mocking health claims on labels (with many examples, such as “vitamin water”), Dr. Hyman offered an ironic guideline, “If a product has a health claim on the label, it’s probably bad for you.” He agreed that milk, as the dairy industry ads proclaim, “is nature’s perfect food” but added, “if you’re a dairy cow.” All three first-day speakers in varied ways suggested that our food aid export programs inflict our bad eating habits and food production processes on other nations. One remarked that if another country wreaked as much havoc on the health of American children as we do just about everywhere, we would go to war over it.

The three speakers, especially Dr. Esselstyn, hold thoroughly to the premise that our food culture is toxic. Big companies contaminate food with pesticides, hormones, GMOs and chemicals, and create products attractive to kids that are in fact sugary junk. No wonder 18 percent of our GDP goes for medical expenditures—this will not change for the better if we remain locked into a chemical-laden, highly processed, sugar infested and pesticide-contaminated pseudo-food diet.

A considerable emphasis was placed on the wisdom of choosing foods that are organic, sustainable, subject to fair trade, guided by GMO-free policies and obtained in ways both humane and healthy.

Major campaigns are in underway in 30 states for GMO labeling, improved treatment of animals and policies that require factory farms to pay for the pollution they produce. In addition, efforts are widespread across the country to reform school lunch menus currently designed by and beneficial only to the dairy, cattle and other food industries—not school children or taxpayers.

Dean Ornish focused on making healthy choices, doing the right thing for your health based not on disease avoidance but on the payoffs of positive returns. His was a REAL wellness message, a quality that has always characterized his work. He reviewed the limits of medicine and the sad fact that we seem conditioned to look for a new drug, gizmo (e.g., laser), surgical intervention—all things high-tech and, unfortunately, as expensive as they are ineffective for health enrichment. According to Dr. Ornish, ”seventy-five percent of the $2.7 trillion in health care costs, which are really ‘sick care’ costs, are from chronic diseases that can be largely prevented, or even reversed, by changing diet and lifestyle.”

All promoted simple choices we can make every day—“what we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke, how much we exercise and the quality of our relationships.” Dr. Ornish made the case for overcoming obstacles and barriers great and small on an individual basis, though in concert with others, whenever possible.

The three doctors addressed issues of science, the health insurance system, the role of behaviors on all the major diseases, needed medical reforms, the problems with fear-based motivation and the need to link good health with joy, love, meaning in life, fun, optimism, better bodies, good sensations (and vibrations, no doubt) and all of that.

Dr. Ornish said that the work he has done under the wellness banner is indeed a bit “touchy-feely” but it’s backed by science and it works.

Follow Up

If you want to listen to any or all of these freepresentations now, after the Summit has concluded, you will have to spend a little money to do so. However, it won’t cost much. You can buy one of the three optional packages on offer and you will have all the lectures and more. This small investment will surely be wildly profitable in terms of knowledge gained and, assuming you follow at least some of the advice, quality of life returns. (The lectures were free during the Summit; however, the three daily lectures were available at no cost online only for 24 hours during the week-long Summit.) Three Food Revolution Summit Empowerment Package options range in price from $97 to $227.

Many thousands of well-informed, highly conscious people have reaped the rewards of switching from the standard American diet to a whole foods, plant-based menu promoted by the Summit speakers. I expect that tens of thousands more will benefit from the work of John Robbins and the 24 truly exceptional speakers featured in the 2014 Food Revolution Summit, as well as from related efforts across the Western world. But, this aware segment of the planet’s population will remain a small portion of the six billion humans struggling to get by every day, many grateful to have anything at all to eat, and thus the poignant realities for most people will not be much affected in our lifetimes. There is no reason, save for the fortunate few, to expect a major change in the controlling reality that blocks the way to even a reasonable level of well being for most, let alone that resulting from a REAL wellness mentality and lifestyle.

C’est dommage.

Just the same, oh fortunate ones, continue to eat wisely, live well and enjoy your time. Though it is true, as Ingersoll observed, that “we are all children of the same Mother and the same fate awaits us all,” while we’re here our realities are more unalike than similar. Try to make the most of what you have but also consider doing what little you can for the well being of your fellow man.

 

Foolish Beliefs, the Religious Right and REAL Wellness

We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year’s fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Introduction

I saw a list the other day of the Top 10 Foolish Beliefs. No, the list was not one of Dave Letterman’s but some of the beliefs were nonetheless pretty funny. The list I discovered was created by Sal Mangano on Blogspot.com. It was created to honor April 1st, traditionally April Fool’s Day in the U.S. and a few other countries.

Before continuing, have a little fun with this – make a list of what you consider popular but foolish beliefs. Jot down beliefs held by substantial numbers of people that strike you as quite foolish from the standpoint of not being even remotely evidence-based, scientific or consistent with common sense. Think of five right now and write them down.

Done? Ok, now have a look at the top ten foolish beliefs on the list below identified by Mr. Mangano. Note how many of your choices appear on this list.

The Top Ten – Plus A Few

In reverse order, from 10th to most foolish, here’s the Mangano’s Blogspot listing:

10. Perpetual motion is possible.

09. The Earth is flat.

08. My religion is correct, all others are wrong.

07. Dianetics (Scientology) is not a cult. Three alternatives for # 7: A – that the holocaust never happened; B – that the moon landing was faked; and C – that there is no global warming (although it is not foolish to debate the primary cause).

06. There is a Devil who lives in hell.

05. Astrology is a valid methodology for understanding your life.

04. Numerology has something relevant to say about our personal destiny.

03. Noah’s Ark existed and had two of every animal on board.

02. Intelligent Design is a rational model of the origin of life.

And number one – what else?

1. God (as in an intelligent animate being) exists.

Assessment

I agree that all of the above deserve to be on a list of foolish beliefs. There are many other beliefs that could be on the list, including that:

* Religions do more good than harm.

* Voting for a Republican today can be a reasonable, decent, humane and/or rational act.

* George W. Bush is America’s greatest president.

* Seventy-two virgins await Islamic suicide bombers.

* Not pursuing at least a somewhat healthy lifestyle can be an intelligent lifestyle choice.

Billions of people throughout the world subscribe to one or more of the above beliefs. Many also believe in the existence of a Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, trolls, goblins, fairy godmothers, elves, the efficacy of prayer and so on. Evidently, our president thinks a god might bless America if he sticks that mantra on the end of a speech.

Paraphrasing Charles Farrar Browne, I’d be willing to risk the sacrifice of two cousins and my wife’s brother on a wager that not one of the above noted beliefs is anything but foolish.

The Foolish But Dangerous Christian Right 

Some foolish beliefs are funny and relatively harmless, at least to those of us not burdened by the weight of carrying such convictions. However, some foolish beliefs are pernicious, even to those who want nothing to do with them. The tenth foolish belief, when it is accompanied by fundamentalist zealotry, is a prime example.

In America, Christian politics represent a threat to our personal freedoms and the survival of secular democracy. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution contains these words: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… This clause has served us well, keeping religionists from each other’s throats and the country from coming apart over creeds and dogmas.

Alarmingly, an aggressive Christian Right has taken over the Republican Party. It currently dominates the U.S. House of Representatives and dozens of state governments. Well-funded, well-connected Right Wing Christian organizations are aggressively promoting prayers in public schools, creationism/intelligent design in science classes, vouchers that direct tax monies to religious institutions (and thus away from secular public schools), pious god observances at government meetings, ten commandment statues on public property, book bannings, revisionist history (Christian nation propaganda) while opposing the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

The assault on our rights to freedom from religion has already made massive inroads with under god in the Pledge, god on our coins, in god we trust in courtrooms, tax exemptions of churches, synagogues and all religious institutions and taxpayer funding of chaplains in the Congress and the military.

Here in Florida, religious forces are working to eliminate the state’s constitutional ban on taxpayer funding for religious schools, half-way houses and other facilities.

Throughout the country, Catholic Bishops and a host of religious political action groups are seeking to end the reproductive rights of women while opposing equal opportunities for gays, opposing end of life and euthanasia options for those who wish such services and pursuing exemptions from public accommodation laws for religious zealots. The latter refers to business owners who would like to deny services (i.e., discriminate) based on their own religious beliefs.

This is the way the Religious Right thinks of “religious freedom.”

What Can a Secular American Do?

Beside speaking out individually about some or all of the Religious Right assaults on our god-free nation consistent with the First Amendment, link up with and thereby support organized efforts to resist the theocratic tide. There are many outstanding organizations doing important work against those that do not believe you have any right to freedom from religion – and are doing their utmost to see that you don’t.

Along with 20 thousand others, I belong to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, founded in 1978 as a state/church watchdog and freethought association. While there is nothing at FFRF’s website or in their literature about REAL wellness, they are very much engaged in advancing reason and liberty – two key REAL wellness dimensions. FFRF functions in a myriad of ways with exuberance, as well, a third REAL wellness dimensions. This is evident at their annual conventions and product offerings, including songs, posters and billboard campaigns. In other words, FFRF scores highly in three out of four REAL wellness dimensions – I only wish the National Wellness Institute were half as engaged in promoting true quality of life in this country and around the world.

For these reasons, I consider FFRF a REAL wellness organization – they have a distinguished record helping to preserve a strict separation of church and state.

Enjoy, stay well and guard against foolishness and the hazards of the Christian Right’s theocracy campaign as you shape and refine your REAL wellness mindset and lifestyle.

Companies Should Consider Adding Reason to the Worksite Wellness Agenda

Like Robert Green Ingersoll, I believe everyone should be helped to get what happiness she can out of life, that all happiness that breaks through the clouds of misfortune should be enjoyed and that no one should fail to pick up every jewel of joy that can be found in her path. This requires that we all get what good we can of the truly dramatic, of music, art and enjoyment. Everyone should be encouraged to enjoy liberty of mind as well as body, which entails finding out the conditions of happiness and having the wisdom to live in accordance with those conditions.

Most Americans are not getting such help. There are many institutions, governmental and otherwise, that could help, if the goal of added happiness were properly recognized as a priority foundation of good health. Worksite wellness programming might not be the most promising vehicle for advancing happiness, but it is the one area where wellness promoters have the best chance to make an impact. Added happiness would be a worthy new goal of worksite wellness; nothing else seems as likely to enrich employee satisfaction while boosting performance and productivity.

In addition to a goal of increasing employee happiness, another goal for wellness education might be promoting common sense. Naturally, nearly everyone thinks she already has common sense, so strategically this educational objective must be billed and promoted under another banner. I’d recommend critical thinking, save for a similar problem as with the term common sense—most people believe they already think critically. Alas, there is strong evidence that is definitely not the case.

Do you doubt it? Consider the reality that Americans are besotted with nonsensical beliefs. Large numbers of adults allowed to handle sharp objects and operate heavy machinery believe in the literal nature of ESP. They also believe in psychic and other forms of paranormal phenomena. There’s more. Many believe in UFO sightings, ghosts, miracles, witchcraft, devil possessions and exorcisms, crackpot alternative medicines (e.g., homeopathy and therapeutic, non-contact hand-waving over a patient as a serious treatment modality) and, of course, the literal truth of preposterous bible and other holy book tales. These have been passed down by word of mouth from around the time of the Bronze Age. It all stupifies and boggifies the skeptical, critical and reason-based mind.

Marty Kaplan recently published a piece that began as follows: “If you think the widening chasm between the rich and the rest spells trouble for American democracy, have a look at the growing gulf between the information-rich and-poor.” (See Marty Kaplan, “You Will Be Shocked at How Ignorant Americans Are,” Alternet, November 6, 2013.)

Well, I wasn’t shocked at all. The evidence that vast numbers of workers could benefit from common sense education, artfully promoted and ever so delicately presented at worksites the land over, has been building for years. The Kaplan article is only the latest instance wherein persuasive data are brought to bear in support of the obvious—that common sense training is desperately needed in schools, clubs and company worksite wellness programming.

A new Pew study revealed that fully one quarter of American adults watch only Fox News. Furthermore, a majority of citizens watch no news at all—leading the author of the report to conclude that, as far as knowledge of current events is concerned, most “may as well be living on the moon.”

If Fox viewers were to depart for the moon, the average common sense score of those left behind would increase dramatically. Since such a migration is unlikely, initiatives of a practical wellness nature should be considered. Therefore, I recommend a new focus at the worksite consisting of practical lessons on effective thinking (plus the aforementioned attention to strategies for understanding pathways to greater happiness. Boosting this skill will surely add to happiness.)

For a practical example of what such teaching might entail, watch this outstanding 30 minute tutorial on how easily old habit patterns lead us astray and into truly bad decisions. In some cases, these all too human tendencies prevent even the skeptical among us from recognizing deficiencies in our common sense reasoning.

The Youtube video features Point of Inquiry host Josh Zepps, the producer of HuffPost Live, interviewing physicist Leonard Mlodinow about his book, “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior.”

Be well.