Santa Barbara Humanist Society Newsletter for January 2001
 

BULLETIN OF THE SANTA BARBARA HUMANIST SOCIETY
Founded in 1995 by Keith Bailey

2000 - 2001 OFFICERS

Chairman: Roger Schlueter     962-6316-rogers@west.net

Secretary: Colin Gordon     682-0545-colin3@juno.com

Editor: Dick Cousineau     687-2371-rcous1geol@aol.com

Treasurer: Russ Boggie     564-6086-rusans@aol.com

Programs: James Kimberly     969-9686-drtunes@aol.com

Social Director: Anne Rojas     564-6086-rusans@aol.com

Membership: Mary Wilk     967-3045-wilk@electromatic.com

Archivist: Bob Michael     963-5614

Publicity: Charlotte Carver     964-2773-charm@silcom.com

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MEETINGS

We meet on the third Saturday of every month at 3.00 PM at Jefferson Hall, 1525 Santa Barbara Street, Santa Barbara, California (except in June and December when we have our biannual Solstice parties). It is not necessary to be a member to attend our meetings Everyone who is receptive to Humanist ideas and ideals is welcome. The views and opinions expressed in the Bulletin are the writer's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society. Society Board Meetings are usually held on the Monday prior to each monthly Society meeting. All members are welcome. Locality changes so call the chairman or secretary to find planned meeting site.

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MEMBERSHIP NOTES

Our membership rolls now list 47 active members, 6 bulletin subscribers, and we send 13 complimentary subscriptions to reciprocal societies and other contacts. Overall our membership is growing and our meetings are becoming more interesting and informative. You are encouraged to invite a friend or two to any of our meetings.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

1. The Board Meeting of the Officers of the Society will be held January 15, 2001 at 4.30 at Dick Cousineau's home, 505 Alegria Road. All society members are welcome to attend.

2. Our speaker for this month's meeting (Jan 20) will be Charlotte Poe, Founder and President of Freethinkers of Ventura County.Her topic to entertain us will be "The Sex Lives of the Popes" based on the book by Nigel Cawthorne. Charlotte lives in Somis (Camarillo area) with her husband and three children. She has a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering and is the owner of Poe Specialties, a promotional products company.

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SOCIAL SCENE BY ANNE ROJAS

Greetings to all as we start the new year! We wrapped up last year with a wonderful Winter Solstice Party attended by 34 merrymakers bearing gourmet repasts. Those of you who couldn't attend missed a delightful evening. Games were played enthusiastically with intrepid wins by May Smith, Bob Michael, Ellen Jackson, and Colin Gordon among others. The jazz quartet serenaded us with great music for much of the evening. Thank you all for your wonderful food contributions and your outstanding spirit. The food just keeps getting better every year! (Our apologies to you in attendance for the crowded conditions - for the first time ever we had NO cancellations. In addition the musicians occupied more space than we originally thought necessary). Judging from the comments I received at the party, it appear that we as a group enjoy socializing with each other and I will be planning more activities in the Spring when we might get together informally. Picnic in the park? Theater eveing? Van excursion to an interesting venue? Your input is most welcome.
mmmm/This month's Dining Out is to be arranged at the January meeting. - We will meet for Sunday Brunch on the last Sunday of the month (Jan 28) at the Sizzler at 10AM. Please wear your Humanist T-Shirt: We have attracted a few new members who saw our shirts at dinner gatherings. I still have some shirts for sale if you wish to purchase one.
mmmm/I will be asking for Cookie Monsters to donate cookies for one meeting. Thank you to all have brought cookies this past year. There are only 10 meetings per year so we have enough members to cover that time period. If you have never contributed now is the time to step forward and help[ your organization. Please call me to sign up for whichever month is best for you. I am looking forward fo a wonderful year with you. As always your input, suggestions and help are most welcome. - Anne Rojas

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WEB SITE OF THE MONTH BY COLIN GORDON

What, you may ask, is Religious Humanism? - surely an oxymoron if ever I heard one. Not so according to this month's web site, the Friends of Religious Humanism. It represents a world-view that seems similar to that of the Unitarians, humanist in the sense that it rejects dogma but going beyond negativism to seek some kind of spiritual understanding. In their own words: "YES: Humanism can be religious; indeed, the most meaningful and liveable kind of humanism is itself a religious way of understanding and living life. It offers a view of people and their place in the universe that is a religious philosophy." This is not an elaborate site - its all on one big page - but if you don't mind a bit of scrolling there is good reading, links to other sites, and an invitation to join.

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QUOTES OF THE MONTH

Every Minister likes to consider himself a brave shepherd leading the lambs through green pastures and defending them from Infidel wolves. All this he does for a share of the wool.

Ignorance is the soil in which miracles grow.

A good deed is the best prayer. A loving heart is the best religiion.

In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments - only consequences.

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GETTING TO KNOW YOU. INTERVIEW BY LOTTIE WHITE

Colin Gordon
mmmm/Colin is one of several members of the Santa Barbara Humanist Society who was born in England - interesting, considering that country's monarch is the titular head of the Anglican Church to which most of the citizens belong. Colin himself, was confirmed in the church and served as altar boy, but he says neither he or his fellow altar boys were serious about their vows or their duties. In that country, where church and state are one, he says church attendance is, for the most part, more perfunctory than fervent. However it was later, as a scientist, that he examined his beliefs and, for intellectual reasons, became a humanist.
mmmm/Colin was born in Hendon, a town northwest of London. As a boy, during the Blitz, he and his friends found the buzz-bombs and rockets exciting and would collect and exchange fragments like American children do trading cards. A nose-cone had the greatest value. He and his wife Barbara both grew up in Hendon, although they didn't meet until he was twenty - at a church youth group bus to the seashore.
mmmm/At age 18, Colin began serving his two year national conscription stint with the R.A.F. and was sent to Malaya where there was a Vietnam type of guerilla war going on to prevent Communism from spreading in that British colony. From there his unit (33 Figher Squadron) went to assist the French in Indo China (Vietnam), and to Hong Kong where he also served. Just last year he, with Barbara, revisited those sites.
mmmm/In his final year at high school, Colin received the first part of a bachelor degree in medicine, but, when he returned from the service, his interest had changed so he switched to mathematics when he entered Kings College in London. He graduated with honors and entered a physics Ph.D. program in the same school from which he graduated some years later. In the meantime, he and Barbara married and became the parents of four children in five years, two of them twins. (Later they had another child.) During that time, too, Colin worked as an engineer with the British Aircraft Corporation - which built planes, rockets, and missiles. - all this while working on his Ph.D. and parenting four youngsters.
mmmm/When he left Kings College in 1963 with his physics degree, the United States was into the space race with Russia and recruiting space scientists. Colin accepted a position with R.C.A. and went to Princeton, N.J. where he spent half his time doing research at the university. Colin and his family stayed in Princeton 3 years, but returned to England because of the illness of Colin's parents. They could not settle down in Surrey, where they had chosen to live, partly because he didn't enjoy working for the Ministry of Defense. When his mother died in 1969, Colin and his family moved to Santa Barbara which he had discovered on a business trip when he worked in N.J. During lunch at the harbor, he'd decided he wanted to live in Santa Barbara someday.
mmmm/Colin found a job with General Research and rented a six bedroom house in Montecito for $340 a month. A year later, he bought his present home and settled down. He spent twelve years with General Research and published a few papers for scientific journals. One, called "Leaping Dolphins", which described how dophins leap in the water, was published in "Nature". He also published a number of articles on Relativity.
mmmm/In 1982, when it looked as though General Research were going to fold (it didn't after all), he joined General Motors Delco Plant where they were making computers that guided airplanes, a division of science called "Avionics." During this period too he became a glider pilot. It was from this company that Colin retired in 1993.
mmmm/What has Colin been up to since retirement? He is a member of Mensa, belongs to the Convocation of the University of London governing body, takes a City College course on web page design, works out and swims half a mile a day, plays the piano (loves Chopin) and he and Barbara enjoy their six grandchildren. After their son's wife died soon after childbirth, Barbara and Colin (at age 60) took care of their infant granddaughter for fifteen months - until the twin of the child's father took over for them. The twins are now raising Emily together.
mmmm/Of all his activities the one most important to us is Colin's active involvement in the S.B.Humanist Society - which he discovered through an ad in the "Santa Barbara News Press!"

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CHAIRMAN'S CORNER

Charitable Choice

Charitable Choice is in the news again. Now, however, it is not just a concept competing for political viability but a programmatic thrust of our next presidential administraion.

You: What is "Charitable Choice?"
Me: Basically the concept was passed down as a provision of the 1996 welfare reform act which made it possible for religious groups to bid on government contracts to provide social services while not departing from their sectarian beliefs.
You: So what? The government has a long history of funding social works through religious organizations.
Me: Sad, but true. However, prior to the notion of Charitable Choice, religious organizations had to be scrupulous not to integrate their religious mission with their charitable activities. In other words, religious organizations with charitable programs funded directly or indirectly by governments had to divorce thee two dimensions. This could be done, for example, by creating a secular non-profit organization that was run by the church, provided federally funded social services, but did not (could not) explicitly invoke the parent organization's religious message.
You: How does "Charitable Choice" change this practice?
Me: In simple terms, the two dimensions are no longer distinct. The religious mission and the charitable activitiesof a sectarian entity can now be folded together and funded by tax dollars. This means that the delivery of federally-funded social services (AFDC, WIC, etc.) by a sectarian organization can now require the recipient to participate in that organizations's religious practices as a prerequisite for receiving those services.
You: Surely not! This violates the First Amendment Establishment Clause.
Me: Unfortunately, yes. Consider the "Faith Works" program in Wisconsin. During the presidential campaign, George Bush showcased this program during a campaign stop in Wisconsin by touting the program as a quintessential example of his view of "Charitable Choice". The program is funded by the State of Wisconsin (using Federal dollars) and requires its participants to engage in religious activities, and (paraphrasing the program's director) will fail if the participants in the program do not come to recognize Jesus Christ as their savior.
You: OK, that seems to be a First Amendment problem, but its just a state-level program. What are the implications at the federal level that might affect every US citizen?
Me: Consider these Federal-level politicians:
  1. G.W. Bush considers this program to be a template for the implementation of his "Charitable Choice" program. G.W. Bush is our president-elect.
  2. Tommy Thompson, the current Governor of Wisconsin, oversaw this program and was, more importantly, a major advocate for its implementation. Thompson is the designated Cabinet-Level Secretary of Health and Human Services.
  3. One of the principal architects of Charitable Choice at the national level, which allowed states such as Wisconsin to act as it has was John Ashcroft, acting as a Senior Senator from Missouri. Although defeated by a dead man for re-election to the Senate, Ashcroft has now been picked by G. W. Bush to be the next Attorney General of the United States.
  4. Christie Todd Whittman, Governor of New Jersey has been nominated as Secretary of the EPA. Ms. Whittman was a leader in the implementation of state-level, ground breaking "Charitable Choice" programs in that state.
In summary, should the Bush administration have its way, the federal government will be using our tax dollars to promote religion, specifically Christianity.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind explicitly acknowledged during the House hearings on "Charitable Choice" that Wiccans would NOT likely be the recipients of "Charitable Choice" funding under a Bush Administration but that Christians will. Thus we face the prospect of the Federal Government explicitly sanctioning one religion over another. Do you really think that our own Society could reasonably expect to receive funding under a "Charitable Choice" (faith-based) program were we to decide to provide needed social services to Santa Barbara? I don't think so.

"Charitable Choice" is, in my opinion, a threat to government, to religion, and to the wall of separation between the two. We may have to become much more politically active if we want to preserve the precious religious freedoms we now enjoy. I encourage you to write to Feinstein, Boxer and Capps to express your serious reservations about "Charitable Choice".
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The following is from Michael Shermer's new book*,
"How We Believe"
I am often asked by believers why I abandoned Christianity and how I found meaning in the apparently meaningless universe presented by science. The implication is that the scientific worldview is an existentially depressing one.
Without God, I am bluntly told, what's the point? If this is all true, there is no use. To the contrary. For me, quite the opposite is true. The conjuncture of losing my religion, finding science and discovering glorious contingency was remarkably empowering and liberating. It gave me a sense of joy and freedom. Freedom to think for myself. Freedom to take responsibility for my own actions. Freedom to construct my own meanings and my own destinies. With the knowledge that this may be all there is, and that I can trigger my own cascading changes, I was free to live life to its fullest.
How vast is the cosmos. How contingent is our place. Yet out of this apparent insignificance emerges a glorious contingency - the recognition that we did not have to be, but here we are.
When I stood inside Chartres Cathedral with my soulmate, and we promised each other eternal love, it was a more sacred moment than I have ever experienced. Skeptics and scientists cannot experience the numerous? Nonsense. you do not need a spititual power to experience the spiritual.
Standing beneath a canopy of galaxies, atop a pillar of reworked stone, or inside a transept of holy light, my unencumbered soul was free to love without constraint, free to use my sense to enjoy all the pleasures and endure all the pains that come with such freedom. I was enfranchised for life, emancipated from the bonds of restricting tradition, and unyoked from the rules written for another time in another people. I was now free to try to live up to that exalted moniker - homo sapiens - wise man.

*Excerpted with permission from the author. How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science by Michael Schermer is published by W.H.Freeman abd may be purchased through Amazon.com or www.skeptic.com or can be found in any book store. Readers may also wish to subscribe to Skeptic Magazine by calling 626-794-3119.

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THIS AND THAT, HERE AND THERE

mmmm/Jim Alexander reminds us to bring canned goods to the meeting on January 20 for The Chairman's Food Hamper; this is our main outreach to the community. Please, this month let's all make a special effort to fill the Hamper with canned and packaged goods, bagged fruit, and toiletries. One of our special clients is the Shelter Service for Women, and they really apprecialte our gifts.
mmmm/At this month's meeting Dick Cousineau will have on sale the following bumper stickers:

[graphics of bumper stickers]

(proceeds from the sales will go to further the society's goals. the price will be $4.00. Also on sale will be silver and black "Happy Humanist" lapel pin $10.00 - Very nice!)

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NAME THAT PHILOSOPHER

"Experience is the basis of all knowledge. The human brain is a tabula rasa at birth". This fellow argued for individual liberties under constitutional law, an idea way ahead of his times.

Last Month's Answer: Baruch Spinosa 1632-1677

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