CelticBear’s Musings

Oh it’s tough to not be negative and critical. It’s not tough being positive and upbeat, which I’m happy to say these last few weeks I think I’ve done a very good job of being, in my personal life. Even with the power outage and the long commuting each day all week, I’ve retained a positive outlook in my life. But, it’s hard to not read some news, read a blog, and not go off on a tirade against the asinine or ridiculousness of what I’ve heard/witnessed/read.

I’m compelled to comment on some recent finds however, and I’ll try not to be too critical. (Heck, I’ve found like four blog entries this week alone that’s made me steam and stammer internally and slap my forehead expressing how I can’t understand how dense or ignorant or intentionally obtuse the author is being, and where normally I’d go off on it, I just steam for a moment and let it go. (Yeah, totally let it go. No longer in mind. Not bugging me a bit. *grin*) So here’s just a couple of interesting things.

Here’s a posting from Debunking Christianity by DagoodS where he expresses how people ask “why” for different reasons, and more often than not when they ask why someone is an atheist, it’s simply as an opening for them to tell the person why they’re totally wrong:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-is-atheist-atheist.html

John W. Loftus has an essay listing examples from the bible where Jesus is, let’s say, less than loving, and throws into question may, especially liberal, Christians’ thoughts of a totally benevolent and peaceful all-loving Jesus:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/01/on-defining-love-of-christ.html

And finally, a video of the founder of the Center of Inquiry discussing what Secular Humanism is and what it means. How important secular humanism is, and how most people are closer to being secular humanists than they’d probably realize:

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2007/01/paul-kurtz-what-is-secular-humanism.html

(It’s got a really cheesy opening that looks like it comes from circa 1986, and Paul takes some time getting going so that in the beginning he’s a little rough to listen to…but it’s a fascinating listen. He explains how secularism is important, how we have a dangerous de facto test of religiosity in our public officers even though the Constitution says there must not be, and how humanism is not the same as being without belief, among other points.)

He spends a lot of time talking about the most important things: ethics. Morality and ethics are vital. And of finding value and meaning in life. Beauty and wonder in life. Finding virtues. This becomes a really good listen for anyone who thinks secular humanism is about criticism and debunking and doesn’t understand that secular humanism is about value in life and positivism and ethics and self actualization.