Author: Jim

What is a “Secular Humanist”?

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Thanks to Neil, (@604Atheist) for permission to use his photograph. Copyright belongs to Neil.

I often notice people online discussing or mentioning “Secular Humanism”, or stating that they are a “Secular Humanist”. Isn’t that redundant? I thought that Humanism by definition was secular as it is defined as being a moral, ethical person, without any belief in any god(s). Yet there are people that persist in adding the adjective Secular. Of course, I’ve argued in the past that yes, a believer could be moral and ethical as well, therefore able to be defined as a Humanist, but that’s not how anyone commonly thinks  the term is applied today.

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Did Paul Preach the Jesus of the Gospels?

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The Apostle Paul is the most prolific writer in the Christian New Testament. He is credited with with thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the canon. Unfortunately, only 7 of those ( I Thessalonians, Galatians, I Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon,  II Corinthians,  Romans) are considered authentic, the remainder are now placed in the category of pseudepigrapha , epistles written in Pauls name, by others. All of the letters considered to be authentic, were written sometime between 50-57 C.E., the remainder in question as to the actually dates is not specifically known, but it’s thought for instance that II Thessalonians may have been penned as late as 115 CE.

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If You Can’t Prove It, It’s Not History

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I wrote recently about a very popular mini-series that’s being shown on The History Channel leading up to the Easter holiday: Jesus: His Life . I received a little blowback from some people even though overall I praised the show for it’s production value but stated that this should not be considered history. This is simply a retelling of a story, written by several anonymous authors, that weren’t witnesses to any of what they wrote about at the time. The main problem I had with the series, was that it was presented on a channel called History. There really isn’t any way that this could even remotely be called history, because there’s no historical basis for it at all.

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A Reason to Believe?

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It sounds cruel to some, to others it is a license to blaspheme, but the fact remains, without evidence, indisputable, religion is a farce, a con perpetrated on humans for millennia. Religion is nothing more than a way to subjugate a population, to have them believe that if they don’t follow the rules, laid down for them, that they will forever be tormented, in this life and in a supposed life after this one. There is no morality outside that which those in power tell us that comes from one god or another. We have no capacity for ourselves, it all comes from some supernatural being that is bent upon our total obedience.

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The Origin of Easter

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Is Easter actually a pagan celebration appropriated by Christians? There’s a lot of debate about that idea,  but there’s an undeniable fact that just as the Christmas holiday is clearly expropriated from the pagan winter solstice celebrations, it does make sense that the same would occur in the spring, which was a time of renewal for ancient peoples. The celebration of the renewal of a god, may have been a way to move the populace away from their spring fertility feasts, to the more sardonic dead man rising from the grave worship.

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Justice, at Five Dollars a Person

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I know I said I wasn’t going to do any more stories on Sarah Braasch, and this really isn’t one. I wrote a post recently about Sarah getting representation to repair her reputation as she was so egregiously, in my opinion, misrepresented not only by her school, Yale, but by the major media as well as some other organizations, like the ACLU. We all know about her story by now, ad if you don’t believe her, that’s fine. Everyone has a right to their opinion even though those same people may have not spent the time researching the issue as I have.
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Is America a “Christian Nation”?

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I saw something interesting on social media. American Atheists is in the middle of their annual conference and there was a tweet that mentioned a chant by attendees claiming that “America is NOT a Christian Nation!”. Is that true? I think it’s easy to pretend we’re not, and maybe people attending that conference think that the rise of the religiously unaffiliated indicate that America isn’t a Christian nation. that poll however, has less to do with belief in general than it does as to the state of the Christian religion in America.

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Is The Easter Story True?

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Is the Easter story true? Think about it for a moment because it’s the basis of a religion that claims 1.8 billion adherents around the world.  Of course all we have to base the claim upon  are stories written by unknown authors, long after the supposed event occurred. Yet for two millennia, people have recited this story as fact. What should any of us  take from this?  Should it be that we accept the story as true simply because it has survived for so long or may we question it, because those that wrote about it were not actual witnesses?

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Why Notre Dame is Important to All of Us

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I thought I’d wait a few days to write about the devastating fire in Paris of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The reason is I wanted to see how many conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork, blaming of course, Muslims for the fire. I wasn’t disappointed. Of course, yes, there have been numerous Christian churches defaced in recent months, but to try and assign blame of this awful incident to Muslims, seems like a leap. Remember, it was being renovated and without any evidence of arson, it may easily be placed in the category of being an accident.

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Vaccinate Your Kids, Idiots!

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This will be my third blog for the day, but I just read something that is very disturbing to me. I don’t understand, and never have, the refusal of parents to have their children vaccinated against diseases that are easily prevented. Here we are though, in the 21st century, where a lot of people receive their information about medicine, and other science, via Google University or whatever outlet suits their bias on whatever topic is presented.

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