Local speaker's letter is published

The New York Times has published a letter from Robert Gulack of Fair Lawn, NJ, in response to the article Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs? The article appeared on January 15, 2008, and Bob's letter on January 22, 2008.

This is not Bob's first published letter to the NY Times editor. His commentary on the article Where Are Those Aliens? was published in 2003. Bob has given several Platform addresses at Bergen Ethical, including Free Will: The Last Great Lie (2004), How to Tell the Difference Between Right and Wrong (2005) and The Land of Now, Or: How Time Goes By (2005).

Bob has also been spotted at the occasional Socrates Cafe meeting at the Society's Teaneck Meeting House.

"Don't believe in God?" billboardInstallment 2

The ECS/Bergen Board gave me the okay to speak on behalf of The Society. So I emailed Freethought Action and the AHA.

Roy Speckhardt of the AHA, and Jan Meshon and Joseph Stewart of FTA were very receptive to the idea of referring and linking to us. Roy's comment was that they would be happy to mention us to reporters who contact them. Joseph, who runs the FTA blog, put a link to this blog and to the Society's webpage on the FTA blog (click the link and search for "ethical culture" to see it).

That's good. Hopefully some folks with humanistic leanings will see the billboard, surf to the FTA website, click through to us from FTA blog and walk through our door.

"Don't Believe in God? You are not alone."Bergen County billboard

Page 1 of today's Bergen Record trumpets God's Skeptics Get Comfort from Above and features the roadside billboard seen to the left. It's located on the NJ Turnpike in Ridgefield, about five miles away from the Ethical Culture Meeting House. Cool!

The Ethical Culture Society is a nontheistic organization (ref. AEU article, Wikipedia) and as such we do not explicitly espouse atheism or the denial of the existence of God or gods. I've always told friends who asked that our brand of nontheism means that we simply do not address the issue of god and that some of our members are, in fact, God-believers. If asked further, I say that we base our thinking and action on moral and ethical values that stem from humanity itself, as well as the natural world around us (an interesting reference in today's NY Times: The Moral Instinct by Steven Pinker).

Despite the self-applied nontheistic label, however, the fact is that the majority of our membership is atheistic or agnostic, or lean strongly in that direction. As a result, the freethoughtaction.org billboard on the NJ Turnpike in Ridgefield will appeal strongly to most of our membership. By the same token, many Turnpike drivers who view the billboard favorably would be sympathetic to Ethical Culture.

That is, if only they knew about it. If only those unsuspecting, God-questioning drivers knew that a humanistic society is a mere five miles from the billboard. How do we make the connection? One way is for the Ethical Culture Society to reach out to FTA and let them know we're here. That way, supportive inquiries coming to them as a result of the billboard can, in appropriate cases, be directed to us.

For example, say someone sends a supportive message to FTA that the billboard resonates with them but they need to keep going to church because they want their children in a Sunday school. Do they know that The Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County has a humanistic Sunday school? Maybe ... maybe not. If FTA is willing to refer such emails to us, a few of them might contact us and voila ... connection.

So I'm on a mission. I've volunteered to contact the FTA on behalf of The Society and discuss the matter to see if they can help those Turnpike drivers make a connection with Ethical Culture. Check back in this space to see how it goes. And in the meantime, honk for free thought.

(Click for Google map of billboard location.)

Humanist Network News (HNN) podcasts

Tons of humanist content are showing up on the web. Lately I've been listening to the award winning Humanist Network News (HNN). This collection's directory is as helpful as the podcasts themselves are informative. It's simple to browse two+ years of shows on a single screen (actually, two screens). Each entry contains a brief synopsis and photo, as well as links to both text details about the show and a full text transcript, and can be listened to online or downloaded as an .MP3 file for playing on a portable device.

The shows are diverse and include interviews with movement luminaries (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens) and other notables (Salmon Rushdie, Alan Dershowitz, Rabbi Sherwin Wine, E.O. Wilson, U.S. Representative Pete Stark). The hosts, Duncan Crary and Jes Constantine (see picture) , attend and report on conferences (Atheist Alliance International, International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organization (IHEYO), New Humanism) and other events. Some shows are cerebral, others report on arts, leisure and recreation, including, Rational Rap, Camp Quest for humanist youth and much more. The show's theme song, I Ain't Afraid by Holly Near, quickly grows on you.

The show is self described thus: "The Humanist Network News (HNN) Audio Podcast is a monthly one-hour talk show created by the Institute for Humanist Studies. Every episode of the HNN Audio Podcast explores a different area of humanist thought, from politics to pop culture."

Check it out and take it with you on the road.

Dr. Joseph Chuman interviewed by The Record

John Chadwick of the The Record interviewed (click here) Dr. Joseph Chuman, Leader of ECS/Bergen. Full text of the article appeared on the print edition of January 10, 2008.

The print version includes a photo of Dr. Chuman, which doesn't seem to be included with the online version. Too bad ... Joe is seen with his friend Yorick (I think).

Late members noted in The Record

The Bergen Record article Their lives made ours a little richer (Jan 1, 2008; see pages 2 & 3) acknowledged two ECS/Bergen members who passed away during 2007. I never knew Ed Ubell and if I met Suzanne Platoff I couldn't attest to it.

I did know some other members who passed away during 2007 who I will miss: Steve Jacobs, Marvin Mausner, Zack Finkelberg and Norman Righthand. Who am I forgetting?

Weekend Edition Sunday, Dec. 23, features Harvard's humanist chaplain

National Public Radio’s program Weekend Edition Sunday, on December 23, included a segment by Tovia Smith on Harvard’s humanist chaplain and how he provides a home for students seeking something like religious community around Christmastime.  Other atheists were quoted who were critical.  The existence of a humanist religion (i.e. Ethical Culture) was not mentioned, alas.

If you are interested in hearing that segment (it’s just over 5 minutes), go to the NPR web site, navigate to Weekend Edition Sunday, and then find the Dec. 23 program.  The segment was called “Removing Religion from Holidays a Tall Order”.

Socrates Cafe Topic: Would you endorse the use of torture of one person if you knew it would prevent the deaths of 3000 people?

Our last meeting was both fascinating and extremely timely.

The topic was: Would you endorse the use of torture of one person if you knew it would prevent the deaths of 3000 people?

While "torture" was passionately rejected initially by some and generally rejected by everyone for a variety of sound reasons (impact on our country's sense of its principles and its ideals, adverse effect on our country's image in the eyes of other nations, slippery slope of applying torture to one group but extending its application too widely, "it doesn't work," etc.), concerns about our nation's security were soon expressed. Risk tolerance varied considerably in the group and influenced how sure we would have to be about the likelihood of 3000 deaths before the torture option might appear reasonable. Eventually, there was a tendency to view the history of man's inhumanity to man as an important object lesson. Most ultimately rejected torture as an unwise and ineffective course of action under any circumstance. (Aggressive interrogation might be acceptable but only as a last resort and after other more psychologically sophisticated and humane techniques have been tried.)

As is typical of Socrates Cafe, everyone became engaged in the topic and initial views shifted as a result of the open dialectic among the group. This is what happens when intelligent and open minded people get together to discuss serious ideas.

Hope to see you at our next meeting on November 5th at 7pm.

Richard

NON-STATE ENTITIES: A Video-Conference, U.N. PATHWAYS EVENTS

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck CampusThursday, March 1, 2007,

Mary Beaven’s notes (friend of The Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County)

Participants: Ahmad Kamal, former Ambassador from Pakistan to the UN, now President of the UN’s Ambassador’s Club; Elsa Stamatopoulou, Director of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; and Michelle Shenandoah, the Oneida American Indian Tribe and the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Value Management.

Ambassador Kamal made the following points: The world has seen successful and unsuccessful secessionist movements: The USA successfully seceded from Great Britain; Eastern Europe seceded from the Soviet Union; the Czech Republic and Slovakia agreed upon seceding from Czechoslovakia and forming two nations. Unsuccessful secessions include: India and Pakistan; Canada and Quebec; the Basque region and Spain; Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Today 30 non-state entities have an agenda in “trouble creation.” Among these are al Qaeda and the Shining Path.

The Ambassador then stated a human rights perspective: a human-rights perspective is people-based, not nation-based. He claimed that today some nation states think they have God’s right, that there is only one way, and that states/people without the same belief system are wrong and need correction. Kamal posed the conflict as state sovereignty vs human rights: the individual vs the group. Then he reminded the audience that the history of the world is the history of people, not nations.

Director Stamatopoulou. Director Stamatopoulou started with “the news of the day”: Inuit tribes had filed a complaint against the USA: car emissions in the USA are threatening their way of life. Because emissions cause global warming and damage the Inuits’ natural environment, the Inuits are finding it increasingly difficult to wrest a living from their natural environment. The question: do these emissions infringe upon the human rights of the Inuits? Do the Inuits have the right to continue their culture free from such infringement?

Next Stamatopoulou described three kinds of entities the UN protects:

1. The individual. The individual is the smallest entity, with some individuals the most vulnerable: for example, children, migrants, the handicapped.

2. Legal entities. Legal entities include the state, NGOs, corporations, etc. All of these also recognize individuals as legal entities. Entities not recognized as legal entities include criminal groups, armed groups, freedom fighters, terrorists.

3. Natural linguistic groups, ethnic minorities, and indigenous people. These groups may have different historical backgrounds, laws, customs that differ from a state, but they are recognized as non-state entities.

Laws at different levels protect non-state entities: (1) human rights laws; (2) international humanitarian law; and (3) international criminal law. The UN recognizes, protects, and works for indigenous people. Indigenous people are pre-colonial people who live on particular land, much of which was taken over and occupied by others. Each indigenous people/group has its own common culture, language, history, and envision a common future. They identify themselves as members of a particular group, with this self-identification crucial to the individual and the group.

Because states may feel threatened by non-state entities, how states treat them is important to the UN. Today’s minorities depend upon the right of self-determination and respect for cultural plurality. They need enabling environments in which to express their own vision of the future and its development. They need informed consent to develop and continue in their own way. Some times they seek voluntary isolation from the dominant culture in order to live within their culture and act on their own vision for the future. Indeed, non-state minorities need space to express who they are and resolutions allowing them to be self-determined.

Indigenous people have often been chased from their lands without the means of survival even when their cultural survival depends upon their lands. Often they have difficulty dealing with the deprivation of their lands and surviving as a separate culture.

Today the majority of the world’s 6,000 languages—5,000 languages--are spoken only by indigenous groups. Many of these languages are threatened by extinction by the end of the century.

Michelle Shenandoah. Michelle Shenandoah introduced herself as a member of the Oneida tribe, a tribe living on the land long before Columbus “discovered” American. Dedicated to improving the lot of her tribe, she is a member of the Wolf Clan, a tribe with a matrilineal and matriarchal society. The women were--and still are--the chefs of the tribe. In the past women decided whether or not to go to war: what effect would war have on their families, their children, their society. Once the Oneida tribe had 5.3 million acres of land. Now it has only 32 acres.

At one time the Chief of her tribe was asked to wish away the white people, but wouldn’t do it because “the Creator brought everyone here.” This statement has served as a guiding principle for her tribe.

Michelle’s father was French-German. Her mother was of the Oneida tribe, with Michelle growing up in her mother’s culture. Thanks to the American Indian College Fund, she attended college. Now she hopes to be an ambassador for the Oneida people, building bridges across cultures.

She believes that minority statistics do not adequately describe Native Americans, who are less than 1% of the American people. (1% is usually considered too small a statistic to warrant analysis.) Yet, because of treaties forged between the US government and Native American tribes, there are 550 Indian nations in the USA, 365 of them federally recognized, the others recognized by the pertinent states.

To improve their economic well-being, Native American nations have established casinos and sell tax-free cigarettes and gas. Gaming brings money to build up the infrastructure of their nations. Today Native Americans face the task of building individuals within their own communities, communities that have been broken through social and economic welfare from the dominant US society and culture.

Ambassador Kamal. Ambassador Kamal referred to the right of self-determination, which ranked very high in 1945 at the end of World War II. At that time peace and the right of self-determination became crucial to the world’s well-being and to the founding of the UN.

Then he spoke about problems relating to the sovereignty of the state and traced a historic pattern. All of us are immigrants. Human life developed in a certain area of Africa, with indigenous people spreading out of Africa and settling elsewhere. Time and again we see the following pattern. People settle down somewhere. Then other people come in, use force, and take over. Over and over again and again, particularly in the past five hundred years, we see the same phenomenon: new immigrants looking down on old immigrants, new ones pushing the old ones onto reservations, new settlers taking pride in what they have done--when they should be ashamed of what they have done to the old settlers.

The Ambassador then posed three questions: 1.Who are the new settlers and who gives them rights? 2. Cultural diversity is important and makes us interesting when differences are accepted, appreciated, and understood. But what about the arrogance of self--thinking that one’s self, one’s group is better than another? Humans are now employing the big bang theory. One group of people has emerged that looks down on everyone else, thus making human beings endangered beings. 3. Is this characteristic of a macho/male society?

Director Stamatopoulous. Director Stamatopoulous replied that the history of migration goes way, way back, forming a key component of human history. Civilizations, indeed, have come and gone because of occupation, butchery taking place on all continents in the world, even forming the basis of history. It is, indeed, a sad history of conquering, oppressing, and taking over. Not one country, not Africa, Asia, the Arctic, Latin America, Australia, America, and Canada, has escaped this unfortunate pattern.

However, today there is a difference. We have a human rights regime that does not allow a state to do whatever the state wants to do within the state’s boundaries. Today we see the 1948 UN Human Rights resolution now more and more recognized in states such as Ireland, where brutal suppression has occurred. Today we have strong, public protests when human rights are threatened.

Michelle Shenandoah. Shenandoah described the effect her tribe’s matriarchal society had on her. She grew up with a strong sense of self and self-determination, unusual in women from many other American social groups. She stated that we cannot blame history for today’s unfortunate situations, but an awareness of history is important. We must overcome the past and implement changes to move forward.

She pointed out that Christian missionaries abused children, often so badly that missionary schools needed cemeteries. Those schools were trying to make Native American children become white Christian Americans and shed their basic identity. That struggle did not work. Today, instead, we are celebrating and encouraging diversity.

Her tribe nearly lost its native language, but it was found scattered among the elderly. Berlitz worked with the elderly to recover it. Shandoah’s grandmother knew five Native American languages; Shendoah did not learn one of them. The chain had been broken; because of the influence of white Christian missionaries, the languages of her tribe, its history, and its culture were not passed down.

Ambassador Kamal. What is the UN doing for individual people and their future? Is their future better? The UN cannot define the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. The reason is that, if a terrorist group succeeds, it becomes a freedom fighter. If it loses, it remains a terrorist group. Today we have global movers. al Qaeda is a problem, globally defending a perverted idea of a perverted world. Communism also had a global agenda.

Then he talked about the difficulties in the Middle East. Are the Israelis a nation? Are they indigenous to any region? A complicated question: does the division within the Jewish people themselves make it a diaspora? Recently at the UN 20,000 Hasidic Jews demonstrated: “We are against Israel because we are Jews and we live here.” Today Israel is the only UN member without defined borders. Because of what happened in 1967, Israel’s unknown borders include the West Bank, Jerusalem, etc.

Director Stamapoulou. Stamapoulou stated the situation was unfair, with everyone involved experiencing clashing rights. The Jewish people have a long history of experiencing social injustice, but today we have to deal with the formulation of a just solution. And there is no just solution for all parties.

Shenandoah. Shanandoah said the situation reminded her of what happened to the Native Americans, whose lands were occupied and then drastically reduced in size.

Question from a student from Kosovo: What will happen to Kosovo? Answer: It will be a continuing problem. For many years Tito kept Yugoslavia together, but then it broke up. Kosovo does have its own people, language, culture, religion, but not independence because of the Serbian minority in the state. The question is: Is Kosova a Slavic or a Serbian country? The answer from the Ambassador: there is an effort to slow down the movement and build up the case for progressive independence. It will take time to reach an informal agreement before a vote can be taken.

Student question: What is the difference between freedom fighters and terrorists? Today, for the first time, we are seeing innocent civilians as targets. Who cares about this? Ambassador Kamal corrected the student’s perspective: during World War II innocent civilians were, indeed, targets, e. g. Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Today Palestine and Iraq are internally divided, with both sides in each country targeting civilians. The United Nations is against such deaths. The death of any innocent civilian is unacceptable. The UN defends the right to life of each individual and believes that the world should fully support the human rights of the individual.

However, the United Nations cannot define what is meant by a terrorist. Successful terrorists are considered freedom fighters—think of George Washington and the American Revolution/War of Independence. Three hundred Spaniards killed 10,000 Incas in the Andes and then claimed right to the land.

Director Stamapoulou added her perspective. Afghanistan under Communism also went against the UN’s human rights charge. Instead of bombing a country and killing/injuring civilians, it would be better to locate responsible individuals and work with them to resolve the various issues and bring about a negotiated peaceful settlement. Remember: all nation states have recognized and signed an agreement to support the International Criminal Court and bring those who violate the UN’s Human Rights law to that court.

Student question: What rights do Hispanics have in the USA? Do they have a right to their own language? The answer: for them bilingualism is essential to their full development; therefore, schools with a Hispanic population should offer bilingual language instruction.

At this juncture time for discussion ran out, and the conference ended.

UN Adviser to Discuss UN Efforts to Broker Peace in Darfur

7:30 PM, Thursday, February 15, 2007

Teaneck Presbyterian Church

1 Church Street

Teaneck, New Jersey 07666-4907

The ongoing genocide in Darfur is a moral challenge. The Bergen County Chapter of UNA-USA has invited Patrick Hayford, Special Adviser to the UN on Africa, to speak on the topic of “Darfur: UN Brokering Peace.”

Dr. Gloria Tate, pastor of the Teaneck Presbyterian Church, is co-sponsoring this event, which will be held at the Teaneck Presbyterian Church, 1 Church St., Teaneck, on Thursday, Feb 15 at 7:30 pm.

This will be a rare opportunity to speak directly with a UN official; so, come with your questions. Refreshments will be served.

For further information, call Phyllis Ehrenfeld, President, Bergen County Chapter, UNA-USA. (Her phone number is in the Bergen County phone directory under Ehrenfeld S, on Grove St. in Teaneck.)

We are proud to say that Phyllis is also the American Ethical Union’s National Service Conference Representative to the UN and her husband, Sylvain, is the IHEU Representative to the UN. (The IHEU is the International Humanist and Ethical Union.) Phyllis and Sylvain co-author the monthly “From the UN” column in the Bergen Ethical Culture Society’s Focus newsletter.