Back in the Classroom

Hey Folks,

Today (Tuesday) I’m off again to Thomas Worthington High School to open their speaker series for the Political Radicalism class. I’ve been organizing my thoughts.

Some years ago when I first undertook this responsibility, I was billed by the course’s founder, Tom Molner, as a “Secular Humanist.” To be perfectly honest, I accepted the characterization because for years I’d heard people I found repulsive (e.g. TV Evangelists and rabid “Conservatives”) complaining about these Secular Humanists. That worked for me.

Nevertheless, I really was clueless as to what I actually was thought to be. Over the years of ignorance I’ve continued to be myself and gradually learned what I “was.”

Early on, I guess I was confused because the political right so hated “secular humanists” that I thought they must be really far-out, hard-line, in-your-face, radical people; and how could that be me?

Secular Humanism, as I understand it now (for whatever that’s worth), is so sensible and mild that it is no wonder I was confused by the vicious attacks against it. Really, it’s simple: I believe in science – i.e. learning and knowing via our senses and the scientific method. To do that, I need to keep an open mind and think for myself. I need to recognize that learning is an endless process and that knowledge – while always growing - is always incomplete. And to continue growing, I need to avoid passive adherence to dogma and taking things on faith.

At some point it dawned on me that this approach was seen as a threat to folks who don’t believe in science, who don’t want to learn and know via their senses; who – for whatever reason – cannot accept the open-ended, forever incomplete search for knowledge and truth; who need, instead, the certainty of transmitted dogma or “received truth.”

I knew there were people like this – quite a few of them - and it was obvious that they didn’t agree with me; but it WAS surprising that – in America – they would feel threatened and threatened to such a high degree of agitation. I guess I was naïve, but I’m learning.

I had passively accepted the dogma, the underlying mythology inculcated during my youth regarding this nation. I had “taken on faith” that this was a free and tolerant society, that we all had the right to our opinions and, though we might disagree, we would “fight to the death for your right” to have your views, that we all were free to embrace any religion or no religion (and be respected in the process).

So, it was a difficult lesson to learn that there actually WERE millions of people who would fight (some to the death) to marginalize, demonize, or eradicate my views, my knowledge, my religion (or lack thereof). It was difficult to accept that anyone (in the official “America”) would want to impose their personal “faith” on everyone else – especially since they didn’t want anyone else imposing strange personal faiths on them (remember: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"??).

Beyond that, it was even more difficult to imagine that (in America) not being able to force everyone else into one's personal orthodoxy would be understood as persecution. But I’ve learned.

I’ve learned by using my senses to observe and to keep my mind open, by challenging dogma and official myths when discrepancies in their doctrine are perceived – rather than burying the discrepancies to protect the dogma.

And I intend to keep at it. It’s the only way that makes sense to me. Nobody knows any more than I do about ultimate matters – certainly not the charlatans who enthrall their fearful sheep preaching the evils of evolution, contraception, gays, stem-cell research, feminists, college professors, flag burners, socialists, communists, vegetarians, hippies, Mexicans, liberals, and (gasp!!!!!) Secular Humanists.

- Uke Man