Humanist Corner
HUMANIST CORNER
Bill White
Panhandle Free Thought Group
Saturday, November 14th at 10:30AM
“Whoe owns me?”
Well, who?
Free Though Group
Saturday, November 21st at 10:30AM
“How to end the useless war on drugs?”
Given the current meth tsunami,
a daunting topic indeed.
Agnosticism simply means a man shall not
say he knows or believes that for which he has
no grounds for professing to believe”
~ Thomas Huxley
“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not
the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares
not whether there is a God or not”
~ Eric Hoffer”
What you believe about life is important but, it would seem, equally so is how you believe it. Or is it, perhaps, less uncomfortable having no beliefs whatever, than having them all in one basket? Whew! Things get so confusing these days. Nostradamus packed his bag and took off on the twelve-ten. There are those who don’t know, but know they know; along with others who don’t know and know they don’t know. No parallel tracks here.
Western religions have long sought power in numbers, assuring us we’re running with the “in” crowd on our way to forever land. Or, as it’s been cynically said, perhaps it’s just another way of keeping the poor from killing the rich.
Secular scholars assure us the root solution lies in education. Certainly, if they made me Education Czar every middle school child would learn to play chess – even if they never touched another chess piece the rest of their lives. So many life lessons on those sixty-four squares! Planning. Actions have consequences. Compete, and lose as well as you win.
Then I’d give each of them a pair of dice!
Surely education isn’t always the solution either. Witness the recent news article concerning a pediatrician whose estranged husband murdered their children. A born again person, she knew they’d all be together again anyway. How’s that for convoluted thinking?
On the other hand, you might have your staunch atheist pounding on the table declaring there is no God, and an evangelical, pounding equally hard on the other end, declaring there is – and he talked to Him this morning. This in a world where a billion of us will go to sleep hungry tonight! Surely an agnostic would simply rise from the table and get on with the Journey.
Still as we stride forth hopefully toward a new year of our new millennium, may our heads be held high in the certainty that even though the Force may not be with us - we are certainly with the Force. Understandable or not, let us treasure each of life’s moments, like a precious pearl in the glowing necklace of Being nature has bestowed upon us. It is enough…
SHALOM