Why I Am A Secularist
By Donald
B. Ardell – October 25, 2009
One highly charged word in this country, used by the devout
to label non-believers with a term they consider offensive or insulting, is "atheist."
When I was a teen in Catholic high school, the word was usually linked
with an economic system, as in "commie atheist." I frankly did
not know much about either, but I was irreverent enough (i.e., asking impertinent
questions like "how do you know that" or "but who made
God?") that at least one nun warned me that I might become one (i.e., an
atheist) if I did not shape up—and pray more. By around age twelve,
depravity had set in—I still did not know what a commie was but I was
definitely partial to non-belief. You don't hear that
"commie-atheist" combination so much these days, except on Fox News
and some of the religious channels.
I don't mind being called atheist, but I always look for an
opportunity to explain what I DO believe in. Acknowledging being an
atheist only communicates what I DON'T believe. Thus, I prefer
free-thinker, secular humanist, rationalist and many more. Lately, I have
developed a fondness for the word "secularist."
Paul Kurtz once remarked that the great battle during the twenty-first
century will be secularism-separation of church and state "and the
recognition that you can lead the good life here and now without need of an
afterlife or the supernatural." During a ceremony at the unveiling of
a bust of Robert Green Ingersoll at the birthplace museum of "the Great
Agnostic" on July 6, 2001, Roger Greeley told a story about a time in 1893
when Ingersoll was waiting for a train in Waco, Texas. A reporter asked,
"Colonel, the clergy say that you are nothing but a secularist, one who
goes around promoting secularism. How do you answer that charge?"
Ingeroll's reply, reported at the website of the Council
for Secular Humanism, was:
Secularism? Secularism is the religion of humanity, for it
embraces the affairs of this world. It is interested in everything that touches
the welfare of a sentient being. It advises attention to the particular planet
on which we happen to live. It means that each individual counts for something.
It is a declaration of intellectual independence. It says that the pew is
superior to the pulpit. It says that those who bear the burdens shall have the
profits, and that they who fill the purses shall hold the strings. It is a
protest against ecclesiastical tyranny, against being the serf, subject, or
slave of any phantom, or the priest of any phantom. It proposes to let the gods
take care of themselves. It is living for ourselves and each other, for the
present instead of the past, for this world instead of another. It is striving
to do away with violence and vice, ignorance, poverty and disease. But it does
not believe in praying and receiving, but in earning and deserving. It says to
the whole world: Work that you may eat, drink and be clothed! Work that you may
enjoy! Work that you may give and never need! That is secularism. That is the
religion of humanity.
Wow. If I could commit that to memory, I could give
those who bandy the term atheist around an earful. Of course, I could save
time by quoting Sir Stephen Henry Roberts, who would advise the believer as
follows: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer
God than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible
Gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
The other day, an
old friend asked, "Don, what is your religion?" I thought this query
a bit of a false dichotomy in that it did not exhaust the possibilities. Why
assume everyone has a religion? I not only do not have a religion—I have
a low regard for all of them. I'm also very much in favor of policies that
Catholics, Protestants and Muslims seem to obstruct or oppose, including
maximum personal freedoms, critical thinking, equality of opportunity,
tolerance, universal rights, science and finding our own meaning and purpose.
A norm in our society insulates religions from criticisms.
Most who do not embrace "faith-based" thinking refrain from
questioning the validity, worth or rationality of religious faiths. While
critics, at least in this country, are not burned at the stake or stoned for
heresy, they don't usually get promoted, celebrated or elected to high (or low)
office as readily as those who go along. Thus, criticism of religions,
particularly the major religions with significant influence, is rather muted.
Well, as one who endured 12 years of Roman Catholic
education, I feel I earned the right to unmute myself from this norm. The
only church I support is Vonnegut's imaginary "Church of God the Utterly
Indifferent." (see Slaughterhouse-Five.) I can therefore be
a well infidel, or whatever I like along such lines. What fun. Besides,
religion, like sex and politics, is too important to be omitted from polite
conversation. Even those who did not endure religious propaganda for
twelve years as I did should feel free to speak out.
Christopher Hitchins, who famously argues that
"religion poisons everything," said something interesting about the
term atheist: "There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the
fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have
relinquished belief only with regret. To this I reply: Who wishes that there
was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual
surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its
private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the
reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such
a horrible hypothesis."
On that summer day in 2001, Roger Greeley recited the very
words that Robert Green Ingersoll uttered on January 25th, 1893 when he stepped
on stage to offer a dedication of the beautiful Philo D. Beckwith Theatre in
tiny Dowagiac, Michigan. Go back in time, and imagine hearing these words
from "the Great Agnostic:"
Ladies and gentleman, nothing is nobler than to plant the
flower of gratitude on the grave of a generous man, one who labored for the
good of all, whose hands were open and whose heart was full. Praise for the
noble dead is inspiration for the noble living. Loving words sew seeds of love
in every gentle heart. Appreciation is the soil and climate of good and
generous deeds.
We are met here tonight not to pay but to acknowledge a debt
of gratitude to one who lived and labored here, who was a friend of all, and
who for many years was the provenance of the poor. To one who left to those who
knew him best the memory of countless loving deeds, the richest legacy that man
can leave to man. We are here to dedicate this theatre to the stainless memory
of Philo D. Beckwith, one of the kings of men. This monument, this perfect
theatre, this beautiful house of cheerfulness and joy, this home and child of
all the arts, this temple where the architect, sculptor, and painter united to
build and decorate a stage whereon the drama with a thousand tongues will tell
the frailties and virtues of the human race, and music with her thrilling voice
will touch the source of happy tears.
This is a fitting monument to one who, broadening with the
years, outgrew the cruel creeds, the heartless dogmas of his day, to one who
passed from superstition to science, from religion to reason, from theology to
humanity. To one who passed from the shadow of fear to the blessed light of
love and courage, to one who believed in intellectual hospitality, the perfect
freedom of the soul, and hated tyranny in every form with all his heart. To one
whose head and hands were in partnership, constituting the firm of Intelligence
and Industry, and whose heart divided the profits with his fellow man. To one
who fought the battle of life alone, without the aid of place or wealth, and
yet grew nobler and gentler with success. To one who tried to make a heaven
here, to one who believed in the blessed gospel of cheerfulness and love, of
happiness and hope. And it is fitting, too, that this monument should be
adorned with the sublime faces wrought in stone of the immortal dead; of those
who battle for the rights of man; of those who broke the fetters of the slave,
of those who filled the minds of men with poetry, art, and light; of Voltaire,
who abolished torture in France, and who did more for liberty than any of the
other sons of man; of Thomas Paine, whose pen did as much as any sword to make
the New World free; to Victor Hugo who wept for those who weep; of Emerson, a
worshipper of the ideal, who filled the mind with suggestions of the perfect;
of Goethe, the poet-philosopher; of Whitman: "Apple, why does the sky?"
author of the tenderest, the most pathetic, the sublimest poem this continent
has produced; of Shakespeare, the king of all; of Beethoven the divine, of
Chopin and Verdi and of Wagner, grandest of them all, whose music satisfies the
heart and brain and fills imagination sky; of George Elliott, who wove within
her brain the purple robe her genius wears; of George Elliott, subtle and
sincere, passionate and free. And with these the faces of those who on the
stage have made the mimic world as real as life and death. Beneath the loftiest
monuments lie ambitions worthless dust, while those who led the loftiest lives
are sleeping now in unknown graves. It may be that the bravest of the brave who
ever fell upon the field of ruthless war was left without a grave to mingle slowly
with the land he saved. But here and now the man and monument agree, and blend
like sounds that meet and melt in melody, a monument for the dead, a blessing
for the living, a memory of tears, a prophecy of joy.
Fortunate the people where this good man lived, for they are
all his heirs, and fortunate for me that I have had the privilege of laying
this little laurel leaf upon his unstained brow. And now, speaking for those he
loved, for those who represent the honored dead, I dedicate this home of mirth and
song, of poetry, art, and light to the memory of Philo D. Beckwith, a true
philosopher, a real philanthropist.
Wherever you are on the belief/non belief continuum, from
devout to raging infidel, consider the elements of generosity inherent in the
nature of secularism. Consider the words uttered by Ingersoll about
secularism in praise of Philo D. Beckwith, in whose name a little theatre once
stood in a small Michigan town, a theater dedicated by America's greatest
orator and secularism's greatest spokesman.
Don Ardell is the Well Infidel. He favors evidence over faith, reason over revelation and
meaning and purpose over spirituality. His enthusiasm for reason, exuberance and liberty are reflected in his
books (14), newsletter (505 editions of a weekly report) and lectures across
North America and a dozen other countries. 