REAL ART RERUN
AN AFFRONT TO FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS

This Real Art Rerun was first posted on April 7, 2003.

Fundamentalist Christians have a lot of enemies. My experience growing up as a Southern Baptist has made me, I'm sure, much more fascinated with these enemies than I probably would be if I had come of age in, say, an agnostic home. How could I not be? The fundamentalist's rougues gallery is made up of some of the most interesting kinds of people in America: homosexuals, athiests, drug users, pornographers, artists, rock stars, movie stars, film directors, scientists, university professors, feminists, Communists, Satanists, Pagans, Wiccans, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Unitarians, Hindus, Buddhists, and a whole lot more.

Jews, of course, are a special case. "Children of God" and all that. Otherwise, I'm sure they'd be right up there with the Secular Humanists.

Yes, that's right. The Secular Humanists. I heard that name uttered with scorn and contempt many, many times when I was a Baptist youth. I was never quite sure why we were supposed to condemn them other than that they were apparently opposed to everything good Christians believe. After I had pretty much quit the Southern Baptists, I remember thinking that perhaps there were no Secular Humanists as some sort of social force or organization; rather, I suspected that the name was some sort of blanket church term encompassing objectionable contemporary thinking used to instill fear in the faithful.

Lo and behold, in 1992, at the Undergraduate Library at the University of Texas, I saw a copy of The Humanist magazine. Given my Baptist background, I was drawn to the magazine as if it were pornography. While not in the least bit titillating, it was pretty damned interesting. I read a lengthy essay on Humanism and postmodernism that finally gave me an intellectual handle on PoMo. The Secular Humanists, in fact, do exist. And they're cool.

Anyway, to make a long story short, they have a website that appears to be updated pretty regularly. It seems to be full of cool essays on culture, politics, ethics, and philosophy. I now post a permanent link (near the top of the left column) to the American Humanist Association site as an affront to fundamentalist Christians.

Here's a taste:

The philosophy of Humanism constitutes a profound and passionate affirmation of the joys and beauties, the braveries and idealisms, of existence upon this earth. It heartily welcomes all life-enhancing and healthy pleasures, from the vigorous enjoyments of youth to the contemplative delights of mellowed age, from the simple gratifications of food and drink, sunshine and sports, to the more complex appreciations of art and literature, friendship and social communion. Humanism believes in the beauty of love and the love of beauty. It exults in the pure magnificence of external nature.

And

Over the years, many women and men who embrace Humanism and who have worked closely with the AHA have contributed greatly toward the betterment of our world. Among them are:

Novelists Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, and Alice Walker Environmentalist Lester R. Brown Women’s rights proponents Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem Elder citizens advocate Maggie Kuhn Economist John Kenneth Galbraith Entrepreneur Ted Turner Evolutionary scientist Edward O. Wilson Abortion rights champions Faye Wattleton and Bill Baird Director Oliver Stone Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg.

Earlier Huamnists included Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Andrei Sakharov, Erich Fromm, A. Philip Randolph, Margaret Sanger, Gene Roddenberry, Julian Huxley, Brock Chisholm, John Dewey, Bertrand and Dora Russell, and Albert Einstein.

I don't really know about goofy Ted Turner, but I'm impressed with dropping Carl Sagan's and Kurt Vonnegut's names. Anyway, I don't even really know what the Humanists are all about. Maybe they're a front for terrorists. Probably not. But I do think they're thought provoking. So, surf on in sometime, if only to piss off the fundamentalists.

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