Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Some comments from Harold Hill

Dan:

I appreciate Brian Hill's having called our attention to the useful article and your seeing to it that all of us where thereby given an opportunity to see it.

I do wish, however, that it be clearly understood that many of the so-called "religious beliefs" are actually closely related to primitive science (magic) and do not by any means express the concepts of the educated constituency of our culture who are related to religious organizations and traditions. Many of the latter are at the forefront of theological, philosophical, scientific, social and cultural advances.

Humanists, I suggest, should take another look at the apparently common assumption that they are the only ones who are rational, logical, and intellectually honest and enlightened.

As a member of the Tulsa Humanists, I support the organizations efforts. And I care enough about the group to hope that it will get on with the business or learning in depth about what goes on in the intellectual world of theists instead of tending simply to point to the antics of the least intellectual.

On the one occasion when I was asked to speak to the group, several of those there were visitors who were, in fact, theists. Two were clergypersons.

The Humanists present were very cordial. I appreciated that. However, their questions and personal conversations with me betrayed that they had acquired little knowledge about the real world of theistic intellectuals and about serious philosophic thought.

I am frustrated that my Sunday schedule prevents my attending the society's discussions. My absence, be it understood, is due only to schedule barriers; never to lack of interest and support.

Fraternally, Harold E. Hill


"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness."--Camus

5 comments:

Dan Nerren said...

Dr. Hill,

Thank you for your reflections on our local humanist group. I have posted your remarks on the HAT blog at www.tulsaha.blogspot.com so that others might read and reflect upon your comments.

I agree our time would be better spent learning as opposed to merely airing our opinions.

If we seem obsessed with "the antics of the least intellectual," it is because these folks now have a good deal of political power. They are succeeding in placing people on the courts whose philosophies will tend to weaken our civil liberties and to strengthen their ability to have their religiously inspired biases reflected in law. George Bush doesn't care what Martin Marty or Jim Wallis have to say; he is attuned to Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, Richard Land, and D. James Kennedy.

Could we some day in this country reach a point of no return when the theocrats consolidate political power and our civil liberties become nothing more than words on paper to be interpreted however the theocrats choose? How close or far away we are from that point, I cannot say; but we seem closer to that point today than we were six years ago.

Best,

Dan

Dan Nerren said...

Dr. Hill sent me the following:

Dan
I share your concern about theocrats and also support efforts to nullify their influence. So we have no difference of opinion on those matters.
Starting from there, I spend my time trying to elect Democrats and to get the message to them that my support depends in part on their resistance to theocracy.
It seems to me that reformation of our voting machinery and procedures should be the very first order of business of a Democrat Congress when it convenes in January.

As I envision it, the reformed system would include the use of paper ballots, simplified registration procedures and sufficient numbers of polling places to be located within walking distance of the voters in each precinct. Polls should be open on a Fall week-end from 7 a.m. Friday to 7 p.m. Sunday. Which week-end would depend on how local a given election was. This would serve the needs of night workers, women with children whose husbands could then 'baby sit' while the mother voted, and permit Muslims, adventists, Jews and Christians to vote without violating their religious obligations. The arrangement would obviate the necessity of declaring a holiday for voting. Any absentee ballot would be sealed and without examination be placed in the ballot box of its precinct promptly when it arrived. The ballot boxes (or paper-trail-producing voting machines) would be locked-down until all polls were closed from Maine to Hawaii in federal elections. Voting results anywhere would be locked down until all polls were closed everywhere.
We need to forbid financial contributions by any citizen or corporation to political campaigns and finance them by governmental funds of equal size to each candidate for a given office. [Any kind of 'bribery' would be a felony] The media of all kinds would be required by law to provide free access for a prescribed amount of time of space to each candidate for a given office. The amount both of money by the government and time and space by the media would have to be on a sliding scale based on the geographical area to which a given office was related.
No corporation would be permitted to use its money or in-kind services to any political campaign. (It may take legal action to divest corporations of civil rights [such as First-Amendment coverage]. As you are probably aware, the giving of those rights to non-citizens such as corporations was by accident)
I, personally, prefer "proportional representation voting" systems.to our current "plurality" system. It is very popular and successful in the majority of European countries.

Non illegitimi carborundum! (Don't let the bastards wear you down)

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