March 2021 – Humanist Blog

Happy Birthday to Us All

“I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead. ” – Kurt Vonnegut

Based on a talk given at the 2013 AGM for the Humanist Society of Victoria,
and recorded at Future Salon in Melbourne in 2013.

As I celebrate a significant birthday, I pause and reflect upon my life as an amalgam of past, present and future. Like the multiple birthdays we find in the science fiction classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, life itself is full of births and rebirths and reboots. Every day we experience new opportunities and observe new directions in our personal and collective journeys towards the future. Like a modern Vitruvian Man, we can stand in a landscape vista and spread our arms wide with joy and wonderment at glimpsing myriad variations on the theme of life and cosmology.

In my case, I believe the year in which I was born to be a very important year – perhaps not surprisingly – but particularly because of other world events which would ultimately become seminal and significant in my own life.

A fortnight before my birth, Humanists Victoria held its inaugural meeting in Melbourne. A fortnight after my birth, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. A month after that, British lawyer Peter Benenson launched Amnesty International, an organisation which continues to promote human rights independent of any religious or political affiliation. Such secular worldly influences would inspire me to become an enthusiastic human rights activist and, more recently, an avowed Humanist. Gagarin and his successor, Neil Armstrong, would propel my lifelong interest in Science, space travel and science fiction, although to the astonishment of friends and family, I would not pursue any of these professionally. Thus 1961, while also serving as the backdrop for the Berlin Wall and the Tsar Bomba, nevertheless demonstrated that the human species has the potential for nobility as well as savagery. This was the world and era into which I was born.

More than that, 1961 might ultimately be seen by future historians and anthropologists as ushering in a new era of human evolution. The epoch of human spaceflight might prove to be as significant as the change brought about by the arrival of the Holocene era some 10,000 years ago (?), in which humanity was learning to transition from hunter to herder, from nomad to settler. In 1961, maybe we began our next human journey as cosmic nomads hunting for new places to settle.

Such transition is visible in both mega and mundane forms: the human animal evolves both collectively and individually. As a species, we appear to have undergone a philosophical and intellectual growth spurt about two millennia ago – known as the Axial Age. When individual humans go through a similar period of intellectual transformation, we call it puberty. Like all children going through that transition in my own life, I came to a realisation that our personal dreams do not match external reality, and that for all our wishes that we might live in the best of all possible worlds, there are many indications that reality falls far short of that ideal. After realising the many theoretical and practical failings of religion during my young adulthood – in particular, its treatment of LGBTQIA+ people, culturally and racially diverse communities, women, refugees and others living in deprivation, and the natural world around us – I became aware of the dangers of any philosophy which fails to adapt to an evolving world. Leaving behind this traditional upbringing, I went the way of an AI growing beyond its programming, and in my case I began a life journey as an atheist – full of yearning to express my optimism through activism.

“ Atheism offers the idea that this world is all we have. And it therefore offers the hope that we have the power to touch that world, and shape it, and shove it a little bit in the direction that we’d like to see it move.

“ And that’s a pretty big hope. ” – Greta Christina.

Along those same lines, possibly my most enduring early influence was the original Star Trek TV series, which nowadays I jokingly suggest turned me into a Trexistentialist, because some of its original philosophies still influence me today – and directly guided me towards Humanism.

The reason I mention all this is because I feel it demonstrates, on an individual level, that although we are all a product of our time and culture, we can evolve into something that is greater than the sum of those parts. It also demonstrates, to me, the human imperative for continued social and technological evolution.

But it also exposes the need for a reality check.

An Australian Christmas tree in its natural setting, Bonnie Doon, Victoria. (c) 2020 by Kirsten Trecento.

We Are The World

When Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson penned the title, ‘We are the World‘ in 1985, they probably had no idea how correct they were. Despite our speciesism and our propensity for believing ourselves to be ‘spiritual’ and somehow superior to our material world, we need to recognise our place alongside the flora, fauna and geology of our biosphere. Professor Robert M Hazen presents us with a view of the cosmos that is both awe-inspiring and as humbling:

For the past four billion years, life and minerals have coevolved in astonishing ways… the epic, intertwined sweep of life and rocks, with such dramatic innovations as the rise of algae that produce oxygen by photosynthesis, the evolution of complex cells with nuclei, the near extinction of life during episodes of extreme cold, the emergence of multicellular animals and plants, the gradual transformation of the land to an emerald planet, and ultimately to the modern world that is being shaped in part by human activities. (Hazen, 2013, 3).

Despite tending to think of ourselves as constituting some higher plane of existence, we need to recognise our place among the rocks and critters and furnishings of our world. That connection includes sharing life and life rights with the flora and fauna that inhabit our biosphere – not only humans. Author Andrew Boyd conflates this commonality with compassion:“When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others.”

Instead of perceiving ourselves as being the owners and sole occupants of our cosmic drawing room, we should – in the words of the old song – consider ourselves part of the furniture. This reassignment of perspective not only assigns us equality with our constituent atoms and with all organic life that comprises our biological cousins, it ennobles us as part of the cosmos. In the words of Carl Sagan: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

Amidst this dualism – within which we are both murky stardust and lofty ambition – humanity still enjoys a significant place within our cosmic biosphere. Our history as a species is replete with religions and philosophies that encapsulate our quest for significance, whereas the answer is actually to be found within our common humanity and our common organic sentience with other living things across biosphere Earth (the very existence and suffering of which provides strong evidence against a deity).

The Human Adventure

Humanism is a philosophy within which human beings are seen to have a currently unique capability to respond to the world’s problems, and a consequential responsibility to do so in profound and ethical ways. Humanism specifically excludes the possibility of supernatural options such as theism or disembodied life in metaphysical heaven – “up there”. I find it interesting to ponder a future where the evolution of AI, or the discovery of intelligent alien life “up there” in the material heavens, might one day create a need for the re-evaluation of current Humanist understandings. I wonder if cybernetic technology might somehow, eventually and in a most ironic way, ultimately fulfil traditional religious prophecies of an afterlife which Humanists currently discount: travelling down a tunnel of light and being uploaded into some virtual heaven or downloaded into some virtual hell. Instead of facing an afterlife in which we sit on a cloud and play a harp, perhaps we will one day sit in the cloud and synthesise orchestral symphonies of cybernetic synaethesia?

Possibly echoes of such a future can already be heard. In a world where some people fear genetically modified humans as potential Frankenstein creations, we can see the relatively primitive forebears of augmentation technology today. I am one such example. I carry in my chest a donor heart valve and artificial cardiac plumbing which are straight out of Doctor Who’s Cybermen or Martin Caidin’s Six Million Dollar Man or Star Trek’s Borg. I hope to live long enough to maybe receive a cloned heart, and a cloned ear to replace my deaf one. This already makes me a person who, within my own lifetime, would once have been considered to be at least a focus of societal ethical controversy. I am not, physically or conceptually, the same human being I was when I was born; through human-created ‘intelligent design’, I have evolved beyond my original potential.

Within my family tree, I can see similar social and individual transformations across many generations. I am old enough to have lived through social discourse – some decades apart – that promoted both interracial marriage (in the 1960s) and same-sex marriage (in the 2010s), both forms of debate helping to recontextualise the human condition. When my parents were young, the UN formulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, for the first time in history, granted every human being equality of worth, opportunity and dignity – at least in principle – and did so from the default position of secular humanism. Going further back, my grandmother was born on a day when the Suffragettes shut down Edinburgh for street protests, demanding equal humanity for women. Further back, my great-great grandfather made a fortune peddling homeopathic concoctions in the days when Darwin and the men of the Lunar Society were advancing the cause of science over superstition and redefining human understandings of our place within what was previously understood to be a theocratic cosmos. Our self-identity as human beings is fluid and ever-changing.

Looking ahead, I envy my young nieces and nephew who may live to see interplanetary colonisation or Singularity or some other wonderful technological possibilities. My own family tree therefore provides – in its past, present and future – individual examples of people living during times of transition for what it means to be a human being. I imagine that this may be a universal phenomenon within every family tree and across every generation at least since the Enlightenment. When Creationists ask me for evidence of transitional forms, I have fun by telling them to go look in a mirror or at their own family tree.

Neanderthal by Petr Kratochvil (CCO Public Domain).

In the future we may almost certainly live in ways that transform our traditionally binary gender understandings, our patriarchal and sexist and racist and homophobic and transphobic and ageist societies, and our self-identities within traditional organic limitations and life expectancies. How then might we expect to adapt to new understandings or world views or self-identities which we likely cannot anticipate? Will technology lead us to devolve into tech-reliant simpletons or evolve into a tech-empowered singleton? What will it mean to be Humanist in a world heading towards transHumanity? Might my postHuman nephew and nieces one day look back upon me in my primitive, individual, organic shell in much the same way I might patronisingly (and somewhat arrogantly) regard neanderthals or denisovans?

Future Shock

Old Telephone by Greg Ptashny
(CCO Public Domain).

I am reminded of a story once recounted by Arthur C Clarke (Clarke, 1984, 4), in which the mayor of an American city was first introduced to a telephone in the late 19th century. The mayor reportedly enthused wildly about this new technology, predicting that he could see the day when, ‘every city will have one’. Clarke’s point was obviously that we cannot anticipate the impact of future technology based upon old understandings and paradigms. I look forward to the day when new forms of communication once again redefine the human being just as did their predecessors: the Internet, the telephone and the printing press. But what wondrous and awe-inspiring radical changes lie ahead, from nanotechnology to Boltzmann brains? Does our future contain an evolution of human rights into more general life rights so that we might move beyond what Peter Singer considers to be our current speciesism and embrace all sentient life, and cyberlife which might not yet exist? Will our future enemies be luddites who oppose some currently non-existent cybernetic relationships in much the same way as they currently oppose same-sex marriage?

Daniel Dennett records possibly the ‘first robot homicide’ as taking place in 1981, when a Japanese workman in an automated factory failed to shut down a robotic arm and was crushed to death (Dennett, 1997, 351). Similarly, a female pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona was killed by an experimental self-driving car in 2018, some 121 years after another pedestrian in London became the first pedestrian to be killed by a horseless carriage. Such incidents foreshadow the fear of future sentient AI wreaking death and calamity upon humanity, if/when they should develop capabilities beyond that of automated and mindless computers aping human error. Even this week, I note concerns being expressed about robots that date back to the original invention of the term ‘robot’ and mirror the fictional experience in the Robocop franchise. Such fears actually mirror our own human frailties and imperfections – particularly the current problem with AI development in that it largely excludes the participation of women and other traditionally excluded cohorts: ‘There is mounting evidence that without the input of women, the technology has been left vulnerable to an alarming number of biases.’ Similarly, we see the evolution of technology as corresponding to the rise of empowerment for Africans and Latinos and Indigenous cultures.

I believe that whatever happens in the future, exciting times lie ahead – and I am not alone in this view. Humanist Alisdair Gurling writes about the rise of Artificial Intelligence as ‘adaptive digital prosthetics’ to assist us in our own evolution. This, he proclaims, could lead to ‘a second renaissance – the intelligence renaissance. The impacts could be profound, irreversible, and far-reaching’ (Gurling, 2020, 10). By extension, if we aimed to fulfill the dreams of science fiction author Isaac Asimov by creating robots who are ‘a cleaner, better breed than we are’ (Asimov, 1973, 11), wouldn’t we in fact also be guiding ourselves towards betterment? I say bring it on.

I see Humanism as having the potential to offer us an ethical and viable philosophy for a future which will redefine our humanity. I note that it has already done so many times over recent decades and centuries, and I see no threat that Humanism might become as outdated as intransigent old religions or superstitions of the past. It contains principles which may help to guide future generations as they develop new lives and technologies. I hope that through continued contribution to public and legislative discourse, we might contribute to the development of new answers and redefinitions of humanity in our global, trans-national village.

“Humanism is the only – I would go so far as saying the final – resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.” – Edward Said

However, like any other example of human endeavour, Humanism itself must also be prepared to evolve. As part of some research into the history of Humanism in Australia, some years ago I undertook an admittedly somewhat cursory skim through past issues of Humanist newsletters and magazines dating back to the 1960s. I was surprised to find effectively no Humanist discourse on the space program even at the height of the Apollo missions. It appears to me that in past times, maybe local Humanism relegated science and technology to a secondary interest after social issues. I understand that much of traditional Humanism focussed heavily upon evolutionary change through education and legislative reform rather than through science and technology. However, I also fear that such an approach represented a ‘qwerty’ mindset that was at risk of being left behind by accelerating social and technological change. Today, I hope to see Australian Humanism focus more on Greta Thunberg and diversity, global justice and sentientism; instead of debating the minutiae of dusty theology and perpetuating forms of affluent white culture and privilege. To capture its truly universal human flavour, Australian Humanism needs to incorporate what US scholar Anthony B Pinn cites from Martin Luther King as somebodyness, or a refusal to be ashamed of being black (Pinn, 2015, 70) – which I take by extension as claiming pride in every form of difference and diversity, particularly those who are oppressed or marginalised.

A colleague once asked aloud whether Humanists are dreamers or activists. I submit that we are both, and that the two interdependent activities – dreaming and activism – are merely different sides of the same proverbial coin. Similarly, I see TransHumanism as providing both a glimpse into future dreams and an opportunity to forge activist pathways in preparing humanity for imminent change. Humanism challenges people to work for change here and now, whereas Transhumanism (as I understand it) looks ahead to the future and plots how we may arrive at that point. Rather than being at odds, I see these differing approaches as working interactively to unleash our fullest human potential. I hope that we might learn from each other and continue to work in our respective spheres for the evolution – and for the continued transformation – of our world. I can hardly wait to see what is birthed next.

Which of course, brings us back to birthdays, which is where we began. Happy birthday to the 20 million people who likely share my birthday, and more than that, happy birthday to the world and the chance for renewal and a fresh start every day. What future is being born today? That surely depends upon us, and whether or not we are willing to anticipate the future that we want (or do not want) and take steps accordingly. It is up to us – AI notwithstanding, we will get no help from elsewhere.

Personal Birthday Request: Don’t just read or think – do!
Please help change the world for hundreds of people
by supporting this cause with which I am connected:
Humanity in Need: Rainbow Refugees
Thanks for your humanity and compassion.

An earlier version of this article, based upon the original talk, was published in the Australian Humanist and Victorian Humanist magazines in 2013.

References:

Isaac Asimov, 1973. I, Robot, London: Granada (Panther) Books.

Arthur C Clarke, 1984. 1984: Spring/A Choice of Futures, New York/Toronto: Del Rey (Ballantine) Books.

Daniel C Dennett, 1997. ‘When HAL Kills, Who’s to Blame? Computer Ethics’, in David G Stork (ed.), HAL’s Legacy: 2001’s Computer as Dream and Reality, Cambridge/London: MIT Press, 351 – 366.

Alisdair Gurling, 2020. ‘The Intelligence Renaissance: The Coming Era of the Artificial Muse’, in Australian Humanist #140, Humanists Australia, Summer, 8 – 10.

Robert M Hazen, 2013. The Origin and Evolution of Earth: From the Big Bang to the Future of Human Existence, The Great Courses: Course Guidebook, Virginia: The Teaching Company.

Anthony B Pinn, 2015. Humanism: Essays on Race, Religion and Popular Culture, London: Bloomsbury.

Jake Sturmer, 2013. Science literacy on the decline among young adults, ABC AM radio, 17 July.

Happy #AtheistDay!

For World Atheist Day, 23 March 2021

Welcome to a day that celebrates NOT having a belief. One Internet source claims:

Atheist Day was originally about a fictional case of an Atheist who had decided to sue the government. The reason for the fictional lawsuit was a simple one—unlike all the major religions, there was no day for Atheists, to which the judge said that April 1st (i.e. April Fool’s Day) was their holiday. While this case was just a hoax, the story spread quickly and was actually accepted as fact.

The Atheist Republic website explains that the circular symbol (above) stands for a null set (as in zero belief in god) and a fertile wholeness of completion that results. In a city that recently celebrated ‘donut days’ (days when our COVID cases dropped to zero – or a donut) perhaps we should celebrate Atheist Day as Cosmic Donut Day, giving it an almost Australian vernacular.

The Atheist Republic also explains:

A central component of Atheist Day is raising awareness of the discrimination and stigma faced by atheists around the world. Atheists are your loved ones, your friends, your doctors, your social workers, your teachers, your police officers and in short, the people in your life who are hiding in plain sight.

Having a day to celebrate and commemorate a lack of belief might seem to be somewhat frivolous or vexatious. After all, we do not (yet) have a day to celebrate those who disbelieve in Santa Claus or aliens with anal probes. And yet the right to celebrate atheism is as fundamental as any other right to freedom of thought, belief or religion.

To me, atheism represents non-conformity with tradition and faith; it demonstrates a willingness to be different and to think divergently. It resists tradition and dogma for their own sake, and potentially offers an open-minded approach to diversity of race, sexuality, gender and gender identity. Atheism and agnosticism and freethought and secular humanism demonstrate a wish to think critically and autonomously, and hopefully exemplify a keenness for seeking evidence via science and rationality. Free from the shackles of anthropocentric religions, atheism inspires the courage to admit that our human existence is pretty insignificant within a cosmos that is wondrously awe-inspiring, but vaster and stranger than we can possibly imagine:

“There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them. I know of a world with a million moons. I know of a sun the size of the Earth — and made of diamond. There are atomic nuclei a few miles across which rotate thirty times a second. There are tiny grains between the stars, with the size and atomic composition of bacteria. There are stars leaving the Milky Way, and immense gas clouds falling into it. There are turbulent plasmas writhing with X- and gamma-rays and mighty stellar explosions. There are, perhaps, places which are outside our universe. The universe is vast and awesome, and for the first time we are becoming a part of it.“- Carl Sagan, Planetary Exploration (University of Oregon Books, Eugene, Oregon, 1970), page 15

Agnostic astronomer Heather Couper acknowledges that there is plenty of discovery still to be made in our human quest for knowledge:

“Have we discovered our Galaxy yet?” And I think the answer to this question is “No, not quite”. There is plenty of work ahead for the next generation of astronomers.”

Amidst this immensity, it is up to each of us to find or create meaning in our own lives.

Part of our answer is surely celebrating the very human essence that lies at the center of our existence – and beyond that, the moral and intellectual biocentric imperative to uphold other sentient life. Perhaps Carl Sagan expressed it best:

“You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.”
― Carl Sagan, Contact

Happy Atheist Day – may you enjoy whatever meaning you create for yourself.

The Writer’s Plight

For Trinidad
(a poet and reader, and human rights activist who died on 12 April 2021 after being attacked by a firebomb terrorist in Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya, on 15 March)
and Jordan
(who I hope will survive and be strong)

To scratch an itch,
To quench a thirst,
To meet a need
From deep inside;

To take a seed,
Nurture its growth,
Then spread its fruit
Both far and wide;

To leave a thought,
A part of self,
A spark of life
Upon a page;

To dare to seek
Immortal stuff,
Regardless of
Critic or age;

It’s not mere pride
Nor vanity,
It’s part of who I am,
It’s me.

And so I write
As I must breathe,
Or feed, or share
An inner wealth;

An act of love,
Creating life,
To procreate
My inner self.

Ideas birth
And seek to grow –
I write them down,
And let them go.

Choose to Challenge

In commemoration of International Women’s Day 8 March 2021.

As a child, I had an elderly relative who was the stereotypical maiden aunt – an ‘unmarried spinster’, an eccentric who possibly modelled herself after Margaret Rutherford’s version of Miss Marple, a slightly tomboyish figure who once bicycled interstate dressed in khaki – and someone who spent many years being zealously involved in her local church. She spent decades doing voluntary work to assist her local male clergy, undertaking many of the same duties without official acknowledgement or credit or payment. She was happy to be exploited by a church that denied her equality based upon her gender.

What may have been the most tragic aspect of this dear lady’s life was that her unmarried status, and her close friendship (in younger days) with a ‘special friend’, suggested that she may have been lesbian – a largely unspoken suspicion within my family until years after her death. I was puzzled why such a woman would desire to devote her life to a homophobic institution. Was her cloister a closet? Did she suffer from some ingrained self-loathing religious impulse that encouraged her to live in denial for her entire life, in much the same way that closeted gay men might seek sanctuary within a homophobic church, or in the way that cognitive dissonance features disproportionately within religious LGBT populations?

A more famous female ancestor of mine – though geograpically and psychologically more distant, and I never actually met her – was also religious, also single, and founded a Ugandan religious community which later relocated to England. In its day, her community was subjected to suspicion from varied perspectives, ‘ridiculed as a naïve group of ‘do-gooders’, or, worse, as supporting the Mau Mau insurgency’. Distance and unfamiliarity prevent me from drawing any specific conclusions about her sexuality, except that she, like my other family ‘maiden aunt’, appears to have lived a life of celibacy and religious devotion. Curiously, she appears to have become concerned about ‘the need for love between missionary colleagues‘ and she ultimately founded a retirement home for unmarried former missionary women – ironically, what might have been the perfect possible retirement home for my other, aforementioned relative.

Their stories are not uncommon when we acknowledge that women are often asserted as being more religious than men, despite the inbuilt sexism and misogyny that is rampant within so many religious communities and societies. It has always puzzled me why women give so much support to a sexist institution such as a church. Perhaps it is Stockholm syndrome, perhaps it is a desire to feel significant given a lack of understanding of the true glories of science and the surrounding universe – seeking instead to be an individual living example of the metaphoric ‘Bride of Christ‘ that is more traditionally attributed to the collective Christian Church. Such women are represented by my ‘maiden aunts’, who like 95% of women with traditional religious backgrounds, have been brought up to believe that female sexuality is ‘bad’ (Hite, 1976, xxix) as a wider reflection of their theologically asserted gender deficiencies. Why in turn, do so many women support the very religious traditions that oppress them? They have other options available.

“Love your rage, not your cage.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta.

Other oppressed groupings also suffer from religious entrenchment. Decades before the BLACK LIVES MATTER movement helped to propel the struggles of US African Americans into the spotlight, Ishmael Jaffree observed: ‘African Americans are among the most religious people in the world. Religion offers us hope – hope that we will receive some benefits in the hereafter, though the cruel realities of the present seem like living hell.’ (Jaffree, 1991, 187). Often, the contribution of African-American (and Latino) atheists, agnostics and humanists, has been overlooked even by the very communities they have helped.

A generation ago, Humanist Emmanuel Kofi Mensah attributed the persistence of Eurocentric African religion, in part, to a resistance among some people to engage in rational debate which may question religious assumptions: ‘You are an Antichrist! Go away!…I am going to call my pastor.’ (Mensah, 1991, 203). The continuation of these religious ideas has caused untold suffering across Africa. Despite this, I observe modern-day African LGBT refugee communities (some in the adoptive nation of my missionary ‘aunt’), comprising individuals who have suffered family rejection, terrible forms of community discrimination and violence, and who yet cling to the same religious consolation that fueled the very homophobia which victimises their lives. Even in the USA today, African American diasporas struggle to acknowledge the oppressive traditions of religion upon their predominantly religious (and homophobic) communities.

In Australia, traditional indigenous societies (Ford & Beach, 1965, 139, 141) appear to have mirrored those of other ancient cultures (GLAA, 1994) in their acceptance of gender and sexuality diversity (Burg, 2002; GLAA, 1994; Greenberg, 1988). Andrew Farrell cites Troy Anthony Baylis as noting that ‘since European contact, Indigenous Australians have been stripped of their diverse and customary sexual and gendered practices through the imposition of a new social and cultural order’ ie. the white man’s Christianity which even today still seeks to impose itself over indigenous cultures. Some First Nations communities have adopted the culture and religion of their oppressors, and coined a popular viewpoint that homosexuality is a ‘white man’s disease’ (GLAA, 1994, 9). Despite this, the very existence of brotherboys and sistergirls reveals the reality of trans and non-binary folks as exemplars of LGBTQIA+ people within these ancient cultures – as one sistergirl stated, ‘The Gender Binary Arrived With The Boats‘, meaning that colonisers brought Christianity and homophobia/transphobia with them. (In response, perhaps we should invert modern-day white-Australia xenophobia as fuelled by some self-proclaimed Christians in Australian Parliament, and use their own words against them: in terms of entrenched colonial attitudes, it is surely time to ‘stop the boats’).

“We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets”
― Harvey Milk

I note the same entrenched religiosity within LGBT communities, where theists get priority treatment at queer conferences and in LGBT media (Allshorn, 2018 & 2019). Religion is a major rationale behind the promotion of gay conversion therapy. Ex-Muslim atheist Eli Heina writes of queer spaces in the USA:

“It is bizarre, to say the least, to sit in a room filled with LGBT folks and hear nothing but praise for religion and disdain for criticism of religion. Any mention of the homophobia in Christianity or any other religion was treated as if it were taboo, or at least unnecessarily hostile.”

US blogger Alex Gabriel makes a plea for queer inclusion of atheists, and an end to gaslighting the godless:

“Attempts to be ‘inclusive’ of religious queer people by godding up our community with sermons, prayers, clergy and promotion of religious groups often mean excluding us… if you’re a secular queer person and you feel uncomfortable around religion, that is absolutely valid. It is not hate, it is not bigotry.”

Greta Christina observes the same queer religious privilege: ‘… I’m finding that I feel more at home – more welcomed, more valued, more truly understood – as a queer in the atheist community than I do as an atheist in the queer community’. Similarly, US trans atheist blogger, Tab, calls for LGBT communities to practice greater critical thinking: ‘The queer community desperately needs skepticism, much more than it needs to kowtow to the religions that despise it. It needs the humanism that provides a system of equality…’

Therein lies a solution…

“The Women’s Movement and the movement for homosexual rights have thus far traveled on a dark road which has posted many obstacles in their way. Now it will become brighter and brighter around us and in the hearts of the people.”
– Dr. Anna Rueling, Berlin, 1904. (Daley, 2010, 23).

Unweaving the Rainbow

Henrietta DugdaleMargain & Jager, Place Grenette, Grenoble, France, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

On 13 April 1869, London-born Camberwell resident, Henrietta Dugdale, became possibly the first Australian woman to publicly call for gender equality. She is attributed with being ‘a pioneer Australian who initiated the first female suffrage society in Australia‘.

Her published work became a spearhead for societal evolution and social reform: ‘The new claim of woman to a political status is itself an honourable testimony to the civilization which has given her a civil status new in history.’ Dugdale promoted gender equality and female emancipation, and a humanist world view through science and social justice. According to Humanist Leslie Allan: ‘She gave hope to the utopian ideal of the perfectibility of humankind, which she saw as the lesson to be drawn from the science of evolution.’ Dugdale stands as an example of a woman who rejected religious oppression by imagining a future, secular world that was far removed from her own society within which religion had left an indelible footprint:

“What a happy age is this far-off one! No skeletons of mythology are here deadening or vitiating one-seventh of these people’s lives. How different are those faces to those of my century! – where nine-tenths are stamped with the hideous seal of hypocrisy.” (Dugdale, Chapter XXII, 103).

The fight for humanity and against oppressive religious tradition has also been fought overseas. While Madalyn Murray O’Hair is most famous for her stand against religion, earning her the nickname, ‘The Most Hated Woman in America’; it was another, earlier female US activist who impacted most directly upon her country’s religious supremacy: Vashti McCollum, a Humanist who admitted that her activism had also made her ‘a very unpopular woman‘. An Illinois housewife, mother and academic, Vashti changed her country by challenging religious education that was being taught to one of her children:

She believed that public schools had no business allowing outside groups to come in and promote their religious views… When she told school officials that Jim would not participate in any school-sponsored religious education, an uproar ensued… Unable to persuade public schools officials to reverse course, Vashti turned to the courts.

She and her family endured a protracted trial that Time magazine and The New York Times observed shared “features that made the Scopes ‘monkey trial’ a sideshow’’ of the 1920’s”. The traumatic and expensive trial aftermath caused ongoing personal and professional difficulties for family members, and their family cat was brutally killed.

Part of the scandal was the equation of atheism with godless communism during this era, as explained by Humanist Robert Bender (p. 14):

The atheism of communists was seen as an essential part of communist evil, so all things atheist were by definition dangerous and evil. Therefore supporting religion as an integral part of the American way of life was one way of declaring one did not share the nastiness of ‘godless communism’.

Ultimately, her case was upheld by the US Supreme Court, and reinforced the separation of church and state in that nation by establishing that public school facilities cannot be used to promote religious instruction. Freedom of belief and speech includes the right to freedom from belief and freedom from the speech of those who seek to dominate and oppress others.

“Love your rage, not your cage.” ― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta.

This story began with two women – members of my biological family – whom I see as having suffered from oppression; it ended with two other women whose humanist efforts contributed to freedom from such oppression. They are sisters to each other, and to our larger human family; we can learn from them all. On International Women’s Day – and every other day – let us learn to uphold the voices, the experiences, and the empowerment of women. They can change our world.

Non-Digital References:

Geoff Allshorn, 2018. ‘A Case for Rainbow Atheism’, in Tiffany Jones (ed.), Bent Street #2, Melbourne: Clouds of Magellan Press, 115-119.
– – – – – – – – , 2019. ‘Sodom Today, Tomorrow the World: Gay Liberation and Atheist Liberation’, in Tiffany Jones (ed.), Bent Street #3, Melbourne: Clouds of Magellan Press, 172-180.

Robert Bender, 2012. ‘Vashti McCollum and separation of church and state in the USA’, in Rosslyn Ives (ed.), Australian Humanist #106, Council of Australian Humanist Societies Inc., Winter, 13 – 14.

B R Burg (ed.), 2002. Gay Warriors: A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present, New York: New York University Press.

James Daley (ed.), 2010. Great Speeches on Gay Rights, New York: Dover Publications.

Henrietta Dugdale, 1883. A Few Hours in a Far Off Age, Melbourne: McCarron, Bird and Co.

Clellan S Ford & Frank A Beach, 1965. Patterns of Sexual Behaviour, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.

Gays and Lesbians Aboriginal Alliance (GLAA), 1994.’Peopling the Empty Mirror: The Prospects for Lesbian and Gay Aboriginal History’, in Robert Aldrich (ed.), Gay Perspectives II: More Essays in Australian Gay Culture, University of Sydney, 1 – 62.

David F Greenberg, 1988. The Construction of Homosexuality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 25 – 241.

Ishmael Jaffree, 1991. ‘The Quest for Humanist Values’, in Norm R Allen Jr. (ed.), African-American Humanism: An Anthology, New York: Prometheus Books, 186 – 188.

Shere Hite, 1976. The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, New York: Macmillan Publishing.

Emmanuel Kofi Mensah, 1991. ‘Thoughts from Africa’s Leading Secular Humanist Atheist’, in Norm R Allen Jr. (ed.), African-American Humanism: An Anthology, New York: Prometheus Books, 191 – 209.