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The following list and article are from the Secular Humanist Bulletin, Volume 23, Number 2 (Summer 2007).
The Center for Inquiry/On Campus is happy to welcome nineteen new campus groups that have formed, or are in the process of forming, since March 2007:
If you attend one of these schools and would like to get involved or would like to work with us to support these groups, please e-mail Debbie Goddard at dgoddard [at] centerforinquiry.net.
I’ve heard it said that that there are no atheists in foxholes. I find the assumption that fear of death leads to certainty about religion odd. There’s no doubt that death is scary. For me, though, fear led to critical thinking and investigation rather than the ceasing of it.
At age sixteen, I was diagnosed with advanced-stage lymphoma that has since required two bone-marrow transplants and ongoing treatment. Starting at that young age, I have spent my life searching for the meaning behind my illness. I assumed, at the beginning of my search, that there was a higher reason for my fate. It became my mission to study and discover the order in the seemingly chaotic events of my life.
In searching, however, an unexpected thing happened. The closer I looked and the more questions I asked, the more inconsistent the various dogmatic religions were shown to be. The religions of my culture, as well as religions of other cultures, did not survive the most basic scrutiny. Simple appeals to logic broke apart the foundation and credibility of each faith. It was not until I stumbled on the Point of Inquiry podcast that I heard articulated the humanist perspective. Humanism acknowledges the chaotic nature of the physical universe and affirms our duty as humans to bring both order and beneficence to the chaos. Unlike my search into the various religions, in the case of humanism, the more scrutiny I applied, the more humanism was shown to be accurate.
For instance, upon scrutiny, it is clear that there was not a higher purpose to the tsunami of December 2004. The earth’s plates shifted, causing an earthquake under the ocean, and hundreds of thousands died. The waves did not spare the righteous nor target the wicked. It was a chaotic event, governed by the laws of physics not philosophy.
In relation to my cancer, I was born with a defective immune system that does not kill cancer cells. Looking for meaning behind that fact is like looking for a ghost with a flashlight. If you are convinced that your house is haunted by a ghost, you can search endlessly for it. You may think that your inability to find the ghost is merely because it is hiding in a yet undiscovered location. The truth of the matter is, however, that there is no ghost. Maybe this is a sad fact. Maybe this means that you are living in a lonely, empty house. The truth may be harsh, but it is also liberating.
There is an empowerment in rationality. We have the power to better our lives and the lives of others. We can set our own goals and chart our own course with no predetermination of the outcome. We can conduct and fund research to cure diseases. We can reject moral atrocities like slavery despite their explicit endorsement in the religious texts. We can gather evidence and discover the nature of our universe. In short, we can think for ourselves.
I know from experience that there are atheists in foxholes. Humanism has given me the only freedom and peace my mind has ever known.
–Jeffrey Harrison
Jeffrey Harrison attends Butler University. He can be reached at harrison.jeffrey [at] gmail.com.
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