Humanists With Children

beliefnet

Your thesis then, is "the very existence of religion is an affront to womens' progress", correct? IronLDS

Talk about misinterpreting a post and fighting a strawman! But to respond to the strawman, religious influence in Western society is an affront to women's progress, as it is the source of the property status of women and the concept that women should STFU and stay home.  All the talk of separate but equal roles is just more religious BS to justify keeping women barefoot, uneducated and pregnant. 

As noted earlier humanist men support women in all roles totally ignoring their haughty status as made in the image of God.  I even know of humanist men who assume the role of househusband to provide their children with proper nurturing while their wives work full+ time at their economic comparative advantage role in society.  She may well be a better mom than he is but her overall worth to society is higher as a medical professional e.g. than his as contract laborer.  More commonly they share both roles usually to the detriment of their careers, more so for the woman, due to the fact that she is working above her station, but both chose children and careers, rather than not having children.  Which by the way is a common choice for humanists as their service to their society as full+ time professionals may be more important to them than raising cannon fodder.  Their legacy is their social service rather than another mouth for the world to feed.

Happiness and Suffering.

Beliefnet

 

What awareness has you come to you through happiness?  What awareness has come through suffering?  -  Seefan

Happiness, both for those important to me and for myself brings awareness that my behavior especially my social behavior is correct and moral.  Technically it means that dopamine and serotinin are stimulating the social awareness compliance centers in the brain to produce the feeling of pleasure in complying with social rules for good behavior.  

Suffering, both for those important to me and for myself means that something is seriously awry in my social system and I must do whatever is necessary to repair the damage.  As an example I hear a baby crying in a burning building indicating that it is suffering.  Since a universal evolutionary imperative for social animals is to protect the next generation at any cost including a serious threat of survival for the adult, I am compelled to enter the probably fatal environment to attempt to get the baby out.  If I can get the baby out of a window safely, the dopamine and serotinin will activate the social compliance centers to mitigate the pain and suffering I feel from the fire.  If I can get out the window myself great, if not I have done the socially necessary thing and will die happy as the building collapses around me.  

Please note that death is the other bookend to my life and nothing follows.  My social group may remember me as a hero, but I won't be aware of that except momentarily as the building collapses.  But no matter. I have done other beneficial things for my society, and when death comes the dopamine and serotinin will flood the social compliance centers so at death I will be happy and I will indeed rest in peace.   

No God. Just evolutionary success that allows the baby to live to enjoy my legacy.

On Blood Donations

Banshee Arts

Blood and kinship. In some contexts, the two are synonymous. We say that we share blood with someone if we are familially related to them, if we are ‘blood kin’. Sharing blood is also understood as a way to establish kinship where it does not exist from birth: the old blood brotherhood or sisterhood. Why does this work (or to look at it another way), why is it believed to work? Because our blood is the essence of our life – it is the vehicle and condensed liquid form of life force. To share that is to be kin.

To share that is to be kin.  

A couple of hundred donations many shared with several patients in need.  Call it a thousand unknown kinfolk of mine out there.   Makes it hard to think badly of anyone.  Eh, brother or sister?

Nails in the Religious Coffin: Sex, Drugs, and Contraception

Nails in the Religious Coffin: Sex, Drugs, and Contraception - Beliefnet

Controlling sex and drugs is certainly a huge issue for humanity. Which is the Achilles heel of religion. Religion wants the only source of extacy to be God or at least Herm humble representative on earth that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the over decorated balcony. Having fun in bed? God will send you to hell! A little too much booze at the party? Better spend a lot of time in the confessional.

The other related nail in the religious coffin is female contraception. If you can't keep them barefoot and pregnant, why on earth would they want to go to church and listen to all that sexist garbage.

Atheism's contribution to these issues is not so much providing answers, as exposing the religious answers as BS and stinking BS at that. Atheists have a variety of social groups that they can choose to provide the moral and ethical guidance on these issues. These days governments are as useless as religion for this purpose.

It will be interesting to see if social media will ultimately provide this function. The churches certainly think so. Every church has its Web2.0 network up. Some universities are trying to fill the gap for non-believers. Music and arts groups are also providing social networks outside the churches. Atheist groups are hopeless, they can't even agree on what an atheist is let alone what moral and ethical socialization should be for an atheist. See the Blag Hag discussion of gender issues at an atheist gathering

My guess is that self selected Facebook groups will emerge as the socializing force for the non-religious.

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Economic Success and Community Service

Intuitive vs. Rational thinking - Beliefnet Forums: "Just because the brilliant doctor is paid well for using his intelligence to cure cancer, does not mean he is not using his inherited gift to serve the community."