Humanists; D Magazine layoffs

The Nightly Build...

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Be Good for Goodness' Sake

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, notes that the American Humanist Association is launching a holiday advertising campaign to raise awareness of humanism.

Blog readers unsurprisingly took offense. "Spanky" said, "I wish these humanists would stop trying to force their beliefs on us." Another reactionary Christian living in some alternative reality America, "G. Headrick," said, "Is it not ironic that these ads are allowed when an ad such as 'Why Not Believe in God?' would be considered so politically incorrect that it would not get posted?"

Wow. What feverish imaginations at work. The Humanists are simply doing what countless churches do at this time of year with their ads saying come celebrate the season with us. Judging by some of the comments here, you'd think the humanists were pillaging churches and stealing and brainwashing Christian babies. Where's the love, people? Where's the yuletide spirit?

The Christian proselytizers like "Jacquetta Alexander" were quick to proclaim, "God is good. God is love. There is no good without God." Another, "Scott," said, "Where [do] morality, values, and "empathy, fairness, and experience" come from in humans. They have an origin. They don't just happen. The origin is God." Reader "Tom" argues, "The God deniers have a problem and it is evident here as it always is: when one denies the existence of God he has no motivation for being 'good' because there is ultimately no one to answer to." In contrast, he asks, "Why do you think that almost all of the charitable works over the past 2 millenia have been done by religious people, particularly Christians?" Tom points to Mother Theresa as an example of a Christian woman who took care of the poor out of love and devotion to God.

Social cooperation has been a hugely successful evolutionary adaptation for humans. Doing good is hardwired into us. In a sense, the Christians who preach that we are saved by grace, not by good works, are right, even if they don't understand why. We do good, not by choice, but because of millions of years of evolutionary tinkering with the species.

In America, Christianity is the dominant religion and atheists are shunned. That alone is enough to explain why most charitable work is associated with the religious.

Mother Theresa is maybe not so good an example of Christian charity as you might think. She famously despaired of the difference between her public face and her private thoughts. She prayed and felt emptiness in return. The silence was so deafening she doubted the existence of God, but was afraid to give voice to her fears. She wrote to her confessor: "Where is my Faith... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. I have no Faith." And yet she labored on. As do others of no faith, some of whom consider themselves humanists.

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When You Make The News, Go Dark

The Frontburner blog of D Magazine was down this weekend and most of today, replaced by a simple "Hello, World" page. Now we know why. Tim Rogers tells us that D Magazine was in the process of letting go 19% of its staff. As Tim Rogers explains, "Our comments section began to spread news that some even in our company didn’t know yet. In deference to our co-workers and friends, we shut down all our blogs."

I won't criticize management for sparing employees the shock of reading of layoffs in the press instead of hearing it from management directly. But, just as when The Dallas Morning News suffered its own layoffs, I find it ironic that news media cover the news in their own newsroom most poorly. If the future of news is local and news media cannot be counted on to cover the most local news of all, news made in their own newsrooms, then the future of news media is troubled indeed.

Nevertheless, I do sincerely pass on my condolences to everyone looking for other employment today and even those who were spared... this time. The news business is going through tough times.