good evening welcome to moral politics i'm your host valerie to rico and this is our monthly series christianity in the public square or perhaps we should call it religion in the public square because since nine eleven conversations about religion in this country ha changed radically a group of nonbelievers who had been largely quiet before steps started speaking out in saying we can no longer afford belief in belief we can no longer afford to give deference to beliefs without  evidentiary basis and at the same time there were another group of people also nonbelievers who began saying we need to if we're going to ask people to give up competing tribal religions religions with mutually exclusive truth claims we need to create positive alternatives some of the people who began speaking out and that line of thinking are humanists and here with us tonight is ron renard of north puget sound humanist association thank you tonight as this conversation has heated up in our country one of the things that happens is that people who are religious sometimes called religionists have been saying that atheists and agnostics and others are actually you know they talk about fundamentalist atheists they say that non belief requires as much faith as belief and they say that atheism or non theism is a religion and so i want to kind of get a sense as we have our conversation tonight is is atheism religion is humanism or religion well of course i mean that's just a term they try to use to put us in the same box that they're basically so no it's not so you call yourself though a humanist celebrant what does that mean well i'm a human a celebrant and what that means i perform duties duties in the community somewhat now just analogous to a you know a priest or a chaplain might do but we do it in rites of passage that all society  done through the ages were non religious and we provide those same ceremonies that need that people need in and one of the for continuity in their lives like way well marriage memorials funerals naming ceremonies dedications we do all those type of things i do all those type of things but i don't invoke any religion or religious connotations in those as a human to celebrate you stand up in front of a congregation of people a gathering of people to perform a marriage to get to give last rites if you could call it that i don't know what you call correct we do exactly what i do i have done where ins that is if you came into a wedding as a religious person you would never know that that was not a religious wedding because but the only thing we would do in that wedding is pray or invoke the word of god in a typical humanist celebrant wedding what would you talk about instead we use the same poems songs that people might use to celebrate that event but we don't use those of the poems that relate to a deity or to praising the deity for allowing these people to be married i say and so instead of being kind of a focus on god having brought two people together it's simply a celebration of love of their community of their families having brought them to the point that then they can yes correct in them bringing themselves there it's their commitment it's about them it's not about the church it's not about god it's not about raising their children in the church it's about them making committed to themselves their family their community as a loving couple and be that gay or  straight even so you know you to do describe that work a kind of performing a wedding ceremony performing that kind of welcoming a child into the world those sort of rituals of coming and going the transitions in our lives it sounds like  religion so if you humanism isn't a religion what is it well it's a moral philosophy of life it's basically taking you know all the good things of the enlightenment of what we consider in the american society our democracy our our willingness to work better society and of that that's the moral philosophy of humanism and there are all you know grades and you can go up and down and all over the spectrum of what humanism might be but that in essence that's basically what it is is there a set of values or principles that humanist broadly agree on well we agree on you know basically you would be you know the human rights you know the ending of poverty everybody every individual should have the ability to work to their full potential i mean all the things that supposedly we as americans cherish is is basically the that the philosophy of what humanism is it's the raising up of society of people to be all that they can be in in in a positive way in the world but without god like some people would say well your your opinions are no more valid than anyone else's what basis is there for morality what if i want to live in a society where i can just there's no rules and i can get as much as i want for myself what's to say that my philosophy is any worse than yours is well i guess all philosophies of opinions but i just don't really believe that in a society that works people can get all they want it doesn't work that way i mean if you're living in a society you're living because you get along with your neighbors you work together if you're going to be the big person on the block or in the tribe that's taking advantage and slate in enslaving people or you know using them fodder whatever people are going to business with you people don't want you as your neighbor so morally if you go back in history as the human race developed that's why we developed in the side is we have morality is more of a society based way for people to get along than anything else it is not the only get them by any means what you're saying is we have morals because without them we can't thrive where social creatures we only thrive when we can kind of get along with each other transact business with each other provide mutual assistance enjoy each other's company that's how it basically works out so morals are in society a means for us to conduct the daily lives with dignity now there is at  i know you did a show with bill alford not too long ago talking about whether whether humanist can and do have a basis for morality the question of whether people can be good without god obviously i think the research is that people can be good without god  but but but some people still have doubts about that why do people question it well because i don't think a lot of people take the time to really maybe do their own research or or try to understand the different  philosophies of what is happening in the world and humanism is not a new philosophy but it's an old possible it's never been really articulated maybe well enough maybe since like i said before the in lightman to now it's come into the position where people if they just maybe took the time and could get past their prejudices over religion and whatnot they might understand that humanism is probably a far more saner approach to a moral and happy society in life evangelical christians have what they call the spiritualize what would be the four spiritual laws of humanism well i think the four spiritual laws of humanism would be well i'd guess you would say if you want to keep it in school i always consider do unto others if you do it yourself is a very moral law that was probably long before there were before was ever in any religious tax because people just knew how to do that would be you know protecting your your your family and you know being involved in your community i can't really say that there's four tenets other than the tenets are this like i had said earlier is is is the purpose of of living that moral that moral life of trying to you know make the community you live in a better community for the least for the least of us it's interesting that when i asked about for specialized one jump to mind immediately maybe there is one spiritual law of humanism because what you what you said immediately without even thinking is to want to others as you would have them do unto you that the golden rule the golden rule and you don't and it's not a religious rule it's not a spiritual rule if you know a lot of people think that that is in the bible it's not in the bible but no it's not and in fact it's in many forms in many different religions there's a place called it is at the ontario center for religious tolerance on line and they provide a listing of the golden rule and something like twenty or thirty different spiritual traditions including secular philosophies well just goes to show you that as we said earlier there are more al morals and suffered develop through societal pressures over the millenniums that we've been here that we realize that if we don't honor that we will never survive as a society so you're saying that convergence the fact that this golden rule comes up in so many different traditions in so many different cultures over centuries and centuries is because it's a  necessity the reality is we cannot thrive as social beings unless at some level unless we treat each other like we would want to be treated exactly it's a humane way to treat each other  problems some people have with the term humanism at least from what i've heard is that it is so human centric so that it basically says as religion often does our species and only our species is what matters well i don't think humanism says that humanism is is like i said earlier it's a way to live your life and as being human as myself i'm concerned about the environment i'm concerned about you know the animals in the environment that all relates to that now humanism would provoke promote a a you know a sustainable environment a sustainable society so so we would continue to want to work that with that but it doesn't mean that we have to have a religious connotation to do that so humanism definitely deals with humans but it doesn't necessarily it doesn't include just us as humans it's the most important thing the most important thing as a society is to you know achieve a balance in the sand like we were going through today with the oil them things that you do oil we're not using you know renewable resources and all these things that kind of are causing our society to weaken humanism would say we need to work together to promote an ongoing society that would be good for everyone and raise up that that issue where you know i can see how you could talk about global warming for example or using up oil as a humanistic thing because you could say what we're doing is we're basically using up the legacy of future generations we're spending their bank account in essence but  like the word human is right there in the heart of it it's like the christian idea that people were made in the image of god people and only people were made in the image of god isn't that part of just this broader species centrism i don't think so no i don't think humanism means that i mean i have no problem with if it does mean that but to me it doesn't i mean it is about it it is about humans i mean with that so we are with the dominant species on this planet and we just need to get our act together of th planet maybe in future generations is going to be a place where that we'll all want to be in anymore because you know the end of times aren't coming in lest we bring them about i have a question for you which i think probably is hazy in the minds of a lot of people and that is what is the difference between atheism and humanism there's so many terms that get thrown around free thinkers skeptic but you know atheists humanist agnostic what do they all mean that's a good question you know you can go on the definitions of atheism as much as well but i guess atheism to me just to me means that there is just a lack of a deity ok atheism is not a religion is just a knowledge there is no deity and agnostic agnostic is just somebody on the fence or doesn't want to make up their mind i think they're a closet atheist if you want my true my they're afraid to say they're an atheist most exhausting for him my beauty a humanist is the philosophy i'm a i'm an atheist but i'm a humanist so my humanist is my philosophy of life the way i try to do my life live my life and what i tried what is right to follow the tenets of that so is it similar to the way a buddhist can also be an atheist yes yes a buddhist community is correct let me ask you about a few more terms freethinker what's that one well it's just another it's just another term in the freethought movement is that you know you have you have atheists you have the free thinkers you have the humanists you have the the different groups that call themselves different names which is just the way for some people feel comfortable with the title so can someone be a free thinker and an atheist and an agnostic and a humanist and a skeptic all at the same time yes they've they could be and they are yes what you're saying then is people pick labels that most represent what they how they want to identify themselves or what they want to call attention to in terms of their self labeling is that what i'm hearing that's what you're hearing like the seattle u t s are a group here in seattle and there they are they call themselves that like is it the seattle atheist but they basically have a human is philosophy they they might cannot call themselves humanist they call themselves atheist because that's the group they belong to feel the most comfortable with but they practice the philosophy of humanism the moral philosophy of humanism trying to make the planet a better place than the one you were when you die then when you hear well you know when you were here that's the whole purpose of the of the idea of atheism but that isn't definition of an atheist i see let me come back to the idea of you yourself being a humanist celebrant someone who is a kin to you know i picture when i think of celebrant i picture the robe as a picture kind of guilt embroidery i think of somebody performing ancient rituals  and yet when i think about that for example a catholic celebrant who is performing rituals related to birth coming of age marriage death though those points in life are sacred to catholic they believe their god ordained sacred their sacraments are they sacred to human eyes no they're not sacred not in the definition of being sacred they are important periods and events in people's lives of people want to celebrate and acknowledge to their community that that they live in that this is happening to them at this at this time so what do they need a humanist celebrant the problem is there's not a lot of people other than religious people to do these things and people who are not religious do not feel comfortable using a religious individual because all of a sudden it's not about them anymore it's about their religion the religious people always make their pitch in any event you've ever gone to anybody out there in the t audience they've all been to weddings they've all been to funerals and the pitch is always made at those for people to either give money or join and we don't as a as a human as i do not do that it's about the people i'm working with i've actually heard of people going to weddings or funerals where they basically received a hellfire and brimstone sermon a kind of conversion sermon i have been to many of those that was one of the main reasons i decided to become a human  is because i had been to numerous of the london weddings and got so tired of being in the pits being made to me that i just fear this is unconscionable and it should not be done and people should have an alternative tell me a story about a wedding that what you were the well i've been admitted done many weddings but let me think i did one last year for a couple that the gentleman had just gotten back from iraq he'd sort of in fact he was with he was on it he came back from his second by the religious individuals that are you know making the soldiers do things they wouldn't normally do but yes so he came home and he and his wife wanted you know his future wife wanted to have a wedding and they had it as an example in many weddings i do they had a people in the family who are religious and they were concerned about having the ceremony so you know i work with them and we put together a ceremony with music and some poems and their friends came up and read you know different things out of some books that that meant a lot to them and i and i had the one of the daughters of the mother who was quite religious she came up and she said a prayer in the wedding because i'm not there to perform a wedding and be an adversary to anybody i'm there to help so i and i explained during the you know working through the wedding to get ready to do the wedding that i don't do prayers i don't invoke the deity but if somebody in your group wants to come up at us as if it time in the ceremony and go and say a prayer that's more than appropriate i'm not here to ruin your wedding over an incident cause family trouble so i do incorporate sometimes religious into the wedding at the request of the people getting married but i tell them upfront i not i will not perform any religious duties and if i'm if that's the case then i'm not the man so this is not about drawing a line and the sand this is not about kind of putting a stake in the ground and saying no religion shall and shoot here it's about giving people an alternative and it sounds like people who otherwise might go to the justice of the peace or something but who really want to be able to celebrate their wedding with their friends with with their families with the people they love well that's what that's exactly what they want to do and i don't know of any human to celebrant that in the in the group i work with and have been involved with that would ever put that limitation on a on a couple the same happens in i know it's it's kind of confusing sometimes but and my group is from the two hundred fifth in seattle in king county all the way to the border we have the five counties north and no i i mean i don't consider is a spiritual group or a group of like minded people that like to get together and fellowship and discuss issues that are going on in the society today and issues that are going on in our community and if there's issues that we feel you know get into the church and state thing that maybe shouldn't be happening we will try to have influence by writing letters calling officials or giving money to stop that happening in our community so that's i mean we can be an odd things but we're definitely not spirit i remember reading an article a while back about  humanist chaplain at harvard named greg epstein who had written a book good without god i believe was the title but i thought a chaplain sounds like someone who is there to assist people in their spiritual practice are there humanists who would call it spirituality i think there might be some but i i even use the term chaplain many times when i do a memorial or a wedding i'm called the chaplain you know so so it's a very generic t doesn't really if you look up in the dictionary really doesn't mean much of anything so they can call themselves which a chaplain if they like but just a moment on the good without god you know we did a bulletin board or a billboard here last year a good without god billboard in seattle up one hundred seventy fifth what kind of reaction did you get you know it's interesting seattle is a very liberal liberal community because we basically got no real so i think us in a there's a lot about us but it was up for a month and we've got a few new members but and but because other places in the country there have been paint thrown at billboards right when the freedom from religion foundation put out billboards there been protests there have been billboard wars in fact isn't there you about the controversy they were calling you to say hey if you want if we we see this as a money making opportunity if you want to advertise your beliefs were here that's correct seattle's really laid back and they just didn't seem to be too concerned about the whole issue that they humanists of north puget sound i think i've said the name backwards again and you are right i got it right this time it's great are you the only group representing this kind of north seattle area group of non theists i guess is what i meant to ask basically up north we are we're the only group some of the people in my group have some meet ups that like to run a meet up in bellingham so but other than that we are really the only quote freethought group pretty much north of two hundred fifty s north of two hundred fifty yes and south of two hundred fifty with a really isn't an a j american humanist association chapter in seattle there are the humanists of washington but they're not a member of the humanists of the american humanist association and then there's the humanists of portland which is the largest probably humanist group north of california fascinating so again what do they do they have the same kind of meet ups that you have or something different portland which they they are they have their own building they have their own they clearly have their own speakers they're a very dynamic humanist group down in portland do they meet on sundays they meet on sundays yes and they like i say they have they can you can bring your chill it's all it is basically as big as some of your small churches and they have the infrastructure and everything set up so you can bring your geographically is too large so that's really hard for us to do that there just isn't one that's really formed in seattle what is available in seattle well there's a humanist so washington which is a quayside you know humanist group there's a seattle atheist there's numerous numerous meet up group there's the secular jewish circle that meets on the east side and they're there there's a lot have to try to look at my notes but there are there's the ethical society there is that if people wanted to google the the northwest freethought coalition there's a list of all the groups that are that are there and there's probably ten different media groups in seattle if went with that or under the atheist and then there's the americans united group even the americans united or considered religious we do kind of put an umbrella over them and let them be a part you know so because they advocate for separation of church and state yes that's correct well if somebody wanted to find out more about these groups you're saying the best way to do that would be to go to the northwest freethought coalition website and type that  in if you type that in the google that you can you can it will bring up about it but there is about twelve groups we have listed on there the websites a little out of date but all those groups are current i just checked the other day to make sure they were all current when i was preparing for the show i did a little bit of research and i remember seeing one group that was focused on hiking together another group that was focused on parenting another group that had a speaker series it sounds like on top of being humanist atheist freethinkers skeptics agnostics whatever people call themselves that they also try to aggregate based on different life interests that's correct and that's why basically we all got together and form the northwest freethought coalitions all of us together we were in each interval group we can be we can be somewhat small but we came together as a northwest rethought coalition so we could have a larger influence so because all the sudden instead of having you know fifty members here twenty members here maybe all speaking at different times on the same subject but not not having the same impact we put that together so we could put out a press release and have you know a thousand people that disagree with this issue or agree with this issue so that's why that northwest freethought coalition formed to go about that because it's just hard in in many areas to get that these groups together in fact that seattle was one of the very first state or cities that ever had a coalition in this age of religious fundamentalism is humanism on the rise or on the wane humanism is on the rise more people are stepping up every day where the membership in the american humanist association is larger than it's ever been  and they've just they've been raising more money they have lobbyists in washington now they have a have a presence in washington now and they're trying to you know act as the the conduit for human is atheist precinct issues figure issues that come into washington they were behind the supreme court case of getting you know god all the pledge of allegiance and i noticed for us obama even mentioned nonbelievers in his inauguration speech i think he's one of the very first that ever even acknowledged that nonbelievers could run for office amazing so thank you very much for joining us tonight it's it's been a pleasure talking with you about this i hope that that we see more animated discussion about religion in our society it was fun to be here i really enjoyed the opportunity thank you