News Intervention: Assemblage 4
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1 2 In-Sight Publishing 3 News Intervention: Assemblage 4 4 IN-SIGHT PUBLISHING Publisher since 2014 Published and distributed by In-Sight Publishing Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada www.in-sightjournal.com Copyright © 2020 by Scott Douglas Jacobsen In-Sight Publishing established in 2014 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large commercial publishing houses who dominate the publishing industry. In-Sight Publishing operates in independent and public interests rather than in dependent and private ones, and remains committed to publishing innovative projects for free or low-cost while electronic and easily accessible for public domain consumption within communal, cultural, educational, moral, personal, scientific, and social values, sometimes or even often, deemed insufficient drivers based on understandable profit objectives. Thank you for the download of this ebook, your consumption, effort, interest, and time support independent and public publishing purposed for the encouragement and support of academic inquiry, creativity, diverse voices, freedom of expression, independent thought, intellectual freedom, and novel ideas. © 2014-2020 by Scott Douglas Jacobsen. All rights reserved. Original appearance in or submission to, or first published in parts by or submitted to, News Intervention. Not a member or members of In-Sight Publishing, 2020 This first edition published in 2020 No parts of this collection may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized, in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented or created, which includes photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher or the individual co-author(s) or place of publication of individual articles. Independent Cataloguing-in-Publication Data No official catalogue record for this book, as an independent endeavour. Names: Jacobsen, Scott Douglas author Title: News Intervention: Assemblage 4 / Scott Douglas Jacobsen Description: British Columbia: In-Sight Publishing, 2020. Identifiers: None (epub). Subjects: | BISAC: PHILOSOPHY / General (PHI000000) Classification: LCC (None) | DDC (None) p. cm. Not printed but available on the internet at www.in-sightjournal.com 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Designed and implemented by Scott Douglas Jacobsen 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................ 7 1 NEWS INTERVENTION ...................................................................................................................................... 8 a Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 6 – African-American History/Black History is American History ............................................................................................. 9 b Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 7 – Presidents and Religious Affiliation ............................................................................................................................................... 13 c Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 8 – Minority Religions and the American Nation-State ........................................................................................................................... 16 d Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 9 – The British ............................. 20 e Ask Dr. Faizal 1 – The Classical and Quantum Understandings of the World ...................................... 23 f ‘Ayaz Nizami’ Needs Far More Attention ............................................................................................. 26 g Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 10 – Women’s Freethought from the Founding ................................................................................................................................................ 28 h Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 11 – Gibraltarians: Climbing to the Top from the Top ................................................................................................................................... 30 i Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 12 – Lessons From an Elder: Coming Into One’s Own ........................................................................................................................ 32 j Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 13 – Everyday Bigotry and Prejudice: The Freethinkers Beneath the Spokespersons, Between the Headlines, and Below Equal Human Status ......................................................................................................................................... 35 k North American Science, Skepticism, and Secular Humanism 1 – Proportion Premises to Findings: or, Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence ......................................................................... 39 l Nature: Light stored in new memory devices by scientists .................................................................... 41 m Canada: Division over role of religion in Canadian society ................................................................... 42 n Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 14 – Constitutionally Wrought Freethought ............................................................................................................................................ 43 o Canada: Minor Economic Shrinkage in October, 2019 .......................................................................... 46 p Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 15 – Scientific Skepticism and the Emergence of Modern Secularism ......................................................................................................... 47 q Canada: Interview with Pastor Josh Loeve – Lead Pastor, Centre Church ............................................ 50 r Good Cop, Bad Cop 1 on Religion in American Politics ....................................................................... 56 s Like Manna from Heaven, Even God Bleeds from the Pen: or, words for The Word, A Gift to and from the Godless ............................................................................................................................................. 60 t Humanist Canada calls for release of Nigerian Humanist President ...................................................... 67 u Conversation with Hari Parekh on the Hidden Population of Abuse Victims, Apostates ...................... 68 v Extended Conversation with Angelos Sofocleous on the Context Now ................................................ 74 w Cases of Abuse and Cults – William Branham ...................................................................................... 85 x Conversation with Dan Fisher (Editor-in-Chief, Uncommon Ground Media) on Humanist Materialism ................................................................................................................................................................ 91 y Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Which Future is Fairest and Has Us All? .................................................. 94 6 z Eyewitness Testimony is Unreliable ...................................................................................................... 96 aa Freethought for the Small Towns: Case Study ....................................................................................... 98 License and Copyright ........................................................................................................................................ 113 7 Acknowledgements I express gratitude to Vivek Sinha for the invitation to become a part of News Intervention early in its production and the opportunity to work as a Contributor and as an Assistant Editor. Sinha reached out after the book review by a colleague of a text by him. We talked about the plans, the vision, and the mission of the outlet. The rest remains history with sufficient guidance for the general direction of the publication into the future. Some of the articles amount more to ‘think piece’ essays, which makes one worry about the logical implication of other written pieces. Jokes aside, I feel honored to contribute to News Intervention. Also, for the previous assemblage interviewees and the current, I appreciate the time for the interview and conveyance of expert knowledge. Scott 8 NEWS INTERVENTION 9 Philosophical and Historical Foundations of American Secularism 6 – African-American History/Black History is American History Scott Douglas Jacobsen October 14, 2019 Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019). Here we talk about African-American and American History. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: African-American