Viewpoint 52 Issue 4
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Volume 52 Issue 4 - Oct, Nov, Dec 2013 The newsletter of the Humanist Society of NSW Inc. HUMANIST Viewpoints Church for atheists ? Also .... • Christian Science under the spotlight • Election debrief • Multiculturalism debate HuVAT 2013 You are invited to the Humanist Viewpoints Afternoon Talk held 4pm on the 2nd Sunday each month. Please join us and socialise over light refreshments. ! Oct 13th Scottish Philosopher, David Hume - Dr. Victor Bien !Nov 10th German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant - Dr. Victor Bien !Dec 8th EOY Party featuring Sam Pellegrino Follow us on our website www.hsnsw.asn.au and Facebook Affiliated with the International Humanist & Ethical Union - Registered by Australia Post Publications No pp255003/0152 Special Message from the President Make a Donation Consider Making a Bequest This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, Please also remember us in your Will. All bequests contribute to the $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain the NSW longevity of the Humanist Society of NSW and Humanism. Humanist Society. Your donation will sustain the diverse Thank You, range of activities the Society undertakes. John August. Editorʼs Comments Frank Gomez Book Room Cover artwork A shout out to the fantastic work being done by The cover is a stained glass rendition of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - a fake Gillian in the book room. I have become an e- deity dreamt up by American Bobby Henderson in response to the Kansas book junkie but many members continue to State Board of Education’s decision to allow the teaching of “intelligent” appreciate physical books. design. The stained glass is the creation of artist Sarah Pierce. So if you have any Freethought or Philosophic Save paper by getting Viewpoints electronically books in your collection then consider donating them to the Society’s library. Please call Gillian on 9660 9658 if you would like to donate. This newsletter is also available electronically as a PDF in vivid colour. Members who would like an additional electronic colour version by e-mail at no extra cost can contact me directly at [email protected]. Some members have indicated they would be interested in only receiving the electronic copy for future editions to assist the Society in reducing costs and the unnecessary printing of paper. If you are happy to forgo the receipt of the printed version and just receive the electronic version then please make that clear in your email. It is entirely optional and your decision doesn’t affect the manner in which you receive all other communications from the Society. Honorary Secretary Comments Affie Adagio Committee: Annual General Meeting Results - 8 September 2013 •Assistant Secretary: Angela Drury •Brian Edwards Another enjoyable event when the business of the day was carried out harmoniously and rapidly. We also had the pleasure •Fay Love of the company of Paul Zagoridis who is not only one of our •Gillian Ellis (Book Room) members but also the CAHS President. There was a good turn up of members too. •Ian Bryce (Ethics Classes) •Murray Love (Meetup Group) The result was: •Sturt Duncan (WEA Delegate) President: John August (Shove Group) Vice President: Fred Flatow (Hum. House Manager) There were no motions apart from the usual one regarding reinstating the Auditor and acknowledging his contribution. We Treasurer: Victor Bien finished the event with a pleasant social interaction, delicious Hon Secretary: Affie Adagio (UNAANSW Delegate) food and getting to know new members. 2 End of Year Celebration International Humanist Day - 21 June 2013 I found a very entertaining singer/guitarist called Sam “World Humanist Day is a Humanist holiday celebrated Pellegrino at another community function when he managed to annually around the world (http://en.wikipediaen.wikipedia.org/ get people dancing in the isles with – rocking and rolling, wiki/June solstice>, which usually falls on June 21st. According twisting, cha chas and other Latin American dancing non-stop! to the International Humanist and Ethical Union.” Relayed to I felt really young again. Sam has true charisma as an me by Charles Foley – Humanist Chaplin/Celebrant Canberra. entertainer. So mark it in your diaries and for $10 it is really I am asking all States to consider thinking seriously about worth coming out and having fun with us at the end of the year. making this an annual event. Please consider it. It could be We will send out a Flyer to remind your all. organised in every State at minimal expense. Please contact me with ideas. My Email is affie@affie.com.au or 0421 101 163 Multiculturalism Debate I agree with Peter Singer's definition of ethical behavior, as one, Muslim woman in a headlock brandishing a sword. Said it all in which avoids doing harm to sentient beings. So the only my view. behavior that should be criminalized by a government, is one that does harm to other people (for the purpose of this debate, Multiculturalism would work with cultures who don't have some I am mainly talking about effects on people). sort of (particularly very strong judgemental) supernatural agenda in the back of their minds. Picking some groups at So things like female (and male) genital mutilation, "honour" random: the Chinese, Indian, the South Pacific Islander and killings and any other cultural practices which deny basic Vietnamese populations who all have different cultures could human rights, should be criminalized. be amalgamated with Australian society without much dramas I would expect. Well in fact they have. However, what language you speak, clothes you wear, food you eat, superstitions or ideas of the world you may have, your But the Muslim/Islamic people's? Yes they have a strong musical preference, etc, is your own business. So the propensity to create "parallel" societies. We see it already in government should only step in when real harm is being done Britain where they are starting to put demands for Shar`ia law to (or plotted to being done). take precedence in certain ghettoes. In Switzerland, the government has outlawed the building of Actually the other wing of the Abrahamic religion creates similar mosques which include minarets in their architecture. A clear difficulties - the Jews particularly the Zionist extremists. I argue case, I would say, of discrimination of a majority over a minority. there is "antisemitism" because Jews bring it on themselves by "Mob rule", rather than proper democracy. the way they carry on as any significant body politic living amongst this or that community. In short, diversity, which does not have a negative impact on society, should be tolerated in a democracy. Victor Bien __________________________ Fred Flatow I note that the federal Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs is now called the Department of __________________ Immigration and Citizenship. Has the term "multiculturalism" I think there is a case for what the Netherlands (and echoed a taken on the same stigma that banished "ethnic", "new bit by France) is doing. Perhaps "multiculturalism" is not an Australian", and "migrant"? I suspect there is an element of appropriate concept posed by the challenge of Islam (not just changing language to go with the populism and fear- taking it "externally" or overall but by its nature at a level of its mongering. detail - the details of its theology). The western political reality demands an external enemy or I don't know as much as I could get to know because I haven't threat in order to justify the surveillance state and abandonment had time or have not been able to make time to listen to a of civil liberties of the twenty-first century. Those threats are program series on ABC radio national called Mongrel nation currently radical Islam and bikies. In the past the threats have which I gather is addressing these issues at a level of detail. included communists, fascists, Japanese imperialists, the yellow peril, suffragettes, African tribalism, Indian nationalism, Check out the ABC RN website: http://www.abc.net.au/ native self-rule, and trade unions. I categorise the list of threats radionational/ as anything that does not represent the dominant culture of the ruling elite, or more recently, a media consuming class that I heard a Muslim or Islamist woman complain about the French deludes itself into thinking they are represented by the ruling ban on the wearing of religious symbols, viz. the burqua or elite. even hijab as "assertive secularism"! She did not have a problem with secularism in the passive sense. I believe in diversity of experience and ideas. Once an organisation, or even a nation, engages in group think, the best The trouble with a spokeperson like that gets back to the nature days are behind it. You cannot have diversity if everyone has of the Islamic body politic or zeitgeist and that is, like all views the same viewpoint and experience. emanating from the Muslim/Islamic communities, of an "anecdotal" nature. For everyone like that there will be others Multiculturalism does not mean blindly accepting all other offsetting her who agree it's OK and you have others going to cultural traditions as equally valid. Nor does it promote tribalism the other extreme who will say that nothing about Western or ghettoisation. But let's not defend the semantics culture is any good. So what is the Muslim/Islamic view? I of multiculturalism. suggest what is empirically the case is less important than their propensity - driven by their theology. Instead I believe our society is robust, capable of growth and change in the face of competing ideologies. Change is not Moir had a cartoon around the 9/11 days I think which had a always for the best - after all we've given up both habeas bin Laden figure with fiery eyes holding a devout looking corpus and judicial review - in the name of war on terror and 3 anti-bikie laws.