Poll: Should Humanists Oppose Male Circumcision?

The American Humanist Association is conducting a poll aiming to find out humanists' opinion as to whether they should oppose male circumcision.  As a humanist who had his son circumcised, I have made my decision.  Make yours known here: http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2012-09-poll-should-humanists-oppose-male-circumcision.

Use Facebook to Help Worthy Non-Profits

The Chase Community Giving program awards funding to charities based on votes from Facebook users and Chase customers, and Foundation Beyond Belief, Secular Student Alliance and Camp Quest are in the running! The Society for Humanistic Judaism has relationships with each of these organizations.

Grant awards can reach as high as $1,000,000. On Facebook, you can vote for up to two charities:

Please consider supporting the Foundaiton Beyond Belief in theirwork to foster humanistic philanthropy and service across the globe, giving grants to 16 secular charities and 4 non-prothelytizing religious charities each year. SHJ works with them on the LLS/Light The NIght Fundraising walk. http://on.fb.me/Rn54Xd.

Please also consider supporting the Secular Student Alliance in its mission to organize, unite, educate, and serve students and student communities: http://goo.gl/YuSMX

Happy Belated Birthday to "The Great Agnostic"

Back before blogs, opinion-based news programs, talk radio, and even amplified sound, the American public gathered by the thousands to listen to professional orators calling out their opinions from train platforms, outdoor stages, and the steps of city hall. Oratory was wildly popular in the 1800s, and there was no lecturer more popular than Robert Green Ingersoll, a.k.a., "The Great Agnostic."

Ingersoll continually championed science, reason, and secular values in the public square. He was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and a tireless advocate for women's rights, racial equality, and birth control decades before others would pick up the cause. He often poked fun at religious belief, and he defied the religious conservatives of his day by championing secular humanist values.

Ingersoll's work and his words are highly relevant to our day, too, so the Center for Inquiry and its sister organization, the Council for Secular Humanism, work to bring his wisdom and insights to a broader audience.

Olympian Commemorates Holocaust Victims

 INCREDIBLE & HEROIC:

 French swimmer at Olympic shocks world with tattoo in HEBREW commemorating Holocaust victims (his grandma is Auschwitz survivor)

The ultimate silent protest - LIKE and SHARE this....translation of tattoo: "I Am Nothing Without Them"

SHJ Condemns Bigotry toward American Muslims

The Society for Humanistic Judaism joined the Interfaith Alliance in a broad coalition of 42 secular and religious organizations that sent a letter to Reps. Michele Bachmann, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney, and Lynn Westmoreland protesting the representatives' recent letters regarding prominent American Muslim individuals and organizations.

The organizations told the representatives that their "letters question the loyalty of faithful Americans based on nothing more than their religious affiliations and what is at best tenuous evidence of their associations. As such, your actions have serious implications for religious freedom and the health of our democracy." Among the organizations co-signing the letter along with the SHJ are National Council of Jewish Women, the Secular Coalition for America, NAACP, Rabbis for Human Rights - North America, People for the American Way, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the ACLU. The letter and list of organizations signing may be found here.

"Our Humanistic Jewish values teach us to stand up for the dignity of all people," said Society for Humanistic Judaism executive director Bonnie Cousens. "An attack on any individual simply because of their religious beliefs or associations threatens the religious freedom guaranteed to all Americans by the First Amendment."

Nazi's Son Converts to Judaism

Bernd Wollschlaeger, MD, FAAFP was born, raised, and educated in Germany, emigrated to Israel, served in the Israel Defense Forces, and now lives in Miami, Florida and is a practicing family physician and author.

His book describes his lives journey, were he started as the son of a Nazi:
http://www.amazon.com/German-Life-Against-possible-Biography/dp/0979183103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344650282&sr=8-1&keywords=a+german+life

You can watch a YouTube video about this book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ6ECvyYHyQ.

Center for Inquiry Mourns Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal, a prolific and provocative author and longtime laureate of the International Academy of Humanism, has died at the age of eighty-six. Over his long career, Vidal produced twenty-five novels, two memoirs, several volumes of essays, plays, screenplays, and television dramas. He also acted and ran for Congress twice. He expressed hostility to religion, especially Christianity, almost from the beginning; some of his most noteworthy works in this regard were published in 1992—the essay “Monotheism and Its Discontents” and the novel Live From Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal, a spoof of the New Testament. 

“Gore Vidal has been an inspirational figure to a great many people, myself included. Of course he will be remembered for being urbane, fiendishly talented, and terrifyingly witty. But, more than this, he was principled, honest, and courageous,” said Stephen Law, secretary of the Academy, which was established by the Council for Secular Humanism in 1980 to honor distinguished humanists.